Filed under: Uncategorized
Much is made in “new atheist” circles about the supposed uselessness, harmfulness, and silliness of faith. However, I am skeptical about this claim that faith/belief is really the core issue in genuine religion and spirituality. Certainly the real issue is not the shallow, sophomoric “God = the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Flying Spaghetti Monster” slogan/analogy/cliche. The core issue is subjective spiritual experience, and the corollary is the non-materiality and non-quantifiability of spirit/Spirit.
Subjective experience:
Mystical experience, especially that of divine union, is never founded on belief.
Direct apprehension of the divine via mystical states, and the specialized knowing resulting from that apprehension (satori, gnosis), are neither belief-derived, nor belief-driven. The state of divine union and the claim of spiritual insight are experiential, not theoretical or intellectual.
The original experience is, of course, famously ineffable. But if it is to be put into understandable language, then naturally pre-existing terms will almost necessarily be invoked, and particular connections with the language of pre-existing faith systems may be established. But the experience itself is not mediated by “belief-in” or “belief-about”. As the mystics themselves say, once a thing is known, knowledge supplants faith; “belief-in” becomes obsolete.
This fact is important to the current conversation because historically all founders of religious movements operated out of direct spiritual experience, not out of belief(s). That is, Jesus was a divine union experiencer before he was a social reformer; the Buddha was a Dharma-Nirvana experiencer before he challenged the Brahmins. Therefore, perhaps somewhat ironically, faith – defined as belief-in/belief-about – is directly opposed to the original vision of the founders (even though it suffices for vast numbers of adherents appropriately designated as … “the faithful”).
Nor is the frequently invoked argument cogent that the brain can produce delusional spiritual experience, or even real spiritual experience. At this stage of the discussion, the primary issue is not the multi-capacities of our collectively-shared three-pound skull organ. The issue is simply the fact that the claim “religion = faith/belief” is inadequate at best, and distortive and false at worst.
Non-quantifiability of spirit/Spirit:
Spirit’s non-quantifiable nature, naturally, means that it is not materially quantifiable. Certian so-called “open minded” atheists who, with studied graciousness – and with a great show of humble liberality – declare that sufficient evidence could move them toward theism, can only maintain this position by ignoring the fact that spirit is non-material and materially unquantifiable. They have therefore conveniently set for themselves a playing field that is on the one hand impregnable and extremely comfortable (not to mention comforting); but on the other, is something of an intellectual ghetto, a view with a pre-embedded limited horizon, permitting only a certain circumscribed and predictable forensic outcome.
An atheist for whom materialism is an unquestioned principle by definition cannot acknowledge (even for the sake of argument?) religion’s non-materialist claims: thereby firmly encasing himself/herself into the box of a self-selected and limited field of discourse.
Put simply: If nothing exists but matter, the present conversation by nature must stop with that claim. And ideally, what should also stop is the claim that evidence might lead materialists and/or atheists toward theism, because the evidence offered by theism is, a priori, absurd and inadmissible to the materialist. This self-congratulatory (in the sense of “Observe how I am being fair and liberal”) position is really “anything but”, because it demands evidence that is, a priori, unacceptable to the very people who are trumpeting the call for evidence.
Of course, it is quite apparent that spiritual claims are not unquantifiable in the broad sense. Sages like the Buddha certainly claimed that spiritual knowledge/insight is subjectively quantifiable, and they meticulously set out means by which to verify their claims. Of course, the obvious difference is that science quantifies by looking outward, whereas spirituality quantifies by looking inward. But both proceed along the same threefold path of injunction, experimentation, conclusion, and sharing of the process with a community of those who have also adequately performed the three steps.
On a final note, it is tiresome to read airy dismissals of religion which originate from “salad bar” critics who condemn faith’s flaws while completely overlooking the fact that many unbelievers, too, sometimes participate in lunacy such as scientism, the myth of human progress, uncritical humanism, bald assertions, untested claims, excuse-making for scientific and technological dangers and failures, naive, unskillfully conceived and presented claims that theology is merely “the study of nothing”, and other such gaffes. Before such overbearing materialists and atheists cast stones, they are well-advised to commit to some degree of critical introspection – else they are doomed to duplicate – and act from – the same shoddy principles and unthinking attitudes which they claim to most despise in the religious.
One of the first questions that arises when one claims an Ultimate Reality which is transcendent to the material universe is, “What does your God do?” In the West, we are accustomed to the notion of a deity who is quite active: first, God creates the universe, then proceeds to intervene more or less miraculously in creation, and to make special revelations ot, and for, select individuals and peoples. My form of panentheism has a God who “does” nothing in regard to the physical world. Amida (or the Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being, the Dharmakaya, the Tao, the Buddha-Mind, the Buddha-Nature) does a kind of salvific “work”, but that work is purely spiritual. God/Amida does not intervene, for example, in answer to prayer. And why should we have such an expectation? God/Amida is not a creator. Therefore the Ultimate Reality cannot be praised for the good in the world, or blamed for the world’s ills – for the simple reason that God is not responsible for a universe that God, in the first place, did not create. If we define God in Amidist-Shin terms, it is simply not God’s nature to create.
