Mindfulness - Jon Kabat-Zinn December 29, 2022

Mindfulness is awareness. Awareness is a very, very big deal. It gives us new degrees of freedom for dealing with the challenges that are facing us as individuals and also as a species.

So mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. So it's a form of meditation that really is the cultivation of intimacy with awareness. We have to learn to enter the domain of awareness because so much of the time we're living in distraction. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn 

How to start a practice of mindfulness, NPR life kit 

Christmas gift giving & the Nativity

The idea of giving gifts on December 25 rather than December 6 is generally attributed to Martin Luther, the German priest who sparked the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Emphasizing the importance of a direct relationship with God, Luther and his followers rejected religious art, particularly icons of saints, as idolatrous distractions from faith-based worship.

“As part of [Luther’s] trying to counter the veneration of the saints as a central element of daily Christian practice, he proposed moving the giving of gifts from Saint Nicholas,” Kolb says. This shift, he adds, aligned with the reformer’s vision of God as a “good, giving parent.”

Brief History of Christmas Markets

Now a global phenomenon, the holiday tradition traces its roots to medieval Europe

By Elizabeth Djinis

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The Nativity narrative known today only emerged in the seventh century, with the circulation of what was believed to be an unknown Gospel by Matthew. (The text was later refuted as apocryphal.) “What’s fascinating about the evolution of the Nativity scene tradition is that although the story has its origins in the Gospels, the imagery of the birth of Christ that is now commonplace in art and church displays has post-biblical roots,” says Vanessa Corcoran, a historian at Georgetown University.

Before the Pseudo-Matthew Gospel provided a richer narrative, religious art centered on Jesus’s birth drew on the few details provided by the biblical Gospels. One of the oldest known renderings of the Adoration of the Magi, or the Epiphany, as the wise men’s visit is also known, is a late third- or early fourth-century wall painting in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. The work shows a seated Mary holding her baby as she receives gifts from the Magi.

What Nativity Scenes Tell Us About the Evolution of Christianity by Kathleen Brady 

My own path

As I was confirmed into the Lutheran Church, I trusted that at some point what we learned in catechism would all make sense. In high school when we read Siddhartha, I didn't realize that Buddha would help me in my quest with his emphasis on the practical nature of his ideas, favoring philosophical enquiry over religious dogma. I became interested in Christian spiritual disciplines but was never able to establish a practice in my life. I found a bridge in a Catholic priest that taught Buddhist philosophy and meditation at a retreat by Matthew Fox who taught Original Blessing instead Original Sin. I was always active in the church and never had a crisis of faith as some people describe it. I got married, had a child, and lived a life of a householder. At age 50, I started yoga. That seemed to somehow ground me so I was ready when I found a Saturday morning Buddhist meditation group led by a professor of religion, Kevin Bortolin. The feeling that it all made sense, that I had been searching for since catechism, slowly grew. 

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I always enjoy the way Karen Armstrong puts it; If Christians find the Muslims regard for politics strange, they should reflect that their passion for abstruse theological debate seems equally bizarre to Jews and Muslims.

Unity: The God of Islam page 159, from The History of God by Karen Armstrong

The problem of predestination and free will, which has also exercised Christians, indicates a central difficulty in the idea of a personal God. An impersonal God, such as Brahman, can more easily be said to exist beyond "good" and "evil," which are regarded as masks of the inscrutable divinity. But a God who is in some mysterious way a person and who takes an active part in human history lays himself open to criticism. It is all too easy to make this "God" a larger-than-life tyrant or judge and make "him" fulfill our expectations. We can turn "God" into a Republican or socialist, a racist or revolutionary according to our own personal views. The danger of this has led some to see a personal God as an unreligious idea, because it simply embeds us in our own prejudice and makes our human ideas absolute.

Page 174

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Throughout the history of Christianity, the existing practices and beliefs of people who adopted it, were integrated into the local practice. One key reasons Christianity was able to spread throughout this vast empire was that many people viewed the new religion as something they could easily adopt without having to change their existing cultural and religious practices. I still feel Christian, having found my own path though. I no longer accept that is necessary to have an exclusive religion as was introduced in early Christianity. Among the things that made the Christians different was a couple of rituals which they developed, early on before the very earliest sources that we have about them. One of these is an initiation ceremony, which they call baptism, which is simply a Greek word that means dunking. The Baptistery is the place where people were initiated into this new cult. Why is that the center? Why is that the focal point? Clearly something happens here which is fundamental to the establishing of identity of a group, which at the same time binds them together so that they speak of themselves with family terms but also separates them, in some sense, from the society around them. A second major ritual which they developed is a common meal, which they have together, which is designed as a memorial of The Last Supper which Jesus had with his disciples. This is recorded in one of the letters of the Apostle Paul, and he presents this as a tradition which he has received and handed on to the people in Corinth. So, it's a very, very early thing and has various interpretations, but as a ritual, clearly this is an ongoing way in which the community has gathered and reasserts their unity with one another and their difference from others.

We tend to think of Christianity over against paganism in the Roman empire but we have to be a little bit cautious about what we mean by paganism. First of all paganism itself is really not a religion. There is no such thing as the doctrine of paganism. In fact we have to remember that it's the Christians who use the term pagan to define those people who are not Christians. It's a Christian term for another group or the other people and so really it's a Christian's way of thinking.

From The Collision With Paganism | From Jesus To Christ - The First Christians | FRONTLINE

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When Peter rose to address the crowd, he presented this phenomena as the apogee of Judaism. The prophets had foretold the day when God would pour out his spirit upon mankind so that even women and slaves would have visions and dream dreams. This day would inaugurate the Messianic kingdom, when God would live on earth with his people. Peter did not claim that Jesus of Nazareth was God. He "was a man commended to you by God by the miracles and portents and signs that God worked through him when he was among you." After his cruel death God had raised him to life and it exalted him to especially high status "by God's right hand." The prophets and the psalmist had all foretold these events, thus the "whole House of Israel" could be certain that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. This speech appears to have been the message (kerygma) of the earliest Christians.

A Light to the Gentiles, page 90, from The History of God by Karen Armstrong

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Christianity developed in Judea in the mid-first century CE, based first on the teachings of Jesus and later on the writings and missionary work of Paul of Tarsus.

Originally, Christianity was a small, unorganized sect that promised personal salvation after death. Salvation was possible through belief in Jesus as the son of God—the same God the Jews believed in. Early Christians debated whether they should only preach to Jews, or if non-Jews could become Christians, too. Eventually, Christianity gained followers not only from Jewish communities, but from throughout the Roman world.

In the decades after Jesus's death, the Apostle Paul wrote many letters that are now part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Paul was a Roman citizen and sent these letters to small communities of Christians living throughout the Roman Empire. The letters show us that Paul and his fellow Christians were still figuring out exactly what being a Christian meant. Issues related to the exact relationship between Judaism and Christianity, and between Christianity and the Roman government, were prominent topics of discussion.

In 313 CE, the emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which granted Christianity—as well as most other religions—legal status. While this was an important development in the history of Christianity, it was not a total replacement of traditional Roman beliefs with Christianity.

In 325, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea, which was a gathering of Christian leaders to determine the formal—or orthodox—beliefs of Christianity. The result of this council was the Nicene Creed, which laid out the agreed upon beliefs of the council.

In 380 CE, the emperor Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which made Christianity, specifically Nicene Christianity, the official religion of the Roman Empire. Most other Christian sects were deemed heretical, lost their legal status, and had their properties confiscated by the Roman state.

Christianity was deeply influenced by both Judaism and Roman cultural institutions. We can't fully understand the development of the Christian religion without putting it into these contexts.

Christianity in the Roman Empire, Khan Academy 

Salome, Jesus' midwife

As Tom Metcalfe writes for Live Science, Salome’s story appears in the non-canonical Gospel of James; it is not part of the New Testament. Per the gospel, which explores the details of Jesus' birth, Salome did not believe that Mary, Jesus’ mother, was a virgin, which caused her hand to wither. When she touched the infant’s cradle, however, her hand was restored to health. Though this story of Salome is not well-known to today’s Western Christians, she was once an important figure to early followers of Jesus.

“Salome is a mysterious figure,” per the IAA statement “The cult of Salome, sanctified in Christianity, belongs to a broader phenomenon whereby the fifth century C.E. Christian pilgrims encountered and sanctified Jewish sites.”

