The Way Of All The Earth

There is a book by the Christian theologian John Dunne called "The Way Of All The Earth." It is a study of how great figures such as Gandhi have gained insight on their own religion by gaining an understanding of others, this by "passing over" to another and then returning to one's own. Perhaps simply put it is just asking us to try to walk in someone elses shoes, to see things from another perspective. Simpler still, it is about empathy. But whatever it is, if we ever make the trip, whether we can ever return to our own, as it was, is a good question. I would say no, but this is surely learning and growing, which can't be bad. 

John Dunne ( rather than "passing over" perhaps he should just try a new hat? )

Anyway, John Dunne called all this "the adventure of our time". In the so called "spiritual" arena it would involve seeking out an "eastern" faith. The Catholic Trappist monk Thomas Merton was certainly one of those who joined in with the "adventure", though this was not at the bidding of Mr Dunne. He was up for it long before. Merton once wrote, in his "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander":- 

The more I am able to affirm others, to say 'yes' to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I am fully real if my own heart says yes to everyone. 

I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further. 

So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindu's, the Buddhist's, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot 'affirm' and 'accept,' but first one must say 'yes' where one really can.

Father Louis in the process of "passing over" meeting with the Dalai Lama

Well, so wrote Merton, or Father Louis as he was known in his monastery. Carl Gustav Jung seemed to have reservations, once asking what was the good of the wisdom of the Hindu Upanishads, and the insights of Chinese Yoga if we abandon our own foundations "like outworn mistakes"? So Jung was wary, Merton was in favour. What say you?

What say I? I seem to have passed over...........and not come back at all, but have I "abandoned my own foundations like outworn mistakes"? Surely it is always a case of integration? If we truly know our foundations, are our foundations, then surely they can never simply be abandoned, no matter how deeply we get to know another way of seeing the world. 

Just to waffle on a bit about what I found upon "passing over"......

As I see it, though the thought of "unity" is aesthetically pleasing, the reality of the various "eastern" faiths is far more messy, each one a whole collection, like Christianity itself, of diverse doctrines, denominations and teachings and beliefs. Even in just one division of Buddhism, Zen, which purports to be the heart of Buddhism, we have Soto and Rinzai, disagreeing over certain principles. 

Diversity

For me it is not so much that each faith is a facet of the truth, but that there is the possibility in all for truth to be found.

This is not eclecticism, or a call for anyone to try to amalgamate all into some universal Creed. The last thing the world needs, in my view, is another creed, no matter how appealing in terms of "love" and "unity". It just seems to be the case that all faiths have the potential to bring forth those  who demonstrate in their lives "those acts of love without thought of gain" (which someone once said was one of the aims of any Faith) Again, a "faith" is not needed at all if such is equated with allegiance to some creedal formula, theology or system of belief.

Potential of Reality to enlighten

This simply because the potential to enlighten is within Reality itself. As my own Pure Land path says, through the words of one of its "saints", Saichi:-

O Saichi what is your joy?

This world of delusion is my joy!

It contains the seeds of relishing the Dharma

Namu-amida-butsu is blooming everywhere!

Well, getting back to Thomas Merton, when he spoke of the Eastern Faiths he listed these as often being highlighted:-

1. The priority of experience over speculation.

2. The inadequacy of words to articulate religious experience.

 3. The fundamental oneness of reality. 

4. The realisation that the goal of all spiritual discipline is transformation of consciousness. 

5. "Purity of Heart"......"liberation from attachment"

I'm not really sure if these are any more "highlighted" in the Eastern Faiths than in any other. Maybe more a question of emphasis and of just how they are approached and known. To just quibble about point 3, of "fundamental oneness", this has to do with non-duality, which is not that "all is one", but that Reality is not "two", another thing entirely no matter what might be thought. 

Relationship is alive and well and living in the "east", particularly the Pure Land. Actually, Merton would have known this, but I thought I would mention it, being at heart pedantic and a quibbler.

To finish (sighs of relief all around) I must just relate a little Jewish story. It has drifted around my mind for a few weeks now and I have been seeking to fit it into one of my blogs. Alas, it never seems to be wholly appropriate, yet to me it can be thought to fit anywhere:-

A Jewish guy wishes to see a famous Jewish holy man and travels a great distance to meet him. Upon his return a friend asks him what the holy man said. ""Oh, I didn't want to hear what he said, I wanted to see how he tied his shoelaces."

How do you tie yours?