Not that Amida’s work is not unfolding in the universe. It’s a matter of perceiving that Amida’s work is “in” but not “of” the world. It has worldly effects, but that is because the work takes place within the sentient beings who are themselves, at least temporarily, part of the material universe. God’s “workshop” is “located” within the heart of sentient beings, in their spiritual subjectivity. As Meister Eckhart used to say, “God is known in the soul”, and so neither God nor the soul are properties of matter. Sometimes matter can be used as a symbol of divinity – e.g., the stereotyped pictures of sunsets, of rays of light streaming through clouds, any number of images of natural beauty, etc., are commonly used as “God-signs”. Sometimes matter can symbolically convey the idea of divinity, in the sense that the Psalmist sang, “The heavens and the earth are full of the glory of the Lord”. The universe can “stand in” for God, but unlike the pantheistic view, the world is not itself God.
Since God/Amida’s activity does not concern bodies, but the spirit, it is the realm of spirit to which we must look in order to see the nature of the divine work. God changes souls, not bodies – or minds, either – if by “mind” we think of our standard mentality.
The earliest Christian claim of spiritual transformation involves metanoia. Commonly translated as “repentance”, metanoia’s actual meaning can be found in the Greek of the word itself: meta means “beyond”; noia derives from nuous,” the mind”. The original Hebrew term means “to return to one’s source in the sacred”. Hence spiritual transformation involves going beyond one’s mind (or at least one’s current attitude and perception of things), by returning to one’s living roots in the divine. This applies generally to the transformative core of most religions.
For salvation, our current mind must be transcended. Usually this transcendence turns out to be so utterly “beyond” - so transcendent of normative definitions of “mind” – that sages have frequently said, “Enlightenment is not a state of mind”. And this is the core of what God, Amida, Ultimate Reality “does”, i.e., “It” sees to the final salvation of beings – not worlds or bodies or societies, but rather the spiritual essence of sentient beings. In Shin Buddhism, “Amida saves” in a quite different way than any other salvific figure “saves”.
Amida’s salvific gift is not defined by, nor dependent upon (say), an atoning death by torture; a fulfillment of prophecy, a revealed law, code, or sacred book; membership in a “chosen” or “elect” group; believing “one, true and only” dogmas; a rigidly demanding rule of behavior; prayer; avoidance or forgiveness of sins, whether venial or mortal; an apocalyptic gathering up of the faithful; a sacramental system; a set of rituals; a sacrificial system; devotion to a God or gods (recall that Amida is not God by any Abrahamic definition; thus even devotion to Amida is not salvific); and finally – and this is crucial – by any human act, including the act of faith itself. This last point is essential to understanding the non-intervening God’s “action” as regards salvation.
Shin/Jodo Shinshu holds that humankind, especially modern humanity, is utterly degraded and incapable of salvation by any act whatsoever. This differs from Christian salvation theory which holds that humanity is depraved due to sin, and/or has an inherited “sin nature”. In Buddhism, at least in its Mahayanist expressions – including Shin – the basic human problem is not sin, but ignorance. Not ignorance of factual or even moral matters, but ignorance of one’s own Buddha Nature. This state of ignorance is not ascribed to sin or to sin’s consequences. Rather, it is the normal state of the ego estranged from knowledge of, and actively living, the Dharma. Thus, transformative religion aims to transcend the ego and its “mind”. This is Amida’s role. Sentient beings’ egos are transformed not (as in most other forms of Buddhism) by self-effort (meditation, contemplation, visualization, etc.).
These venerable methods Shin calls “the difficult Path” or “the Path of the Sages”. For Shin, however, most human beings are no longer capable of attaining salvation or Enlightenment through self-power. For Shin, salvation and Enlightenment are the utterly free gift of Amida Buddha. Amida’s action is pure tiriki, or “Other Power”. It cannot be earned, strived for, attained, prayed for, or grasped. It can only be received. Paradoxically, we have already received it. But Shin consists in offering to sentient beings the conscious discovery of Amida’s grace, followed by the conscious expression of joy and gratitude that is the natural consequence of that discovery. This is a Buddhistic parallel to the conclusion reached by the controversial evangelist Rob Bell in his book, Love Wins. By doing away with the traditional Christian concept of Hell, Rob Bell embraces universal salvation in a manner quite similar to that of Shin Buddhism.