What’s Within the Burial Cave Dedicated to Jesus’ Midwife? By Sarah Kuta

The Nature of Existence

Everything is a manifestation of sacredness, everything has value. And the nature of most religions is that someone initially has realized this, whether it's Islam, Buddhism, Christianity. Someone's seen into this, that everything is sacred and then they use a word to describe it, like God, Buddha Nature, Tathagatha, the Dao or in Japanese Henry. Sort of like a word to describe that which can't be described in words. So what do we all do? We worship the word God, Buddha, and then what human beings do? We write is sacred text so that the text becomes sacred and then we create artwork like Buddhism and Christ and various icons and so on, we all go around and worship them, they become sacred, right? The churches has become sacred, the temples become sacred but what the original insight was is, everything is sacred.

Now, all our religions are pointing towards something about the nature of existence, whatever you call it. The fact that we are here, that there is something rather than nothing and that there is life rather than no life, is extraordinary. Extraordinary, beyond our comprehension, but we miss it. It's like we just don't see it in front of our eyes. We're searching for something else when it's there all the time. 

I'm not saying zen is any better than any other religion. Like anything else, it can be something that blinds us rather than opens our eyes to what is sacred all around us. I suppose one of the things I practice and I teach it, is that I think doing meditation and being silent and being receptive to what is, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, and being embodied, is a wonderful ways of recognizing the sacredness in everything.

The Sacred Forms of Tathagatha's Never Failing Essence, talk by Geoff Dawson, October 24, 2022, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney 

Thoughts on my Faith

As I was sitting in church, I thought about many practices and symbols that are valuable to others but are just not right with me. But that's okay because we all find our way in this world. The pastor talked about what a saint is; loving, compassionate, forgiving. Just like Jesus caring for others. 

"Buddhist psychology offers specific teachings and practices for the development of forgiveness. Like the practice of compassion, forgiveness does not ignore the truth of our suffering. Forgiveness is not weak. It demands courage and integrity. Yet only forgiveness and love can bring about the peace we long for." Jack Kornfield The Practice of Forgiveness

So when I think about my Buddhist practice, it is not that much different from what most Christians see as the way to live. Is kind of surprised though when the liturgist calmly read Psalm 149. 

Our Conscious Experience of the World Is But a Memory

Thanks to the massively parallel computing power in biological neural networks—or neural circuits—much of the brain’s processing of our surroundings and internal feelings happens without our awareness. Consciousness, in turn, acts as a part of our memory to help tie events together into a coherent, serial narrative that flows with time—rather than snippets from a disjointed dream.

“Even our thoughts are not generally under our conscious control. This lack of control is why we may have difficulty stopping a stream of thoughts running through our head as we’re trying to go to sleep, and also why mindfulness is hard,” said Dr. Budson.

Our Conscious Experience of the World Is But a Memory, By Shelly Fan October 25, 2022 Singularity Hub

See also: 

Is consciousness just an illusion? 

By Anna Buckley

 April 4, 2017 BBC News 

Original Sin and The Precepts

"I see mainstream Christianity has a confusing mishmash of "mysteries" that are difficult to explain. While theologians have written endless volumes, I don't think the average Christian understands or believes most of this. In fact, I would wager that most Christians hold heretical beliefs that the church over the years has fought wars over." I wrote this on July 30, 3021 wherein I mention Original Sin among other concepts. As I listened to Geoff Dawson, Dharma Successor of Charlotte Joko Beck and the teacher of the Ordinary Mind Zen School, Sydney in his October 11, 2022 podcast, Moral Philosophy and Zen, I find myself comparing the Christian worldview with his introduction to the precepts. Original Sin doesn't help me figure out how to live, it just presents a problem and then awkwardly comes up with a solution. So much of this seems distant from the parable speaking healer named Jesus. He wasn't much of a theologian himself though he sparked an industry.

Abraham (a man of "faith") and God

Yet even though these early tales show the patriarchs encountering their God in much the same way as pagan contemporaries, they do introduce a new category of religious experience. Throughout the Bible, Abraham is called a man of "faith". Today we tended to find faith as an intellectual assent to a creed, but, as we have seen, the biblical writers did not view faith in God as an abstract or metaphysical belief. When they praise the faith of Abraham, they are not commending his orthodoxy the acceptance of a correct theological opinion about God but his trust, in rather the same way as they say that we have faith in a person or an ideal. In the Bible, Abraham is a man of faith because he trusts that God would make good his promises, even though they seem absurd.

A History of God by Karen Armstrong, pages 17, 18

It is equally wrong to say that a Buddha existed in nirvana as that he did not exist; the word "exist" bore no relationship to any state that we can understand. We shall find that over the centuries, Jews, Christians and Muslims have made the same reply to the question of the existence of God. The Buddha was trying to show that language was not equipped to deal with a reality that lay beyond concepts and reason. Again, he did not deny reason but insisted on the importance of clear and accurate thinking and use of language. Ultimately, however, he held that a person's theology or beliefs, like the ritual he took part in, were unimportant. They could be interesting but not a matter of final significance. The only thing that counted was the good life; if it were attempted, Buddhists would find that the Dharma was true, even if they could not express this truth in logical terms.

page 14

Parables

As I've mentioned before, I often think about how I would explain my faith and spiritual life with my main community being Christian and my growing practice of Zen Buddhism. More and more, I see a real consistency with how Buddhism and Christianity teach us to live. So I don't feel like I'm leaving Christianity as I practice and understand the Zen Buddhist view of the world. I think one could make a theological argument if they were so inclined. But pastors today with poor theology are quite popular, especially in Evangelical communities. Maybe this felt like nitpicking before, as long as they were focused on being a good neighbor. But Trumpism has taken over the Evangelical movement as they have felt affirmed by it, after feeling the wider community was not supporting their values. We talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water and it seems like they have been eager to save the bath water while not realizing they've thrown the baby out. They have gained political power but at the cost of following the teachings of Jesus. I don't think they realize how cynical Republican leaders are at feeding them supposed victories while ridiculing their beliefs and carrying on the agenda of big business.

So I think on the whole, most Christians do not understand orthodox Christian theology and pastors don't have much time for it since it isn't a priority for the congregation. So my explanation is that Christian theology took till the third century to coalesce and even after that it takes volumes to understand all these complex explanations. The gatherings that went through the approval process, that the emperor Constantine instituted, did not produce a legitimate result that Jesus would have wanted. Therefore my theology which seems so far off the mainstream has come about more thoughtfully than the popular culture theology which is heretical to most theological analysis. And correct theology has very little to do with how we live our daily lives which is where Faith really matters. When Jesus said, "Believe in me," Karen Armstrong would say that he was inviting them to perform acts of compassion as their path in life. Thomas Sheehan calls for a radical shift from believing the right things about Jesus (orthodoxy) to doing the just and merciful things Jesus commanded (orthopraxis).

The pastor's sermon today was focused on two of the three sequential parables in the 15th chapter of Luke wherein something was lost. As a pastor's daughter, she talked about how she felt the need to "get away from God" with pressure to act a certain way from the church. She was living with some type of group with other spiritualities For a year and a half, and someone asked her what grounds her. This is apparently what put her back into the church and on a path to be coming a pastor. She said the parables are not easy and we have to be willing to be in self-reflection with a receptive heart. The Pharisees stopped growing because they had it all. To be disciples is to live the life of Christ and grow with God. So we might be able to see ourselves in these lost parables but she said the flip side is to see the sacredness of every person. The other, the exile, is seen because everyone is included; we don't choose. She did mention that the theology of many popular songs is kind of flat. She had chosen a current song that she thought expressed this very well called Reckless Love. It was a very honest moment when she said wandering isn't inherently bad but she worries about her own kids. She asked if we're ready for radical change such as sharing acts of kindness, seeking the lost just as God befriends people where they are. Can we do the same and be non-judgmental in listening to our neighbor? As I've mentioned before, I see the faith of the people in church and want to hang in there with them.

Reconciling Buddhist practice with being a Christian

A form of Christian spiritual discipline is the practice of the presence of God. As Christians, we are looking for that radiance in all things that mystics call the face of God. That radiance is not hidden in some far-off place, but is here and now, right under our noses. Likewise, Dorothy realized that what she had been seeking all her life was simply her life itself: the people, the house, the rooms. All were the face of God. 

From Dorothy and the Locked Door page 262-3 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

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Our pastor said Resurrection is a pillar of our faith. In times of chaos , we have hope because as the hymn proclaims, "Because he lives, life is worth living." Hope of God, love of community. The pastor says, We are Resurrection people. 

