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There’s an odd fact about non-duality, for while we each have our separate roles and appearances, we also share a common connection. Obviously this isn’t a physical connection, but it’s there nonetheless, and we can experiment with it and try to apply it to our daily life.

I’d like to ask our readers help with something. Right now, there is a very sweet Buddhist blogger suffering from severe kidney failure. Her name is Jeanne, but she’s more commonly known as the Dalai Grandma.

Please experiment with sending her love and energy, clarity of awareness, peace, and perhaps even that her kidneys should regain more of their normal function.
       Whatever speaks to you, try and offer that. Raise that thought clearly, and then let it dissolve back into you and sink down heavily within you.

Daehaeng Kun Sunim sometimes describes our fundamental mind as a communications center; if we correctly input something into it, that input is communicated through this unseen connection. Or like an electric light, when the circuit is completed, energy freely flows back and forth. 

Because this isn’t a physical connection there is no physical limitation to this energy. The saying “there’s no near or far in the Buddha-dharma” isn’t just a philosophical statement.
 
     Let’s experiment with this and see what we can do to dissolve a bit of this world’s suffering.

Thank you,
Chong Go

A few weeks ago, on the Tricycle Community, I was delighted to see some pictures of HE Gregorios, of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Sung-Jin Sunim, from the Jogye Order, together during the anniversary celebrations of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Korea, visiting a temple and drinking tea. As Jack, who so kindly posted the pictures, originaly taken by his friend Fr Daniel Na, said, the contrast, and lack of contrast, between these two monks is amazing.

It reminded me a lot of last year’s 400-kilometer silent ochetuji pilgrimage, carried out with prostrations after every three steps, from Jirisan to Imjingak, jointly undertaken by Venerable Su Kyung, head monk at Hwagyesa Temple, and two Korean Catholic priests, Fathers Paul Moon Kyu-hyon and Simon Chun Jong-hun. They were joined in the pilgrimage by some 10,000 people, and the purpose of their journey was to help promote the cherishing of life and peace.

Father Mark Kim In-kook, from the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice, said that the pilgrims “showed what religious communities in our society can do for the common good”, and their joint action seems to me to be a fine example of how Buddhists and Christians often work together in a spirit of friendship.

In contrast, many of the English-language Buddhist blogs often express a surprising degree of hostility towards Christianity. But this mostly comes from young converts with little experience of life in Buddhist countries and often with uncomfortable experiences of the Church. Such people are naturally keen to draw boundaries between the Buddhism they’ve adopted and the faiths they’ve left behind.

Of course sometimes it is perfectly necessary to point out differences between Buddhism and Christianity, especially when addressing an audience unfamiliar with one or the other. It is often thought necessary to explain, for example, that Christianity is a religion in which the Truth is revealed, with the job of the follower being to believe, whereas in Buddhism one is to experience truth for oneself.

And yet even this, one of the most basic distictions often drawn, if looked at from a slightly different angle, seems almost to disappear. Yes, Buddhists are to experience truth directly through the practice of wisdom, ethics and meditation, but the Dharma was first revealed through the Buddha. Is that really so different from Christianity, in which the central truth, of God’s love in this case, is first revealed, but which is then to be experienced in the everyday lives of Christians, and developed in ongoing daily practice?

Father Laurence, in The Good Heart, describes this practice:  

through meditation, we begin to experience the indwelling, the fact that Jesus is not only a historical teacher from the past, but now has an inner existence within each human being, as well as a cosmic presence.

The Dalai Lama, in the same book, talks about Buddha-nature and how to perfect it, and compares the Christian ideal of becoming one with the father with how enlightenment is described as becoming of one taste with the dharmakaya.  

But my central point here is not about the nature of enlightenment or the relationship between revealed and experienced truths, or even about the ways in which Buddhism and Christianity share certain features. My point is that Buddhism stands on its own three feet, and while some western practitioners automatically and instinctively look for points of contrast with Christianity, focusing on areas of convergence is a much healthier approach.  

So whilst I had a very different experience of the Church to Carl (during my similarly left-wing youth I often found myself on peace marches and marches for freedom in South Africa and Latin America etc, side by side with good church people, and the Church certainly does more to help the poor than any other organisation I can name), I very much welcome the way he embraces his spiritual heritage.  

Thich Nhat Hanh, in a book called called Teachings on Love, has written that: Buddhist practice can offer effective means to heal, reconcile, and reunite with one’s blood and spiritual families, in order to discover the precious gems in one’s own traditions. Thanks to the practice, people will see that Buddhism and their own spiritual tradition have many things in common, and therefore it is not necessary to reject their own spiritual tradition.  

I don’t think Thich Nhat Hanh here is calling for waves of western Buddhists to return to Christianity. What he’s suggesting is that practitioners make peace with all our traditions, to look for what we can embrace. In this we are lucky to have so many great examples. Father Laurence and the Dalai Lama. Venerable Sukyung and Fathers Paul Moon Kyu-hyon and Simon Chun Jong-hun silently walking across Korea. HE Gregorios and Sung-Jin Sunim. People whose default position is to find areas of convergence and genuine friendliness.  

Links:
Tricycle Community: HE Gregorios and Sung-Jin Sunim
UCAN: Buddhist, Catholic clergy complete 400-km pilgrimage

Here’s one of my favorite folk tales from Korea, with a deep message about life and practice.

     A traveler had spent the night at a guest house deep in the mountains of Korea. He was eager to start out early the next day and get across the mountain range before dark. There was a little snow falling that morning, but it looked as if it would soon stop. As he was getting ready to leave, one of the other guests mentioned that he was going the same way, so they decided to travel together.

     They started up the mountains, and made good progress for a while. However, instead of stopping, the snow seemed to be increasing. By late in the afternoon the snow was getting deep and they were still far from the next village. It was about this time that they came across a man who had collapsed in the snow, apparently from hypothermia.
    The traveler started helping the man up, rubbing his arms and legs, trying to get some life back into him, “Come on,” he said to the other man, “give me a hand getting this guy up on my back. If we take turns, we should be able to get him down the mountain.”
    “Leave him. Carrying him will take too much effort, and he’ll slow us down. We’d better get to the next village, or we’ll be done for as well.”
    “Well, we can’t just leave him here to die.”
    “If you want to kill yourself looking after him, that’s your business. As for me, I’m getting out of here!” With this, the second man took off into the snowstorm.

     There were a few times the traveler wondered if he wasn’t being a fool. But he struggled on through the night with the man on his back. Finally, just after dawn he staggered into a village. 

     Later, he found out that the other man he started out with hadn’t yet arrived, nor was that man ever seen again. It turns out that in trying to save the man who collapsed, the traveler had saved his own life. For in that bitter snowstorm, carrying that man on his back had protected both men’s body heat from the wind and cold, while the effort he made had helped warm them both.
      Ultimately, the one who had focused on his life alone, lost his life. And the one who had been concerned with others, saved his life.

And if you believe that this Earth, this middle realm, functions to sort beings into higher or lower realms, the traveler gained much more than merely his life.

Here’s a song that really touches me. It’s by Johnny Cash, near the end of his life.
It reminds me of the great love he had for his best friend, June, and how hard he was trying to hold to what’s true.

There’s a line or two in this song that I don’t really connect with, but overall this video has such a sense sincerity that after watching it, the usual background noise of whining and petty thoughts seems to fall away.

Namo Amitabul (Amitabha)

Namo Kwan Se Eum Bosal (Kuan Yin)

Namo Ji Jang Bosal (Ksitigarbha)

Namo Seokeomoni Bul! (Shakyamuni)

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