So the second question in relation to the God who “does” nothing is, “Well, then – what do we do?” Although Shin holds that there is absolutely nothing that we can do toward our salvation and Enlightenment, there are some things that we can do that flow naturally from our experience of Amida’s grace. Some of these are:
Deep Listening: we “hear” the Dharma and the Buddhist texts more deeply than ever; and as recipients of the knowledge of Amida Buddha, we now hear them in the light of Amida’s grace. This practice of profound listening even to “hearing” the daily sounds of human speech and environmental sounds, because as already mentioned, the world sometimes acts as a “stand-in” for divinity and thus for Shin Buddhists, as an occasional “stand in” for Amida’s own presence.
Grateful Meditation and Mindfulness: Although we have nothing salvific to attain through meditation and mindfulness, still as a practical matter, cultivating both states is physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy. We meditate to cultivate calm and mindfulness. This results in a clearer seeing and understanding of Amida’s work, of our innate depravity as well as our innate decency… and of all the other therapeutic things operative generally in Buddhist meditation, including the ego’s problematic nature. The only difference is that we do not meditate to attain salvation or Enlightenment – for the simple reason that Amida is already dominant in those areas.
Recitation of the Nembutsu: this is the recitation of the words, orally or mentally: “Namu Amida Butsu”. The phrase compacts several meanings which express that the devotee is approaching Amida from his/her ignorant, degraded human side; it acknowledges that even the grace to voice the Nembutsu is supplied by Amida, from Amida’s “side”; and that the devotee is gratefully acknowledging the reception of Amida’s grace as it unfolds within the devotee.
The Nembutsu is not a petitionary prayer. It is an expression of gratitude. Reciting it does not earn merit or grace. Nor does it save or confer Enlightenment. Only Amida does those things; all those things have already been taken care of … and all without human effort. Self-power is futile. Other-Power – expressed in Amida’s saving activity – is all-powerful. This is why it is said that the light of Amida’s grace is “Unimpeded”. Even in Christianity, “the Light” can be impeded. As John’s Gospel says, Jesus’ “light shone in the darkness, but the darkness grasped it not”. Amida’s light penetrates every corner of the cosmos wherever sentient beings are to be found. The “darkness” will grasp Amida’s Light – and thus be darkness no longer… because, ultimately, no “darkness” is sufficiently dense to prevent the dissemination of Amida’s penetrating light.
So for me, Jodo Shinshu is a workable faith, with its non-creating, non-intervening Ultimate Reality – a real but transcendent Other, whose realm of activity is the hidden workshop of the human soul. It requires no intervening, law-giving, miracle-working creator-deity. It only offers a spiritual Ultimate which acts on sentient beings from inside, which for me is more than enough, for the simple, daily experience of myself as a sentient being who is “on the inside, looking out”, but who now also experiences Amida’s subtle grace “on the inside”.
For anyone wishing to read a short, lean, wise explication of Amida and Jodo Shinshu I can highly recommend:
The Call of the Infinite, by John Paraskevopoulos. Sophia Perennis, San Rafael, California: 2009.
The other day I was explaining to a friend why I don’t believe in a Creator – although I do believe in a “god” which is Ultimate Reality. I am no philosopher (as this article will surely demonstrate), but these are my reasons, as cogently as I can put them.
I am a panentheist – not to be confused with pantheist. Pantheism sees the world as God, and/or God as the world. Panentheism, on the other hand, sees the world as existing “in” God; that is, panentheism sees God as an all-embracing Sprit, which contains everything, and in which/by which everything is contained. God is “here” (immanent) and “more than here” (transcendent). God’s existence and enfolding presence, however, do not necessarily imply that God is a Creat0r. Quite the contrary.
There are plenty of cosmological models that do not require a beginning in time for the universe; that is, the universe could always have existed. For theology, such models negate the need for a First Cause – a cause which, in most Western religious expressions, is usually personified as both a deity and a creator. This of course is not a problem, since theology then simply suggests that, in regard to the eternal universe model, there exists a creator-god who has been creating the universe for as long as the universe has been emanating from that god; the universe being a continous, eternal outpouring from the continuous creative activity of an eternal creator. If the universe is eternal, then fine – so is its creator and “his” creative activity. But not all theological models demand that God be a creator. And this, in fact, is my position.
First, it seems to me that the notion of a creator is derived from the making of artifacts by human beings, an idea I first encountered as a youth when reading Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud. My personal take on this concept is that, relatively early, human beings came to realize that they had been born into world of pre-structured “stuff”. It probably wasn’t long before this realization got entangled with the realization that human beings are also prolific producers of “stuff”, via their countless artifacts. From this resulted the natural (but possibly incorrect) deduction that the pre-formed, “given stuff” of our environment must be some type of artifact, made and shaped by an invisible, non-human agency – which, however, shared several important properties with human beings. Hence the birth of a god or gods who functioned as a creator, or perhaps, a council of creators.