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John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, made it very clear in his writings that Christians generally base their understanding of God on four things. Known as the “The Wesley Quadrilateral,” they are 1.) scripture, 2). tradition, 3). experience, and 4). reason. Certainly, United Methodists believe that scripture contains all the information anyone needs for salvation. Nevertheless, in order to understand scripture properly, the teachings of the Church about the bible through the centuries (tradition), the way we see Christianity working in our lives as a church (experience), and using the bible in a way that makes sense (reason) is very important for us to take very seriously. We have to study these things so that we may grow in our faith. On top of this, United Methodists do not believe in “going it alone” when it comes to what we believe. We believe in something called “holy conferencing,” which is something that has been done since the earliest days of the church. This is when Christians get together on a regular basis to talk about what they believe and make decisions about the beliefs they agree to share as the people of God. As a church we do this every week in Sunday School and worship, every year in church conferences and annual conferences, and every four years in General Conferences. The process is done prayerfully and with trust that God’s Holy Spirit is guiding us. 

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I see these as two very different threads in my spiritual journey. My Christian faith has remained as I have studied the history of Christianity and Bible criticism. I have also made a long journey to having a Buddhist practice. So it's clear to me that the two are not in conflict as far as my faith. Clearly I violate the "United Methodists do not believe in “going it alone” when it comes to what we believe" admonition. That can't be helped. One of my spouse's friend, who I believe has an Asian Buddhist background, did show some interest in talking with my spouse. But that seems very rare. It will be interesting as it comes up more and more, usually because I'm at some gathering and hopefully in the future at a retreat, when my spouse tells friends where I am.

Another odd comparison, there is a tradition in Christianity that we don't suffer enough so people have performed practices of mutilation and martyrs are admired. Buddhists acknowledge there is suffering and encourage happiness.

History of the Bible

I can't remember where I got this and I didn't finish cut and pasting the best parts.

The bible was written by numerous authors over a 1200 year period, starting with the Hebrew scriptures. During the writing of it’s various books, it was compiled and edited again, many times. By the time of the early church, in the 1st century after Christ, holy scripture consisted of a Greek translation of only the Hebrew scriptures, put together by a team of 70 translators. It wasn’t until the mid 2nd century that Church leaders agreed upon the contents of the New Testament, all of it written in Greek. It wasn’t until the late 3rd century that the bible was translated into Coptic, Syriac, and a Latin version that was accepted and used by the Christians of the Roman Empire. Before the printing press, the bible was not one book. Rather, it was a collection of scrolls, or smaller books – a library. In fact, today, Christian Bibles range from the sixty-six books of the Protestant canon to the eighty-one books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon. 

“This is the word of God.” Before publishing houses were competing with each other, this claim was rarely made about the bible. But, in the mid 1500's, when millions of persons were looking for a bible they could own, calling their book “the word of God” became a popular selling point and even a synonym for the word “bible.”English translations of the bible followed one upon another. Unlike earlier English translations from the Vulgate Latin, Tyndale’s printed version of the bible was a translation of the Greek and Hebrew texts, and therefore more accurate. Based on Tyndale’s work, King Henry VIII authorized the Great Bible. The Geneva Bible soon followed in 1560, the first bible to be divided into chapters and verses. In 1568 Queen Elizabeth made an attempt to authorize the Bishop’s Bible. Then the Douay-Rheims Bible was published by the Catholic Church, beginning with the NT in 1582 and the OT 1610. The King James Version was published in 1611 and authorized for use in the Church of England. 

Truth with a Capital T

I feel a little trite and immodest saying that I have been searching for the truth all my life but let me explain. When I was in high school and college so much of the world didn't make sense. My brother went off to a war in Vietnam that no one could explain except that it had something to do with fighting Communism. I remember reading a thin book that tied to explain communism and it didn't make sense to me. This could be called an existential angst, one of my favorite books was Catcher in the Rye. (I must reread that.) Mainly though it was that I never seem to be able to sense of why the world is the way it is. I figured there was some kind someone must understand it so I read what I could. I think I had a similar deep down longing for spiritual truth also. I did not go for an all out search but I checked out each new "learning" with this in the back of my mind. In my college introductory psychology class, I remember that in class the professor did some kind of simple test and I came out - "I'm not OK, You're OK." The most common position according to Wikipedia since as children we see that adults are large, strong and competent and that we are little, weak and often make mistakes.

I no longer think there is Truth with a Capital T though I think there is much truth that is helpful if we know and try to follow it. Civilization is not only how we have figured out how to live with each other but We each do are best in trying to make it through life.

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After Escaping North Korea, Freedom Is 'Seriously, Deadly Hard' Yeonmi Park on NPR

Counting Breaths to Experience Everyday Moments More Deeply

Instead of seeking for some success in the objective world, we try to experience the everyday moments of our life more deeply. That is the purpose of zazen.

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Meditation we sometimes practice counting our breath. You may think it is silly to count your breath from 1 to 10, losing track of the count and starting over. But the underlying spirit is quite important. While we are counting each number, we find that our life is limitlessly deep. If we count our breath in the ordinary way, as you would count the distance from here to the moon, our practice doesn't mean anything.

To count each breath is to breathe with our whole mind and body. We count each number with the power of the whole universe. So when you really experience counting your breath, you will have deep gratitude, more than if you arrived on the moon.

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The only way is to enjoy your life. Even though you are practicing zazen, counting your breath like a snail, you can enjoy your life, perhaps even more than taking a trip to the moon. That is why we practice zazen. The most important thing is to be able to enjoy your life without being fooled by things.

Enjoy Your Life, by Sunryu Suzuki, not always so 

Philip Kapleau Roshi (1912-2004)

Philip Kapleau Roshi (1912-2004)

Remembrances from Sean Murphy, Don Morreale & Kenneth Kraft

One time, during a dharma talk, Kapleau said, “Once you truly embark upon the path of Zen, you will lead a consecrated life.” I’ve been working out the implications of this statement ever since. What does it mean to lead a consecrated life? It means that your aspiration to awaken becomes the central organizing principle of your life. It informs your every choice, from the people you associate with, to the work you do to support yourself. It determines what and how much you eat and drink. It dictates your manner of speech, how you walk, how you do the dishes, what you will allow yourself to watch, read, listen to. It even calls into question which pronoun you use to refer to yourself (“I”? “We”? “One”?) Kapleau was a stickler on this point, suggesting that we find ways to avoid self-referencing in speech.

Toward the end of a sitting one evening, Roshi told us, “When you ask people what kind of experience they are having with the practice, you usually get two very different kinds of answers. The first group says, ‘Fantastic. The practice is transforming my life.’ The second group says, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been sitting for a year now and I don’t notice much change. Of course, my wife says I don’t fly off the handle as much as I used to. But I really don’t see it.’ You have to take what the first group says with a grain of salt,” Roshi said. “It’s the second group for whom the changes have really gone deep, so deep that they may not even be aware of them. That’s the real Zen.” It was this sort of off-the-cuff observation that began to shape my understanding of what meditation is, or is supposed to be. “You can let go,” he seemed to be saying. “You can surrender to the practice and trust that it will take you exactly where you need to go.”

Sentience vs. consciousness

Sentience — the ability to experience feelings and sensations — is not something easily measured. Nor is consciousness — being awake and aware of your surroundings.

People disagree on what is and what is not intelligence. The words used to describe the once and future powers of this technology [AI] mean different things to different people.

Some in the community of A.I. researchers worry that these systems are on their way to sentience or consciousness. But this is beside the point.

“A conscious organism — like a person or a dog or other animals — can learn something in one context and learn something else in another context and then put the two things together to do something in a novel context they have never experienced before,” Dr. Allen of the University of Pittsburgh said. “This technology is nowhere close to doing that.”

A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe. By Cade Metz, New York Times August 5, 2022

The stubborn "I"

Realization is just the realization that you're not separate from your life, that that's all it is. So they can put it in grandeur words, you know, grander, esoteric words. But that's simply what it is. You realize that you are not separate from life. And when you realize you're not separate from life, your way of embracing life changes. What's happening through Shikantaza and what's happening through pure Zen practice is before we started we're just clinging to the known, the memory of the known, the words of the known. 

When you practice Shikantaza, you're stepping into the unknown. That's what's occurring and because you don't know what the next moment brings, but if you step into the unknown, then life is vibrant. It's more joyful, it's more vibrant. It's kind of like it's an experience of discovery every day, but if you stuck in the known it becomes somewhat boring, even, you know, if not superficially safe. 

The Stubborn "I" October 2, 2020 talk by Geoff Dawson, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney

Making sense of the world

In my childhood, I think I had the belief that the world made sense and I just needed to discover it. I think I hung on to traditional Christianity and studied it, thinking that one day I would understand it enough that it would all make sense. I remember one lecture I listened to and the professor said we are sense making machines, that we try to make sense of the world. I think Buddhism has done that for me, that I understand how the world works through a Buddhist lens.

