The Word Made Flesh

"The Lost Art of Boredom"

I acknowledge that basically few have any interest but I still enjoy clarifying my own mind. I find some sort of release (to adapt a word drawn from other pursuits) in rambling and waffling.

That each religion is unique is often acknowledged. However, there remains the claim among certain fundamentalists of the Christian faith that Christianity is UNIQUELY unique! Within it's various claims is the assertion that the Incarnation was a one off event in time/space history, a once and once only moment of eternal significance. Along with such a claim is the further pernicious proclamation that ONLY belief in such event, and in its efficacy for redemption , will lead to salvation (however conceived) Deny it at your peril!

Each is unique

As I see it, with such a claim Christianity becomes Jesusianity. The shear depth of the Faith is lost, the Word becomes only words, personal faith and trust becomes corrupted by identifying it with belief.

All this is concerned with duality and non-duality. This I have found is especially revealed when the word "faith" is used in any discussion on Buddhist Forums. Any possible non-dual perspective is often lost and many western Buddhists are insistent upon the need for many hours on the zafu - meditation cushion - to encourage the onset of enlightenment (however conceived) If grace is mentioned the concept is held suspect, as it suggests to many Buddhists the existence of a Supreme Being who looks down upon us and bestows His mercies as He sees fit, according to the belief of the devotee. No, they imply, enlightenment must be earned , some sort of change in consciousness must be initiated and produced by meditation, and any mention of gift is dismissed as the remnants of Christianity invading the sacred halls of Buddhism. Thus a faith based path such as Pure Land Buddhism is scorned.

The Pure Land

Yet Pure Land Buddhism has arisen from a non-dual "eastern" evolution of humanities search for enlightenment. The myokonin (Pure Land saint) Saichi writes:- 

O Saichi, will you tell us of Other Power? Yes, but there is neither self-power nor Other Power. What is, is the graceful acceptance only.

The "graceful acceptance"- a beautiful phrase - is the realisation of a gift, of the recognition of a fundamental nature, common to ALL. An "acceptance" that is, was, and will be a path unique to each, revealing a reality that is beyond comprehension, beyond words, yet calls for our words and actions in time/space history to be "incarnations" of such a Reality. Thus the path is our "home", home is our "path", and each moment is the "appropriate statement" that the zen master Yun-men said was "the teachings of a whole lifetime."

Just one particular moment of "God becoming Man" is therefore simply an unnecessary distortion of Reality-as-is. Such a claim belongs to the mythic childhood of humankind, a world of incarnate "saviours" making blood sacrifices to atone for sins and buy off the wrath of a sky god. Unravelling the inner truth of the myth opens Christianity to Christ, not Jesus, opens Christianity to all the world's Faiths.

A shout in the street

Therefore, as James Joyce has suggested, God is not found solely in an event 2000 years ago, but can be found in a "shout in the street", in fact potentially in each and every apparently mundane moment. Alas, we can search instead for something other, something beyond; our life becomes a succession of anticipations and epitaphs, and the beauty and potential of now is buried and lost.

Related Quotes (all of James Joyce):-

Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.

“No, it did a lot of other things, too."

(when turning down an admirer who asked to kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses)

Why is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?

Words from the end of Ulysses, Molly Bloom's monologue.