One obvious flaw to this, of course, is the gradual disappearance of “the God of the gaps” in the face of our ever-growing knowledge about how “stuff” works. Gods as supernatural explanatory causes and factors have been removed from our cosmologies, with the Creator being pushed further and further back, until one can say with Julian Huxley that “operationally, God is becoming more and more to look like the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat” (probably not an exact quote, but the idea is plain). My views take the idea to its final conclusion, namely, that God does not have any relation at all to the function or state of the universe – either as a creator or an intervener … and that this idea of a non-operational deity is true, conforms to the mystical core of many traditions, and goes some way toward explaining how, although God is real, we continue to suffer as we do. It addresses not only the existence, but – more importantly – the persistence of evil in a world which, after all, turns out never to have been God’s making or a result of God’s “plans”.
Before proceding, I’ll mention the terrific importance the Creator-Deity has in the thinking of Creationists and Intelligent Design theorists. Most, but not all, of these people are less convinced of the Creator’s existence from a study of how the universe works, than from a literalistic belief in the biblical account of creation. Their firm belief – that a 5,000year old, pre-scientific creation myth of one particular ancient Semitic people could actually give a factual account of cosmic/world origins – is the crushing burden with which they have saddled themselves (and which they wish to foist onto the US’s public education system). They must believe in a Creator because their sacred book – literally interpreted – says they must. Obviously, appeals to science, plausibility, and reason are mostly wasted when trying to engage with these people. Worse, let’s look at what the existence of a creator might mean.
Let’s dispense with the Creationist deity right away: Yahweh, the creator-deity of a Bronze Age tribe -and of modern fundamentalists – as described in their scriptures, has many good qualities (for example, the Prophets with their message of social responsibility) and many inexcusably bad qualities. Unfortunately, the bad qualities dominate, particularly if one chooses to believe that this often destructive, crazy, vengeful, insecure, warlike, megalomaniac, arrogant, dishonest, murdering deity really exists and is really the source of the world and of human beings. If that was really the case, then for humankind all is lost. Thankfully, there is no evidence for Yahweh’s objective existence; and even if there were, people of good will would rightfully reject this deity on moral grounds alone. So let’s dismiss Yahweh as a significant creator figure. (Naturally, I delete from this equation all of the good, decent, educated, progressive Jews and Christians – they usually understand Yahweh and his scriptures analogically and metaphorically – a far cry from the literalist, fundamentalist Creationists and ID position.)
One can only deduce any Creator’s nature from the nature of “his” creation. The Buddha called this world samsara, a “wheel of birth and death” in which suffering and loss predominate. Buddha gets no argument from me. Now: what kind of creator would create an indifferent universe, much less a universe that inflicts suffering on sentient beings? The answer is obvious. This of course does not mean that there is no creator/designer. But it does strongly imply that such a being is unconcerned with creatures to the extent that “It” must be seen as blind, unware, indifferent, hostile, or even cruel.
So my position is that, for lack of evidence, it is unlikely that a Creator exists. But, if I am wrong in this surmise, the alternative seems far worse than is the case of no Creator. A Creator who is cruel or uncaring is, from my perspective, positively worse than no Creator. And again, if I am wrong, and a Creator does exist, perhaps in one of the several forms we have become familiar with: as an ancient alien or team of aliens; a hacker or hackers working from other dimensions; a universe-creating technology (whether or not actively maintained by living beings) whose infinitely ancient purpose it is to create multitudes of worlds. It doesn’t matter. In no case are these “first” causes God, and in no case do they display the concern for the world that most religions claim for God. If they exist, they remain aloof, indifferent, hostile, or cruel. (Now, of course, a creator-god could exist, and be indifferent and cruel, but I reject this depiction because it does not conform to most God-definitions extant in theology, religions, and mystical literature.
So: I do not believe in a Creator; or - if a Creator exists – I want nothing to do with It.
And yet: I do believe in a God that is real, but Who (or Which) is not a creator or an intervener, a God by nature transcendent to the world, yet mysteriously “in” the world by reason of embracing the world in Its own divine Presence. As a devotee of the Buddhist sect of Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhism, I give to this transcendent entity the name “Amida Buddha”.
In Part 2 of this essay, I would like to explore Amida as Ultimate Reality, Infinite Wisdom and Compassion, and Unimpeded Light … as well as the dynamics of a “theistic” spirituality in which there is really no God, no Creator, and no intervention: certainly an oddity from the general Western perspective that thinks of religion and spirituality in Abrahamic-creatorist categories.
Filed under: Christianity
Anti-semitism is always raising its ugly head in modern society, all too often in the form of the tired old lie, “the Jews killed Christ”.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. “The Jews” during Jesus’ lifetime probably heard very little of this itenerant preacher from Galilee. Those who did probably reserved “in their hearts” the points they thought worth pondering, and made a prudent judgment about his character and claims at some unknown later period. And much later, when some of Jesus’ disciples began to claim that their master had ascended to heaven and was sitting in God’s Judgment Seat, Jews living in Judea at that time would have had some startling new ideas about Jesus to consider and react to.