I remember my reaction as a youth to Lutheran Catechism classes when I wondered about the people that lived before Jesus. Were they grandfathered in? I have always had somewhat of an uncomfortableness with Christian teaching. I think to myself that Christian beliefs are so complicated that most people are heretics. It is not just me as can be seen in this quote I linked in this 2007 blog post  that I captured from this article, Indeed one suspects that if one were to ask the average churchgoer to spell out what they meant by saying that Jesus is divine, they would probably align themselves, without realizing it, with one of the ancient heresies, rather than with orthodoxy. 

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 Excerpts from After Jesus Before Christianity

A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements

By Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, Hal Taussig, The Westar Institute

Jesus came down from heaven to establish the Christian church. He was a fantastic person whose birth marks the very beginning of civilizations. He taught the truth and did God-sized things. He handed on his complete teachings to his most loyal followers, the Apostles. These Apostles then relayed correctly to the Bishops of the early churches all of the great things Jesus said and did. These first Bishops correctly passed down Jesus's teachings and magnificent deeds to the next two plus centuries of Bishops. The faithful line of Bishops summarized perfectly Jesus teachings and acts in the 4th Century Nicene Creed which carried full truth and authority to the 21st century. 

As the Christianity Seminar patiently examined the available evidence, the idea that this master narrative's assumption that Christianity, acted as a unified, continuous, early tradition in an unbroken line, representing a single truth, made little sense.

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Much new research points to multiple and different stories of Jesus peoples, not Christians, in the first two centuries. The seminars work on these first two centuries resembles not a predestined Master story but more a set of Mosaic tiles in the process of being pieced together.

The fundamental role of religion is to help us understand why there is suffering

"What We Gain From Pain | Hidden Brain Media" 

We've all heard the saying, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But is there any truth to this idea? This week, we explore the concept of post-traumatic growth with psychologist Eranda Jayawickreme. He finds that suffering can have benefits — but not necessarily the ones we expect. 

"The fundamental role of religion is to help us understand why there is suffering and trauma in the world. Why do people that we love get sick and leave us at some point. Why do we suffer unavoidable pain, undeserved suffering. These are fundamental existential questions that we can't immediately answer rationally."

"In the Buddhist tradition, there is this idea that it's important to understand that life is fundamentally about suffering. And once you accept that core truth about life, it opens up the possibility for you to obtain specific virtues like compassion that would enable you to lead a good life. Similarly, in the Christian tradition, one lesson that suffering can provide us is that we are vulnerable creatures; that we need other people, that were fundamentally interdependent, and that inside is a valuable lesson that suffering can teach you."

Trinity Sunday

Notes on Trinity Sunday sermon.

Theologians on Trinity. Defies explanation.

The point is not to know. The point is to experience. (Also see last year's Trinity Sunday)

Not interested in how or why. Interesting but doesn't propel us forward in our faith. How have we experienced the Trinity? Comforted by God the parent. God the Christ is Teacher and redeemer. God the Spirit is Sustainer, breath of fresh air. For example: Very rare but knows when the spirit moves within her.

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But the Divine Nature is equally present in each phase of the operation. In our own experience we can see the interdependence of the three bypostases; we should never have known about the Father where it not for the revelation of the Son, nor could we recognize the Son without the indwelling Spirit who makes him known to us. The Spirit accompanies the divine Word of the Father, just as the breath (Greek pneuma; Latin, spiritus) accompanies the word spoken by a man,. The three persons do not exist side by side in the divine world. We can compare them to the presence of different fields of knowledge in the mind of an individual: philosophy may be different from medicine, but it does not inhabit a separate sphere of consciousness. The different sciences pervade one another, fill the whole mind and yet remain distinct. Ultimately, however, the Trinity only made sense as a mystical or spiritual experience: it had to be lived, not thought, because God went far beyond human concepts. It was not a logical or intellectual formulation but an imaginative paradigm that confounded reason...... Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians continue to find that the contemplation of the Trinity is an inspiring religious experience. For many Western Christians, however, the Trinity is simply baffling This could be because they consider only what the Cappadocians would have called its kerygmatic qualities, whereas for the Greeks it was a dogmatic truth that was only grasped intuitively and as a result of religious experience. Logically, of course, it made no sense at all.

Trinity: The Christian God, page 117, from The History of God by Karen Armstrong

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The pastor wanted us to write down our experience of the Trinity. Are we awake enough?

For me - none. I like the question about being awake. In Buddhism, this is not some additional question but central and basic. I keep noticing the ways the Christian teaching that I respond to the best points to Buddhism. Buddhism is full of paradoxes, here is how one website describes it. The cause of suffering is delusion. Delusion arises out of dualistic thought, including the dualism involved in desiring enlightenment. How can you affirm the distinction between delusion and enlightenment (necessary to get you on the path) and deny that duality which keeps you deluded?

“Original enlightenment.” You are all Buddhas right now. The problem is that you think you have a problem. The goal is to recognize that you have always been Buddha. The process is one of subtraction: getting rid of that distinction between being deluded and being enlightened.

“Perfect and complete.” (This is not an alternative to original enlightenment, only a corollary to it.) Our delusions make us think that life can be better. This leads to desires and attachments. The goal (and the process) is to realize that this moment or any moment is perfect and complete as it is.

Enter that Flow of Experience

So while we're sitting still, we're not sitting still to be in some static state. We're sitting still in order to enter that flow of experience which is coming and going all the time. And it's extraordinary to be a conscious being. Living in the world is nothing short of a miracle. It's nothing short of a miracle to be turning up and experience this. As all the different philosophers say through various different cultures, there is something rather than nothing. We're here rather than nothing exists. And that's extraordinary. The best way in my life to experience that is to sit still. Quiet the mind. Don't talk. Don't entertain ideas. Just turn up to that extraordinary experience of being alive.

Sesshin Day 1 - Non - Stop Flow, talk by Geoff Dawson, April 24, 2022, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney

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Near the end, he talks about a book that deepened his faith. "Not that I didn't have faith in the first place, it's just that it has deepened." As I listened, I realized that's how I would explain what I have found in Zen Buddhism. My faith has deepened, maybe I could have found it with my interest in contemplative Christianity but I didn't follow through on practicing what the books offered or receive in-person guidance. I feel like I had lots of beginnings from different authors and even some contact with certain people. I can't think of anybody off hand that I would talk to about contemplative Christianity though. A Monday zoom with friends has talked about it a little since one person has gone through learning to be a spiritual advisor. Gerry and John S. moved me along the path.

A book by Iain McGilchrist (mentioned by Geoff) is described in a review: "The left hemisphere is detail oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things & is inclined to self-interest. The right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility & generosity. He ( the author) argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences." Geoff concludes "The sense of the sacred in things, the vibrancy and creativity, the free will, and the energy for renewal is all being diminished through this concept. I'm so glad that someone has written a book to challenge all that. Because it's a construct in our mind, consciously or unconsciously, that shapes the way we experience ourselves or understand ourselves. And it's not the only way of doing it. Spiritual traditions - like Zen, Sufism, contemplative Christianity, indigenous religions - are all connected into direct experience of moment to moment life." 

Why science needs to break the spell of reductive materialism by Stuart Kauffman from aeon 

Interface of Eastern and Western Psychology

                         June 3, 2022

In the introduction of Toward a Psychology of Awakening, I could relate to the experience of John Wellwood:

My inspiration to explore the interface of Eastern and Western psychology first arose in 1963, when, as a young man in my 20s in Paris, I found myself staring into the black hole of Western materialism without the slightest idea of how to fashion a meaningful life for myself. While I appreciate the ritual and music of the church I grew up in, Christianity, at least as it was taught to me, did not provide an experiential practice that allowed me to access the living spirit. My discovery of Zen in the early 1960s opened up a totally appealing and revolutionary new perspective, that each of us can discover our own true nature which lies directly within, realize it experientially, and thus awaken to a richer and deeper way of being. Recognizing this kind of awakening as the real purpose of human existence gave me a direction where before I had none.

Trungpa was uncompromising in his insistence that it was essential to do this strange thing, sitting on a cushion for hours on end. I used to think, "Why would anyone want to do that?" It seems so much more interesting to read and talk about spiritual philosophy than you just sit there and not do anything. I thought, "Maybe thousands of years ago they had to do that sort of thing, but surely there must be some more high-tech method today." Yet as I began to practice meditation, it opened up my world in a whole new way. We are born with this incredible instrument called a mind, which can tune in heaven and hell and everything in between, but no one ever gives us operating instructions on how to use it or what to do with it. Meditation provided a way of actively seen into the nature and activity of this mind. Gradually, despite all my initial resistance, I developed a profound respect for the practice of sitting meditation that has remained with me ever since.

The Introduction ends thus:

I have recast a Buddhist invocation to express the basic aspiration behind this book:

Ah!  Your very being is the perfect teacher.

