Dear Friends,
If you have been unlucky/fortunate enough to be around me
recently you may be aware that I joined a Zen sangha. I have also started attending Quaker
church. Many of you thought I was
joking, and most of you know that I have a propensity be ridiculous. That remains unchanged. But, a lot has changed. This year continues to unfold in a way that I
never anticipated, but this is a good enough place for Zen because nothing in
the world really is other than now.
And if you pay attention to now, the world unfolds regardless, and you
find the things that you did not know that were in front of you.
“From the beginning
nothing has been kept from you, all that you wished to see has been there all
the time before you, it was only yourself that closed the eye to the fact. Therefore, there is in Zen nothing to
explain, nothing to teach, that will add to your knowledge.” D.T. Suzuki
I ran across that passage last week, and only because I was
lucky enough to have read Why Buddhism is True several weeks ago. I was lucky enough to find that book at
precisely the right time in my life. It
was one of those rare moments where a book has managed to challenge some of the
bedrock assumptions I had about life and the world around me. It also managed to fuse several of the
streams of thought that had been swimming in my mind for years, at precisely
the right point in my academic career—I was preparing for comprehensive exams
and pouring over 3 to 4 decades worth of social psychology research.
Why Buddhism is True is not a book on theology. It is a scientific study on mindfulness
meditation, written by an Evolutionary Psychologist. It is also an exploration about certain
aspects of Buddhist philosophy. After
practicing hours of meditation for the past two months, sometimes multiple
times a day, I am willing to endorse many of the book’s central claims. I
assure nobody that they will find this work equally relevant. I can only share that it was relevant for me.
This brings me to my next question. A friend asked recently, can you be both?
Buddhist and Christian? I don’t have
that answer. What I can share is the
belief that it is probably not worth trying to compare religions. They have very different methods and teaching
and they have different pursuits (see Steven Prospero). Second, I’m not sure that any of them were
intended to be in competition. Human
beings managed to do that, perverting many of the messages along the way. In other words I doubt that the founders of Buddhism
in any of its strains were thinking—how can we outdo Christianity? Christ and
Buddha were radicals, and too busy and wise to be concerned with such
things. I have decided, that both inform
me in different ways. And so, the answer
to my friend’s question is a quote from the opening pages of Why Buddhism is
True:
“Don’t use Buddhism to
be a better Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever you already are.” --Dalai Lama
Someone asked me the other day about the Quaker church. I don’t really know enough to say, I’ve only
been going for a few weeks. I was raised
in the church of the Brethren. I have
been told that they share the same origin as Quakers and Mennonites. I thought the Brethren were reticent, Quakers
appeared to be in an entirely different league.
And this is what attracted me at this time in my life. The appreciation of silence. There is too much noise, and I am guilty of
contributing to this in my own ways. That
and I could not find words for what happened in Squirrel Hill on 10/27/18.
The other thing that attracted me to the Quaker church is
the history of activism. When there are no words, we must find deeds, until the
words come. Zen teaches that words will
consistently fail to capture the richness of the lived experience. This has forever been the case. And this lives in eternal tension with the
world, the world that we must live in with our neighbors. In that world, words will have to do. Words matter and they must, its how we are
delivered from trauma. Words and love
(which is the active component).
“If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13:1
“Happiness is when
what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Gandhi
And so I recognize at the age of 40, that one of the
fundamental sources of my unhappiness is that my words are sometimes
inconsistent with my thoughts and inconsistent with my actions. I have a lifelong habit of wanting to do too
many things and not having the time to do them all. My passions exceed my
capacity. My follow through suffers on many a project. And the end result is
failing (or not living up to a self-imposed standard), which in the end becomes
toxic to esteem. I suppose that I am
attracted to Zen and Quakerism at the same time in my life that I recognize the
need to shut up more and just do things. Tich Nacht Han speaks of the purpose
in aimlessness. This is why Zen finds
itself in literature, through some of the most disciplined of subjects—archery,
for one. Constraints are what bring us
freedom, and only true freedom can bring us aimlessness. Aimlessness is what brought me to standup
again this summer, to end up in a zen sangha, to end up in Quaker church.
The Friends Meeting House was where I needed to be on
10/28/18. And this is because of what
happened in Squirrel Hill on 10/27/18.
I had no words. At this point I
have only the boiling rage that comes when you recognize how fundamentally the
world around you is broken. And yet, I see it as so easily fixable. I thank God that I read the Buddhism book
that started this whole journey. I have somehow managed to compartmentalize the
anger to some part of the mind that balances with the most serene calm that I
feel on the other parts of the day.
Every word that I heard during the service was vital, other
than the words I spoke. I do not know
enough of where I am at the moment to have any faith in them. I said something about there being no words
for what happened in Squirrel Hill, and yet there will have to be. So others shared their words, the one who
stated “I am a Jew today” and explained that she worked as an archivist in a
synagogue and that a gunman never would have stopped to ask if she was Jewish
or not. There was the sharing on the
topic of gun violence, from a woman who lost her Mother, and emphasized that
there was a gun in the home. More guns will not prevent this. And there was sharing by yet another who
drives to Wheeling to clean out her deceased brother’s apartment. She shared that she had been asked why, and
told that’s not your responsibility. Her
answer was that she had never been raised to walk away, and second she was
alarmed at the amount of weaponry that she had discovered in the apartment, and
that her work would not be complete until she looked in every last box.
We have obligations to
others, I don’t care what anyone else says.
I went to writing group a few hours later. It is in the heart of Squirrel Hill. I have no idea how my Jewish friends made it
to this group, other than something obligated them to come share and be
present. I have no idea where strength
like that comes from and I will be forever grateful that I could be in their
presence that day. David was present, and shared that he had lost two friends
whom he knew deeply, and two more that he saw daily. There was anger, there was sorrow for what it
all meant for the country and what it says of mankind. There was sharing from those who were not
Jewish on the universality of this suffering, and the wish that something could
have been done. This is universally human.
At the end I expressed my gratitude that
I could be present that day, my condolences, and that when I had joined the
group several months ago, I had joked to a friend that I had found my church. Nicole said that she had been saying that for
years. I suppose that is what might
drive others to come here.
And somehow, I ended up in a zen sangha months later, and
months later in a Quaker church. I share
this initial blog post, because I have no idea where I am going. With any of this. But, I have found three things in my life
that feel like church. I could hardly
hold back tears when I told Gershon and Lewis that I know I need to do more. That this cannot possibly be the world that I
am to leave to my children.
This is where I have been, and this is where I am my
friends. To recap:
I know nothing of Zen
I know a bit about Quakerism
I have learned a few things of love
I know that I love you