In any case,The Gospels are clear that “the Jews” collectively are not to blame for Jesus’ execution. In fact, the Gospels explicitly name Jesus’ executioners mostly as influential members of the priesthood and certain scribes… and of course the Romans. Thus both “ethnicities” – Jewish and Gentile – had a hand in Jesus’ death. Which is simply to say, theologically, that “we all killed Christ by our wickedness”. But the Gospels do not blame ethnicity for Jesus’ death: they blame human evil and sinfulness, presenting the interpretation that Jesus’ death was an atonement for ALL human sin, regardless of ethnicity and religion.
Anti-semites are fond of citing Matthew 27:25, “Then all the people answered, saying, ‘Let his blood be upon us, and upon our children’ “, mistakenly taking this to mean that “ALL” the Jewish people uttered this sentiment.
This is glaringly wrong, since Matthew’s “people”, “crowd”, and “multitude” do not – cannot – refer to the entire Jewish people – for the simple reason that this text refers only to the small fragment of people who had crowded into Pilate’s courtyard. Even at that, these were not necessarily the anti-semites’ much-vaunted “Jews against Jesus” … because as Matthew 27:20 says, it was “the chief priests and elders” who “persuaded” this small gathering to choose Barabbas over Jesus. The entire scene was, according to Matthew, a put-up job by the priests, not an action undertaken by “the Jewish people”.
Moreover, Matthew 26:3-5 states that Jesus was so popular with his own (of course, Jewish) people that the “priests, scribes and elders” were afraid to arrest Jesus for fear of creating “an uproar among the people”. What people? The Jewish people of Jerusalem and the Jewish people of Galilee who had come south to celebrate the Passover. Nowhere does Matthew suggest that “the Jews” were collectively responsible for Jesus’ execution.
Mark 14:55-59 shows that at Jesus’ trial, some “false witnesses” were brought in to condemn Jesus, but their testimony conflicted and was worthless. Moreover, Mark explicitly states that “the chief priests and all the council sought for witnesses against Jesus to put him to death; but found none“. That is, no valid Jewish witnesses recommended Jesus for execution. Again, “Jewishness” and “the Jewish people” or “the Jews” did not condemn Jesus, but only certain politically-motivated collaborationist priests who were inseparably entwined with Roman rule.
Luke 23:27 claims that many Jews took pity on Jesus and openly supported him on the way to Golgotha:
“And there followed him a great company of people – and of women, who also mourned and lamented him.”
What “great company”? What “people”? What “women”?
Answer: all were Jewish people. Enough said.
Those who insist that “the Jews” crucified Jesus, are obviously scripturally and historically ignorant, as well as being consorts of the hate-mongers. Knowing full well that only a tiny fraction of an elite Jewish aristocracy – a collaborationist group of Rome-supporters – were agents of Jesus’ execution, these ferocious anti-semites continue to broadcast their old lie that “the Jews killed Christ”. One can only stand aghast at the abysmal hatred and willful ignorance of such intellectual and moral cowards, and work toward quashing the lie every time it is disseminated.
I have become weary and sickened by the increasingly strident Christian-bashing that has become prevalent in modern society.
It is as if secularists and other non-Christians wish, consciously or unconsciously, to create “the new Jew”, a pilloried social leper upon whom it is considered healthy, wholesome, and even dutiful to heap scorn and ostracism. My sense of respect diminishes when people whom I might otherwise admire – and those whom I grudgingly respect even while wildly diverging from their thinking – when they play the “evil Christians” card. It is really so beneath them, but paradoxically, for these mostly bright folks, their prejudices seem to be reflexive and mostly unconscious. Seems that it’s time for some reflection and consciousness-raising.
Most of us have this tendency to revile “an Other”, in the process elevating ourselves, but danger flags should start flying when the media and other expectedly responsible, rational sources typically and as a matter of course begin a program of social bashing . A fishy stench is very much in the air when this kind of thing occurs, and sensitive, conscientious noses will scent it out.
So these are my feelings:
I was raised by Christians, fed, sheltered, educated and loved by Christians. – a huge number of us can say this, so it is the height of arrogance and selective amnesia to behave as if Christians are some foreign, exotic – and evil – species whom our daughters must never marry. I myself was a Christian for some 28 years. I therefore feel that this new wave of “anti-Christianism” is as mean and nasty as it it unjustified and disturbing.
A truism must be invoked here: Christians are people. As with most other people, they live in society with more or less success, with more or less helpfulness. They are people. They ought not to be vilified or ostracised – except for anti-social behavior that would result in anyone else being marginalized. Discernment in this area is crucial, as is recognizing the huge spectrum of belief in Christianity, for example, the unbridgeable gap that exists between emergent Christianity, liturgical Christianity, “biblical”/evangelical Christianity on the one hand, and fundamentalist Christianity on the other. Only when these inter-religious differences are known and recognized can an observer make any claim to fairness and objectivity. It takes a little homework. But so does any worthwhile effort to keep a society aligned with justice.