Recognizing your nature, take this to heart.

For all those who have not realized this,

Arouse compassion,

To help them find this pure and holy space.

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I found myself staring into the black hole of Western materialism without the slightest idea of how to fashion a meaningful life for myself. This line struck me, my existential question was not as specific but I knew I didn't want to be drafted and possibly go to Vietnam. I also didn't know how to earn a living as my vocational interest inventory suggested librarian or farmer and I had a degree in psychology. I also had poor follow-through on exploring vocations and and followed a peripatetic existence. When I had jobs, I would often go for a long walks or bike rides, often enjoying wandering around without a goal. I read about contemplative Christian spiritual disciplines but they never seem to stick with me. Maybe I wasn't ready until now. I was inspired by Thomas Merton and many others but my readings and retreats did not, as he says, provide an experiential practice that allowed me to access the living spirit.

In the first chapter, he says, Spiritual practice involves exploring who and what we ultimately are - our true, essential nature, shared a life by all human beings. The direct, experiential realization of true nature has been a particular specialty of the Eastern contemplative traditions. Eastern teachings emphasize living from our deepest nature, turning the mind around so that it can see into its very essence, rather than constantly facing outward, focusing on tasks and objects to grasp and manipulate. Recognizing the essential nature of our awareness as an open, wakeful, luminous, and compassionate presence allows us to relate to our life in a much richer and more powerful way. This realization is what allows us to liberate ourselves from the chains of past conditioning, known in the East as karma. From this perspective, since well-being, happiness, and freedom are intrinsic - that is, contained within our essential nature - the most important task in life is to realize this true nature.

Fully rounded Zen practice

If you want a fully rounded Zen practice, it's meditation, it's precepts, and then it's deepening that insight of presence and of non-duality. The synchronicity of all those things together give you a rounded practice.

Reflection and Presence 2, talk by Geoff Dawson, May 22, 2022, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney

No Crisis of Faith

May 17, 2022

As I think about my faith journey and how people might react to it, It seems to have been a natural progression. From reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse in high school to seeing the Dalai Lama in 1984 at UCSB to meditation with Clarence Liu at the Matthew Fox conference in West Yellowstone to Bishop Spong saying "Jesus did not die for my sins" in April 2006 at California Lutheran to Saturday morning with Kevin at the Ventura Buddhist Center to the third Saturday group, it all seems like a flow.

I did a search of my blog post to see if I could find the date of the Bishop Spong's lecture at CLU. I really like his description of God. I also like his explanation, "The Bishop of Rome turned the power of his location in that capital city of the known world into the ability to define Christianity and to limit the understanding of the past to his particular interpretation of the past." While I remember the turning point of hearing "Jesus did not die from my sins," I had forgotten that I read his blog and other sources for a while and found them very helpful as my faith gradually transformed. The Dalai Lama has told people not to leave their faith community to follow Buddhism. Bishop Spong has helped me to understand how I can remain Christian and yet be way out of the mainstream.

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August 8th, 2022

This last Sunday our pastor challenged us after telling the story of the hymn blessed assurance by Fannie Mae Crosby. The music writer she was working with brought her a tune and asked for her reaction. The words just poured out as she wrote the first first of blessed assurance. As I think about this challenge I kind of went back to this blog entry that I had already made and thought I would extend it. I am constantly noticing the consistency with Buddhist practice found in the Christian Church. It's easy to think of a lot of things that are not compatible but as I think about how my faith has matured and I've gotten to this point, I find it heart mean to hear those images within the worship and activities of the church I participate in. I noticed that the liturgy contains precepts. Oddly the main book called the holy Bible is an oddly organized collection of randomly preserved documents. As one becomes aware of the apocrypha and then learns about the Gnostic Gospels, it becomes quite obvious that the books in the Bible are where the result of an arbitrary chance. The Jewish scriptures are more organized and were apparently written more recently than people believed to create a history. The gospels were not the first books to be written and included in the Christian scripture even though they are the first books listed. Well the synoptic gospels tell the story in a very similar way, John is actually a pretty crazy book that starts with Greek thought and has Jesus mansplaining quite a bit. The book of Acts is similar to the synoptic Gospels as they believe it was the same author as Luke. Then we have a bunch of Paul's letters that were kept by various faith communities and many letters that were ascribed to Paul even though he probably didn't write them. What we're missing is the many, many, other groups of Christians who didn't have someone as prolific as Paul. Paws are apparently the earliest writings but we have a huge gap from the death of Jesus to the first descriptions of Christian activities and beliefs.

Buddhist have precepts, vows, sutras and stories that do not need to be taken literally, but have lessons that are accepted by many within the diverse group of Buddhist traditions. There is so much confusion in the Christian church about what is to be taken literally and what is just a reflection of the culture at that time. Can we extract the spiritual truth that was being conveyed? I find it hard to tell someone to read the Bible as a way to enhance their spirituality and understand the meaning of life.

Another interesting aspect is that my Buddhist teachers both virtually and in person have never discouraged me from my Christian beliefs. They are also not afraid to use Christian images and stories to explain Buddhism. All my views about Christianity that do not conform to the traditional story are from reading People associated with the Christian religion that I have mentioned several times. And they have not weakened my belief, it's just been radically changed from the traditional Christian understanding of Jesus.

Buddhist chaplains on the rise in US, offering broad appeal

Buddhist chaplains on the rise in US, offering broad appeal

By GOSIA WOZNIACKA

“Buddhist chaplains are in the habit of speaking in more universal terms, focusing on compassion, being grounded, feeling at peace,” she said. “A lot of Christian chaplains fall back on God language, leading prayers or reading Bible scriptures.” said Leigh Miller, director of academic and public programs of Maitripa College, a Tibetan Buddhist college in Portland.

Meanwhile, training in mindfulness and meditation, as well as beliefs regarding the nature of self, reality and the impermanence of suffering, give Buddhists unique tools to confront pain and death.

“The fruit of those hours on the (meditation) cushion really shows up in the ability to be present, to drop one’s own personal agenda and to have a kind of awareness of self and other that allows for an interdependent relationship to arise,” Miller said.

Buddhist chaplaincy also faces challenges, including how to become more accessible to Buddhists of color. The Mapping Buddhist Chaplains in North America report found that most professional Buddhist chaplains today are white and have a Christian family background, even though nearly two-thirds of the faith’s followers in the U.S. are Asian American, according to the Pew Research Center.

Rev. Jo Laurence, a hospice and palliative care chaplain at Portland’s Providence Home and Community Services said that as more people become unchurched, many patients don’t have a language for their spirituality or it’s tied up with religious trauma. Laurence supports them in whatever way they need, be it through Christian prayer, the comfort of a cool washcloth on a forehead or a Buddhist-inspired blessing.

“For some people the language of Buddhism is a respite,” she said. “It doesn’t have the baggage, and it feels so soothing to them.”

Radical Sense of Acceptance

Dharma practice comes back all the time to a radical sense of acceptance, an acceptance of your own being. Your purpose in life is to deepen that acceptance into who you truly are, your true self. Positive thinking is always caught up with change, You can change everything. But acceptance is often the wisest relationship we can have to an illness or the trajectory of the illness. There's a peace and serenity that comes with that rather than fighting it. Years ago you may have read a book, Grace and Grit: A Love Story by Ken Wilber. It was actually based on his real life experience of his wife dying of cancer and then dying, and how she fought to the very end. She exercised until the very end, over doing exercise and diet and things like that and she died of cancer. If you're caught up in the idea that the mind can overcome everything and you can just change it, do you spend the rest of your life, the precious days or months or years you have fighting it all the time? Or would you have much more quality of life if you accepted it. Would that be a wiser way to go? Sometimes we can change things but we can't always change things. The inevitability is, to go back to Dharma teaching, we will all grow old, get sick in various forms, and we will die. And that's the way it is. We can fight it or we can accept that that's the kind of way things break down over time.

Buddhism and Wholistic Health, talk by Geoff Dawson, May 1, 2022, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney

Identifying With Thoughts and Feelings

May 1, 2022

These people have a pattern in their lives that if someone doesn't validate their view, not even criticizing their view, then "you are not validating me." "My view is me," they can't make a separation. The suffering that comes out of that is that "this makes me unworthy." Then they become angry. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, they are so angry at people all the time that people do start rejecting them. It's really clear that when we take things personally when our view is not validated, we are identified with our thoughts, views and opinions.

And when I reflect on this, I've done the same thing. I can think of instances in my life where someone didn't accept my view, I take it personally and do what these people do. I may not do it to the same extreme.

