reading thich nhat hanh's going home

[Hans]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Hello Chet,

the caste system or caste system like structures are without doubt being strengthened by an underyling acceptance of notions that people being in miserable situation just "have to work through their karma" and the like. No matter how often one repeats "that's not proper Buddhism/Hinduism", it is part of the legacy of these traditions.

Once influential and important to a wider spectrum of a society's makeup, every religious current will have to deal with the responsibility for a certain social status quo and will willingly or unwillingly change society.

All major religions have had an extremely powerful impact on the societies they "conquered" (i do not necessarily mean conquer in a military sense), and depending on one's own value set, one might rather like or not like a particular model per se.

I commend the Christian teachings e.g. for their strong ideas regarding the inherent worth of life for example, but do think that the overall Christian approach towards sexuality until very recently has been largely horrible.
On the other hand Japan used to be less puritan when it came to sexual matters before the Meiji restoration....but then again abortions were and are seen as completely normal...and senior monks forcing teenage boys to have sex with them was not uncommon in your average Buddhist monastery in Japan for quite some time.

Gassho,

Hans

[Jinyo]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

I'm glad I found this post Seiryu - had just ordered Thich nhat hanh's 'living buddha, living christ'

I'm going to be knocking against my defences - as you felt you were - but I feel I need to sort out in my mind
why I'm finding this subject of the compatability of buddhism/christianity difficult.

Gassho

Willow

[Kyonin]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Like Dokan said, I go through mind bending and wall crumbling processes rather often.

Recently I hit a wall that made question my points of view against marketing and advertising and I had a hell of a week trying to figure out my new discoveries.

Granted, those rants were not as a transcendental as to speak about religion, but I think the main point is that we constantly have to question life in order to learn.

We have to stop our preconceived ideas and look at information for what it is. It's very difficult sometimes because of our personal baggage, but doable if you just let things flow.

On the subject of religion I admit I have a lot of mental blocks that I need to work on. Maybe I should get Susuki Roshi's book?

[RichardH]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

What does finding compatibility or harmony between Christianity and Buddhism mean? Does it mean finding an inner likeness or source? Doesn't it require being selective, seeing some things and ignoring others? The fence in the back yard is green painted wood about 30 ft long. The sock drawer slides out on rollers and is full of socks and some loose change and receipts. These two things don't need to be shoehorned into a likeness to be compatible. My kid had a teacher, a really nice woman, real solid Christian by her definition, who rejects outright any Buddhist seeing of likeness, and sees me as sweet but misguided. That's fine, we are friends just the same.

[Jinyo]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

...just a few thoughts.

I'm fine with the notion that it doesn't matter what we call 'ultimate truth.' If human beings of all faiths could extend this degree of
generosity and humility to eachother, we could all happily cross to the other side on our various rafts - and ideally put the whole glorious mix up of rafts
in a heap when we get there.

Chrsitianity clearly states that Jesus is The Way - the Only Way to Truth. I was brought up with this and I find it dogmatic. It doesn't fit with the notion of many paths.
I understand that the latter is just a doctrine - perhaps not much to do with Zazen (open to all) but it makes we wary round the idea that integration is possible.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes - 'We and God are not two separate existences; therefore the will of God is also our own will.'

Ok -maybe a God fashioned in the way of Zen Buddhism - but not the Judeo-Christian God? It just leaves me confused. Maybe people of good will from all faiths can sort this out - but can't help feeling it's a bit like ignoring the elephant in the room, or trying to find a way through difference by watering down semantics.

Sorry - words from a mind that's not supposed to be 'thinking' at the moment - just 'being' is hard, and it was so much easier when I didn't label whatever it was I was doing as anything at all!


Gassho

Willow

[Rev R]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

perhaps an occasional sit-a-long with Father Kirill may help the interfaith dialog along a bit.

[RichardH]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Maybe there can also be resistance to difference?.... and maybe in difference, in the clear uniqueness of each thing, there is the deepest unity of all. It reminds me of that handy mirror analogy that always pops up in Buddhism. Looking in a mirror there is a single image, a single reflection, yet the eyes are not the nose, and the shirt is not the wall. So instead of looking for some inner essence or oneness, the oneness is the very uniqueness of each thing, precise and clear, without any blurring or compromising of eyes as eyes and nose as nose.

[Rev R]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Whomever developed the teachings attributed to Buddha may as well be Buddha.
Whomever developed the teachings attributed to Bodhidharma may as well be Bodhidharma.
Whomever developed the teachings attributed to Jesus may as well be Jesus.

All regardless to what you happen to think about their quality.

Is it the faith or the institution that creates the issues?

[Marek]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Chrsitianity clearly states that Jesus is The Way - the Only Way to Truth. I was brought up with this and I find it dogmatic. It doesn't fit with the notion of many paths.
I understand that the latter is just a doctrine - perhaps not much to do with Zazen (open to all) but it makes we wary round the idea that integration is possible.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes - 'We and God are not two separate existences; therefore the will of God is also our own will.'

Ok -maybe a God fashioned in the way of Zen Buddhism - but not the Judeo-Christian God? It just leaves me confused. Maybe people of good will from all faiths can sort this out - but can't help feeling it's a bit like ignoring the elephant in the room, or trying to find a way through difference by watering down semantics.

Exactly.

As a former catholic I can speak only from that Christianity tradition and I' m confused as well.

For orthodox catholic Jesus, God, Church are not only words or labels no matter how open-minded they are. To see through these words seeking the truth maybe is important specially in monastic way of living but still there are dogmas you cannot pass through for your soul good. Don' t get me wrong, I' m not blame those people, I don't feel better than them because I' m a zen practitioner. I understand. Everyone has to find his own way...or way somehow will find everyone.

One benedictine monk, student of Roshi Jakusho Kwong, Father Jan Bereza heard once from Saung Sahn:
,,Zen is when you doing something in 100%. So if you are a catholic, be a catholic for 100%. This is zen"

[Jinyo]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Father Kyrill - I hope you read this as 'opening all doors and windows' of my mind I would like to learn from
your sharing.

You pick up on confusion here - but I hope not hostility - as you say - surely all are welcome to the practice of Zen.

It would really help me (and perhaps others) if you could say a little more about Theosis and prayer - as you feel there is
no demarcation between Theosis and shikantaza. There are many testimonies from Christians saying that the practice of zazen
has heightened and deepened their experience of prayer. I would genuinely appreciate understanding more of this.
I'm wondering what is the extra element. Is it just a change of focus within prayer or something more fundamental?

I am trying hard to drop all prejudice against labels/doctrine/dogma in asking this - fully accepting that what others do in the name of a religion
does not necessarily define a faith - and that through hermeneutics all interpretation of 'a word - doctine' - moves on, renews, adapts, and changes.

Perhaps faith 'as lived' necessarily transcends written word - and makes it possible to cross bounderies rather than
erecting them?

Gassho

Willow

[Marek]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

I agree with you Willow.

Father Kyrillos, it would be great if you would put some words about practice just to share your experience, which I belive is very precious.

After all this forum is all about sharing not dividing

Gassho.

[Seishin the Elder]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Interesting to see this thread open up again, or still, or as yet, or.....

First of all everyone ought to understand that the greater portion of my monastic and theological training has been in the Eastern Church, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church and the Fathers of Athos. It has only been in the past 10-15 years that I have been living and working in the Western Benedictine tradition. The Eastern approach in the Church is very different than the Western, even though there is a very basic agreement (with a few notrable exceptions) in the "dogmas" of the Faith. The Western approach is very legal and rule oriented, perhaps as Jundo has said, like the "big box" Soto-Shu organization. Every "t" must be crossed and all the "i" dotted. There are rather unyielding definitions for things and definite prescriptions and proscriptions for the various states a soul may find itself it.

The Eastern tradition is not so interested in that. The mysterion of even such things as "dogma" is more honored in the East than the West. For instance: the Western Catholic tradition "must" be able to define exactly when and how something occurs, whether it be about the Holy Eucharist, a miracle or other fine point of theology. The East does not pin-point such things and thus allows them to remain mysteries, allowing for things to happen "outside of time". The different approaches are also quite dissimilar with regard to spiritual practice and personal developement and devotion.

The West has a large number of religious orders of monks, nuns, friars, canons, priests and sisters; the West simple has a monastic order that is the same no matter what flavor of the church one belongs to:Russian, Greek, Serbian, Romanian, etc. The West has a regular and regulated formation for clergy with several approved (they must always be "approved") exercises that may be followed. The East follows a general rather sketchy format with three degrees of monastic committment, but does not say with any regularity when any of these degrees is available, reached or given. The formation of an Eastern monastic is entirely up to the elder monastic to whom the neophytes attach themselves. One of the few things that most of the Eastern monastic tradition does agree on is what is termed "Prayer of the Heart", or Hesychysm. What one who practices this is preparing for is "Theosis". In the West the monastic does not do this. What can be seen as "theosis" in the West is something which happens to someone "touched by Grace" with no effort of their own other than total surrender. This would be like the Ecstacy of St. Terese of Avila. In the East we are taught that"theosis" is our natural state and that toward which we strive. Prayer of the Heart (the Jesus Prayer) is the means to this and is taught to the monastic by the Elder. It is quiet prayer without an overly complicated form and within which are allowed great spaces of true quiet. It is in those spaces that theosis happens. (Theosis - making divine, in likeness to and union with Diety) Theosis is the third part of the Path of Hesychysm, those parts being: Katharsis=Purification; Theoria=Illumination; and, Theosis=Deification.

For myself, and please understand that I certainly do not speak for all Christian monastics, either of the East or the West; and I would probably be roundly disagreed with by many of them, both East and West; I know that I have had similar personal experience practicing the Prayer of the Heart and Zazen/Shikantanza. Being more of an Easterner in this, I cannot say whether those experiences or states were Katharsis, Theoria or Theosis (although I would hesitate to say the latter); but I can say that they were not of the ordinary milieu of contemplation, prayer or meditation. In the Eastern Church we speak of those things as being lifted out of time and space. I am not sure what it may be called in Zen practice. But I can say that it has been that which has convicted me in my heart and convinced me that my life as a Christian and a monastic is entirely compatible with the practice of Zazen. In those "moments". if indeed there can be moments when lifted out of time and space, there is only a clear unity and a clear falling away of difference and division. These glimpses, as I am sure they are only fleeting glimpses and certainly not "all" hold me in a very real sense of the non-difference in the "end" of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist spiritual practice.

As I has mentioned before, I usually lead with my heart rather than my head and I think this is why Jundo gave me Seishin as a Dharma Name. Seishin means holy or sacred heart. I cannot pretend that many of my Christian brothers and sisters could not agree with me in what I have just said. Many are quite wrapped up in the "rules and regs" and what they term mystics are always held in suspicion. I do not think that they will move any closer to accepting or understanding this than they are capable of doing with one another in the 36.000 denominations they have created. Rather than holding the "rules and reg" as my Gospel and many do, I have tried to open my ears and heart to the simple words of the Master I set out to follow: "Love one another as I have loved you"....Love your neighbor as yourself. I want to apologize to any and all who have suffered at the hands of the Church, either a spiritual or even physical violence; for any uncharitable acts or words; for narrowness that in its one-pointedness can be painful; for rejection or indifference. I can only offer you my open heart in reparation and in love and in unity.

Gassho,

Seishin Kyrill

[Omoi Otoshi]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Thank you so much Seishin, sacred heart indeed.
Your words touched me deeply.

but I can say that they were not of the ordinary milieu of contemplation, prayer or meditation. In the Eastern Church we speak of those things as being lifted out of time and space. I am not sure what it may be called in Zen practice. But I can say that it has been that which has convicted me in my heart and convinced me that my life as a Christian and a monastic is entirely compatible with the practice of Zazen. In those "moments". if indeed there can be moments when lifted out of time and space, there is only a clear unity and a clear falling away of difference and division.

To me, that would be an excellent description of samadhi. I have only experienced the out of time and space state once in Zazen (a couple of times there has been stillness and no time, but extremely real space). Like for you, those experiences finally convinced me. Had I believed in God, I would have believed I experienced God in those moments, of that I am sure.

Gassho,
Pontus

[Jinyo]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Thankyou for this Seishin - especially for your words of healing
which must surely also reach out beyond time and space.

Gassho

Willow

[Marek]

Re: reading thich nhat hanh's going home

Thank you, Father Kyrillos for your post and your presence here.

I usually lead with my heart rather than my head

This is , I belive, where every practice starts

To me, that would be an excellent description of samadhi. I have only experienced the out of time and space state once in Zazen (a couple of times there has been stillness and no time, but extremely real space). Like for you, those experiences finally convinced me. Had I believed in God, I would have believed I experienced God in those moments, of that I am sure.

I feel the same Omoi