The following is a link to an article – a Buddhist appraisal of some local Christians, written by an ordained priest of the Jodo Shinshu (“Shin”) sect:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/01/14/the-christians-i-know/
It makes beneficial reading for those who wish to be socially apt, realistic, and compassionate – that is, for those whose conscience rebels at participating in the creation of any “new Jews”, be they Christian or otherwise.
A friend of mine recently noted that any government or social policy that is not for the common good partakes in sociopathology. This principle is supported by most religions and is found in Buddhism. I’d like to briefly cite an essay that treats exactly this issue. Written in wartime, it condemns Japan’s support of war with Russia (1904-1905), especially the misuse of religion in that effort. The author also condemns the ill-use that the “haves” direct toward the “have nots”. The specific religious context is that of Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhism, with its centrality of Amida Buddha and its belief in Amida’s “Pure Land”, where the faithful are posthumously transformed into bodhisattvas, or “helpful Buddhas”. Aptly, the essay is entitled, My Socialism.
I do not feel that socialism is a theory, but rather a kind of practice… I think we need to reform the social system rapidly and change the social structure completely from the ground up… I consider socialism to be related much more deeply to religion than to politics. In proceeding to reform society, we have to, first of all, begin from our own spirituality.
I consider [the Pure Land] to be the place in which socialism is truly practiced. If Amida is endowed with the thirty-two [holy distinguishing] marks, the novice bodhisattvas who gather [in the Pure Land] are also endowed with the thirty-two marks… [This is how] socialism is practiced in this Land of Bliss.
We have never heard that beings in the Land of Bliss have attacked other lands. Nor have we ever heard that they have started a great war for the sake of justice. Hence I am against war. I do not feel that a person of the Land of Bliss should take part in warfare.
The essayist’s words are certainly an example of “engaged Buddhism”, concerned for the welfare of all and willing to restructure society along principles of compassion rather than wealth-accumulation, greed, and war. In words that could have been written today, the author deplores the gap between rich and poor and its accompanying sociopathology:
We live in a country where the common people in general are sacrificed for the fame, peerage and medals of one small group of people. It is a society in which the common people in general must suffer for the sake of a small number of speculators. Are not the poor treated like animals at the hands of the wealthy? There are people who cry out in hunger; there are women who sell their honor out of poverty; there are children who are soaked by the rain. Rich people and government officials find pleasure in treating them like toys, oppressing them and engaging them in hard labor…
The external stimuli being like this, our subjective faculties are replete with ambition. This is truly the world of defilement, a world of suffering, a dark night. Human nature is being slaughtered by the devil.
Yet Amida Buddha continues his call to us, and this compassion itself should prompt us toward a spiritual socialism.
Our thoughts cannot but change completely: “I will do what the Buddha wishes me to do, practise what he wishes me to practise and make the Buddha’s will my own will, I will become what the Tathagata tells me to become.” This is the time of great determination!
The only thing I wish to accomplish through my great energy and human labour is progress and community life. We labour in order to produce and we cultivate our minds so that we can attain the Way. But look at what’s happening! We cannot help but lament when we hear that religious functionaries are praying to gods and buddhas for victory. Indeed, a feeling of pity arises in my heart and I am sorry for them.
…we must proceed from the spiritual realm and completely change the social system from the ground up. I am firmly convinced that this is what socialism means.
So in Jodo Shinshu there is a blueprint for social equality based on spiritual principles of compassion and wisdom for a life (in Marcus Borg’s words) centered in Spirit rather than in culture, a challenge to beat swords into ploughshares, to make war no more, and to never again rejoice at an enemy’s destruction, principles also rooted in the bible and enjoined in such texts as:
Proverbs 22:22-23: Rob not the poor, because they are poor; neither oppress the afflicted at the city entrance: for the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.
Proverbs 24:17-18: Rejoice not when thine enemy falls,, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it,, and it displease him…
[The My Socialism esssay written by Takagi Kenmyo, cited in Beyond Meditation: Expressions of Japanese Shin Buddhist Spirituality, ed. Michael Pye, Equinox Publishing, Oakville CT: 2011.]
Filed under: Christianity
Just a few more words to convey Marcus Borg’s and John Crossan’s work on the death of Jesus, for this Lenten season. Already mentioned was their conclusion that Jesus’ sacrifice was not one of atonement or substitution. Rather, it was seen as a “ransom”. In the language of the times, to “ransom” meant to liberate someone from debt, or to pay for a slave’s release from servitude. And this meaning, say Crossan and Borg, is the earliest, truest connotation of Jesus’ “sacrificial death” in the New Testament. It means liberation from bondage.