Identifying With Thoughts and Feelings, talk by Geoff Dawson, December 4, 2021 Ordinary Mind School of Sydney

See also: Undeniable Realities and Zazen

Simplicity of being, Joyful doing

April 29, 2022

Christianity seems full of aphorisms which are vaguely based on bible verses. When Christian authors get practical, it sounds like Buddhism either directly or indirectly. American Buddhism directly emphasizes the simplicity of being, conscious of our body, and joyful doing in daily life. Thich Nhat Hanh has certainly brought that to the U.S. 

I am not criticizing people who find meaning in Christianity. I have just let go of certain beliefs that are strongly identified as being basic to Christianity. I identify as Christian because I still identify with Jesus. I just don't accept much of what people made of him after his death. Many people find have found the creative power of God which I see in them. That description of reality just doesn't work for me but I can see how it works for others.

Wisdom

April 15th, 2022

I was thinking about how I have read and listen to many wise Christian authors and speakers. I was thinking about the comparison with the Buddhist authors and speakers that I am currently enjoying and learning from. I thought about how the Buddhist teachers are basing their teachings on Buddhist literature such as the Dhammapada. I kind of came to the realization that there isn't the same depth of wisdom in the Christian tradition, as I see it. There is extensive theology and even Christian apologetics that try to figure out what all this means, the triune God, original sin, the resurrection, and life after death. There are books on how to live but there's not really a lot in this complicated theology that help you figure out how to live your life. The wisest authors have figured that out and those are the ones that I'm attracted to I think. Buddhism not only has many branches but each teacher interprets in a different way. But They get along for the most part because it's all based on the precepts and other items that they agree on. As they adapt to each culture in different countries and even changing as the culture changes they can always go back to the basics and make sure that there's a direct connection. I just don't feel that in Christianity that when you get back to this confusing mess of somebody had to be crucified because we are sinful and we should love each other but hate our father, mother, and love Jesus. You can also end up with today's fundamentalist Christianity that somehow thinks Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ and that hating most people and what they do is the loving thing. I suppose I should read more about the problems in Buddhism but I just think Christianity went through the funnel of an empire and has never fully recovered the teachings of Jesus. 

This is sort of my latest thinking as I work through being a Christian but practicing Buddhism.

Christian and Buddhist

April 6, 2022

I keep thinking what it means to be immersed in the Christian community while being nurtured by and accepting Buddhist teachings and practices. I think of my life's journey and how it has led me to this point. I think of the influence of the many letters of Paul in the Christian scriptures and the narrow choke point that Christianity went through with Constantine and the Roman empire. How we know from Nag Hammadi and other evidence that "Hundreds of rival teachers all claimed to teach the true doctrine of Christ and denounced one another as frauds." I tend to think that among those hundreds were some teachers that Buddha would have recognized. We have intimations in some of the early writings that have been found and the interfaith dialogues that have gone on among Christian monks and Buddhists which hint at the similarities. So I am in this somewhat in between place where my immediate community is quite Christian but my beliefs are radically out of the mainstream of Christianity and I am very comfortable with Buddhists. I also feel called to Zen Buddhism especially the Ordinary Mind school. The monthly gathering I attend has only one other regular person. The leader is in touch with her teachers and wants to share the Dharma with others. It feels symbiotic, because at this point I want to be part of some group and have not found one locally that clicks as much as with this dedicated but inexperienced teacher. She is not sure how to expand the Sangha but I am hanging in there and appreciating her desire and dedication to share the Dharma.

Buddha identified three fires, or three negative qualities of the mind that cause most of our problems

April 6, 2022

Suffering can be caused by "ourselves through grasping, aversion and ignorance. And that's the part through practice that we can transform. Personal responsibility is very central to Dharma practice and that's why we have precepts along with meditation. In our particular school, the first sutra we read is the Purification sutra about recognizing all the harm and suffering we've done in our lives through greed, hatred, and ignorance and acknowledging them."

Personal Responsibility and Non Judgementalism, Geoff Dawson, Ordinary Mind Zen School, Sydney

The early years of the Christian movement

I have arrived. I am home. While I am still making steps, I have already arrived, I am already home. I have stopped wandering. This is the teaching and the practice of Plum Village, the Dharma Seal of Plum Village.

from I Have Arrived, I Am Home (2003) by Thich Nhat Hanh; Parallax Press, Berkeley, California,

As I think about my feeling at home in Zen Buddhism although I have spent my life in the Christian church and studying theology. It seems that in Christianity one is trying to achieve something and become more spiritual. The readings I'm finding in Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, is that there is nothing to achieve, it's merely awakening. That may be a source of my satisfaction with where I'm feeling now.

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Excerpts from The History of God by Elaine Pagels

We know very little about Jesus. The first full length account of his life was St. Mark's Gospel, which was not written until about the year 70, some forty years after his death. By that time, historical facts had been overlaid with mythical elements which expressed the meaning Jesus had acquired for his followers. It is this meaning that St. Mark primarily conveys rather than a reliable straightforward portrayal. P.79

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Mark's gospel, which is the earliest is usually regarded as the most reliable, presents Jesus as a perfectly normal man, with a family that included brothers and sisters. No angels announced his birth or sang over his crib. He had not been marked out during his infancy or adolescence as remarkable in any way. When he began to teach, his townsmen in Nazareth were astonished that the son of the local carpenter should have turned out to be such a prodigy. Mark begins his narrative with Jesus' career. It seems that he may originally have been the disciple of one John the Baptist, a wandering ascetic who had probably been a Essenes: John had regarded the Jerusalem establishment as hopelessly corrupt and preached excoriating sermons against it. He urge the populace to repent and to accept the Essene rite of purification by baptism in the River Jordan. Jesus had made the long journey from Nazareth to Judaea to be baptized by John. As Mark tells us: "No sooner had he come out of the water then he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved, my favor rest upon you.' " John the Baptist had immediately recognized Jesus as the Messiah. The next thing we hear about Jesus is that he began to preach to all the towns and villages of Galilee, announcing: "The Kingdom of God has arrived!" There has been much speculation about the nature of jesus' mission. Very few of his actual words seem to have been recorded in the Gospels, and much of their material has been affected by later developments in the churches that were founded by St. Paul after his death. Nevertheless, there are clues that point to the essentially Jewish nature of his career. It has been pointed out that faith healers were familiar religious figures in Galilee, like Jesus, they were mendicants, who preached, healed the sick and exorcised demons. Like Jesus again, these Galilean holy men often had a large number of women disciples. P.80-81

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During his lifetime, many Jews in Palestine had believed that he was the Messiah: he had ridden into Jerusalem and had been hailed as the Son of David, but, only a few days later, he was put to death by the agonizing Roman punishment of crucifixion. Yet despite the scandal of a Messiah who had died like a common criminal, his disciples could not believe that their faith in him had been misplaced. There were rumors that he had risen from the dead. Some said that his tomb had been found empty three days after his crucifixion; others saw him in visions, and on one occasion 500 people saw him simultaneously. His disciples believed that he would soon return to inaugurate the Messianic Kingdom of God, and, since there was nothing heretical about such a belief, their sect was accepted as authentically Jewish by no less a person than Rabbi Gamaliel, the grandson of Hillel. His followers worshiped in the temple every day as fully observant Jews. Ultimately, however, the new Israel, inspired by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, would become a Gentile faith, which would evolve its own distinctive conception of God. P.79-80

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Eventually three outstanding solutions theologians of Cappadocia in Eastern Turkey came up with a solution that satisfied the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Cappadocians, as they are called, we're all deeply spiritual men. They thoroughly enjoyed speculation and philosophy but were convinced that religious experience alone could provide the key to the problem of God. Trained in Greek philosophy, they were all aware of a crucial distinction between the factual content of truth and its more elusive aspects. The early Greek rationalists had drawn attention to this: Plato had contrasted philosophy (which was expressed in terms of reason and thus capable of proof) with the equally important teaching handed down by means of mythology, which eluded scientific demonstration. We have seen the Aristotle had made a similar distinction when he had noted that people attended the mystery religions not to learn (mathein) anything but to experience (pathein) something. Basil expressed the same insight in a Christian sense when he distinguished between dogma and kerygma. Both kinds of Christian teaching were essential to religion. Kerygma was the public teaching of the church, based on the scriptures. Dogma, however, represented the deeper meaning of biblical truth, which could only be apprehended through religious experience and expressed in symbolic form. Besides the clear message of the Gospels, a secret or esoteric tradition had been handed down "in a mystery" from the apostles; this had been a "private and secret teaching," which are holy fathers have preserved in a silence that prevents anxiety and curiosity so as to safeguard by this silence the sacred character of the mystery. The initiated are not permitted to behold these things, their meaning is not to be devolved by writing it down. Behind the liturgical symbols and the lucid teachings of Jesus, there was a secret dogma which represented a more developed understanding of the faith.