Beginning with the Last Supper, the authors explain Jesus’ own view of his impending death:
“… when a person dies violently we speak of a separation of body and blood. That is the first and basic point of Jesus’s separated bread/body and wine/blood words… a correlation becomes possible between Jesus as the new paschal lamb and this final meal as a New Passover… The point is neither suffering nor substitution, but participation with God through gift or meal… it was by participation with Jesus and, even more, in Jesus that his followers were to pass through death to resurrection… It is… a final attempt to bring all of them with him through execution to resurrection, through death to new life. It is…about participation in Christ and not substitution by Christ.”
Moving on to Jesus’s death itself:
“… this [substitutionary atonement] is not the only Christian understanding of Jesus’s death. Indeed, it took more than a thousand years for it to become dominant… [it] first appeared in fully developed form in a book written in 1097 by St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury… [According to Anselm's view,] God must require a punishment, the payment of a price, before God can forgive our sins or crimes. Jesus is the price… [However] the substitutionary sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ death is not there at all in Mark… According to Mark, Jesus did not die for the sins of the world. The language of substitutionary sacrifice for sin is absent from his story. But in an important sense, he was killed because of the sin of the world. It was the injustice of domination systems that killed him, injustice so routine that it is part of the normalcy of civilization.”
Marcus J. Borg & John D. Crossan, The Last Week, Harper Collins, San Francisco: 2006, pp. 118-119 and pp. 138-139.
Filed under: Christianity
New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan discuss the meaning of sacrifice in relation to Jesus death. They use the example of a (female) firefighter who rushes into a burning building, finds a child, and drops the child safely into the net. Then the roof caves in, killing the firefighter. The next day the local paper has headlines about the firefighter’s life-sacrifice. Borg and Crossan accept the modern meaning of sacrifice and self-sacrifice, and emphasize that the firefighter has made “her own death peculiarly, especially, emphatically sacred by …[saving] the life of another”. The authors continue:
So far, so good. Now imagine if somebody confused sacrifice with suffering and denied it was a sacrifice because the firefighter died instantly and without intolerable suffering. Or imagine if somebody confused sacrifice with substitution, saying that God wanted somebody dead that day and accepted the firefighter in lieu of the child. And worst of all, imagine that somebody brought together sacrifice, suffering, and substiution by claiming that the firefighter had to die in agony as atonement for the sins of the child’s parents. That theology would be a crime against divinity.
The astute reader can see where these considerations lead – to the complete inversion of fundamentalist soteriology, to the utter refutation of what has been termed “Crossianity”.
Later on during Lent, this blog plans to present just what Borg and Crossan think that a non-sacrificial, non-substitutionary yet “salvific” death means in the context of Jesus’ execution.
Marcus J. Borg & John D. Crossan, The Last Week, Harper Collins, San Francisco: 2006, p. 38.
Filed under: Christianity
The season of Lent has arrived. The Christian world turns its thoughts toward the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, while the Jewish world anticipates the arrival of its Paschal season. These joyous-sorrowful feasts attend the Spring of the new year, and the mystery of God’s interaction with humankind.
While by no means meaning to be the skunk at this truly beautiful religious garden party, I wish to express a somewhat minority view, namely, that Jesus’ sacrifice was not one of atonement for sin. Rather, it was the inevitable outcome of his work and teaching, following an understandable line of cause and effect. I will grant – without ascribing paranormal future-predicting talents to Jesus – that he probably intuited that what turned out to be his final visit to Jerusalem would be lethal. In this, he is among other Jewish prophets and religio-social critics who met unpleasant fates at the hands of the powers that be (or were).
That Jesus “had a problem” with the current Temple and its priestly management makes historical sense if we take his message at face value. This is reiterated by the subsequent history of the Jesus movement in Palestine-Judea. Some of Jesus’ Jewish followers were persecuted and killed in their own homeland by their own Jewish peers. However, this was not yet a case of Jews against Christians. Rather, it was a case of some Jews against other Jews who belonged to the “Jesist” sect. And the persecution consistently issued from the priesthood and its minions.
Jesus’ message has many facets, but the pertinent one for this discussion is his opposition to the current running of the Temple and its animal sacrifice system. Note that Jesus’ “cleansing of the Temple” was not primary launched against the money changers – who, after all, had the legitimate function of seeing that the correct coinage was donated to the Temple. Rather, it was launched against the animal sacrifice system, which for reasons too complex to treat here, Jesus abhorred. The main result of Jesus’ actions in the Temple was to disrupt the flow of sacrificial animals into the sanctuary. He not only disrupted this meat parade, he set animals free and scattered them. Shortly thereafter, at “the last supper”, Jesus made clear his intentions, namely, that his renewed Covenant would be sealed with an unbloody sacrifice of plant offerings (wheat/bread and grapes/wine). These would constitute his new, reformed offering in place of animal flesh and blood. In none of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ final meal is any mention made of the Paschal lamb, the idea presumably being that bread and wine would now be sufficient offerings for the reformed Temple in the inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth.
No one in his/her right mind could possibly expect to call the Temple unholy, and to further desecrate its sacred commerce, and at the same time not expect some kind of retribution to follow. Those familiar with Christianity know that retribution did follow, with Jesus appended to a Roman cross. The Gospels are not specific in connecting legal charges against Jesus with his Temple demonstration, but they do mention the charge that Jesus was “leading the people astray”. Jesus’ Temple rebellion would surely have infuriated the priestly elite and worried the Roman authorities who counted on taxation received from the Temple, and surely would have constituted a major motivation for both parties to remove him from the scene.
Hence, Jesus sacrificed himself for his own unique prophetic message of a renewed Covenant minus animal sacrifice, for his proclamation of a definitive in-breaking of God’s Kingdom (itself enough to alienate the priesthood and Caesar’s agents)… and of course for Israel, for whose “lost sheep” alone Jesus said he was laboring. Here we have a martyr’s death, but not a sin-atonement.
Moreover, it is a pertinent fact that Jewish scripture and tradition holds that Yahweh, the tribal deity of Jesus and his Jewish confreres, had instituted myriad means of forgiveness and atonement for his “Chosen”. Of course, some of these were bound up with the Temple which Jesus so sorely wished to reform. But the bulk of them were simple acts that any Jew could perform, unconnected with priesthood and Temple. They included prayer. repentance, loving kindness, repudiation of idolatry, offerings of flour, money and jewelry, incense, and other means. Moreover, the Torah and Prophets, as Jesus received these texts, already contained strong currents of anti-animal sacrifice argumentation. At several points, Yahweh himself was presented as repudiating the sacrifical system, and – a thousand years before Pauline “Judaism by faith” and “internal circumcision” – was said to be pleased by “circumcised hearts” rather than animal sacrifice.
It is abundantly clear, then, that Judaism saw itself well-provided for in the areas of sacrifice, forgiveness and atonement. Nothing more was necessary than the rubrics laid down by Yahweh himself. Nothing was lacking in the atonement system, for the simple reason that Yahewh himself had provided it. The notion that a human being – a perfect, sinless, half-divine human being, no less – would in the future be necessary to provide some kind of ultimate, flawless sin-atonement is completely un-Jewish, and foreign to the Jewish scriptures and Prophets. For the Jews, their God-given atonement system was God-given, and to last forever. Nothing else was needed or desired. The Christian notion of Jesus as atoning sacrifice is a betrayal of Judaism and the Jewish Jesus. This is borne out even by the New Testament.
The New Testament describes Jesus’ Jewish disciples as operating from Jerusalem as their new headquarters. They remain Jews and practice Jewish rituals, including praying in the Temple. They continue to observe the Law and circumcision. They are sporadically persecuted not by “the Jews” but by the same priestly elite that Jesus before them had opposed. When they hear that Paul has been telling his Diaspora communities that Torah – precisely because of Jesus’ supposedly atoning sacrifice – is invalidated, even for Jews, they insist that Paul undergo the Nazirite vow in the Temple. For them, although the priesthood is corrupt and the animal sacrifice system needs reform, still the fact that they regard some of the Temple’s rubric as valid shows that they did not think that Jesus’ death replaced the Temple. They knew what was at stake when they pulled Paul’s feet to the fire and coerced him to take a traditional Jewish vow, namely, that Temple and Torah are still operative and authentic, regardless of Jesus’ martyric sacrifice.
Jesus’ death was that of martyr, prophet, and Kingdom-agent, not the atoning sacrifice of a World-Savior.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Much is being made – and rightly so – of the lack of violence and looting in the aftermath of Japan’s recent catastrophes.
Most of the looting US audiences see in their media is done by impoverished Americans, many of whom are non-white. This is because many times the worst devastation occurs in impoverished neighborhoods where, unfortunately, many of our non-white brothers and sisters are born and die, sometimes with very little hope of economic betterment. If any people, regardless of race, are impoverished, of course they will loot. It’s really that simple. Wealthier people tend not to loot, because they don’t “need” to. They have the best chance of escaping areas of devastation, the best storage-reserve-retrieval systems, the best insurance, and the best opportunities for reconstruction.
It is a false paradigm to project the behavior of some impoverished Americans onto the Japanese. It’s not just a matter of the Japanese being civilized, orderly, and blessed with a built-in system of deep courtesy. The US media I have seen have reported the behavior of general urban Japanese populations, not the behavior of “ghettoized”, impoverished Japanese. Therefore it is a mistake to project US social expectations on a populace whose actions are being reported generically, with no particular focus on how impoverished sections of that populace are, or are not, behaving.
Finally, the Japanese wisdom – which effectively tends to limit looting – is that the local stores still operating in the affected areas are simply giving – donating – their supplies. And they are doing it with a sense of order. The supplies are not just thrown at “customers”, but sensibly rationed.
Kudos to the Japanese for their compassion, practicality, and common sense.