A distinction between esoteric and exoteric truth will be extremely important in the history of God It is not confined to Greek Christians, but Jews and Muslims would also develop an esoteric tradition. Since all religion was directed toward on an ineffable reality that lay beyond normal concepts and categories, speech was limiting and confusing. Besides their literal meaning, therefore, the scriptures also had a spiritual significance which it was not always possible to articulate. The Buddha had also noted that certain questions were "improper" or inappropriate, since they referred to realities that lay beyond the reach of words. You would only discover them by undergoing the introspective techniques of contemplation: in some sense you had to create them for yourself. As Basal said, these elusive religious realities could only be suggested in the symbolic gestures of the liturgy or, better still, by silence.p113-115

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Neither Jews nor Greek Orthodox Christians regarded the fall of Adam in such a catastrophic light; nor, later, would Muslims adopt this dark theology of Original Sin. Unique to the West, the doctrine compounds the harsh portrait of God suggested earlier by Tertullian. Augustine left us with a difficult heritage. A religion which teaches men and women to regard their humanity as chronically flawed can alienate them from themselves. Nowhere is this alienation more evident than in the denigration of sexuality in general and women in particular. Even though Christianity had originally been quite positive for women, it had already developed a misogynistic tendency in the West by the time of Augustine. The letters of Jerome teem with loathing of the female which occasionally sounds deranged. p124

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I also read The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. Like I have read elsewhere, Christianity seems to have gone through a very narrow choke point where all "heretical" beliefs were eliminated. The book brings out the diversity that existed among gnostic Christians, some with very strange beliefs. And yet she writes in the introduction on page xxxv, "Yet orthodox Christianity, as the apostolic creed defines it, contains some ideas that many of us today might find even stranger. The creed requires, for example, that Christians confess that God is perfectly good, and still, he created a world that includes pain, injustice, and death; that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin mother; and that, after being executed by order of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, he rose from his grave "on the third day." 

The first chapter, titled The Controversy over Christ's Resurrection, begins with; Jesus Christ rose from the grave. With this proclamation, the Christian Church began. This may be the fundamental element of Christian faith; certainly is the most radical. Other religions celebrate cycles of birth and death: Christianity insists that in one unique historical moment, the cycle reversed, and a dead man came back to life! For Jesus' followers this was the turning point and world history, the sign of its coming end.  (Page 3)  I remember the "one unique historical moment" as being the first and on-going problem I had with the Christian message when I went through Lutheran Catechism. Everything changed? Really? What about the people who lived before Jesus? 

Gnostic Christians interpret resurrection in various ways. Without denying the resurrection, they reject the literal interpretation, some find it "extremely revolting, repugnant, and impossible." (Page 5) "Why did Orthodox tradition adopt the literal view of Resurrection? The question becomes even more puzzling when we look at what the New Testament says about it." After explaining how he appeared in earthly form to some of his disciples and even showed he was "not a ghost," she goes on, "But other stories, directly juxtaposed with these, suggest different views of the resurrection. Luke and Mark both relate that Jesus appeared "in another form" - not his former earthly form - to two disciples as they walked on the road to Emmaus. . . John, too, places directly before the story of "doubting Thomas" another of a very different kind: Mary Magdalene mourning for Jesus near his grave, sees a man that she takes to be the gardener. When he speaks her name, suddenly she recognizes the presence of Jesus - but he orders her not to touch him. 

So if some of the New Testament stories insist on a literal view of resurrection, others lend themselves to different interpretations. One could suggest that certain people, in moments of great emotional stress, suddenly felt they experienced Jesus's presence. Paul's experience can be read this way. As he traveled on the road to Damascus, intent on arresting Christians, "suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground," hearing the voice of Jesus rebuking him for the intended persecution. (Pages 5-6) It goes on to mention how there are two versions of this story which say the opposite about whether traveling companions heard or saw Jesus. Other authors have mentioned the importance of these visions of Jesus and note how Paul describes his encounter as equal to the others that saw Jesus right after his resurrection. The gospel of Mark denies a vision to anyone.

Pagels then says we have to do more than consider the religious content. "But when we examine its practical effect on the Christian movement, we can see, paradoxically, that the doctrine of bodily resurrection also serves as an essential political function: it legitimizes the authority of certain men who claim to exercise exclusive leadership over the churches as the successors of the apostle Peter. From the second century, the doctrine has served to validate the apostolic secession of bishops, the basis of papal authority to this day. Gnostic Christians who interpret resurrection in other ways have a lesser claim to authority: when they claim priority over the orthodox, they are denounced as heretics. (Pages 6-7)

Such political and religious authority developed in a most remarkable way. As we have noted, diverse forms of Christianity flourished in the early years of the Christian movement. Hundreds of rival teachers all claimed to teach the true doctrine of Christ and denounced one another as frauds. Christians in churches scattered from Asia Minor to Greece, Jerusalem, and Rome split into factions, arguing over church leadership. All claim to represent the authentic tradition." (Page 7)

New Testament evidence indicates that Jesus appeared to many others besides Peter - Paul says that once he appeared to give hundred people simultaneously. But from the second century, orthodox churches developed the view that only certain resurrection appearances actually conferred authority on those received them. These were Jesus' appearances to Peter and to "the eleven." (Page 9)

"Finally, those gnostics who conceived of gnosis as a subjective, immediate experience, concerned themselves above all with the internal significance of events. Here again they diverged from orthodox tradition, which maintained that human destiny depends upon the events of salvation history - the history of Israel, especially the prophets' predictions of Christ and then his actual coming, his life, and his death and resurrection. All the New Testament gospels, whatever their differences, concern themselves with Jesus as a historical person. And all of them rely on the prophets predictions to prove the validity of the Christian message." "But according to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus dismisses has irrelevant the prophets predictions: His disciple said to him, Twenty-four prophets spoken to Israel, and all of them spoke in you. He said to them, You have ignored the one living in your presence, and have spoken (only) of the dead. Such gnostic Christians saw actual events as secondary to their perceived meaning. (Pages 132-133)

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So besides a group of men with the literal interpretation of the resurrection, we have Paul. We have his letters which for the most part deal with "problems" in the fledgling congregations and his messianic views as described by Wayne A. Meeks: Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies Yale University in Paul's Mission and Letters: Carrying the 'good news' of Jesus Christ to non-Jews, Paul's letters to his fledgling congregations reveal their internal tension and conflict.

The Apostle Paul is, next to Jesus, clearly the most intriguing figure of the 1st century of Christianity, and far better known than Jesus because he wrote all of those letters that we have [as] primary sources.

Some of these Jewish congregations [in Antioch] probably like Paul, probably like other people in the homeland, also knew this apocalyptic message of a messianic expectation and maybe more than one kind of Messiah. Just like we see back in the homeland at this same period. So expect Paul to be preaching about a Messiah. To be talking about a messianic identity isn't really all that unique in and of itself, rather, it's more important to recognize that Paul and other followers of the Jesus movement of this time would have been given a special new meaning or a special new kind of information about their understanding of who and what that Messiah was to be.

In the Jesus movement it's clear that a new understanding has come to the fore. In fact it's slightly odd from certain perspectives. One doesn't normally expect that a Messiah should die and yet we have this ironic message in Paul that in fact the Messiah is the one who has been crucified.

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What we find in Paul, and indeed among most of the early Christians, is a slightly ironic twist of fate that the death of the Messiah doesn't immediately inaugurate the new kingdom, and yet that doesn't seem to diminish their sense of apocalyptic expectation. Paul still thinks it's coming soon. He will go through his entire life thinking the kingdom will come soon but the Messiah had already died.

So when we hear Paul talking about the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified, we're beginning to get for the first time in the New Testament the language that will become the hallmark of all the later Christian tradition. Indeed it's where we get much of the vocabulary that makes Christianity distinctive. The term "Christ" is a title. It's the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messioc and they mean exactly the same thing. They both refer to someone who is anointed. ... It's identifying him as a religious figure in a new way.

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Holland Lee Hendrix: President of the Faculty Union Theological Seminary;

[Paul] emphasizes two things; on the one hand, very clearly, the importance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, on the other hand he also emphasizes the importance of understanding the end time, and the immediacy of the end time, and that one must be prepared for it, and the way one prepares for it is to be good.

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"From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians"

In the period between 100 and 300 C.E., the Christian movement grew throughout the Roman empire. At times there were heated debates about beliefs, worship, and even about Jesus himself. The Christian movement also faced external threats; it became suspicious in the eyes of the Roman authorities and Christians were persecuted.

But the Christian movement pulled together and in the end, what started as a small sect of Judaism became a significant part of the population, enough so that the new Roman emperor Constantine decided that they should be part of the official religion of Rome. This was a momentous change for Christianity.

As the fourth century dawned, the cross was transformed into a symbol of triumph and Jesus of Nazareth became Jesus Christ. In only three hundred years, the empire that had sent Jesus to his death embraced Christianity (audio excerpt) as an official religion and worshipped him as divine.

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Legitimization Under Constantine

Shaye I.D. Cohen: Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

....it is important to realize that we have a progression and a set of developments, and that Christianity by the fourth century is not the same as the Christianity that we see in the first or even the second.

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Constantine ends not converting, technically, to Christianity, but becoming a patron of one particular branch of the church. It happens to be the branch of the church that has the Old Testament as well as the New Testament as part of its canon. Which means that since this branch of Christianity includes the story about historical Israel as part of its own redemptive history, it has an entire language for articulating the relationship of government and piety. It has the model of King David. It has the model of the kings of Israel. And it's with this governmental model that the bishop explains the vision to Constantine.

[he] is in this amazing position of having a theology of government that he can use to consolidate his own secular power. And it works both ways. The bishops now have basically federal funding to have sponsored committee meetings so they can try to iron out creeds and get everybody to sign up.

One of the first things Constantine does, as emperor, is start persecuting other Christians. The Gnostic Christians are targeted...and other dualist Christians. Christians who don't have the Old Testament as part of their canon are targeted. The list of enemies goes on and on. There's a kind of internal purge of the church as one emperor ruling one empire tries to have this single church as part of the religious musculature of his vision of a renewed Rome. And it's with this theological vision in mind that Constantine not only helps the bishops to iron out a unitary policy of what a true Christian believes, but he also, interestingly, turns his attention to Jerusalem, and rebuilds Jerusalem just as a righteous king should do.

The Council of Nicea, which took place in 325, was a response to a crisis that developed in the church over the teachings of a presbyter, or priest, of the church in Alexandria. And his teachings suggested that Jesus was not fully divine, that Jesus was certainly a supernatural figure of some sort, but was not God in the fullest sense. His opponents included a fellow who came to be bishop of Alexandria, Anthanasius, and the folk on that side of the divide insisted that Jesus was fully divine. The Council of Nicea was called to try to mediate that dispute, and the Council did come down on the side of the full divinity of Jesus. It all boils down to one iota of difference. And the debates in the 4th century about the status of Jesus have to do with the Greek word that exemplifies the problem. One party said that Jesus was homo usias with the father, that is of the same being or substance as the father. The other party, the Arian party, argued that Jesus was homoi usias with the father, inserting a single letter "i" into that word. So the difference between being the same and being similar to was the heart of the debate over Arianism. And the Council of Nicea resolved that the proper teaching was that Jesus was of the same being as the father.

The Emperor Constantine was the moving force in the Council and he, in effect, called it in order to solve this dispute. He did so because at that time he had just completed his consolidation of authority over the whole of the Roman Empire. Up until 324, he had ruled only half of the Roman Empire. And he wanted to have uniformity of belief, or at least not major disputes within the church under his rule. And so he was dismayed to hear of this controversy that had been raging in Alexandria for several years before his assumption of total imperial control. And in order to dampen that controversy he called the Council.

...

Holland Lee Hendrix: President of the Faculty Union Theological Seminary

With Constantine, in effect the kingdom has come. The rule of Caesar now has become legitimized and undergirded by the rule of God, and that is a momentous turning point in the history of Christianity. 

To appreciate the remarkable dramatic evolution that had occurred in so short a period, one might counterpose the image of Pliny and his courtroom under the Emperor Trajan -- sending Christians off to their execution simply for being called Christians -- to the majesty of Constantine presiding over the great gathering of bishops that he had called to resolve particular questions. The Imperium on the one hand being used clearly to extinguish a religious movement. The Imperium on the other hand being used clearly to undergird and support a religious movement, the same religious movement in so short a period of time. .

....

L. Michael White: Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin

The imperialization of Christianity can be seen in some of the monuments of Rome itself where imperial ideology and symbolism, the trappings of imperial grandeur, are brought into and overlaid onto the Christian tradition itself. This is probably seen as well as anywhere else in the apse mosaic in the Church of Santa Podenziana at Rome. Jesus is in a very elaborate, expensive toga, seated enthroned in an imperial chair. ...This Jesus looks like the emperor himself, and here he sits enthroned in front of a very elaborate cityscape behind. And it's not the city of Rome, it's the new imperial city of Jerusalem. Behind him, we see Constantine's Church of the Holy Sepulchre that had only recently been completed in Jerusalem itself, and behind is the rest of the new city of Jerusalem, rebuilt for the first time, significantly, after it had been destroyed in the first revolt. 

From Drama to No Drama

August 9, 2022

In Zen practice we move from a life of drama - a kind of soap opera - to a life of no drama. Despite what we may say, we all like our personal dramas very much. The reason? No matter what our particular drama is, we are always at the center of it - which is where we want to be. And through practice, we gradually shift away from that self-preoccupation. Thus, to move from a life of drama to a life of no drama, though it sounds extremely dull, is what Zen practice is about.

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When we begin sitting, it's good to be begin with several big breaths, filling up the abdominal area, the middle chest, and the upper chest until we're full of air, and then just letting it out and holding the exhalation for a moment. Do this three or four times. In a sense, it's artificial, but it helps to create a certain balance and forms a good basis for sitting. Once we've done this, the next step is to forget it: forget controlling our breath. We won't entirely forget, of course, but it's useless to control the breath. Instead, just experience it, which is very different.

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As long as we have hope, our mind is trying to figure out how to fulfill those wonderful things that we want to happen to us, or trying to protect ourselves from all the terrible things that shouldn't happen. And so the mind is anything but quiet. Now instead of forcing the mind to become quiet, what can we do? We can be conscious of what it's doing. That's what labeling our thoughts is about.

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It's useful to go about this process with an attitude of an investigation. Instead of viewing our sitting as good or bad, something that should steadily improve, we should simply investigate, watch what we're really doing. There is no good or bad sitting; there is only awareness or unawareness of what is going on in our life. And when we maintain more awareness, the questions we have about life are seen in a new light. We're left not with another viewpoint, but with a different way of seeing things. As this process develops over time, very slowly the mind quiets - not completely, and what quiets is not the thoughts. What quiets is our attachment to our thoughts. We see them more and more as just a show, like watching children at play. It's our attachment to the thoughts that blocks samadhi. We can have lots of thoughts, yet to be in deep samadhi, so long as we're not attaching to them and are just experiencing.

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As we said, from time to time we gain different insights about our lives. Insights themselves are neither good nor bad, and from the point of Zen practice, they're not even particularly important. Though they may have some usefulness, zazen is not about gaining insights.

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When this quality of watching, observing, and experience our lives get stronger, reality (which is just awareness) and counters unreality, our little drama of thoughts. And when we see more clearly what is real and what is unreal, a s light illumines the darkness. But when we bring more reality (awareness) into our lives, what had been dark and troublesome seems to change. When we bring more awareness into our lives, we begin to eliminate our personal dramas. And we don't really want to do this. We like our personal dramas, and we like to maintain them.

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At some point, we begin to see that what happens in our life is not the issue; there will always be something happening. What happens will always be a mix of what we like and what we don't like. There's no time when that ceases. As we become more of a scientist, however, we are less caught up in what's happening and more able to simply observe what's happening. The ability and willingness to do this kind of observing increases over years of practice. At first it may be minimal. Our job is to increase this willingness and ability.

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Turning our lives of drama to lives of no drama means turning a life where we're constantly seeking, analyzing, hoping, and dreaming into one of just experiencing life as it appears, right now. The key factor is awareness, just experiencing the pain as it is. Paradoxically, this is joy. There is no other joy on this earth except this. 

This kind of practice has a deadly effect: it will take away our drama It doesn't take away our personality. We're all different, and we will remain different. But the drama is not real. It is the blockage to a functioning, caring life.

From Drama to No Drama page 249 - 254 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck

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A form of Christian spiritual discipline is the practice of the presence of God. As Christians, we are looking for that radiance in all things that mystics call the face of God. That radiance is not hidden in some far-off place, but is here and now, right under our noses. Likewise, Dorothy realized that what she had been seeking all her life was simply her life itself: the people, the house, the rooms. All were the face of God. 

But we don't see that. If we really sought, we wouldn't torture ourselves in each other as we do. We're unkind; we're manipulative; we're dishonest. If we saw that this very life we lead is the face of God itself, we would not be able to behave in such ways - not because of any commandment or prohibition, but just because we see what life is.

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It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.

From Dorothy and the Locked Door page 262-3 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck