Van Hoa Gia Dinh: "Living Buddha, Living Christ" A Response by John WorldPeace

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A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter by chapter responses:

Chapter One: Be still and know
-A. Religious life is still life
-B. Dialogue: The key to peace
-C. Touching Jesus
-D. Real communication
-E. Interbeing
Chapter Two: Mindfulness and the Holy Spirit
-A. The seed of the Holy Spirit
-B. Present moment
-C. Making peace
-D. I am there for you
-E. The light that reveals
-F. Our true home
Chapter Three: The first supper
-A. To be greatful
-B. Looking into our food
-C. Living in the presence of God
-D. The bread we eat is the whole cosmos
-E. The body of reality
-F. Everything is fresh and new
Chapter Four: Living Buddha, Living Christ
-A. His life is his teaching
-B. Mindfulness is the Buddha
-C. More doors for future generations
-D. The mother of all Buddhas
-E. The daughter of God
-F. We continue to be born
-G. Touching our ancestors
-H. Suffering and the way out
-I. I am the way
-J. I am always there for you
-K. Seeing the way is seeing me
-L. I am understanding and love
-M. Freedom from notions
-N. Seeing the way, taking the path
-O. Your body is the body of Christ
-P. Enjoy being alive
Chapter Five: Communities of Practice
-A. Mindfulness of working
-B. Monastic culture
-C. Community as a refuge
-D. Community as a body
-E. The holy spirit is the soul of the church
-F. The holy spirit is the energy of love and understanding
-G. To be real salt
-H. Are we practicing the true teaching
-I. Jesus needs Christians
Chapter Six: A peaceful heart
-A. Collective awareness
-B. Looking deeply
-C. The highest form of prayer
-D. Understanding brings liberation
-E. Understanding brings compassion
-F. Understanding transforms
-G. Understanding ourselves helps us understand others
-H. Understanding brings forgiveness
Chapter Seven: For a future to be possible
-A. Rerooting
-B. The jewels of our own tradition
-C. Cultivating compassion
-D. Cultivating loving-kindness
-E. The oneness of body and mind
-F. More than one root
-G. Unmindful speech can kill
-H. Mindful consuming
-I. Real love never ends
-J. Practicing and sharing
Chapter Eight: Taking refuge
-A. A safe island
-B. Mindfulness is the refuge
-C. The foundation of stability and calm
-D. Embracing, not fighting
-E. Touching the living Christ
-F. A mini-pure land
-G. Devotional and transformation practice
Chapter Nine: The other shore
-A. Continuation
-B. Manifestation and remanifesting
-C. True faith is alive
-D. Each moment is a moment of renewal
-E. Enlightenment grows
-F. Nirvana is available now
-G. The extinction of notions
-H. More time for your tea
-I. The other shore is this shore
-J. Everything can be spiritual
-K. Touching the living Buddha
-L. Trees and birds preaching the dharma
-M. Rinsing the mouth, washing the ears
-N. The holy spirit can be identified
-O. Touching the ultimate dimension
-P. Touching the water within the waves
Chapter Ten: Faith and practice
-A. Penetrating the heart of reality
-B. Only the son and the holy spirit know him
-C. The substance of faith
-D. Taking refuge
-E. Interior recollection
-F. Afflictions block the way
-G. The abyss of doubt
-H. The original mind
-I. An expression of love
-J. How not to lose the contemplative life
-K. Mindful living is possible
-L. Our original purpose
-M. The well is within us
-N. Religious experience is human experience
-O. Loving God is loving living beings
-P. Empty of what?
-Q. The nature of being
-R. The ground of experience
-S. Concrete prayer
-T. Total surrender
-U. Two types of causation
-V. Who is not unique?
-W. The difference is in emphasis
-X. Real dialogue brings tolerance

FOREWORD

What I have done here has not, to my knowledge, been done before. I have virtually responded line by line to Brother Hanh's book "Living Buddha, Living Christ".

It is not my intention to criticize Brother Hanh. I have never met him except through his books. I have nothing against monks. I have nothing against Buddhists. I have nothing against Vietnamese.

What I have is a perspective with regards to the subject matter of Brother Hanh's book. And my perspective is radically different from his because my life has been and is radically different from his. I have worked and lived in society as an accountant and lawyer, father and husband. I have served in the military. I was born and raised in the United States. I have been divorced and bankrupt. I have had a near fatal heart attack.

At the same time, like Brother Hanh, I have followed a spiritual path all my life. We are about the same age. We are of the same sex.

So what follows is a perspective about spiritual teachings. He has written his perspectives from his position as a monk and I have responded with my perspective as an attorney. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Thế thế Phật Đời đời Chúa

Thich Nhat Hanh,
Living Buddha, Living Christ, Part 1

Religious Life is Life

Twenty years ago at a conference I attended of theologians, and professors of religion, an Indian Christian friend told the assembly, "We are going to hear about the beauties of several traditions, but that does not mean that we are going to make a fruit salad." When it came my turn to speak, I said, "Fruit salad can be delicious! I have shared the Eucharist with Father Daniel Berrigan, and our worship became, possible because of the sufferings we Vietnamese and Americans shared over many years." Some of the Buddhists present were shocked to hear I had participated in the Eucharist, and many Christians seemed truly horrified. To me, religious life is life. I do not see any reason to spend one's whole life tasting just one kind of fruit. We human beings can be nourished by the best values of many traditions.

Professor Hans Kung has said, "Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world." People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result. The second precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the war in Vietnam, is about letting go of views: "Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints." To me, this is the most essential practice of peace.

Dialogue: The Key to Peace

I have been engaged in peace work for more than thirty years: combating poverty, ignorance, and disease; going to sea to help rescue boat people; evacuating the wounded from combat zones; resettling refugees; helping hungry children and orphans; opposing wars; producing and disseminating peace literature; training peace and social workers; and re-building villages destroyed by bombs. It is because of the practice of meditation - stopping, calming, and looking deeply - that I have been able to nourish and protect the sources of my spiritual energy and continue this work.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Part 2

During the war in Vietnam, I saw communists and anti-communists killing and destroying each other because each side believed they had a monopoly on the truth. Many Christians and Buddhists in our country were fighting each other instead of working together to stop the war. I wrote a booklet entitled "Dialogue: The Key to Peace," but my voice was drowned out by the bombs, mortars, and shouting. An American soldier standing on the back of a military truck spit on the head of my disciple, a young monk named Nhit Tri. The soldier must have thought we Buddhists were undermining America's war effort or that my disciple was a communist in disguise. Brother Nhit Tri became so angry that he thought about leaving the monastery and joining the National Liberation Front. Because I had been practicing meditation, I was able to see that everyone in the war was a victim, that the American soldiers who had been sent to Vietnam to bomb, kill, and destroy were also being killed and maimed. I urged Brother Nhit Tri to remember that the G.I. was also a war victim, the victim of a wrong view and a wrong policy, and I urged him to continue his work for peace as a monk. He was able to see that, and he became one of the most active workers in the Buddhist School of Youth for Social Service.

In 1966, I came to North America to try to help dissolve some of the wrong views that were at the root of the war. I met with hundreds of individuals and small groups, and also with members of Congress and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The visit was organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace organization, and many active Christians helped me in these efforts, ,among them Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Father Thomas Merton, and Father Daniel Berrigan. These were, in fact, the Americans I found it easiest to communicate with.

Touching Jesus

But my path to discovering Jesus as one of my spiritual ancestors was not easy. The colonization of my country by the French was deeply connected with the efforts of the Christian missionaries. In the late seventeenth century, Alexandre de Rhodes, one of the most active of the missionaries, wrote in his Cathechismus in Octo Dies Divisus: "Just as when a cursed, barren tree is cut down, the branches that are still on it will also fall, when the sinister and deceitful Sakya [Buddha] is defeated, the idolatrous fabrications that proceed from him will also be destroyed." Later, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Catholic Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, in his efforts to evangelize Vietnam, leaned heavily on the political power of his brother, President Ngo Dinh Diem. President Diem's 1963 decree prohibiting the celebration of Wesak, the most important Buddhist national holiday, was the straw that broke our back. Tens of thousands of lay and ordained Buddhists demonstrated for religious freedom, leading to a coup d'etat and the overthrow of the Diem regime. In such an atmosphere of discrimination and injustice against non-Christians, it was difficult for me to discover the beauty of Jesus' teachings.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Part 3

It was only later, through friendships with Christian men and women who truly embody the spirit of understanding and compassion of Jesus, that I have been able to touch the depths of Christianity. The moment I met Martin Luther King, Jr., I knew I was in the presence of a holy person. Not just his good work but his very being was a source of great inspiration for me. And others, less well known, have made me feel that Lord Jesus is still here with us. Hebe Kohlbrugge, a beautiful Dutch woman who saved the lives of thousands of Jews during World War II, was so committed to helping Vietnamese orphans and other desperately needy children during the war that when her government refused to support this work, she gave them back her World War II medals. Reverend Heinz Kloppenburg, General Secretary of the German Fellowship of Reconciliation, also supported our humanitarian work. He was so kind and so open, I only needed to say a few words to him and he understood everything right away. Through men and women like these, I feel I have been able to touch Jesus Christ and His tradition.

Real Communication

On the altar in my hermitage in France are images of Buddha and Jesus, and every time I light incense, I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors. I can do this because of contact with these real Christians When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own. This quality is essential for dialogue. When participants are willing to learn from each other, dialogue takes place just by their being together. When those who represent a spiritual tradition embody the essence of their tradition, just the way they walk, sit, and smile speaks volumes about the tradition.

In fact, sometimes it is more difficult to have a dialogue with people in our own tradition than with those of another tradition. Most of us have suffered from feeling misunderstood or even betrayed by those of our own tradition. But if brothers and sisters in the same tradition cannot understand and communicate with each other, how can they communicate with those outside their tradition? For dialogue to be fruitful, we need to live deeply our own tradition and, at the same time, listen deeply to others. Through the practice of deep looking and deep listening, we become free, able to see the beauty and values in our own and others' tradition.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Part 4

Many years ago, I recognized that by understanding your own tradition better, you also develop increased respect, consideration, and understanding for others. I had had a naive thought, a kind of prejudice inherited from my ancestors. I thought that because Buddha had taught for forty-five years and Jesus for only two or three, that Buddha must have been a more accomplished teacher. I had that thought because I did not know the teachings of the Buddha well enough.

One day when he was thirty-eight years old, the Buddha met King Prasenajit of Kosala. The king said, "Reverend, you are young, yet people call you ‘The Highest Enlightened One.’ There are holy men in our country eighty and ninety years old, venerated by many people, yet none of them claims to be the highest enlightened one. How can a young an like you make such a claim?"

The Buddha replied, "Your majesty, enlightenment is not a matter of age. A tiny spark of fire has the power to burn down a whole city. A small poisonous snake can kill you in an instant. A baby prince has the potentiality of a king. And a young monk has the capability of becoming enlightened and changing the world."

A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER ONE: BE STILL AND KNOW

A. Religious Life is Life 112699

Twenty years ago at a conference I attended of theologians and professors of religion, an Indian Christian friend told the assembly, "We are going to hear about the beauties of several traditions, but that does not mean that we are going to make fruit salad."

The truth is that all religion is a product of what went before. No religion just sprang from nothing. Every religion had its beginning in the modification of what went before. Like all life in this reality, there is diversity. And as the living creatures on this planet evolve, so the social religious institutions evolve.

When it came my turn to speak, I said, "Fruit salad can be delicious! I have shared the Eucharist with Father Daniel Berrigan, and our worship became possible because of the suffering we Vietnamese and Americans shared over the years."

This is not actually mixing a fruit salad. This was just the sharing of the husks of religion; the rites and rituals. This was not a modification of the intransigent doctrines and dogmas of two bureaucratic religious institutions. Sharing rituals is harmless. Mixing a fruit salad can be deadly.

Some of the Buddhist present were shocked to hear I had participated in the Eucharist, and many Christians seemed truly horrified. To me religious life is life. I do not see any reason to spend one's whole life tasting just one kind of fruit.

It seems obvious that God can hear Christian prayers even if uttered in a Buddhist Temple; and Buddhist prayers in a Christian Church. It is the religious bureaucrats who are horrified that the inner sanction of their respective religions have been defiled by the presence and participation of a non-believer.

We human beings can be nourished by the best values of many traditions.

At the most fundamental level, there is no difference in the teachings of the various religions. At the core all teach "Love one another". Everything beyond this is just commentary. So I think what is being said here is that within each religion one can find the fundamentals of spirituality and those fundamentals are what nourish the soul.

Professor Hans Kung has said, "Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world".

I think more to the point is the statement that, "Until there is peace between the religious bureaucracies, there can be no peace in the world."

People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result.

We each inherit a religion from our parents or our community. And once within that religion there is always an underlying teaching designed to preserve our chosen religious bureaucracy. This is because the primary function of any religion is preservation and only second the spreading of the fundamental teaching of spirituality. I suppose the bureaucratic argument is that without the bureaucracy there would be no one to teach. I would say that without the bureaucracy there would be no one to teach a separatist exclusive belief system that distinguishes those who worship through other religious vehicles.

The second precept of the Order of Interbeing, founded within the Zen Buddhist tradition during the war in Vietnam, is about letting go of views: "Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non attachment from views in order to open and receive others' viewpoints." To me, this is the most essential practice of peace.

This is good advice. Each religion defines the universe in a way that its followers can understand. The diverse people of the world cannot all speak the same language and they cannot at the same time understand the religious metaphors from all the various religions. So each individual listens to the religion that he or she can understand. There are many religions but only one God.

[There are two concepts of God; the personal God and the Infinite Potential. The Infinite Potential is all things and nothing. It is the infinite realm of everything. It is the concept that God is everywhere. "Where can one go an not be a part of God? The answer is nowhere."

The personal God is the God of the West; Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh. This is a personal super being. But that God is a product of the Infinite Potential which manifested him. The personal God is a limited view of God. The Infinite Potential is an all inclusive view.]

B. Dialogue: The key to peace 112699

I have been engaged in peace work for more than thirty years: combating poverty, ignorance, and disease; going to sea to help rescue boat people; evacuating the wounded from combat zones; resettling refugees; helping hungry children and orphans; opposing wars; producing and disseminating peace literature; training peace and social workers; and rebuilding villages destroyed by bombs. It is because of the practice of meditation - stopping, calming, and looking deeply - that I have been able to nourish and protect the sources of my spiritual energy and continue this work.

I have been engaged in the work of fitting into society as an insurance salesman, an accountant and presently as an attorney. I have helped people with all kinds of recurring problems like paying taxes, financial bankruptcy, criminal acts, abuse from others. I have also fathered four children who have to date given birth to four grandchildren. I have experienced the trauma of divorce and its disruption of family and the negative impact on my children. I have fought my ex-wife in a bitter post divorce battle. I was drafted into the U. S. Army two months after graduating from the University of Houston, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1970. I was trained for twelve months as an infantry sergeant to kill the Vietnamese people but at the end of that training I was instead sent to Vicenza, Italy. My first marriage lasted seventeen years and I have now been married to my second wife for eleven years.

I have helped take care of my present wife's ailing father until his death, her mongoloid sister, and I have fought with my wife's other sisters in typical family conflicts. I have been attacked by my ex-wife and consequently had to move to Colorado to remove my children from her influence. I have worked as a day laborer and I have fought legal battles in the court system. I have been well off and I have been without.

It is because of my faith and spirituality that I have endured and grown in each and every one of these environments. I have never lost my faith. I have never complained about my situation. I know from personal experience that there is more to existence than can be easily perceived in this reality. I have been on a lifetime quest for an understanding of the spiritual side of this reality. I have always moment to moment walked in both this reality and the spiritual reality.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is an order to the universe. There is no doubt that I receive help from the spiritual reality. There is no doubt that all things are as they should be and that I am experiencing exactly what I am supposed to be experiencing, and I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.

During the war in Vietnam, I saw communist and anti-communist killing and destroying each other because each side believed they had a monopoly on the truth. Many Christians and Buddhists in our country were fighting each other instead of working together to stop the war.

All my life, in every aspect of the local and world society, I have seen the apathy that permeates humanity. I have seen the vast majority of my fellow human beings foist hatred, prejudice, physical and mental violence on others. Nothing has changed in my lifetime. I hear of nations fighting, religions killing in the name of their God and beliefs, I have seen unfounded racial prejudice and I have seen women treated as chattel. And I have seen the rich ignore the poor, and the healthy avoid the sick, children abused by their parents and parents abused by their children. I have come to believe that nowhere within any society do these hurtful acts not exists. The pain and suffering from war is nothing compared to what I see happening every moment of every single day. The question is how many eyes do others require to see the suffering and how many ears do others need to hear the pain?

I wrote a booklet entitled "Dialogue: the Key to Peace," but my voice was drowned out by the bombs, mortars, and shouting.

I wrote a book entitled "The Book of Peace" and one of the Vice President's of Harper's San Francisco was interested in publishing it. However when it was submitted to his editors they said that Peace does not sell. I was mad. But the editor was right. People's apathy applies in daily life and during times of war. Unless you are directly negatively impacting on someone's life, discussions and considerations of Peace are among the lowest of priorities.

An American soldier standing on the back of a military truck spit on the head of my disciple, a young monk name Nhat Tri. The soldier must have thought we Buddhist were undermining America's war effort or that my disciple was a communist in disguise.

No I think the soldier had depersonalized every Vietnamese in order to justify his committing of murder. I was drafted. I was told that I would kill the yellow man or he would kill me and my friends. I could not avoid the draft without having my life destroyed. I believe that life is transient and that one cannot actually kill anyone. This is the theme of the Hindu Bhavagad Gita. I was prepared to kill. My grandparents were farmers and when you live on the farm you very soon understand that the life of an animal is cheap. I had hunted and killed birds and animals. I had shot them in the guts and rung their necks. I knew that I could kill if someone tried to kill me. During my military training I prepared myself to survive a war that I did not agree with but a war that I would not let destroy my life. I was prepared to murder for my country because I did not want to have to go to Canada and leave my family in Houston, Texas.

Brother Nhat Tri became so angry that he thought about leaving the monastery and joining the National Liberation Front. Because I had been practicing meditation, I was able to see that everyone in the war was a victim, that the American soldiers who had been sent to Vietnam to bomb, kill, and destroy were also being killed and maimed.

I did not need one minute of meditation to know that war was a mixture of genocide and insanity. That it is a failure of leadership at the highest levels that manifests war.

I urged Brother Nhat Tri to remember that the G.I. was also a war victim, the victim of a wrong view and a wrong policy, and I urged him to continue his work for peace as a monk. He was able to see that, and he became one of the most active workers in the Buddhist School of Youth for Social Service.

I am glad that Brother Tri had a choice. I am glad that he chose not to join the insanity. But the policy was defective in both the United States and Vietnam. Nothing justifies war. Nothing. War is no more than human beings murdering other human beings and it can never be justified.

In 1966, I came to North America to try to help dissolve some of the wrong views that were at the root of the war. I met with hundreds of individuals and small groups, and also with members of Congress and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The visit was organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace organization, and many active Christians helped me in these efforts, among them Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Father Thomas Merton, and Father Daniel Berrigan. These were, in fact, the Americans I found it easiest to communicate with.

I never had the privilege of doing any more than reading the works of Dr. King and Thomas Merton. In 1966, I entered the University of Houston. Had I not gone to college ( I intended to go anyway) I would have been drafted to go and fight in Vietnam. On the UH campus at that time there were the radical hippie "end the war" types and the traditional staunch conservative "My country right or wrong" types. In the middle was the vast majority of apathetic observers.

I have never been a joiner and so I did not participate in the activities of either group. I just went about my business of working full time and going to college full time. I wore blend-in clothing and just attended class observing the constant demonstrations and rhetorical exchanges about the war between both large and small gatherings of students.

My feelings at that time were that the hippies had some valid but unrealistic concepts about the war. I tended to view the most radical of the war activists as fearing a stint in the military under any circumstances. After being drafted I well understood what these radicals were afraid of. There was no way that the majority of them would have been able to put up with the strict discipline of the military. This has nothing to do with the morality of murdering other human beings or the potential of being killed or worse, permanently disabled.

My father had been in World War II and my uncles had served in the Army in peacetime. My great uncle was gassed in World War I and I had a relative who served in the American Civil War as another who served in the Revolutionary War. Virtually all the men in my neighborhood who were the age of my father had served in WWII and a lot of them were U.S. Marines. So in the early fifties when I was a child, I would often hear the men of the neighborhood telling war stories. I found these interesting but more than anything I felt that, regardless of the politics, one had an obligation to serve in the military if called on to do so. And more importantly, these neighbors impressed on me the obligation that one had if one lived in the United States and enjoyed its freedoms. I seemed to believe that it was better to serve in an unjust war than to avoid serving one's country.

During the Vietnam war there were alternatives to actually going to Vietnam. One could, at the beginning of the war, avoid being drafted by getting married or going to college. There were also opportunities to go into the National Guard which would significantly reduce the possibilities of going to Vietnam. There was also the possibility of joining the military (as opposed to being drafted) and choosing a military job other than the infantry. And of course there was alternate service and conscious objector status. Most of the hippie (I use hippie metaphorically as a generic ultra liberal mindset) radicals that I knew did not find any of these alternatives acceptable and I viewed that negatively. I felt that to refuse under any circumstance to serve one's country, to make a real commitment, was a form of shirking one's responsibilities. If one accepts the benefits of one's country, one should contribute to the preservation of those benefits in a real way.

So while Brother Hanh was working in the peace movement I was trying to live a normal life in abnormal times. Not only was the Vietnam war going on, the civil rights movement was in full swing. American society was in the throws of radical change and in the Southern states the Civil War mentality was still very real. One has to understand that when my grandparents were young, there were still a lot of civil war veterans alive. And those veterans in the south had not abdicated their racial prejudices just because they lost the war. So discrimination was very real and taken as a given when I was a child.

And here was Dr. King trying to pry loose the death grip that the South had around the African American population. He was moving too fast and he was assassinated because of it.

C. Touching Jesus 112799

But my path to discovering Jesus as one of my spiritual ancestors was not easy. The colonization of my country by the French was deeply connected with the efforts of the Christians missionaries. In the late seventeenth century, Alexandre de Rhodes, one of the most active of the missionaries, wrote in his "Cathechismus in Octo Dies Divisus: " Just as when a cursed, barren tree is cut down, the branches that are still on it will also fall, when the sinister and deceitful Sakya [Buddha] is defeated, the idolatrous fabrications that proceed from him will also be destroyed."

My path to Jesus was rather easy; my parents were practicing Christians and in the 1950's there were no significant (in the sense of large membership) religious institutions in Houston, Texas. This is not really strange because during that same time African Americans could not drink out of the same water fountains as whites or use the same bathrooms. An African American who attempted to enter a white church for purposes other than taking care of the cleaning and maintenance of the building would have been sternly talked to about not returning. If the talk was not enough, no doubt some level of physical violence would have accomplished the goal of maintaining segregation.

So Jesus was easy because there were no real alternatives. Everyone I knew was a Christian.

As regards to the words of Mr. Rhodes, that mindset was applied to the extreme in the Americas. In the Americas starting in the late 1400's, the native populations were exterminated as quickly as possible, their holy places ransacked, their gold melted down and shipped back to Europe, and their sacred texts were destroyed and burned, mostly in the name of Jesus. It was murder then and it is murder now. What happened in Vietnam was just another chapter in the Christian book of arrogance and genocide and oppression.

Later, in the late 1950's and the early 1960's, Catholic Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, in his efforts to evangelize Vietnam, leaned heavily on the political power of his brother, President Ngo Dinh Diem. President Diem's 1963 decree prohibiting the celebration of Wesak, the most important Buddhist national holiday, was the straw that broke our back. Tens of thousands of lay and ordained Buddhists demonstrated for religious freedom, leading to a coup d'etat and the overthrow of the Diem regime. In such an atmosphere of discrimination and injustice against non-Christians, it was difficult for me to discover the beauty of Jesus' teaching.

What is interesting here is that Buddhism preaches non-attachment to the world as a way to its equivalent of the Christian heaven. But it seems that religion is not one of the things that Buddhist should detach themselves from. What is more interesting is that Brother Hanh was or is a Zennist who are extreme in their teachings regarding non-attachment. However, the main thing that strikes me here is that the Buddhists who are perceived as pacifists are not that passive when it comes to Buddhism. From a Western perspective, it seems that Buddhism is much more tolerant and less aggressive that Christianity, Islam and Judaism. But it would be hard to say that Buddhism is a perfect example of non-violence. Although it is not mentioned by Brother Hanh, I believe there was some Buddhists who committed violence in the name of Buddhism during those days.

It was only later, through friendship with Christian men and women who truly embody the spirit of understanding and compassion of Jesus, that I have been able to touch the depths of Christianity.

I think that there is no religion without its share of zealots, its fundamental literalist, its elitist, as well as its share of beautiful souls who see behind the religious metaphors and do good naturally. There is absolutely no combination of human traits that does not exist in every single religion. Every person of every religion has his or her counterpart in every other religion. It is my belief that had a saintly Buddhist been born into a Christian community, he would have become a saintly Christian. Likewise, it is my belief that Christian fundamental literalists were they born in Asia would probably have become fundamental literal Buddhists.

The moment I met Martin Luther King, Jr., I knew I was in the presence of a holy person.

I think that I would have used the word spiritual person as opposed to holy person. The word holy tends to indicate a self-righteousness or an institutional religious bureaucrat. For me ,spiritual persons exists in all social levels of society and in all the various professions. I think that Dr. King would have been just as spiritual had he been a carpenter as opposed to a preacher and the son of a preacher.

Not just his good work but his very being was a source of great inspiration to me.

I think there is a level of admiration for anyone who tries to live his or her convictions as well as an admiration for someone who has dedicated his or her heart and soul to a cause or endeavor. I admire Dr. King for standing up against great hatred, prejudice and injustice. But I cannot say that I was inspired by him. I can only say that he set a significant example for anyone who would stand up for truth in a society living a lie.

And others, less well known, have made me feel that Lord Jesus is still here with us.

Again, there are no doubt that there are people, who because of their association with Jesus, have changed their lives. But I wonder if those same people at the point in time when they found Jesus had been presented with the works of some other great soul would not have gone on to accomplish great humanitarian endeavors under the banner of another religion. I believe that certain people are saintly regardless of the religion they embrace.

Hebe Kohnbrugge, a beautiful Dutch woman who saved the lives of thousands of Jews during World War II, was so committed to helping Vietnamese orphans and other desperately needy children during the war that when her government refused to support this work, she gave them back her World War II medals. Reverend Heinz Kloppenburg, General Secretary of the German Fellowship of Reconciliation, also supported our humanitarian work. He was so kind and so open, I only needed to say a few words to him and he understood everything right away. Through men and women like these, I feel I have been able to touch Jesus Christ and His tradition.

Did these people do these acts because it was their nature and they happened to be Christians? Or did they do it because they were Christians; in the sense that had they been Buddhist they may not have done it. I believe they did these things because they had to and they just happened to be Christians.

I seem to be hearing Brother Hanh stating that he had stereotyped all Christians negatively prior to meeting these people. What is interesting is that Brother Hanh did not look into his own religion and see the dark souls who embrace Buddhism and consider that it was only a few unChristian Christians in positions of power who had caused so much misery. I am surprised that he could not see that the vast majority of human beings want to live in peace and provide for their families regardless of their race, religion or nationality.

D. Real communication 112799

On the altar in my hermitage in France are images of Buddha and Jesus, and every time I light incense, I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors.

In my office, which is in my home, I have pictures of Jesus and figurines and images from not only Buddhism but also Hinduism, Islam and Judaism in addition to masks which to me represent the native american (both north and south) as well as the African religious traditions. I do not consider these icons as representatives of my spiritual ancestors but as representations of spiritual traditions. I also light candles and burn incense. I do this as a reminder of the spiritual reality which is the essence of my being.

I can do this because of contact with these real Christians.

I do this because of a lifetime quest to increase the depths of my spiritual knowing and understanding. I do this because I, like all human beings, am an immortal, infinite spiritual being who is temporarily residing in this reality. I do this to remind me of my true nature and the transience of this reality. I do this so as to reduce the confusion that comes when I forget my oneness with the earth, my oneness with the universe, with God and with every human being presently living on this planet.

When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own.

This is true. Because the all religious traditions are linked together by the common denominators that are the foundation of every religion: Remember you oneness with God, Love one another, Do not judge one another, Ask and receive, search and find, knock and enter. This is true because all human beings are birthed from the same earth and come from the same spiritual essence and are at one with the all inclusive oneness.

This quality is essential for dialogue.

I do not think it is essential but it is undeniably helpful.

When participants are willing to learn from each other, dialogue takes place just by their being together.

I do not think it has anything to do with a willingness to learn. I think it has to do with understanding the experience. And the experience is the non-verbal, non-physical acknowledging of the infinite, immortal being who resides within the physical body of the person in your presence. Dialogue takes place among the entire human race at every instant. The trick is to hear what is not spoken. To see what is not visible. To feel what is not tangible. To experience a wider range of being.

When those who represent a spiritual tradition embody the essence of their tradition, just the way they walk, sit, and smile speaks volumes about the tradition.

I do not agree with this except to the extent that there is much communication that goes on without speaking. I believe that we are spiritual beings first and second, based for the most part on where we were born or the religious traditions that our parents embrace, we become initiated into a religious mindset. It is through that religious tradition that our infinite, immortal being acts upon its environment. So I do not believe that religion impacts on the soul, but that the soul expresses itself through the religion. Therefore, when you meet someone, it is best to filter out the religious facade and open yourself to experience the spiritual essence of the person in your presence.

In fact, sometimes it is more difficult to have a dialogue with people in our own tradition than with those of another tradition.

I think this is true. We tend to not attack what we do not truly understand. One understands the nuances of the religion in which one has been raised but intuitively knows that he or she does not fully understand the religious tradition of others. I think it is true that a person who has been a Christian all his life cannot ever truly incorporate Buddhism into his mindset. That Christian will never be able to know what it was like to live as a child in a Buddhist environment. It is like marrying into a family. You can come to know and love the family, but there will always be this sense of being an outsider.

Most of us have suffered from feeling misunderstood or even betrayed by those of our own tradition. But if brothers and sisters in the same tradition cannot understand and communicate with each other, how can they communicate with those outside the tradition?

It is easy. You communicate with the infinite, immortal soul and look past the husk of religion which is being temporarily embraced by the being in your presence. This goes on both within and without any religious tradition. In fact, it is very possible that two liberal religionist of different religions can better communicate that a fundamental and liberal religionist within the same tradition. Communication is very dynamic and it can never be as pure as a discussion limited to religion. There are even times when two hard core fundamentalist from two different religions will marry and live harmoniously in all aspects of their life with the exception of how they pray and meditate. The diversity of life and the paradoxical beliefs of human beings is part of the beauty of this reality.

For a dialogue to be fruitful, we need to live deeply our own tradition and, at the same time, listen deeply to others.

The word fruitful indicates a need to accomplish some goal. There should be no goal. There should only be the experience. By living deeply, I mean to increase one's awareness of the non-verbal communication that one receives from the soul of another human being. The experience itself is the fruit. The perceived influencing of someone is not as dynamic and fulfilling as increasing one's awareness of the infinite, immortal being who happens to be in one's presence.

Through the practice of deep looking and deep listening, we become free, able to see the beauty and values in our own and other's traditions.

Yes, by concentration and intention we can increase our awareness of the differences in religious traditions. But by even deeper concentration we see past the duality to the oneness of all traditions. It is at this point that one begin to ignore the husk of the fruit and experience the fruit itself.

Many years ago, I recognized that by understanding your own tradition better, you also develop increased respect, consideration, and understanding for others.

This is true. The deeper one goes into one's religion, the better the chance one has of seeing past the religion into the underlying spiritual nature of not just the religion but of all things.

I had had a naive thought, a kind of prejudice inherited from my ancestors. I thought that because Buddha had taught for forty-five years and Jesus for only two or three, that Buddha must have been a more accomplished teacher. I had that thought because I did not know the teachings of the Buddha well enough.

The interesting thing is that the patriarchs of all the dominant world religions taught for about 40 years. Moses led the Israelites for 40 years from the time of the exodus from Egypt to the entry into the land of Caanan. Mohammed taught for about 40 years, Buddha, Bodhidharma, Confucius, Baha'U'llah, and Buddha did also. What is interesting about Jesus is that he only taught for about 3 years but then the apostle Paul took up his ministry and taught for about 35 years. So if one combines the teaching of Jesus with those of Paul, again we have about forty years. So it would seem that it takes about forty years of the patriarch's presence for the establishment of a major religion.

[As an aside, we are now at a time in history when all the major religions are expecting the manifestation of a great soul. The interesting question is ,with the advent of the Internet, how long would it take for the establishment of a new major religion? Unlike all the patriarchs of the major religions, a new messiah (Avatar, Iman, Messiah, Buddha) will not need forty years to spread his (or her) message throughout the world.]

One day when he was thirty-eight years old, the Buddha met King Prasenajit of Kosala. The king said, "Reverend, you are young, yet people call you 'The Highest Enlighten One.' There are holy men in our country eighty and ninety years old, venerated by many people, yet none of them claims to be the highest enlightened one. How can a young man like you make such a claim?"

The Buddha replied, "Your majesty, enlightenment is not a matter of age. A tiny spark of fire has the power to burn down a whole city. A small poisonous snake can kill you in an instant. A baby prince has the capacity of becoming enlightened and changing the world."

The aged should be respected for their longevity but the universe does not always require advanced age of the one through whom the reality of the spiritual realm is communicated. Only those who desire to accept the gift of understanding and seek that understanding and are willing to endure the tribulations of such a gift will receive it. Age is not a factor.

We can learn about others by studying ourselves.

And this is so because all of humanity is linked together on the spiritual level. So if one looks deeply within, one finds all of humanity.

For any dialogue between traditions to be deep, we have to be aware of both the positive and negative aspects of our own tradition.

It is not just a matter of being aware, but more importantly a matter of being willing to acknowledge those negative aspects once one becomes aware of them.

In Buddhism, for example, there have been many schisms. One hundred years after the passing of the Buddha, the community of his disciples divided into two parts; within four hundred years, there were twenty schools; and since then, there have been many more. Fortunately, these separations have, for the most part, not been too painful, and the garden of Buddhism is now filled with many beautiful flowers, each school representing an attempt to keep the Buddha's teachings alive under new circumstances.

The Tao te Ching says that what is flexible endures and what is rigid breaks. This is true of all the major religions. As a new religion spreads into new areas it is modified somewhat by local traditions and adapted to the new environment. The nature of every single thing in this reality is diversity. And the evolution of religious teachings are no exception. As the religion spreads among the diverse populations, those populations modify the teaching or repackage them to meet its own needs and expectations. This is necessary because people need a bridge from the old to the new. There are always the aged who will refuse to change and the younger generation who accept the new ways because they do not have long held preferences for the old beliefs. So the destiny of any teaching, if it has a universal appeal, is to be modified by the local beliefs.

Living organisms need to change and grow.

I do not believe they need to change and grow. I believe it is the nature of all things to survive and to survive change is usually required because everything under the sun is in a constant state of change.

By respecting the difference within our own church and seeing how these differences enrich one another, we are more open to appreciating the richness and diversity of other traditions.

I think by observing how everything changes, one comes to understand that even one's long held beliefs are subject to change. If one accepts change, one finds peace and harmony within. If one opposes the inevitability of change, one becomes an impediment to peace and harmony by trying to hang onto the past. In religious traditions, those who cannot change remain within the confines of the old church, while those who accept change break off into their own splinter group. The tension within the old combined community is relieved as the two views are separated. Sometimes both survive, sometimes neither and sometimes one or the other. It does not matter which survives. The separation served its purpose; peace and harmony was increased.

In a true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.

I do not agree with this. I do not think that a true dialogue consists of anything more than a willingness to listen.

We have to appreciate that truth can be received from outside of - not only within - our own group.

I agree. However, each religion tends to believe that it is the sole possessor of the Truth. Each refuses to acknowledge that it is just taking a turn at understanding the spiritual reality. Each refuses to believe that its doctrine and dogma are just a belief system - no more or less valid than the belief system of any other religion.

If we do not believe that, entering into a dialogue would be a waste of time. If we think we monopolize the truth and we still organize a dialogue, it is not authentic.

I do not believe this. Even the most cursory of dialogues can have long reaching, but not obvious, consequences. As long as there is a dialogue, war tends to be postponed. Remember most of the wars on this planet have an underlying religious motivation.

We have to believe that by engaging in dialogue with the other person, we have the possibility of making a change within ourselves, that we can become deeper.

I personally engage in dialogue to look for the weaknesses in my own belief system. I am looking for the things that I have missed in crafting my spiritual mindset.

Dialogue is not a means for assimilation in the sense that one side expands and incorporates the other into its "self." Dialogue must be practiced on the basis of "non-self". We have to allow what is good, beautiful, and meaningful in the other's tradition to transform us.

Dialogue should not be a means for acquiring new adherents. One should participate in dialogue in order to find the common denominators in both beliefs systems, in order to gain a true understanding as to why the other person believes as he does, and to test the validity of one's own belief system.

But the most basic principle of interfaith dialogue is that the dialogue must begin, first of all, within oneself. Our capacity to make peace with another person and with the world depends very much on our capacity to make peace within ourselves.

I believe that the purpose of dialogue should be to find peace within one's self. I think the beginning point is a realization that one's religion has not been entirely successful in creating true inner peace. It is easy to be at peace with another person if we consider for just a moment that that person may in fact have the answers that we are looking for; Answers that will allow us to increase the peace and harmony within ourselves.

If we are war with our parents, our family, our society, or our church, there is probably a war going on inside us also, so the most basic work for peace is to return to ourselves and create harmony among the elements within us - our feelings, our perceptions, and our mental states.

I agree.

That is why the practice of meditation, looking deeply, is so important. We must recognize and accept the conflicting elements that are within us and their underlying causes. It takes time, but the effort always bears fruit. When we have peace within, real dialogue with others is possible.

When we forget that we are infinite, immortal beings who are at one with the earth, with the universe, with God and with each other, we become confused in the manifestations of this transient reality. And this confusion negatively impacts on our level of internal peace and harmony. If our religion is not solving this problem by reminding us of our spiritual connection, then we need to consider what another religion may have to offer. Regardless of the problem, one's level of peace and harmony can generally be increased by one simply quieting the mind in prayer or meditation. All that we need to know can be found within our own inner being.

Peace and WorldPeace begin within. The only person that anyone really has any control over is oneself. WorldPeace cannot be achieved by imposing it on others. True peace can only be achieved by increasing the level of peace within oneself and that peace will then automatically transfer to those about us.

E. Interbeing 112899

In the Psalms, it says, "Be still and know that I am God." "Be still" means to become peaceful and concentrated. The Buddhist term is samatha (stopping, calming, concentrating). "Know" means to acquire wisdom, insight, or understanding. The Buddhist term is vipasyana (insight, or looking deeply). "Looking deeply" means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears. The result is true insight into the nature of the object.

One does not have to sit and stare at the wall or close one's eyes to meditate. I used to watch my grandmother crochet and I later realized that she was in fact meditating as she sat for hours working the white thread with the long needle. And I also realized that when one does a repetitive task like painting a room or mowing the grass or cutting firewood, one is in fact meditating. One becomes one with the task and often transcends the world when one does these kinds of repetitive moronic things. The only difference between this form of meditation and what is generally thought of as meditation is that these mundane actions do not take place with an intent to reach some level of understanding. These acts are considered just chores or hobbies to be performed. I believe that the soul demands rest from the hectic goings on in day to day life and these tasks are the way that the soul finds relief and the time to reconnect with the Infinite Potential (or God if you will). I think that some form of meditation is essential for one to maintain his or her balance while existing in this reality. I think that meditation is essential to keep from becoming too confused in the manifestations of this reality.

When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it.

This is too logical for me. It is a form of conscious meditation but I think sometimes in performing repetitive tasks one looks up at the clock and can't believe that an hour has past. There is a surrealistic feeling that one has not been present for a period of time. In this form of meditation , one has so deeply meditated that one has lost awareness. This is very different from conscious meditation. One knows that one has meditated if when the task ends one feels renewed somehow. The conscious mind can never understand or define the unconscious experience. If one loses track of time, one has in my opinion achieved the deepest of meditation. At the deepest levels of meditation one loses track of not only time but everything. One regains consciousness and realizes that the room is already painted but there is no real memory of painting it.

Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It "inter-is" with everything else in the universe.

We are a manifestation of the earth. Our bodies manifest from the elements that is the earth. And therefore we are at one with the earth. The earth manifested from the universe and as we are at one with the earth and the earth is at one with the universe, we are one with the universe. The universe manifested from the Infinite Potential which had no beginning and so has no end and which forever manifests all things and then disintegrates all things back into itself. All things and nothing is within the Infinite Potential. From the intangible oneness ,manifests the tangible duality of this reality. As we are at one with the earth and the universe, we are at one with the Infinite Potential (or the omnipotent God if you prefer).

Interbeing is a new term, but I believe it will be in the dictionary soon because it is such an important word. When we see the nature of interbeing, barriers between ourselves and others are dissolved, and peace, love, and understanding are possible. Whenever there is understanding, compassion is born.

I use a term I coined, "Infinite Potential". Within the Infinite Potential all things exists. All things are at one with it. There is nothing that is not a manifestation of the Infinite Potential. Within the Infinite Potential all things are merged into oneness, duality does not exist. But from this oneness all things are manifested and eventually disintegrate back into the oneness. As we are all part of this oneness, manifested by it, at one with it, there is an "interbeing" among not just human beings but all things and no-things. Interbeing is oneness within and with the Infinite Potential. It is when we acknowledge that we are all children of this same God, all infinite, immortal beings of equal birth, that the facade of this reality disappears and we become enlightened to the nature of all things. And this understanding which is very scary at first because there is nothing to hold onto, reconnects with the true nature of this reality and manifests peace within us.

Just as a flower is made from non-flower elements,

And as those tangible elements were manifested from the intangible Infinite Potential

Buddhism is made only of non-Buddhism elements,

And Buddhism is at its core, teachings that are common to all religions

including Christian ones,

As Christianity is at its core, teachings that are common to all religions

and Christianity is made of non-Christian elements, including Buddhist ones. We have different roots, traditions, and ways of seeing, but we share the common qualities of love, understanding, and acceptance.

We have the same (not different) roots but each tradition uses a different set of metaphors to define these common denominators.

For our dialogue to be open, we need to open our hearts, set aside our prejudices, listen deeply, and represent truthfully what we know and understand.

For dialogue to be open, we need to acknowledge the infinite, immortal spirit which resides within every single human being. We need to understand that religious conflict arises over the husk of religion (the rituals and rites, doctrine and dogma) and not over the fruit of religion (which is the teachings of "love one another, acknowledge your oneness with God, do not judge others, ask and receive, seek and find, knock and enter).

To do this we need a certain amount of faith.

To do this we need to let go of our faith in our religion as possessing the only religious and spiritual truth.

In Buddhism, faith means confidence in our and others' abilities to wake up to our deepest capacity of loving and understanding. In Christianity, faith means trust in God, the One who represents love, understanding, dignity, and truth. When we are all still, looking deeply, and touching the source of our true wisdom, we touch the living Buddha and the living Christ in ourselves and each person we meet.

When we acknowledge the Infinite Potential ( a term that is not burdened with preconceived notions about God as defined by any particular religion) and that we are at one with it - the source of not only wisdom, but of all things - we touch not just Buddha and Christ but all the great souls who have visited this reality and all those who have gone before us and all those who presently reside on the planet with us in addition to all those who will come after us. Such is the great mystery of the Infinite Potential.

In this small book, I shall try to share some of my experiences of and insights into two of the world's beautiful flowers, Buddhism and Christianity, so that we as a society can begin to dissolve our wrong perceptions, transcend our wrong views, and see one another in fresh, new ways. If we can enter the twenty-first century with this spirit of mutual understanding and acceptance, our children and their children will surely benefit.

In responding to this small book, I hope to relate some ways to maintain spirituality within the reality of this combative and aggressive plane of existence while at the same time relate some of the deepest and most abstract metaphysical concepts. The Infinite Potential (God) can only be conceived in the abstract because in truth the God we define is not the true God and the God we understand is not the actual God because our minds are not capable of understanding the Infinity of God.

All I can relate is that we are one with God, with the universe, with the earth and with each other and when we accept this oneness ,we will find peace. I can only attempt to relate that the nature of the world is diversity, which is God manifesting the infinite oneness in billions of ways. I can only relate a concept of finding peace among diversity. This reality will always change and will always tend to diversify. But if we can see the common denominators, the common oneness within the diversity, then there is a chance for peace within ourselves and WorldPeace in the world society.

Go To Chapter Two

Go To Table of Contents

A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER TWO: MINDFULNESS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

A.. The seed of the Holy Spirit 112999

A year ago in Florence, a Catholic priest told me that he was interested in learning more about Buddhism. I asked him to share with me his understanding of the Holy Spirit and her replied, "The Holy Spirit is the energy sent by God."

First, the Holy Spirit is not some literal separate entity. The Holy Spirit is a metaphor to help Christians understand that aside from the literal physical Jesus and the personal super being God, there is an intangible energy that permeates things. I would define the Holy Spirit as the spiritual energy that links all human beings (and all living things) together. If one was to compare the Holy Spirit with the air that all humans breathe, the air which enters our physical bodies, the air which is necessary for survival on this planet, the air which each and everyone of us share on this physical plane, the air that one cannot see, then one can better conceive of the Holy Spirit which permeates all human beings on the spiritual plane.

Lastly, I do not see the Holy Spirit as the energy sent by God, but the energy that is God.

His statement made me happy. It confirmed my feeling that the safest way to approach the Trinity is through the door of the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is a Christian metaphor which separates God into three parts, Father (God), son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Early in the church history there was a long and heated debate among the Christian bureaucrats and scholars about whether there was a Trinity or not. Many could not see God in three persons. To them God was One. But in the end, the doctrine of the Trinity got the stamp of validity from the majority of the Christian bureaucracy and then was taught to the lay Christians as fact. Conflict over Trinitarism is part of the reason that the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches split and some Protestant sects still do not acknowledge the Trinity.

The metaphor of the Trinity is just another tool used by the Christian bureaucracy to explain a God who is beyond explanation. The God that can be conceived is not the everlasting God and the God that can be described is not the perpetual God. Therefore, metaphors are used as a tool to describe a God who is beyond definition. The problem comes when the lay Christians begin to believe that the metaphor is a fact, that the Holy Spirit is a real tangible entity.

So what Brother Hanh is really saying is that because Buddhism does not acknowledge a personal God like Jehovah, Allah or Yahweh, he must make comparisons between Christianity and Buddhism using the indefinable concept of God which is most closely identified with the Holy Spirit of Christianity.

In Buddhism, our effort is to practice mindfulness in each moment - to know what is going on within and all around us. When the Buddha was asked, "Sir, what do you and your monks practice?" he replied, "We sit, we walk, and we eat." The questioner continued, "But sir, everyone sits, walks, and eats," and the Buddha told him, "When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we walk, we know we are walking. When we eat, we know we are eating."

I relate to mindfulness as a way of not becoming confused in the manifestations of this reality. Of not being confused into believing that this temporary plane of existence is the everlasting reality. In other words, when we forget that we are infinite, immortal beings who are only temporarily residing in this reality, we lose sight of our immortal nature and become confused in believing that this reality is more than a temporary illusion. When we become confused in the manifestations of this reality, we begin to over value money, we tend to think that because we have a high level of status in society that we are somehow more than the poorest and most ignorant human being. The truth is that we are all infinite, immortal beings of equal birth and the roles that we have chosen in our present life have little to do with the infinite, endless being of our souls.

So mindfulness is a knowing that walking is walking in this reality and this reality is supported by the spiritual reality which is the REAL reality. Mindfulness is never forgetting that what we are experiencing at any moment is only a temporary dream from which we will awaken at the time of our death. And at the time of that awakening we will consider our life as a human being. When one loses his or her mindfulness, he or she becomes more and more like the primal nature of this planet in which the strongest dominate the weak. When one loses one's mindfulness, one loses sight of the fact at the end of each life, death awaits.

Most of the time, we are lost in the past or carried away by future projects and concerns. When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, we can see and listen deeply, and the fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy.

I would agree that the fruits are always understanding, or a remembering that one is only temporarily residing in this reality, but I do not agree that acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy also follow. As a unique individual with a certain set of values, some of which are due to the infinite, immortal spirit that resides within the body (another metaphor) and some which have been imposed by one's family and society, peace will never come in accepting certain things like murder, stealing, and other devious and hurtful acts. One cannot love others who intentionally create pain and suffering for others. These humans can be accepted on a spiritual level but not necessarily on this physical plane. I accept a thief as and infinite, immortal being but I do not accept his stealing and I have no problems locking him up in a cage until such time as he determines that he will live within the laws of human society.

No amount of mindfulness is going to bring anyone to love everyone. Again, I believe that it will bring acceptance but not love. There are those who intentionally inflict pain and suffering on others and I cannot love those individuals. In fact, in my practice of law, I aggressive pursue these people for the negative acts which they have foisted on my clients. And yet I know that even if I get some justice for my client, that other individual will most likely not change one bit and if given the same choices in the future would probably repeat his negative acts. The nature of any particular human being is very difficult to change.

There is unquestionably a large number of individuals who are mindful of their place in this reality but these individuals use their mindfulness not to relieve suffering or to to bring joy but just the opposite: They use their mindfulness to manipulate and control others who are not mindful and who are viewed by these dark souls as little more than prey, as the lion views an antelope.

In the Tao te Ching, it says that the Way (What I call the Infinite Potential) can be used for any purpose. So mindfulness awakens one to the true state of his or her being in this reality but then a choice is present in which the mindful individual chooses to uplift humanity through his or her positive acts of peace and love or to negatively manipulate society for his or her personal gain or pleasure. Yes, there are those who when given the choice of doing good or bad, and there being no extra effort attached to either, will chose to do the negative act. Such is the nature of this reality.

When our beautiful child comes up to us and smiles, we are completely there for her.

If we are mindful of our responsibilities to our children or if we love our children we become mindful of the fact that they will not remain children long and that our opportunities to love them in their capacity as children is fleeting. And if it is our desire to nourish our children with love and attention, then our mindfulness allows us to understand the moment and act with intent to achieve our desires with regards to that child.

To me, mindfulness is very much like the Holy Spirit. Both are agents of healing. When you have mindfulness, you have love and understanding, you see more deeply, and you can heal the wounds in your own mind. The Buddha was called the King of Healers. In the Bible, when someone touches Christ, he or she is healed. It is not just touching a cloth that brings about a miracle. When you touch deep understanding and love, you are healed.

I believe that healing comes more from within that without. Jesus said it many times to those he healed, "It is your faith (or belief) that has healed you." I think that there are those who do not want to be healed or have created their own illness. All suffering is not bad. In fact, suffering sometimes makes us stop and contemplate or mediate on what is happening to us. In other words, the suffering brings on a state of mindfulness. I believe that there are many dynamic factors which cause suffering and sickness and that these factors many times have caused the sickness in order to bring the one suffering to a state of mindfulness. Mindfulness for me is a reconnecting with the spiritual reality and I believe that we must all do this in order to maintain our mental health and well being.

So everyone that is sick does not need or want to be healed. So healing has some dynamics associated with it that are much more complicated than just physical suffering. Those who have to come the point where they are ready to be healed, accept the healing from someone who does not heal them but reminds them (in a soul to soul communication) that they have manifested their own suffering. When one is ready to be healed, one heals. It is wrong for a healer to force healing upon anyone. If one is healed before it is time, they will just get sick again.

The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove, penetrated Him deeply, and He revealed the manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

There is a question of whether Jesus was already awakened to the Infinite Potential at the time of the allegory of the descending dove or whether the dove was the beginning of Jesus' awakening in the same way that the Buddha awakened under the Bo tree. The dove and the Holy Spirit are metaphors for the all inclusive oneness of God. And it was this oneness that both Jesus and Buddha came to understand in their awakening.

Jesus healed whatever He touched.

I do not believe this. In fact, there is a story in the Bible where Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered. And further the entire story of Jesus is one of a rebel challenging the authority of the Jewish religious bureaucracy. Jesus did not choose loving open communication but chose to directly assault the religious hierarchy. The Buddha did the same thing with the Hindu religious hierarchy. It is just that the story of Buddha has not been written the same way the story of Jesus has come down to us.

In fact, one has to consider the violence with which Christianity has imposed itself on human society for the last two thousand years. One has to consider that Jesus set the example of unyielding confrontation with the reigning Jewish authority. So Christianity in a very real sense has continued this tradition of confrontation which Jesus started. All this is justified by Christians because of their belief that Jesus was the son of God himself. And the acts of Christians everywhere, by the power of their belief in Jesus as the Christ, the son of God, have committed some of the most horrific acts ever foisted on mankind.

With the Holy Spirit in Him, His power as a healer transformed many people.

There is no question that many lives have been transformed by Jesus. There is no question that billions of human beings have been awakened to their spiritual nature through the power of Jesus. But there is also no doubt that the legacy of Jesus has also been to commit unbelievable acts of cruelty, injustice, hatred, prejudice, murder and war within the world society. And those Christian soldiers continue to zealously march to this day.

All schools of Christianity agree on this.

History has proven that Jesus was the catalyst for much change within the world society and within the individuals who make up that society.

I told the priest that I felt that all of us also have the seed of the Holy Spirit in us, the capacity of healing, transforming, and loving. When we touch that seed, we are able to touch God the Father and God the Son.

We all have more than just a seed. We are a manifestation of the Infinite Potential, the oneness of all things, the all-inclusive presence which permeates everything and no-things. We all are at one with God and we have the power to heal, transform and love but we also have the power to use that same energy for negative acts against our brothers and sisters.

B. Present moment 120199

Touching deeply is an important practice. We touch with our hands, our eyes, our ears, and also with our mindfulness. The first practice I learned as a novice monk was to breathe in and out consciously, to touch each breath with my mindfulness, identifying the in-breath as in-breath and the out-breath as the out-breath. When you practice this way, your mind and body come into alignment, your wandering thoughts come to a stop, and you are at your best. Mindfulness is the substance of a Buddha.

I came to this practice of breathing late in life after reading about it in almost every book on Eastern Religion. I do not use it as a regularly scheduled discipline but only as needed or desired. When I am in a high stress mode in my job as an attorney, I will sit up straight and begin to concentrate on my breathing. I have also had a near fatal heart attack in which 20% of my heart died and so I cannot allow my emotions to escalate unchecked. When I am confronted with someone lying under oath or another attorney yelling that black is white, I want to fight. Concentrating on deep breathing even for a few moments relaxes me and allows me to regain control of my emotions.

There are other times when I am feeling peaceful, like on a beautiful day, and I will stop and sit comfortably and begin to breath deeply in order to increase the level of peace. In these situations, I will kneel and then sit back on my heels and straighten my back with my hands together in my lap. It is a position that feels very comfortable to me. It is not necessary to sit in the lotus position to achieve the benefits of deep breathing. By deep breathing I mean slowly inhaling to the max and then slowly exhaling to the max. Deep breathing calms the body, mind and soul.

When you enter deeply into this moment, you see the nature of reality, and this insight liberates you from suffering and confusion.

When I focus on breathing deeply, I begin to relax and begin to increase my level of peace. This does not liberate me from suffering but it does reconnect me with my inner being, my connection with the infinite reality, and consequently I emerge to some degree from my confusion in the manifestations of this reality.

Peace is already there to some extent: the problem is whether we know how to touch it.

Peace is already there to an infinite degree: the problem is whether we chose to take a moment to experience it.

Conscious breathing is the most basic Buddhist practice for touching peace.

Conscious breathing is a universal practice which is generally associated with Buddhism (and consequently and unfortunately considered suspect by fundamental Christians).

I would like to offer you this short exercise:

Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.

I would like to offer this exercise:

Slowly breathe completely in, slowly breathe completely out: Repeat

"Breathing in, I calm my body." This is like drinking a glass of cool water. You feel the freshness permeate your body. When I breathe in and recite this line,

For me, reciting complicates the exercise.

I actually experience my breathing calming my body and my mind. In Buddhist meditation, body and mind become one.

Body and mind (and soul) are already one. Breathing deeply and consciously increases one's awareness of this connection and manifests an experience that increases the peace within one's body, mind and soul.

"Breathing out, I smile." One smile can relax hundreds of muscles in your face and make you master of yourself.

Smiling complicates the exercise.

Whenever you see an image of the Buddha, he is always smiling. When you smile with mindfulness, you realize the wonder of a smile.

Agreed.

"Dwelling in the present moment." We recite this line as we breathe in again, and we don't think of anything else.

This is another complication to deep breathing. Peace is an experience and not an intellectual exercise. Reciting lines and working the mind during deep breathing makes deep breathing more intellectual and less experiential.

We know exactly where we are. Usually we say, "Wait until I finish school and get my Ph.D. degree, and then I will be really alive." But when we obtain it, we say, "I have to wait until I have a job in order to be really alive." After the job, we need a car, and after the car, a house. We are not capable of being alive in the present moment. We always postpone being alive to the future, we don't know exactly when. It is possible we will never be truly alive in our entire life. The technique, if we must speak of a technique, is to be in the present moment, to be aware that we are here and now, that the only moment to be alive is the present moment. When we breathe out, we say, "I know this is a wonderful moment." To be truly here, now and to enjoy the present moment is our most important task.

Mindfulness and peace are a journey and not a destination. The objective is to maintain a level of peace even in the most difficult of situations. The objective is to rise above being confused within the manifestations of this reality. Mindfulness is a method of remaining serene even in the most combative of situations.

We can even shorten the verse to six words. As we breathe in, we say to ourselves, "Calming," and as we breathe out, we say, "Smiling." As we breathe in again, we say, "Present moment," and as we breathe out, "Wonderful moment." Practicing this way can help us touch peace right away. We don't have to wait for any other conditions to be present.

As I said above, it can be shorten to consciously slowly breathing in as deep as we can and then consciously slowly breathing completely out.

Here is another exercise to help us touch peace and serenity:

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart.
Breathing out, I smile to my heart.
I vow to eat, drink, and work in ways
that preserve my health and well-being.

As I said above, it can be shorten to consciously slowly breathing in as deep as we can and then consciously slowly breathing completely out.

The moment we become truly aware of our heart, we feel comfort and release right away. Our heart has been working day and night, pumping thousands of gallons of blood to nourish all the cells in our body and preserve our peace, and we know that if our hearts stop beating, we will die. But still, we do not take good care of our heart. We eat, drink, and work in ways that bring about tension and stress. When we touch our heart with mindfulness, we see clearly that a heart in good condition is an element of real peace and happiness, and we vow to live in a way that keeps our heart in good condition.

Being conscious of one's heart beat takes a more concentrated level of calming one's self than does breathing. Breathing needs to be reduced to a minimum in order for one to experience the heart pumping. The noise of deep breathing and the mindfulness of breathing distracts one from mindfulness regarding the heart. The heart takes much more mindfulness to control whereas breathing is easy to regulate and the effects of deep breathing, feelings of relaxation and peace, are experienced immediately.

I do not know why Brother Hanh ended this section which was devoted to mindful breathing with an unexpected on the heart. I have a heart problem that must be controlled by medicines to prevent the buildup of cholesterol in my arteries. And after my heart attack two years ago, through mindfulness, I refused all intrusive surgical procedures from angiograms to by-pass surgery. I consciously changed by diet to a dozen grams of fat per day and absolutely no cholesterol. This dietary change along with the medicines have kept me alive for the last two years.

So I agree with Brother Hanh, to maintain a healthy heart one needs to monitor one's diet. This is not to say that what works for me in this area works for everyone. The human body is a complex biological machine and each one is unique. The point is that one needs to be mindful of not only one's heart but mindful of one's entire body. There is no question that it is easier to find peace in a healthy body than in an unhealthy one.

C. Making peace 120199

We can practice in the same way with our eyes. Our eyes are wonderful, but we usually take them for granted. Every time we open our eyes, we see thousands of marvelous forms and colors.

In order to create peace within one's self, it is necessary to eliminate as much distraction as possible. For me, the eyes are the most distracting sense that human beings have. When my eyes are open, I am flooded with the sight of the infinite miracles that exist in this reality; the almost infinite manifestations of diversity in this reality among plants and animals not to mention the infinite variety of inanimate objects that comprise the landscape. And there are the infinite colors that clothe everything and add to the beauty of even the most desolate places on the planet.

In one sense, we can deeply see if we consider, as we consciously view the world about us, that we are viewing one of the the most magnificent miracles in the universe. This planet is a jewel among the infinite heavens. But if we increase our mindfulness we begin to understand that this beautiful miraculous place is less than a speck of dusk floating within the Infinite Potential of beauty and indescribable magnificence of which we can not even begin to imagine. When one becomes mindful at this level of consciousness, then one should begin to understand and then acknowledge that he or she is an infinite, immortal part of this inconceivable Infinite whole. And it is in this state of mindfulness that one will begin to find true peace.

On the other hand, the eyes when they are mindfully, deeply viewing the visual dimension of reality, are distracting one from seeing even deeper into the oneness of the Infinite Potential. To experience true peace one must withdraw from feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting the manifestations of this reality. And it is the concentration on breathing, with ones eyes closed, in a quiet place, that helps one reach the deepest levels of mindfulness and peace. The true nature of the Infinite Potential (God) cannot be experienced with the conscious mind. It cannot be described in any conscious way. It can only be experienced. And even the experience can only be understood in one way: If one emerges from deep conscious breathing with not just a sense of peace, but some level of euphoria, then one knows that one has touched the intangible essence of God which permeates everything and no-things.

Those who are blind may feel that if they could recover their sight they would be dwelling in paradise, but we who have good eyes rarely take the time to appreciate that we are already in paradise. If we just take a moment to touch our eyes deeply, we will feel real peace and joy.

Those who are blind have their own path to peace and the experiencing of the Infinite Potential that is God. The world of the blind is not the same as the world of the seeing. In fact, studies have shown that those you were blind from birth and then are given sight have a hard time seeing in the same way that those who were born sighted see. Their brains have been programed to experience this reality through their other senses and so when they open their eyes they observe but do not really see. There is a place in meditation where I go with my eyes closed and where the impact on my other senses are minimal. It is in this place that I reach a level of peace and euphoria that I can never reach with my eyes open. So sight is something which distracts us and confuses us in the manifestations of this reality. Sight tends to bind us to this reality whereas closing one's eyes reduces the confusion and allows one to better understand that at its foundation the Infinite Potential is One even though it manifests infinite diversity. The highest level of peace in this reality is within the deepest levels of meditation.

Touching each part of our body in mindfulness, we make peace with our body, and we can do the same with our feelings.

When we understand that each of our senses allows us to survive within this reality, and we consciously understand and are mindful of how each of our senses tends to at the same time confuse us in the manifestations of this reality, we begin to reach a level of wakefulness that gives us peace; as any understanding vanquishes confusion and gives us peace.

There are many conflicting feelings and ideas within us, and it is important for us to look deeply and know what is going on.

It is important not to become confused in the manifestations of this reality such that one believes that this reality is THE REALITY. It is important in the seeking of peace that one understands one's true nature as an infinite, immortal spirit only temporarily residing in this magnificent reality.

When there are wars within us, it will not be long before we are at war with others, even those we love.

War within, or as I call it, confusion within the manifestations of this reality, does tend to increase the level of confusion in our environment. If we are confused, we confuse those about us. If we are at peace, we tend to transfer that peace to others. Peace within our environment, and WorldPeace in society at large, is a result of the level of peace in the six billion individuals human beings who presently reside on this planet. There will never be a perfect peace within one's body and mind and so there will never be a perfect peace in society. In fact, peace on any level is difficult to attain in this reality where the primal nature is such that the strong tend to victimize the weak. All that we can achieve is to increase the level of WorldPeace in society by decreasing our own individual confusion and thereby increase our personal level of peace.

The violence, hatred, discrimination, and fear in society water the seeds of the violence, hatred, discrimination, and fear in us. If we go back to ourselves and touch our feelings, we will see the way that we furnish fuel for the wars going on inside.

Yes, this is the unfortunate truth of this reality. We are each like lighted mirrors. We give off our light which is reflected in the mirrors of others who reflect back our own light as well as add to it their own light and pass it on to others. So when the level of peace increases just a bit within the individual, the repercussions are magnified almost infinitely in society. So a little peace within will always translate into a lot of peace without.

Meditation is, first of all, a tool for surveying our own territory so we can know what is going on.

Meditation is a tool for withdrawing from our confusion within the manifestations of this reality.

With the energy of mindfulness, we can calm things down, understand them, and bring harmony back to the conflicting elements inside us. If we can learn ways to touch the peace, joy, and happiness that are already there, we will become healthy and strong, and a resource for others.

If we will take the time to meditate for just a few minutes when we find ourselves stressed, we will remember that our stress, or lack of peace, is due to the fact that we have become confused in the manifestations that have appeared in our environment; both internal and external environment. If we become mindful of our place in this reality and how it relates to the Infinite Potential (or God's entire realm) we will find peace in this awakened state of understanding and that peace will permeate all that we are and we will increase our health and strength but more importantly we will become a beacon of peaceful light within the confusion of the human society.

D. I am there for you.

The most precious gift that we can offer others is our presence.

Not necessarily. There are some who would say the most precious gift would be to allow them the peace of being alone, of being out of the presence of other human beings, of focusing on being at one with the Infinite Potential, of returning to the womb.

When our mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.

There is no doubt that the level of love increases as we embrace others with it. But we do not have to be physically present to do this. All we have to do is to think of someone and send them love. They will feel it. It will uplift them even though they may not become consciously aware of it. We are all connected. We are one with each other. And when we become mindful of loving another, the the level of love increases within the whole of humanity.

If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.

Life is limited by time. We cannot make ourselves available without giving up time spent on something else. And just because we are ready to love someone, it does not mean that they are in a position to receive it. There are times that even love can become irritating. So sending thoughts of peace and harmony and love to be available when another is ready to embrace it seems to me to be the better practice. If I am in a peaceful place, I may not want to become grounded with the imposition of love. Because there are some places in the mind that transcend love itself and to which love cannot begin to be compared.

When your beloved is suffering, you need to recognize her suffering, anxiety, and worries, and jsut by doing that, you already offer some relief.

This is true. But suffering is the result of the body or mind trying to shed some disharmony. And unless the body or mind goes through a certain process, the disharmony cannot be vanquished. Sometimes it is necessary to embrace the pain to vanquish the pain. Sometimes it is necessary to embrace the darkness in order to overcome it. At these times, when one is embracing the darkness, one does not want to be disturbed by the light. A simple metaphor would be: If you are fixing a flat tire on your car in heavy traffic, you do not want someone to come up and tell you how wonderful it is to have a car.

Mindfulness relieves suffering because it is filled with understanding and compassion.

I think it is good to always be mindful of increasing the peace and harmony on the planet. And I believe that mindfulness does manifest peace, understanding and compassion. But I sometimes think that it is better to add ones energy to a situation which already is manifesting peace and harmony as opposed to injecting that kind of energy into a black hole.

When you are really there, showing your loving-kindness and understanding, the energy of the Holy Spirit is in you.

The energy of the Holy Spirit is always in you. It is impossible to separate one's self from it. What is more correct is that when you allow yourself to become mindful, you bring to consciousness the oneness (Holy Spirit) in which you reside.

That is why I told the priest in Florence that mindfulness is very much like the Holy Spirit. Both of them help us touch the ultimate dimension of reality.

I would say that mindfulness reminds us ofour oneness, of the Infinite Potential, of the Holy Spirit. Mindfulness is the act of bringing to consciousness the true reality from which all things manifest, to which all things are connected and interrelated. Mindfulness is the door to increasing the peace and harmony in our lives and consequently in the world.

Mindfulness helps us touch nirvana, and the Holy Spirit offers us a door to the Trinity.

Mindfulness helps us touch nirvana, of which the Holy Spirit is a manifestation. The Trinity is a mechanical construction of the mind. So is the Holy Spirit and Nirvana but these two concepts are more abstract as is the true reality. The Trinity is just Christian doctrine. It is cold logic.

E. The light that reveals

When John the Baptist helped Jesus touch the Holy Spirit, the Heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and entered the person of Jesus.

Actually Jesus was already in touch with the Holy Spirit (Infinite Potential) and was mindful of it. What was actually happening was that John was able to recognize it due to his own mindfulness.

He went to the wilderness and practiced for forty days to strengthen the Spirit in Himself.

Actually he went to the wilderness to prepare himself for his new life. Jesus had left his old life behind when he was baptisted by John and was now entering a new life. Having made the commitment, the baptism being a symbolic ritual confirming his metamorphosis, it was time to reorient, to get away from everyone and everything in order to clearly see and contemplate his future. And this new clarity of vision was in part due to increasing his mindfulness or his consciousness of the ever presence of the Holy Spirit as well as learning how to get into harmony with it and to better flow with his new life's work.

When mindfulness is born in us, we need to continue to practice if we want it to become real solid.

When we awaken to the reality of the Holy Spirit (Infinite Potential), we realize that we are at one with all things. We are at one with the absolute essence that permeates all things and from which all things manifest and back into which all things eventually disintegrate. We also understand the power of this energy. The power to create our own destiny and to bend the future to some extent. And most importantly to be aware that we are at one with the Infinite Potential. However, we must also be mindful that we cannot constantly reside in this energy because we must get on with living our physical lives. Had we wanted to bask completely in the Infinite Oneness we would have never incarnated into our present lives but would have remained in spirit. It is important to realize that we live in two world simultaneously. We live in the transient physical world but our real essense resides within the Infinite Potential. Mindfulness is realizing this moment to moment and therefore not becoming confused in the manifestations of this reality such that we begin to think this transient physical reality is the ultimate reality.

When we lose our mindfulness we become lost in this reality. But there is nothing to fear in becoming lost. We are infinite beings and at the end of this life, no matter how confused we have become, we die; and when we die we are reawakened to the true reality. Some reawaken quicker than others but within an infinite universe, it does not matter whether we awaken in an hour or an eon.

Really hearing a bird sing or really seeing a blue sky, we touch the seed of the Holy Spirit within us.

When we quiet the mind and consider the song bird and the song we begin to transcend this physical reality and begin to see the oneness of all things. We see past the physical bird and listen past the physical song to that essence that underlies all things; the Infinite Potential. When we take a few minutes a day or twenty minutes a week to go to that wonderous place where all is peace and harmony compared to the aggression of this reality, we create peace and harmony in our physical and mental lives and more importantly we do not become confused in the manifestations of this reality where we seldom find peace and harmony.

Children have little difficulty recognizing the presence of the the Holy Spirit.

This is true because the longer one lives in this reality the more one is conditioned by this reality. The longer one lives the more rules and regulations, the more reality that one becomes subordinated to. At birth we are in a state of true freedom. We have just come from that spiritual reality and we are more stongly connected to it. But awakening into this world at birth one feels the heaviness of this world. In time, we gain control of our body and then our thoughts but the social order of things begins to confine and imprison us in conventional thought. We are taught to live in this reality and to ignore the spiritual reality as unimportant; if we are even allowed to acknowledge its existence. And then, if we are fortunate, and many of us are, we awaken to the truth that this reality is just a place where we temporarily reside. We come to understand that this is just a dream from which we will one day awaken. And we can experience, if we try, a glimpse of the essence from which we came and we can see the oneness of all things within that infinite reality. Children experience that reality but they are not conscious of it. One must age into adulthood before one can become conscious of the true nature of all things. Children experience, adults, if they are mindful, contemplate and in contemplation avoid becoming confused in the manifestations of this reality.

Jesus said that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, we must become like a child.

This means that children live life on a much simpler level. The further we go back into our childhood the more basic our reality. And if we continue to go back to the moment of birth and then back a bit farther we see ourselves move from confusion in all the manifestation of this reality with its rules and self imposed restrictions to a reality where it is not even necessary to maintain our physcial bodies. And if we continue on we begin to merge ourselves back into the womb of the the Infinite Potential from which we all manifest. We become one will all things and yet we maintain our separate identity. This is another of the great mysteries that our minds can never solve because it is a reality to which nothing on this plane of existence can be compared.

When the Holy Spirit is in us, we are truly alive, capable of unserstanding the suffering of others and motivated by the desire to help transform the situation.

The Holy Spirit is always with us. It it impossible to separate ourselves from it because we have manifested from it. The Holy Spirit is not something separate; but the womb within which all things exist. The Holy Spirit is the same as the Infinite Potential. We have used many names to describe the same reality.

I would not say that we become truly alive but I would say that we become more conscious. More awake. We expand our reality to include more than the tangible manifestation with which we occupy so much of our time. We begin to see the spiritual reality that supports and nurtures and manifests the physical reality. And if we continue farther into this reality we begin to experience it without knowing it. We reach a place where we feel better even though we cannot know why.

In this place, we begin to see the true nature of suffering and we also realize that suffering is a relative matter. What some would consider suffering others do not. Some people suffer if they do not have expensive clothing. But there are some things such as cancer and other serious illnesses that the majority of humans consider real suffering. And we do become motivated to ease the suffering of others. And yet we must be careful in imposing our reality on others. It is just possible that others are suffering because they are in the process of a new awakening through their suffering and if we intervene we may prevent them from finding the path they are looking for. Sometimes it is only through suffering that we can awaken. I do not think that I could eat if someone next to me were starving. And in that sense, I would give that person what I had to ease their suffering. But many times I should limit my involvement to simply allowing someone to know that I am available to help them if they ask. This is much different than trying to impose my help on them. These questions have to be answered by each of us as we are confronted with these specific situations. All I am saying is that imposing our reality on others is not always in the sufferer's best interest and we need to be mindful of that.

When the energy of the Holy Spirit is present, God the Father and God the Son are there. That is why I told the priest that touching the Holy Spirit seems to be a safer way to approach the Trinity.

The Trinity is just a Christian metaphor that religious scholars came up with in order to explain the nature of God. It is a burden which Christian have to wrestle with. There is no literal father or literal Holy Ghost but there was a physical son in the person of Jesus. The idea of fatherhood is a term used in a patriarchial society. Had those scholars of old lived in a matriarchial society they would have said Mother, Son and Holy Ghost. And if they had lived in an egalitarian society they would have said Father, Mother, Son and Holy Ghost. It only takes a moment to see that rigid Christian doctrine, as with most religion doctrine, tends to confuse those who are seeking to understand the nature of God, the Infinite Potential. It fact the concept of Father God tends to subordinate women in a society because they are given the impression that behind this reality, the masculine force prevails. Of couse the Infinite Potential is neither masculine or femine unless we define it as that. The Infinite Potential is an indivisible oneness which is hard for us to conceive because we define the physical reality in terms of duality; light and dark, big and small, high and low, mother and father.

Discussing God is not the best use of our energy.

This statement needs to be qualified. Discussing God is not the best use of our energy at every single moment. There are times when we need to be focused on other things and our contemplation of God needs to be subordinated to some other task.

If we touch the Holy Spirit, we touch God not as a concept but as a living reality.

We are the Holy Spirit and we are God and we are the Infinite Potential in the sense that these are all-encompassing concepts. These are just different words which try to communicate the same idea. That idea being that there is some underlying essence of all things. And in the sense that we have manifested from it, we are at one with it and therefore we are it.

In Buddhism, we never talk about nirvana, because nirvana means the extinction of all notions, concepts, and speech.

I think that Buddhist talk a lot about nirvana. If they did not, then there would be no such concept. How could Buddhist have ever defined nirvana without discussing it? The truth is that the Buddha was focused on this reality and for the most part refused to discuss the spiritual reality. This is the real reason that Buddhist do not dwell on nirvana or what Christians may call Heaven.

We practice by touch minfulness in ourselves through sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindful eating, and so on. We observe and learn to handle our body, breathing, feelings, mental states, and consciousness.Living mindfully, shining the light of our awareness on everything we do, we touch the Buddha, and our minfulness grows.

If one goes to the exteme of mindfulness in this reality one become immobile. One becomes paralysed in meditation whether it be sitting, standing or walking. And then mindfulness disconnects one from this reality to such a degree that one cannot perform even the most basic of functions without drifting into meditation.

We live in a physical reality and I believe we are here because we choose to be. At some point in the future, we will leave this reality in death and then we will begin to truly experience the spiritual reality. As long as we are a part of this reality, we need to live in this reality. We need to be mindful that this reality is not the true reality or the ultimate reality but as long as we are existing in this reality we need to give up the thought of truly experiencing the spiritual reality. We cannot truly experience that reality without discarding our body.

We are only temporarily residing in this reality and we only need to become mindful of the spiritual reality to the extent that this physical reality is not the true reality but just a temporary dream which we are experiencing. When we are not mindful of this, we begin to think this reality is THE REALITY and then become confused in it such that we begin to believe that we are separate from others and then we are in truth better or worse than others. We try to possess things which are all in a state of deterioration. Nothing lasts in this reality. It is all about change. Everthing is in the process of manifesting or disintegrating. So how can this be the ultimate reality. The ultimate reality does not change. The ultimate reality manifests out of its essence and disintegrates all things back into its oneness. This is the way it is. There was no beginning and there will be no end. And we are part of this, we are a manifestation of it. And for a time, within this reality we are able to gain a perspective of the Infinite Potential but it is only a perspective from this reality and could never be an all encompassing view. In death, where we are free of a physical body, we gain a broader perspective but we are still, even in spirit, viewing the Infinite Potential through a pinhole that is limited by our consciousness. And each reality has its own limits of consciousness.

F. Our true home 100600

The word "Buddha" comes from the root buddh, which means to wake up.

Awake means a conscious awareness of the fact that this physical reality is only temporary and it is manifested from the intangible Infinite Potential. Awake means an understanding and acknowledgment that there is an intangible reality which supports and impacts on this physical reality. In its simplist definition, to wake up means to acknowledge a spiritual reality.

A Buddha is someone who is awake.

Almost everyone is consciously awake to some degree. Some are more awake than others. This is no different than any other human trait where some have a natural ability to create art, or do math, or play sports, etc.

When Buddhists greet one another, we hold our palms together like a lotus flower, breathe in and out mindfully, bow, and say silently, "A lotus for you, a Buddha to me."

The question has to be asked why Buddhists do not greet everyone, including non Buddhist, in the same manner.

This kind of greeting produces two Buddhas at the same time.

Everyone is a Buddha. Some are just more awake at any given moment than others.

We acknowledge the seeds of awakening. Buddhahood, that are within the other person, whatever his or her age or status.

Truly this mindset should not be reserved only for fellow Buddhists.

And we practice mindful breathing to touch the seed of Buddhahood within ourselves.

Mindfulness leads to greater awakening. No matter if you are painting a room or fishing or simply walking down a quiet road. Any moronic task which relieves the physical body of having to concentrate on what it is doing generally shifts one into a mindful state. The only difference with Buddhist is that they realize what is happening. They realize they have shifted into a meditative state. Most people just feel they are relaxing and do not associate any real religious/spiritual overtones to it.

Sometimes we can touch the Holy Spirit or Buddhahood when we are alone, but it is easiest to practice in a community.

I agree with this. It is my experience that when I am meditating with a group, I am able to go deeper into mindfulness than when I am alone. There is something powerful associated with many minds focusing on mindfulness at the same time and in the same place. I cannot speak for others in this regards, but I suspect that it is true. I do not have this experience in a religious exercise other than meditation or group prayer. But for Christians in general the time devoted to silent prayer is usually no more than a few minutes; which is about the same as meditation, except that prayer to me is associated with trying to manifest something and mediation is just a relaxing into the womb of oneness from which all things have manifested.

That night in Florence I gave a lecture at the priest's church, and more than one thousand people came. There was a real feeling of mutual understanding and community.

There is always some level of uplifting or increased mindfulness when human are gathered for a common purpose.

A few months later, after attending a retreat in Plum Village, the community o f practice (Dangha) where I live in France, a Catholic priest from North America aske me, " Thay, I see the value of minfulnes practice. I have tasted the joy, peace, and happiness of it. I have enjoyed the bell, the walking, the tea meditation, and the silent meals. But how can I contue to practice when I get back to my church?"

I asked, bhim, "Is ther a bell in your church?"

He said, "Yes."

"Do you ring the bell?"

"Yes."

"Then please use your bell as a bell of mindfulness, calling you back to your home."

When I was a young monk in Vietnam, each village temple had a big bell, like those in Christian churches in Europe and America. Whenever the bell was invited to sound (in Buddhist circles, we neve say "hit" or "strike" a bell), all the villagers would stop what they were doing and pause for a few moments to breathe in and out in mindfulness. At Plum Village, every time we hear the bell, we do the same. We go back to ourselves and enjoy our breathing. Breathing in, we say, silently, "Listen, listen," and breathing in, we say, silently, "This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home."

One can use any number of things to remind oneself to be mindful for a moment. It can become a habit when we wake up each morning. It can become a habit each time we sit down to eat, when we buckle our seat belts, when we brush our teeth, when we greet someone. The more times that we add to the list of times to be mindful, the closer we will become to being mindful all the time and consequently live mindfully in the present in everything we do. Christian do this when the constantly remind themselves of Jesus' presence.

Our true home is in the present moment. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle (goal) is to walk on the green earth in the present moment. Peace is all around us - in the world and in nature-and within us-in our bodies and our spirits.

The best way for me to remember this is to constantly remind my self that I am one with the earth, one with God, one with everyone. When we consider that we are one with the earth and expand our minds to embrace this thought, we cannot help but feel the peace when we take a deep breath of air which we all share. When we look at the stars at night, we cannot help but remember our oneness with God. When we attend church ,we should be mindful of the peace that everyone present is seeking and hopefully experiencing.

Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed.

Once we learn to be mindful of our oneness at every moment, inner peace will be easier to achieve and maintain in our daily lives.

It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice.

It is a matter of practicing faith which really means practicing being consciously aware of even the mundane things in our life like the sky and the earth, a breeze, the warmth of the sun and the smell of the rain as we move through our daily tasks.

We need only to bring our body and mind into the present moment, and we will touch what is refreshing, healing, and wondrous.

The more things that we can keep in our conscious, the more awake we are. If we can smell the air while we are talking to someone, or experience the temperature of the room while we are working, or see the infinite immortal soul in everyone we meet regardless of the nature of our encounter with them, then we have expanded our mindfulness.

I asked the priest, "In you church, do you sometimes share a meal? Do you have tea and cookies?"

"Yes."

"Please do it in mindfulness. If you do, there will be no problem at all. When mindfulness is in you, the Holy Spriit is in you, and your firends will see it, not just by what you say, but through your whole being."

When you are mindful, you are living in harmony with all that is about you. And when you are in harmony your presence will give off an aura of peace which others cannot help but experience. A remembering of your oneness with others has a tendency to send out a non verbal message of acceptance which is experienced by others. And your peace increases the peace within them. It is just the opposite of putting on an angry face and experiencing the tension of others. Peace comes in being moment to moment mindful of our oneness with each other, with God and with the earth.

Go To Chapter Three

Return To The Table of Contents

A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER THREE: THE FIRST SUPPER

A.. To be Greatful 100600

During a conference on religion and peace, a Protestant minister came up to me toward the end of one of our meals together and said, "Are you a grateful person?" I was surprised. I was eating slowly, and I thought to myself, Yes, I am a grateful person. The minister continued, "If you are really greatful, how can you not believe in God? God has created everything we enjoy, including the food we eat. Since you do not believe in God, you are not grateful for anything."

I think the problem here is that western religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) personalize God as an anthropomorphic being. Buddhist do not use the term God because they are more in tune with the Infinite nature of what the western religionist would call the omniscience aspect of God. The infinite God, what I refer to as the Infinite Potential (from which all things manifest and back into which all things disintegrate) is what western religionist would define as the omnipresent omniscient aspect of their personalized God (Jehovah, Allah). The Buddhists just do not give any consideration to this personal aspect of God as most western religionist do not give much consideration to the unknowable all pervasive aspects of God. It is difficult for western religionists to pray to or meditate upon a God that has no anthropomorphic aspects. Buddhists relate to the abstraction of God and western religionist relate to the tangible being aspect of God. To Buddhists it is difficult to limit God to any kind of definable, describable entity.

What is more unfortunate in this exchange is the arrogance of the Protestant minister in essentially discounting Buddhism for failing to personalize God. It seems that for the minister, Buddhism is really not a religion because there is no emphasis on a personal God. And yet Buddhist acknowledge the God (Buddha) in everyone. So Buddhist are relating to the all inclusive oneness of the Infinite Potential (God) which is generally a much more expanded concept of God than the limited anthropomorphic concept of God familiar to western religionist.

Further, I personally incorporate the personal and infinite concepts of God when I consider the Infinite Potential. The Buddhist have no word for God because the word God is inseparable from the concept of a super being. The problem is there is no common term and this is why I coined the term Infinite Potential. For me, God is a manifestation of the Infinite Potential. All things are a manifestation of the Infinite Potential. God is at one with the Infinite Potential and we are at one with God and the Infinite Potential. The western religionist just feels more comfortable connecting with the personal aspects of the infinite nature of God and the Buddhist don't. It is just a matter of looking at the literal aspect of God as opposed to the abstract aspect of God.

I thought to myself, I feel extremely grateful for everything.

But it is to the Infinite Potential to which you feel grateful, not a super being.

Every time I touch food, whenever I see a flower, when I breathe fresh air, I always feel grateful.

This is because Buddhists feel at one with the Infinite Potential whereas western religionist focus on the separate personal aspects of God and therefore they feel separate from God as opposed to existing within or a part of God.

Why should he say that I am not?

Because Buddhists do not limit the Infinite Potential to a personalized God.

I had this incident in mind many years later when I proposed to friends at Plum Village that we celebrate a Buddhist Thanksgiving Day every year. On that day, we practice real gratitude -- thanking our mothers, fathers, ancestors, friends, and all beings for everything.

The problem here is that I do not think that Brother Hanh even understood what the minister was saying. Mothers, fathers, ancestors, friends, and all beings are in the western mind created by God. God is the ultimate provider in the western religious mind. God is a limited concept of the Infinite Potential. So Brother Hanh is giving thanks to only the earthly providers of food and not the ultimate provider. Therefore, in the minister's mindset, Brother Hanh is not grateful.

Since Brother Hanh feels a part of the whole (oneness) of the Infinite Potential and at one with all things, he does not see himself separate from a personalized God and so cannot conceive of being grateful to an aspect of the Infinite Potential (God) that he cannot relate to.

If you meet the Protestant minister, I hope you will tell him that we are not ungrateful.

I will tell him that you are still not grateful to his concept of a personalized God.

We feel grateful for everyone and everything.

But the minister was not talking about being grateful for everyone and everything but he was talking about being grateful to his personal God for everyone and everything.

Every time we eat a meal, gratitude is our practice. We are grateful for being together as a community. We are grateful that we have food to eat, and we really enjoy the food and the presence of each other. We feel grateful throughout the meal and throughout the day, and we express this by being fully aware of the food and living every moment deeply. This is how I express my gratitude to all of life.

And I think all of life here could be used to refer to the Infinite Potential. Again, Brother Hanh feels at one with All There Is, the Infinite Potential, and not separate from God, a manifestation of the Infinite Oneness. Since Brother Hanh is at one with God, he does not feel obligated to be grateful to the personal aspect of God but seeks to become more mindful of the all inclusive omniscience of God (the Infinite Potential).

And I think this inability of western religionist to feel at one with God and the inability of Buddhist to feel separate from God is the source of much confusion between the two groups of religionist.

B. Looking into our food. 100700

Mindful eating is an important practice. It nourishes awareness in us. Children are very capable of practicing with us. In Buddhist monasteries, we eat our meals in silence to make it easier to give full attention to the food and to the other members of the community who are present. And we chew each morsel of food thoroughly, at least thirty times, to help us be truly in touch with it. Eating this way is very good for digestion.

What Brother Hanh is doing is meditating while eating. We can practice the same thing when driving, when walking, when working (if we are in a repetitive job), or painting or doing most anything that requires little concentration. However, in life outside the monastery, one has other duties and obligations which generally prevent spending this much time eating a meal. Life in a monastery is busy I am sure, but probably not like living in a fast moving society where the majority of people must work and raise a family. Outside the monastery, we have to find other vehicles upon which to practice our mindfulness.

Before every meal, a monk or a nun recites the Five Contemplations: "This food is the gift of the whole universe -- the earth, the sky, and much hard work. May we live in a way that is worthy of this food. May we transform our unskilled states of mind, especially that of greed. May we eat only foods that nourish us and prevent illness. May we accept this food for the realization of the way of understanding and love."

Many religious families have the habit of saying a prayer before eating. The prayers are different but they have the same effect of reminding us that we are part of something which is much more than ourselves. Regardless of religion, prayers and mediations such as the one above increase our mindfulness.

Then we can look at the food deeply, in a way that allows it to become real. Contemplating our food before eating in mindfulness can be a real source of happiness.

I think it can be a source of peace. To consider that we must eat that which the earth produces to sustain our bodies should help us to be mindful of the fact that we must honor the planet or we will surely die. Without food we starve, without air we suffocate and without water we die of thirst. In that sense, the earth is our mother and we must honor her and not destroy her ability to nourish us.

Every time I hold a bowl of rice, I know how fortunate I am. I know that forty thousand children die every day because of the lack of food and that many people are lonely, without friends or family. I visualize them and feel deep compassion.

In all that we do, we should be mindful that there are others who are not as fortunate as ourselves. Many of the basic things that we have, food, clothing and shelter, are not possessed by many millions of people. However, after becoming mindful of this, we need to ask ourselves what we can do to reach out to others.

You do not need to be in a monastery to practice this. You can practice at home at your dining table.

This is true. No matter where you are when you partake of a meal, you can practice mindfulness of what food means to you and what the lack of food means to others.

Eating mindfully is a wonderful way to nourish compassion, and it encourages us to do something to help those who are hungry and lonely.

And since many of us eat several times a day, it should be easy to maintain this mindfulness.

We needn't be afraid of eating without having the TV, radio, newspaper, or a complicated conversation to distract us. In fact, it is wonderful and joyful to be completely present with our food.

If we have time to be fully present when eating that is good. If we do not have time to do this, then we can use other daily tasks to practice our mindfulness. If one really wants to become mindful while eating, one could prepare one's food and meditate and pray as one cooks.

C. Living in the presence of God 100700

In the Jewish tradition, the sacredness of mealtimes is very much emphasized. You cook, set the table, and eat in the presence of God. "Piety" is an important word in Judaism, because all of life is a reflection of God, the infinite source of holiness.

And this in truth applies to all religions.

The entire world, all the good things in life, belong to God,

Actually all things manifest from God. God does not possess things. All things are God.

so when you enjoy something, you think of God and enjoy it in His presence.

I think many people who are in the process of truly enjoying something thank God for the blessing of joy.

It is very close to the Buddhist appreciation of interbeing and interpenetration. When you wake up, you are aware that God created the world. When you see rays of sunlight streaming through your window, you recognize the presence of God. When you stand up and your feet touch the ground, you know the earth belongs to God.

The problem with the world presently is the overemphasis on ownership. And so I dislike relating God to ownership. Ownership has to do with the way of the world. God has to do with the unseen force from which all things manifest. You cannot own oneness. You are at one with your leg and your arms. They do not belong to the torso or the head. Such are the manifestations of God (The Infinite Potential). God owns nothing. All things are at one with God.

When you wash your face, you know that the water is God. "Piety" is the recognition that everything is linked to the presence of God in every moment.

Actually piety is related to the practice of religion. One whose life is centered around religion is often times referred to as pious. Being pious has little to do with being mindful.

The word mindful applies here but it is not a word that is familiar to Christians.

The Passover Seder, for example, is a ritual meal to celebrate the freedom of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt and their journey home. During the meal, certain vegetables and herbs, salt, and other condiments help us touch what happened in the past -- what was our suffering and what was our hope. This is a practice of mindfulness.

The ritual preparation of the meal and the partaking of the meal is meant to connect one with the presence of God. Mindfulness is connected to a specific event. However, to be fully awake, totally mindful means to view every thing one is experiencing as a manifestation of the oneness of the Infinite Potential (God).

D. The bread we eat is the whole Cosmos 100700

Christianity is a kind of continuation of Judaism, as is Islam. All the branches belong to the same tree.

From Zoroasterism, came Judaism and Jesus and Paul founded Christianity out of the teachings of Judaism. Mohammed then founded Islam from Judaism but also recognized some of the teachings of Christianity. And from Islam has come the Bahai Faith founded by Baha'U'llah in the mid 1800's about the same time Joseph Smith established Mormonism out of Christianity.

And in the East, from Hinduism came Buddhism and Taoism which later combined to become Zen.

There are two great religious trees in the World; one east, one west.

In Christianity, when we celebrate the Eucharist, sharing the bread and the wine as the body of God (actually of Christ) we do it in the same spirit of piety, of mindfulness, aware that we are alive, enjoying dwelling in the present moment.

Actually Christianity does not relate well to living in the present moment. In fact, Christians tend to live more in the future. They are more focused on manifesting the future than they are living in the present because living in the present is perceived as being passive. Christians have a strong work ethic and a mandate to create the future and so living in the present as the Buddhist do, is really strange to the Christian mind.

The message of Jesus during the Seder that has become known as the Last Supper was clear. His disciples had been following him. They had had the chance to look into his eyes and see him in person, but it seems they had not yet come into real contact with the marvelous reality of his being.

I think that the twelve disciples as opposed to the rank and file disciples came as close as anyone could to knowing Jesus. But I doubt if more that a few of the twelve actually connected with Jesus. Probably Peter and John came the closest to actually knowing Jesus but even Peter denied him in the end.

So when Jesus broke the bread and poured the wine, he said, This is my body. This is my blood. Drink it, eat it, and you will have eternal life. It was a drastic way to awaken his disciples from forgetfulness.

The bread and the wine were probably meant to connect the disciples to Jesus and since it was done at the Passover Seder it connected Jesus to God. So by partaking of the bread and the wine, the disciples were to be ever mindful of the presence of God.

When we look around, we see many people in whom the Holy Spirit does not appear to dwell.

The Holy Spirit dwells in each human being because within each human being is a soul which has manifested from God. Human beings are at one with the Holy Spirit and at one with God. The problem is that human beings become confused in the manifestations of this reality such that they forget their oneness with God; they lose their mindfulness of the all inclusive nature of God. They become confused in believing that this earthly reality is the true reality when in fact the immortal infinite oneness of God is the only true reality.

They look dead, as though they were dragging around a corpse, their own body.

It is not possible to judge a person by how they look. Some people who have terminal diseases look like they are dragging around a corpse even though they are very much mindful of their oneness with the God.

The practice of the Eucharist is to help resurrect these people so they can touch the Kingdom of Life.

Actually in Christianity, once people accept Jesus Christ as their savior, they are assumed to be saved or what I think Brother Hanh would call resurrected. And for these people the Eucharist is both a reminder of their redemption and also on another level a ritual to bind the Christian community together. Since lay religionist do not live in a monetary and have regular meals with their fellow religionists, the Eucharist becomes a sort of symbolic meal to remind the members of their oneness in Christ.

In the church, the Eucharist is received at every mass.

This is true in some churches but not generally true in the Protestant churches.

Representatives of the church read from the biblical passage about the Last Supper of Jesus with his twelve disciples, and a special kind of bread called the Host is shared.

Literally the bread is sometimes unleavened in remembrance of the unleavened bread of the Israelites at the time of the original Passover. Metaphorically the bread is referred to as the Host.

Everyone partakes as a way to receive the life of Christ into his or her own body.

This is true. And this is to help people become more mindful of their new life in Christ.

When a priest performs the Eucharist rite, his role is to bring life to the community.

Yes in a sense. But a more important aspect is the binding of the members of the community to each other and to the church so that they feel a part of the community and do not go off and join another church or faith and thereby weaken the particular community of members by withdrawing their support both in time and money.

The miracle happens not because he says the words correctly, but because we eat and drink in mindfulness.

I do not think this is a miracle as much as a reminder of the Christian belief in the miracle of Jesus's resurrection from the dead. But there is no question that it makes ones mindful of that miracle and thus mindful of one's belief in God.

Holy Communion is a strong bell of mindfulness.

It can be.

We drink and eat all the time, but we usually ingest only our ideas, projects, worries and anxiety. We do not really eat our bread or drink our beverage.

Yes in the sense that we are not really present and mindful of eating when we eat. If we think about our ideas, projects, worries and anxieties when we eat, then that is what we are mindful of and not the food that we are actually ingesting. Yet the food nourishes our bodies regardless of what we are mindful of as we eat. In modern society, we many times perform several functions at the same time. We drive and listen to the news on the radio for example. Outside the monastery, life is complex and one seldom has the ability to do just one thing at a time. It is much easier to be mindful of something if that something is all one is doing at the moment.

If we allow ourselves to touch our bread deeply, we become reborn, because our bread is life itself.

I think if we focus on eating our meal at the exclusion of all else, then we do become mindful of our relationship with the All There Is, with God. Christians are reborn when they accept Christ as their savior. Reborn is a Christian word of art and it is a one time event. So when one is mindful of partaking of the Eucharist there is a remembrance of that rebirth as opposed to an additional rebirth.

Eating it deeply, we touch the sun, the clouds, the earth, and everything in the cosmos. We touch life, and we touch the Kingdom of God. When I asked Cardinal Jean Danielou if the Eucharist can be described in this way, he said yes.

If one is totally present when one partakes of the Eucharist and if one has been taught the symbolic nature of the Eucharist, then I think one does become mindful of one's connection with God and therefore mindful of All That Is. But in truth the Eucharist is most often presented on a more basic level, that of reminding Christians of their redemption in Christ and how Christ died for their sins. There is a great deal of deeply embedded symbology in the Eucharist. And much of this symbology is meant to emphasize to Christians that their religion is the only true religion because only Christ, not Buddha, not Mohammed returned to life after being crucified.

I think the being mindful of eating in general is a way to daily connect with the oneness of all things and the source of all things as God (Infinite Potential) but when one begins to talk about the Eucharist ,one gets off into the core of Christian elitism and away from the oneness of all religionists and into the exclusiveness of Christianity.

If Brother Hanh intended by his book to show the common denominators of all religions, he erred when he brought the Eucharist into the discussion because the Eucharist is one of the most divisive rituals in comparing religions. It goes to the core of Christian elitism.

E. The Body of Reality 100800

It is ironic that when mass is said today, many congregants are not called to mindfulness at all.

As I have stated above, this is true.

They have heard the words so many times that they just feel a little distracted.

Yes, but this repetition binds Christians together. And the more times one has communion the less likely one is to leave the Christian community to find God in another faith. The nature of the Eucharist in not to promote mindfulness but to promote community.

This is exactly what Jesus was trying to overcome when he said, This is my body. This is my blood.

Yes, Jesus was trying to use the symbology of the bread and wine to emphasize his oneness with his disciples. And the metaphor was powerful because it has survived for over two thousand years.

When we are truly there, dwelling deeply in the present moment, we can see that the bread and the wine are really the body and blood of Christ and the priest's words are truly the words of the Lord.

This is true.

The body of Christ is the body of God, the body of ultimate reality, the ground of all existence.

The body of Christ is a manifestation of God, who is the ultimate reality, the Infinite Potential from which all things manifest and back into which all things disintegrate.

We do not have to look anywhere else for it. It resides deep in our own being.

We do not have to look for God because we are a manifestation of God and at one with God. God does not reside in our being, God is our being.

The Eucharistic rite encourages us to be fully aware so that we can touch the body of reality in us. Bread and wine are not symbols. They contain the reality, just as we do.

The Eucharist is symbolic and as such the bread and wine are also symbols. On the level of the Infinite Potential, all things are at one with each other and on that level we are the bread and the wine and the bread and the wine is us. All things manifest from the oneness of the Infinite Potential (God) and all things eventually disintegrate back into this oneness.

F. Everything is fresh and new 100800

When Buddhist and Christians come together, we should share a meal in mindfulness as a deep practice of communion.

A communion of religionist and a communion of human beings.

When we pick up a piece of bread, we can do it with mindfulness, with Spirit.

Spirit being the oneness of all things.

The bread, the Host, becomes the object of our deep love and concentration.

Host is a term of art used in conjunction with the Eucharist. For Christians there is the Eucharist and there is eating and drinking. And in some churches one cannot partake of the Eucharist unless one is a Christian. So when Brother Hanh tries to tie eating a common meal with the Eucharist the comparison does not really work. Some Christians would object to taking the Eucharist with Buddhists.

If our concentration is not strong enough, we can try saying its name silently, "Bread", in the way we would call the name of our beloved. When we do this, the bread will reveal itself to us in its totality, and we can put it in our mouth and chew with real awareness, not chewing anything else, such as our thoughts, our fears, or even our aspirations.

This is true with anything we do. If we are painting the room we can become mindful of how the paint adheres to the wall and consider what is happening on a microscopic level. And we can further consider the atomic level and then the spiritual level. In that level of awareness, of mindfulness, we become mindful of our oneness with God (The Infinite Potential).

This is Holy Communion, to live in faith.

One can be mindful at communion as well as becoming mindful in painting a room or walking down a country lane.

Holy Communion however is a reminder of one's faith in Jesus Christ as the savior of mankind and the personal savior of those who accept him as their savior. Holy Communion is not a metaphor which unites but one that divides religionist.

Holy Communion reminds Christians of their unique and special relationship with God and does not remind them of their oneness with all religionists or all of humanity.

Further, to live in faith is not to live mindfully. Faith is a word that means a belief in God to take care of one's needs. Mindfulness is a word that means remembering one's connection with God. Faith is associated with expectation and mindfulness is associated with generic oneness of all things; and all things manifest from God.

When we practice this way, every meal is the Last Supper.

Yes, as we become mindful as we partake of the Eucharist, we can also become mindful as we partake of any meal. But a common meal is not a metaphor for Christianity, Jesus as savior, Jesus as God as is the Eucharist. Being mindful at a common meal reminds us that we are at one with all human beings. Being mindful while partaking of the Eucharist reminds us that we are Christians and as Christians we are saved and special in the sight of God.

In fact, we could call it the First Supper, because everything will be new and fresh.

Things for Christians become new and fresh only once when they are reborn in Christ. After that, the Eucharist is a reminder of that rebirth.

When we eat together in this way, the food and the community of co-practitioners are the objects of our mindfulness.

Yes. But a meal among co-practitioners is an exclusive thing. The ultimate meal would be a meal among human beings who were mindful of their oneness with the Infinite Potential without bringing their religion to the common experience.

It is through the food and one another that the ultimate becomes present.

Yes it can be if one leaves one's religion, one's race, one's nationality, one's sex at the door. If anyone of these is carried to the meal, the experience is less than the ultimate communal meal.

To eat a piece of bread or a bowl or rice mindfully and see that every morsel is a gift of the whole universe is to live deeply.

Yes.

We do not need to distract ourselves from the food, even by listening to the scriptures or the lives of bodhisattvas or saints. When mindfulness is present, the Buddha and the Holy Spirit are already there.

In the sense that Buddha and the Holy Spirit are two different metaphors for one ultimate reality, one God, the Infinite Potential, this is true.

Go To Chapter Four

Return To The Table of Contents

A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER FOUR: LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST

A. His life is His Teaching 100800

There is a science called Buddhology, the study of the life of the Buddha. As a historical person, the Buddha was born in Kapilavastu, near the border between India and Nepal, got married, had on child, left home, practiced many kinds of meditation, became enlightened, and shared the teaching until he died at the age of eighty. But there is also the Buddha within ourselves who transcends space and time. This is the living Buddha, the Buddha of the ultimate reality, the one who transcends all ideas and notions and is available to us at any time. The living Buddha was not born at Kapilavastu, nor did he pass away at Kushinagar.

Christology is the study of the life of Christ. When speaking about Christ, we also have to know whether we mean the historical Jesus or the living Jesus. The historical Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the son of a carpenter, traveled far form his homeland, became a teacher, and was crucified at the age of thirty-three. The living Jesus is the Son of God who was resurrected and who continues to live. In Christianity, you have to believe in the resurrection or you are not considered a Christian. I am afraid this criterion may discourage some people from looking into the life of Jesus. This is a pity, because we can appreciate Jesus Christ as both a historical door and an ultimate door.

The fact that Christians believe that Jesus was the only son of God, and was in fact God as part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is what makes Christianity exclusive to all the other religions and prevents any acknowledgment that the other major religions of the world have any validity.

Christians only comprise one sixth of the world population and yet they believe that they have the only path to salvation. Christians on every level listen to what others have to say about their religion but never really listen because they believe they have the only true son of God.

This elitist viewpoint has been the cause of Christian genocide throughout the world. When Christianity came into contact with the indigenous people of America they had no reservations about destroying their civilizations and their religions because all religions other than Christianity were pagan. In fact, Christians believed it was their God given mandate to convert or kill off all other religious ideas on the planet.

For the Christian bureaucracy to acknowledge the validity of any other religion would have the effect of destroying Christianity. Without the literal Son of God, Christianity is just another religion among many.

When we look into and touch deeply the life and teaching of Jesus, we can penetrate the reality of God. Love, understanding, courage and acceptance are expressions of the life of Jesus.

Well this is what is talked about in Christianity but Love means love other Christians, understanding means understanding God through Christianity, and acceptance, true acceptance means the acceptance of other Christians.

Jesus was somewhat of an elitist himself because he uttered such words as "Do not give dogs what is holy', and "Do not cast your pearls before swine." These are not loving, understanding or accepting statements. They are statements that reflect an elitist attitude such that if you are not with us, you are against us. And it is my belief that these statements have been carried forward in the Christian doctrine and dogma which is not only not understanding, but unsympathetic and outwardly combative toward non-Christians.

It has always been interesting to me that one of the great Christian hymns is "Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war." And so it has been. Christianity marching on other cultures and religions as if going to war.

And this attitude has not changed even today as evidenced by the Pope of the Catholic Church's comments a few years ago that disparaged the Buddhist religion. Christians talk about love, understanding, forgiveness and acceptance but if you look carefully you will find that these terms are really restricted to other Christians and not to all the world.

God made himself known to us through Jesus Christ.

As he also made himself known through the Buddha, Mohammed, Baha'U'llah, Bodhidarma, Krishna, Joseph Smith and Moses. And in truth, as he makes himself known through every man woman and child.

With the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God within him, Jesus touched the people of his time. He talked with prostitutes and tax collectors, and had the courage to do whatever was needed to heal his society.

Today Christians talk to sinners in order to bring them to Jesus. Christians believe that all human beings need to be saved and only by embracing Jesus as the literal Son of God and the savior of the world can one go to heaven after death. Christians are not accepting of sinners. They see them as people to be saved. And when it is determined that a person cannot be saved then the Christians move on to the next potential convert.

Jesus was not really trying to heal Jewish society but was trying to attack the Jewish religious bureaucracy for its hypocrisy. And this is what got him killed. The Buddha did the same thing as he rejected the Hindu bureaucracy and its hypocrisy. It was not a matter of healing society but was a matter of awakening people to their own inner spirituality which was being manipulated by the religious bureaucracy.

As the child of Mary and Joseph, Jesus is the Son of Woman and Man.

With all due respect, Brother Hanh, Joseph was Jesus's father in name only. One of the foundations of Christianity is that Jesus was the literal Son of God and the virgin Mary. Mary was a virgin when she became pregnant with Jesus. This is again why Christians give only polite lip service to other religions. Christians belief that Jesus is the only literal Son of God. No other religion can make that claim and so all other religions are inferior to Christianity; so believe Christians.

As someone animated by the energy of the Holy Spirit, he is the Son of God.

No, Brother Hanh, Christians will tell you that he was the literal Son of God. We are all animated by the Holy Spirit if you believe that we are all children of God. But according to Christians there has only been one literal Son of God and that was Jesus.

The fact that Jesus is both the Son of Man and the Son of God is not difficult for Buddhist to accept.

Brother Hanh, I submit that it is impossible for any Buddhist to accept that Jesus was the literal Son of God. If a Buddhist were to accept this, that Buddhist would surely renounce Buddhism and embrace Christianity.

We can see the nature of nonduality in God the Son and God the Father, because without God the Father within him, the Son could never be.

Brother Hanh, my truth is that we are all sons and daughters of God as was Jesus. But from a scientific biological perspective in this earthly reality, Christians belief that the biological father of Jesus was the literal anthropomorphic one God himself. Son of God is not a metaphor for Christians but a literal fact.

But in Christianity, Jesus is usually seen as the only Son of God.

Jesus is not usually seen as the only Son of God but always seen as the literal Son of God and if you do not believe this, then you cannot be a Christian.

I notice Brother Hanh that you skip over this very controversial issue. You skip over the one obstacle that forever prevents any true common ground of understanding between Christians and Buddhists or any other religion. Brother Hanh, your refuse to openly state that Buddhist would never embrace Jesus as the literal biological Son of God.

I think it is important to look deeply into every act and every teaching of Jesus during his lifetime, and to use this as a model for our own practice.

Well again Brother Hanh, I do not think you want to make this kind of statement. You see Jesus when he came to the Temple in Jerusalem became highly upset at the commerce going on within the Temple. He became so upset that the made a whip and began to turn over tables and whip the vendors. I do not think that you advocate such extreme behavior.

Further you can see here the precedent that Jesus set for later Christians to deal accordingly with non-Christians and their pagan religions.

And you can also see why the Jewish bureaucracy was instrumental in having Jesus crucified. Jesus was bad for business and if left unchecked would have overturned the entire Jewish religious establishment. The way of this world is the way of materialism and money. And when spiritual philosophy interferes with making money then it is the spiritually that must be subordinated. This is the reality that you sir do not understand in your position as a monk.

I truly respect you Brother Hanh, but you are attempting to write about Christianity which you do not fully understand and you do not bring to your discussion a personal knowledge of how the vast majority of human beings make a living in the world.

This is why I feel that I must continue to practice law. If I can maintain my spirituality while working in the most combative profession on the planet, then I can be an example to others. They cannot discount what I have to say because I do live in the real world, in their world.

Jesus lived exactly as he taught, so studying the life of Jesus is crucial to understanding his teaching.

No Brother Hanh, Jesus did not live exactly as he taught. His admonition to turn the other cheek did not apply to his actions in the Temple. There are many such examples in the gospels of the New Testament in the Christian Bible.

For more examples go to The Saying of Jesus

For me, the life of Jesus is His most important teaching, more important that even faith in the resurrection or faith in eternity.

Well now Brother Hanh, I see how you diplomatically get around the issues of Jesus as the literal Son of God, born of the virgin Mary and dying for the sins of man, and rising from the dead; in essence the guts of Christianity.

You sir, avoid this subject and look at Jesus outside this role of the true Son of God. You avoid saying that you do not believe in Jesus as the savior of the world. And I expect that you will now in the rest of your book compare Jesus to Buddha without referring to the guts of the Christian doctrine and dogma. I commend you the effort.

But in the end, when your book is finished, the question will still be asked by your Christian audience, "Do you believe in Jesus as the literal Son of God who died for your sins?" If you answer yes, then you are a Christian and must remove your Buddhist robes. If you answer no, you will be thanked for your interesting lecture.

B. Mindfulness is the Buddha

The Buddha was a human being who was awakened and, thereby, no longer bound by the many afflictions of life. But when some Buddhists say that they believe in the Buddha, they are expressing their faith in the wonderful, universal Buddhas, not in the teaching or the life of the historical Buddha. They believe in the Buddha's magnificence and feel that is enough. But the examples of the actual lives of the Buddha and of Jesus are most important, because as human beings, they lived in ways that we can live, too.

When we read, "The heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove," we can see that Jesus Christ was already enlightened. He was in touch with the reality of life, the source of mindfulness, wisdom, and understanding within Him, and this made Him different from other human beings. When He was born into a carpenter's family, He was the Son of Man. When He opened His heart, the door of Heaven was opened to Him. The Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove, and He was manifested as the Son of God -- very holy, very deep, and very great. But the Holy Spirit is not just for Jesus alone; it is for all of us. From a Buddhist perspective, who is not the son or daughter of God? Sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, many wonderful, holy seeds within the Buddha blossomed forth. He was human, but, at the same time, he became an expression of the highest spirit of humanity. When we are in touch with the highest spirit in ourselves, we too are a Buddha, filled with the Holy Spirit, and we become very tolerant, very open, very deep, and very understanding.

C. More Doors For Future Generations

Matthew described the Kingdom of God as being like a tiny mustard seed. It means that the seed of the Kingdom of God is within us. If we know how to plant that seed in the moist soil of our daily lives, it will grow and become a large bush on which many birds can take refuge. We do not have to die to arrive at the gates of Heaven. In fact, we have to be truly alive. The practice is to touch life deeply so that the Kingdom of God becomes a reality. This is not a matter of devotion. It is a matter of practice. The Kingdom of God is available here and now. Many passages in the Gospels support this view. We read in The Lord's Prayer that we do not go to the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom of God comes to us: "Thy Kingdom come..." Jesus said, "I am the door." He describes Himself as the door of salvation and everlasting life, the door to the Kingdom of God. Because God the Son is made of the energy of the Holy Spirit, He is the door for us to enter the Kingdom of God.

The Buddha is also described as a door, a teacher who shows us the way in this life. In Buddhism such a special door is deeply appreciated because that door allows us to enter the realm of mindfulness, loving-kindness, peace, and joy. But it is said that there are 84,000 Dharma doors, doors of teaching. If you are lucky enough to find a door, it would not be very Buddhist to say that yours is the only door. In fact, we have to open even more doors for future generations. We should not be afraid of more Dharma doors -- if anything, we should be afraid that no more will be opened. It would be a pity for our children and their children if we were satisfied with only the 84,000 doors already available. Each of us, by our practice and our loving-kindness, is capable of opening new Dharma doors. Society is changing, people are changing, economic and political conditions are not the same as they were in the time of the Buddha or Jesus. The Buddha relies on us for the Dharma to continue to develop as a living organism -- not a stale Dharma, but a real Dharmakaya, a real "body of teaching."

D. The Mother of All Buddhas

The Buddha said that his Dharma body is more important than his physical body. He meant that we have to practice the Dharma in order to make nirvana available here and now. The living Dharma is not a library of scriptures or tapes of inspiring lectures. The living Dharma is mindfulness, manifested in the Buddha's daily life and in your daily life, also. When I see you walking mindfully, I touch the peace, joy, and deep presence of your brothers and sisters, I recognize that living Dharma in you. If you are mindful, the Dharmakaya is easy to touch.

The Buddha described the seed of the mindfulness that is in each of us as the "womb of the Buddha" (tathagatagarbha). We are all mothers of the Buddha because we are all pregnant with the potential for awakening. If we know how to take care of our baby Buddha by practicing mindfulness in our daily lives, one day the Enlightened One will reveal himself or herself to us. Buddhists regard the Buddha as a teacher and a brother, not as a god. We are all Dharma brothers and sisters of the Buddha. We also say that Prajñaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) is the mother of all Buddhas. Historically, in Protestantism, the feminine side of God has been minimized and God the Father has been emphasized, but in Catholicism, there is a great deal of devotion to Mary, the Mother of God. In fact, "father" and "mother" are two aspects of the same reality. Father is more expressive of the side of wisdom or understanding, and mother the side of love or compassion. In Buddhism, understanding (prajña) is essential to love (maitri). Without understanding there cannot be true love, and without love there cannot be true understanding.

E. The Daughter of God

The Buddha is said to have ten names, each describing an auspicious quality. The first, Tathagata, means "he who has come to us through the right path," "he who comes from the wonderful reality of life and will go back to that wonderful reality," and "he who has arrived from suchness, remains in suchness and will return to suchness." "Suchness" is a Buddhist term pointing to the true nature of things, or ultimate reality. It is the substance or ground of being, just as water is the substance of waves. Like the Buddha, we too have come from suchness, remain in suchness, and will return to suchness. We have come from nowhere and have nowhere to go.

One Buddhist sutra tells us that when conditions are sufficient, we see forms, and when conditions are not sufficient, we don't. When all conditions are present, phenomena can be perceived by us, and so they are revealed to us as existing. But when one of these conditions is lacking, we cannot perceive the same phenomena, so they are not revealed to us, and we say they do not exist. But that is not true. In April, for example, we cannot see sunflowers around Plum Village, our community in southwestern France, so you might say the sunflowers do not exist. But the local farmers have already planted thousands of seeds, and when they look at the bare hills, they see sunflowers already. The sunflowers are there. They lack only the conditions of sun, heat, rain, and July. Just because you cannot see them does not mean that they do not exist. In the same way we say that the Tathagatha does not come from anywhere and will not go anywhere. He comes from ultimate reality and will go back to ultimate reality, unbound by space and time. If you walk past the fields near Plum Village in April and ask them to reveal to you the ultimate dimension of reality, the Kingdom of God, the fields will suddenly be covered with beautiful, golden sunflowers. When St. Francis looked deeply at an almond tree in winter and asked it to speak to him about God, the tree was instantly covered with blossoms.

The second name of the Buddha is Arhat, "one who is worthy of our respect an support." The third is Samyaksambuddha, "one who is perfectly enlightened." The fourth is Vidyacaranasampana, "one who is endowed with insight and conduct." The fifth is Sugata, "one who has gone happily along the path." The sixth is Lokavidu, "one who knows the world well." The seventh is Anuttarapurusadamyasarathi, "the unsurpassed leader of those to be trained and taught." The eighth is Satadevamanusyanam, "teacher of gods and humans." The ninth is Buddha, "enlightened one." The tenth is Bhagavat, "blessed one." Every time we take refuge in the Buddha, we take refuge in the one who has these ten attributes, which are at the core of human nature. Siddhartha is not the only Buddha. All beings in the animal, plant, and mineral worlds are potential Buddhas. We all contain these ten qualities of a Buddha in the core of our being. If we can realize these qualities in ourselves, we will be respected and honored by all people.

I see the rite of Baptism as a way of recognizing that every human being, when opened to the Holy Spirit, is capable of manifesting these qualities, which are also the qualities of being a son or daughter of God. We do not speak about Original Sin in Buddhism, but we do talk about negative seeds that exist in every person -- seeds of hatred, anger, ignorance, intolerance, and so on -- and we say that thee seeds can be transformed when we touch the qualities of a Buddha, which are also seeds within us. Original sin can be transformed when one is in touch with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man. We are all, at the same time, the sons and daughters of God and the children of our parents. This means we are of the same reality of Jesus. This may sound heretical to many Christians, but I believe that theologians who say we are not have to reconsider this. Jesus is not only our Lord, but He is also our Father, our Teacher, our Brother, and our Self. The only place we can touch Jesus and the Kingdom of God is within us.

F. We Continue to be Born

When we celebrate Christmas or the birth of the Buddha, we celebrate the coming into the world of a very special child. The births of Jesus and the Buddha were pivotal events in human history. A few days after the Buddha was born, many people in his country of Kapilavastu came to pay their respects, including an old sage named Asita. After contemplating the baby Buddha's father, was alarmed. "Holy man, why are you crying? Will some misfortune overtake my child?" The holy many replied, "No, your majesty. The birth of Prince Siddhartha is a wondrous event. Your child will become an important world teacher. But I am too old and I will not be there. That is the only reason I am crying."

A similar story appears in the Bible. Eight days after His birth, the baby Jesus was brought to the temple for circumcision. When a man named Simeon looked at Him, he was able to see that Jesus would bring about a profound change in the life of humankind: "When the time came for the purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ... and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the spirit, Simeon came into the temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 'Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel.' And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him."

Whenever I read the stories of Asita and Simeon, I have the wish that every one of us could have been visited by a sage when we were born. The birth of every child is important, not less than the birth of a Buddha. We, too, are a Buddha, a Buddha-to-be, and we continue to be born every minute. We, too, are sons are daughters of God and the children of our parents. We have to take special care of each birth.

G. Touching our Ancestors

I am not sure if I am myself or if I am my brother. Before I came into the world, another boy tried to come before me, but my mother miscarried him. If he had continued to live, I would have another brother. Or perhaps I would have been my brother. Many times as a child, I pondered this.

Expecting parents have to be very careful because they carry within them a baby, one who might become a Buddha or Lord Jesus. They have to be mindful of what they eat, what they drink, what they think, and how they act. The way they take care of their bodies and their feelings affects the well-being of the child within. Our mothers and fathers helped us come to be and, even now, they continue to give us life. Whenever I have difficulties, I ask for their support, and they always respond.

Our spiritual ancestors have also given birth to us, and they, too, continue to give birth to us. In my country, we say that an authentic teacher has the power to give birth to a disciple. If you have enough spiritual strength, you will give birth to a spiritual child, and through your life and practice, you continue giving birth, even after you die. We say that sons and daughters of the Buddha came forth from the mouth of the Buddha, because the Buddha offered them the Dharma, his teaching. There are many ways to offer the Dharma for a child to be born in his or her spiritual life, but the most usual is to share the Dharma through words. I try to practice in a way that allows me to touch my blood ancestors and my spiritual ancestors every day. Whenever I feel sad or a little fragile, I invoke their presence for support, and they never fail to be there.

H. Suffering and the Way Out

As children, Siddhartha and Jesus both realized that life is filled with suffering. The Buddha became aware at an early age that suffering is pervasive. Jesus must have had the same kind of insight, because they both made every effort to offer a way out. We, too, must learn to live in ways that reduce the world's suffering. Suffering is always there, around us and inside us, and we have to find ways that alleviate the suffering and transform it into well-being and peace.

Monks and nuns in both their traditions practice prayer, mediation, mindful walking, silent meals, and many other ways to try to overcome suffering. It is a kind of luxury to be a monk or a nun, to be able to sit quietly and look deeply into the nature of suffering and the way out. Sitting and looking deeply into your body, your consciousness, and your mental states is like being a mother hen covering her eggs. One day insight will be born like a baby chick. If monks and nuns do not cherish their time of practice, they will have nothing to offer to the world.

The Buddha was twenty-nine, quite young, when he became a monk, and at the age of thirty-five, he was enlightened. Jesus also spent time alone on the mountain and in the desert. We all need time to reflect and to refresh ourselves. For those who are not monks or nuns, it may be difficult to find the time to mediate or pray, but it is important to do so. During a retreat, we learn how to maintain awareness of each thing we do, and then we can continue the practice in our daily lives. If we do this, we will see deeply into the nature of our suffering, and we will find a way out. That is what the Buddha said in his first Dharma talk at the Deer Park in Sarnath: "Look deeply into the nature of suffering to see the causes of suffering and the way out." Monks and non-monks can all practice this.

I. I am the Way

The Theravada school of Buddhism emphasizes the actual teaching of the historical Buddha, the Buddha who lived and died. Later, the idea of the living Buddha was developed in the Buddhism of the Northern schools, the Mahayana. When the Buddha was about to pass away, many of his disciples were upset that he would no longer be with them. So he reassured them by saying, "My physical body will no longer be here, but my teaching body, Dharmakaya, will always be with you. Take refuge in the Dharma, the teaching, to make an island for yourselves." The Buddha's instructions are clear. The Dharma is our island of refuge, the torch lighting our path. If we have the teaching, we needn't worry. One monk who was very ill expressed regret at not being able to see the Buddha in person, but the Buddha sent word to him: "My physical body is not what is most important. If you have the Dharma body with you, if you have confidence in the Dharma, if you practice the Dharma, I am always with you." Jesus also said, "Whenever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there."

J. I am Always There for You

After the Buddha passed away, the love and devotion to him became so great that the idea of Dharmakaya changed from the body of teaching to the glorious, eternal Buddha, who is always expounding the Dharma. According to Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha is still alive, continuing to give Dharma talks. If you are attentive enough, you will be able to hear his teachings from the voice of a pebble, a leaf, or a cloud in the sky. The enduring Buddha has become the living Buddha, the Buddha of faith. This is very much like the Christ of faith, the living Christ. Protestant theologian Paul Tillich describes God as the ground of being. The Buddha is also sometimes described as the ground of being.

K. Seeing the Way is Seeing Me

To encounter a true master is said to be worth a century of studying his or her teaching, because in such a person we witness a living example of enlightenment. How can we encounter Jesus or the Buddha? It depends on us. Many who looked directly into the eyes of the Buddha or Jesus were not capable of seeing them. One man who wanted to see the Buddha was in such a hurry that he neglected a woman in dire need whom he met along the way. When he arrived at the Buddha's monastery, he was incapable of seeing him. Whether you can see the Buddha or not depends on you, on the state of your being.

L. I am the Understanding, I am Love

Like many great humans, the Buddha had a hallowed presence. When we see such persons, we feel peace, love, and strength in them, and also in ourselves. The Chinese say, "When a sage is born, the river water becomes clearer and the mountain plants and trees become more verdant." They are describing the ambience surrounding a holy man or a woman. When a sage is present and you sit near him or her, you feel peace and light. If you were to sit close to Jesus and look into His eyes -- even if you didn't see Him -- you would have a much greater chance to be saved than by reading His words. But when He is not there, His teaching are second best, especially the teachings of His life.

M. Freedom from Notions

When I read any scripture, Christian or Buddhist, I always keep in mind that whatever Jesus or the Buddha said was to a particular person or group on a particular occasion. I try to understand deeply the context in which they spoke in order to really understand their meaning. What they said may be less important than how they said it. When we understand this, we are close to Jesus or the Buddha. But if we analyze their words to find the deepest meaning without understanding the relationships between the speaker and his listeners, we may miss the point. Theologians sometimes forget this.

When we read the Bible, we see Jesus' tremendous courage in trying to transform the life of His society. When we read the sutras, we see that the Buddha was also a very strong person. The society of India at the time of the Buddha was less violent than the society into which Jesus was born, so you may think the Buddha was less extreme in his reactions, but that is only because another way was possible in his milieu. His reaction to the corruption among Vedic priests, for example, was thoroughgoing. The notion of Atman, Self, which was at the center of Vedic beliefs was the cause of much of the social injustice of the day -- the caste system, the terrible treatment of the untouchables, and the monopolization of spiritual teachings by those who enjoyed the best material conditions and yet were hardly spiritual at all. In reaction, the Buddha emphasized the teachings of non-Atman (non-self). He said, "Things are empty of a separate, independent self. If you look for the self of a flower, you will see that it is empty." But when Buddhists began worshiping the idea of emptiness, he said, "It is worse if you get caught in the non-self of a flower than if you believe in the self of a flower."

The Buddha did not present an absolute doctrine. His teaching of non-self was offered in the context of his time. It was an instrument for meditation. But many Buddhists since then have gotten caught by the idea of non-self. They confuse the means and the end, the raft and the shore, the finger pointing to the moon and the moon. There is something more important than non-self. It is the freedom from the notions of both self and non-self. For a Buddhist to be attached to any doctrine, even a Buddhist one, is to betray the Buddha. It is not words or concepts that are important. What is important is our insight into the nature of reality and our way of responding to reality. If the Buddha had been born into the society in which Jesus was born, I think he, too, would have been crucified.

N. Seeing the way Taking the Path

When Jesus said, "I am the way," He meant that to have a true relationship with God, you must practice His way. In the Acts of the Apostles, the early Christians always spoke of their faith as "the Way." To me, "I am the way" is a better statement than "I know the way." The way is not an asphalt road. But we must distinguish between the "I" spoken by Jesus and the "I" that people usually think of. The "I" in His statement is life itself, His life, which is the way. If you do not really look at His life, you cannot see the way. If you only satisfy yourself with praising a name, even the name of Jesus, it is not practicing the life of Jesus. We must practice living deeply, loving, and acting with charity if we wish to truly honor Jesus. The way is Jesus Himself and not just some idea of Him. A true teaching is not static. It is not mere words but the reality of life. Many who have neither the way nor the life try to impose on others what they believe to be the way. But these are only words that have no connection with real life or a real way. When we understand and practice deeply the life and teachings of Buddha or the life and teachings of Jesus, we penetrate the door and enter the abode of hte living Buddha and the living Christ, and life eternal presents itself to us.

O. Your Body is the Body of Christ

When the Protestant minister described me as someone who is not grateful, he was speaking a language different from Buddhism. To him, love could only be symbolized by a person. That is why belief in the resurrection is so important to Christians. If Jesus died and was not resurrected, who would carry His eternal love for us? But does God have to be personified? In Judaism and Christianity, the image of a person is always used.

In Buddhism, we also personify traits we aspire toward, such as mindfulness (Shakyamuni Buddha), understanding (Manjusri Bodhisattva), and love (Maitreya Buddha), but even if Shakyamuni, Manjusri, and Maitreya are not there, it is still possible to touch mindfulness, understanding, and love. Students of the Buddha are themselves a continuation of the Buddha. It is possible to manifest mindfulness, understanding, and love through people of our own time, even ourselves. We do not need to believe in the resurrection of Buddhas and bodhisattvas as much as in producing mindfulness, understanding, and love in ourselves.

The living Christ is in the Christ of Love who is always generating love, moment after moment. When the Church manifests understanding, tolerance, and loving-kindness, Jesus is there. Christians have to help Jesus Christ be manifested by their way of life, showing those around them that love, understanding, and tolerance are possible. This will not be accomplished just by books and sermons. It has to be realized by the way we live. In Buddhism we also say the living Buddha, the one who teaches love and compassion, must be manifested by the way we live.

Thanks to the practice of many generations of Buddhists and Christians, the energy of the Buddha and the energy of Jesus Christ have come to us. We can touch the living Buddha and we can touch the living Christ. We know that our body is the continuation of the Buddha's body and is a member of the mystical body of Christ. We have a wonderful opportunity to help the Buddha and Jesus Christ continue. Thanks to our bodies and our lives, the practice is possible. If you hate your body and think that it is only a source of affliction, that it contains only the roots of anger, hatred, and craving, you do not understand that your body is the body of the Buddha, your body is a member of the body of Christ.

P. Enjoy Being Alive

To breathe and know you are alive is wonderful. Because you are alive, everything is possible. The Sangha, the community of practice, can continue. The church can continue. Please don't waste a single moment. Every moment is an opportunity to breathe life into the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Every moment is an opportunity to manifest the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

"There is a person whose appearance on earth is for the well-being and happiness of all. Who is that person?" This is a question from the Anguttara Nikaya. For Buddhists, that person is the Buddha. For Christians, that person is Jesus Christ. Through your daily life, you can help that person continue. You only need to walk in mindfulness, making peaceful, happy steps on our planet. Breathe deeply, and enjoy your breathing. Be aware that the sky is blue and the birds' songs are beautiful. Enjoy being alive and you will help the living Christ and the living Buddha continue for a long, long time.

Go to Chapter Five

Return To The Table of Contents

A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER FIVE: COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

A. Mindfulness of Working

St. Gregory of Nyssa taught that the contemplative life is heavenly and cannot be lived in the world, that whenever a monk has to leave the monastery to do some apostolic work, he mustlament. Many monks do in fact cry when they have to leave their monasteries for an apostolic ministry. Other teachers, like St. Basil, said that it is possible to pray as you work. But he did not mean that we can pray with our actions. He meant pray with our mouths and our hearts. In Vietnam, we invested "engaged Buddhism" so we could continue our contemplative life while in the midst of helping the victims of war. There must be ways for monks to continue their contemplative lives while engaging in society. In Vietnam, we did not try to avoid the suffering. We worked to relieve the suffering while, at the same time, trying to maintain our mindfulness.

Even in monasteries, we have to cook, clean, sweep, and wash. How can we avoid these? Is there a way to work in a meditative mood? The answer is clearly yes. We practice mindfulness of cooking, cleaning, sweeping, and washing. When we work this way, we touch the ultimate dimension of reality. But we need training to do this, and it helps very much to have a community in which all the members are sharing the same practice. In fact, it is crucial to be with a Sangha or a church where everyone practices together, or dwells mindfully in the Spirit. We need to create such communities for our own benefit.

B. Monastic Culture

Thomas Merton wrote about monastic culture. A monastery or practice center is a place where insight is transformed into action. The monastery should be an expression of our insight, our peace, and our joy, a place where peace and beauty are possible. The way the monks and nuns there walk, eat, and work expresses their insight and their joy.

When someone from the city arrives in a monastery compound, just seeing the trees and gardens and hearing the sounds of the bell can calm him down. When he meets a monk walking peacefully, his tension may wash away. The environment, the sights, and the sounds of the monastery being to work in him for healing and transformation, even before he listens to any liturgy or teaching. Through their true practice and genuine insight, those who live in monasteries, temples, and practice centers offer us a way to obtain peace, joy, and freedom.

When monks offer retreats, they initiate people into the practice of mindfulness, of touching the best things within themselves and touching the ultimate dimension. They know the time is limited, so they offer only practices that retreatants can bring home and continue in their daily lives. If someone is too busy for a week-long retreat, it is still helpful to come for a weekend or a day of mindfulness, or even half a day. The monks and nuns can offer the peace, joy, and stability they have obtained through the practice. This kind of life can be described as monastic culture.

When you practice with others, it is much easier to obtain stability, joy, and freedom. If you have a chance to visit a retreat center, I hope you enjoy your time there sitting, walking, breathing, praying, and doing everything in mindfulness. The seeds are being watered, and the fruit, transformation, will reveal itself.

C. Community as a Refuge

In Christianity, the church is the crown of the path of practice, the true teaching authority. It is often said that there is no salvation outside the church. In Buddhism, a Sangha is a group of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen who practice together to encourage the best qualities in each other. Some Buddhists respect only the Holy Sangha, the actual disciples of the Buddha during his lifetime. But they are already gone. To me, to practice with the Sangha means to practice with those who are with you now and with those you love. It may not be a Holy Sangha, but if it moves in the direction of trasformation, it is a real Sangha. We do not need a perfect or a Holy Sangha to practice. An imperfect Sangha is good enough. We can help build and improve the Sangha by practicing mindfully, step by step, encouraging each other. There is a saying: If a tiger comes down off his mountain and goes to the lowlands, he will be caught by humans and killed. It means if a practitioner leaves his or her Sangha, it becomes difficult to continue the pracitce. Taking refuge in the Sangha is not a matter of devotion. It is a matter of practice. The Buddhist Sangha includes Arhats, those who have overcome all afflictions, and Stream-enterers, those who have entered the stream that will surely lead them to enlightenment. Stream-enterers, those who have entered the stream that will surely lead them to enlightenment. Stream-enterers, have no doubt that the practice will transform their suffering. In Christianity, some people have been declared saints or holy persons. Perhaps they are similar to Arhats and Stream-enterers, but I must confess I don't understand how it is decided who is a saint.

D. Community as a Body

In John 15, Jesus says, "I am the true vine...Abide in me as I abide in you. Must as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me." This is close to Buddhism. Without mindfulness, we cannot bear the fruit of love, understanding, and liberation. We must bring forth the Buddha in ourselves. We have to evoke the living Buddha in ourselves in order to become more understanding and more loving. Jesus said, "Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I am." In Buddhism, it takes at least four persons practicing together to be called a Sangha. That allows the Sanghakarma, the legal procedure for making decisions in community life, to be possible.

When we live as a Sangha, we regard each other as brothers and sisters, and we practice the Six Concords -- sharing space, sharing the essentials of daily life, observing the same precepts, using only words that contribute to harmony, sharing our insights and understanding, and respecting each other's viewpoints. A community that follows these principles always lives happily and at peace.

When we gather together to form a Sangha, we practice opening up the confines of our separate self and become a large body of love and understanding. We and our brothers and sisters are one. This idea of salvation is echoed in the Easter Orthodox church, which has even more of a sense of togetherness -- you can only be saved as a community.

E. The Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church

When you hammer a nail into a board and accidentally strike your finger, you take care of the injury immediately. The right hand never says to the left hand, "I am doing charitable work for you." It just does whatever it can to help -- giving first aid, compassion, and concern. In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, the practice of dana, generosity, is like this. We do whatever we can to benefit others without seeing ourselves as helpers and the others as the helped. This is the spirit of non-self.

In Christianity, every member of the church is said to be a part of the body of Christ. In Buddhism, we say that each Sangha member is like a hand or a leg of the Buddha. When we live in accord with the teachings of the Buddha, we are members of one body. If we practice the precepts well and realize deep concentration and understanding, our Sangha can arrive at liberation from afflictions. Even when liberation is not yet total, people can look at our community and appreciate the loving and harmonious atmosphere. When we practice understanding and love, we are a real Sangha, a fertile field in which good seeds will surely flower.

If there are too many misunderstandings, disputes, and rivalries among members, a Sangha cannot be called a real Sangha, even if it is in a beautiful temple or famous practice center. A church or community that is not filled with the Holy Spirit is not alive. A Sangha that is not pervaded by the energy of mindfulness is not authentic. For a community to be a real place of practice or worship, its members have to cultivate mindfulness, understanding, and love. A church where people are unkind to each other or suppress each other is not a true church. The Holy Spirit is not there. If you want to renew your church, bring the energy of the Holy Spirit into it. When people appreciate each other as brothers and sisters and smile, the Holy Spirit is there. When mindfulness is present, understanding (prajna) and love (maitri and karuna) are there, also.

F. The Holy Spirit is the Energy of Love and Understanding

To have a good Sangha, the members must live in a way that helps them generate more understanding and more love. If a Sangha is having difficulties, the way to transform it is to begin by transforming yourself, to go back to your island of self and become more refreshed and more understanding. You will be like the first candle that lights the second that lights the third, fourth, and fifth. But if you try your best to practice in this way and the people in the community still have no light, it may be necessary to find another Sangha or even start a new one. But don't give up too easily. Perhaps you have not practiced deeply enough to transform yourself into a living candle capable of lighting all the other candles. Only when you are convinced that creating a new Sangha is the only alternative to giving up is it time to go ahead and create a new Sangha. Any Sangha is better than a non-Sangha. Without a Sangha, you will be lost.

The same is true within a church. If you see that the Holy Spirit is not present in your church, first make the effort to bring the Holy Spirit in by living deeply the teachings of Jesus. But if you have no impact, if the practice in the church is not in accord with the life and teachings of Jesus, you may wish to gather those who share your conviction and set up another church, where you can invite the Holy Spirit to enter. To be a real help to your church or Sangha, you must first light your own fire of understanding, love, solidity, and stillness. Then you will be able to inspire others, whether in an existing group or one you are helping establish. Please don't practice "religious imperialism." Even if you have a beautiful temple or church with fine decorations and artwork, if inside there is no tolerance, happiness, understanding, or love, it is a false Sangha, a false church. Please continue to make an effort to do better.

G. To be Real Salt

The living teaching expressed by the lives of the Buddha and Jesus should always be the models for our practice. The sutras are not the living teachings of the Buddha. To receive the true teaching, we must emulate the life and work of the Buddha himself. The same is true of Christianity. The Gospels in their written or even oral form are not the living teaching of Jesus. The teachings must be practiced as they were lived by Jesus.

The church is the vehicle that allows us to realize those teachings. The church is the hope of Jesus, just as the Sangha is the hope of the Buddha. It is through the practice of the church and the Sangha that the teachings come alive. Communities of practice, with all their shortcomings, are the best way to make the teachings available to people. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit need the church in order to be manifested. ("Wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am.") People can touch the Father and the Son through the church. That is why we say that the church is the mystical body of Christ. Jesus was very clear about the need to practice the teaching and to do so in community. He told His disciples to be the light of the world. For a Buddhist, that means mindfulness. The Buddha said that we must each be our own torch. Jesus also told His disciples to be the salt of the world, to be real salt. His teaching was clear and strong. If the church practices well the teachings of Jesus, the Trinity will always be present and the church will have a healing power to transform all that it touches.

H. Are we Practicing the true Teaching?

Are we making Jesus' presence real in our churches today? Are we making the Buddha's presence real in our Sanghas? The Buddha and the monks and nuns of his time were in continuous dialogue with those of other religious faiths, especially the Brahmans. Are we in dialogue with other religions? The Buddha made every effort to remove the barriers between classes. He accepted untouchables and other outcasts into his holy community. Are we doing the same with the poor and oppressed of our day? Are we bringing the service of the Sangha and the church to those who suffer, to those who are discriminated against politically, racially, and economically?

The Buddha accepted women into his Sangha and they became teachers, transmitters of precepts, playing the same roles as the monks. Jesus also taught women freely. The first person Jesus revealed Himself to after His resurrection was a woman. Are we allowing women to be ordained priests and teachers?

The Buddha and his monks and nuns practiced voluntary poverty. They owned only three robes, one bowl, and one water filter. Are we able to live simply, content with just what we nee? Or are our religious institutions simply building and acquiring more and more? The Buddha and his monks and nuns went begging every day to pracitce humility and to remain in contact with people in their society. Jesus in His time did very much the same. He did not own anything. He always made Himself available to people. He reached out and touched others in order to understand, to help, and to heal. The people He touched were mostly those who were suffering. Are the Sangha and the church of today in real touch with people? Are the churches today touching the poor and oppressed, or do they prefer to touch only the wealthy and powerful?

The Buddha always resisted violence and immorality. He withdrew his support from King Ajattasatru when the latter assassinated his father in order to ascend the throne. He tried to stop King Ajattasatru's efforts to start a war with the neighboring country of Vajji. Are our Sanghas doing the same -- opposing social injustice and violence -- or are we blessing wars and sending priests along with our armies to support the efforts of war? With utmost courage, Jesus taught a gospel of nonviolence. Is the church today practicing the same by its presence and behavior? Do the churches practice nonviolence and social justice, or do they align themselves with governments that practice violence and hatred? During the Vietnam War, the city of Ben Tre was destroyed in the name of salvation. The commander of the operation said, "We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it." Is it possible that a servant of the church blessed the troops being sent to such a war?

J. Jesus Needs Christians

For the Budha to be present in the Sangha, we must practice in a way that keeps his teachings alive, and not confined to sermons and scriptures. The best way a Buddhist can keep the teachings of the Buddha alive is to live mindfully in the way the Buddha and his community lived. For Christians, the way to make the Holy Spirit truly present in the church is to practice thoroughly what Jesus lied and taught. It is not only true that Christians need Jesus, but Jesus needs Christians also for His energy to continue in this world.

Go To Chapter Six

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A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER SIX: A PEACEFUL HEART

A. Collective Awareness

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." To work for peace, you must have a peaceful heart. When you do, you are the child of God. But many who work for peace are not at peace. They still have anger and frustration, and their work is not really peaceful. We cannot say that they are touching the Kingdom of God. To preserve peace, our hearts must be at peace with the world, with our brothers and our sisters. When we try to overcome evil with evil, we are not working for peace. If you say, "Saddam Hussein is evil. We have to prevent him from continuing to be evil," and if you then use the same means he has been using, you are exactly like him. Trying to overcome evil with evil is not the way to make peace.

Jesus also said, "Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment...whosoever shall say, 'Thou fool,' shall be in danger of hell fire." Jesus did not say that if you are angry with your brother, you are already in hell. Anger is hell. He also said that you don't need to kill with your body to be put in jail. You only need to kill in your mind and you are already there.

The death penalty is a sign of weakness, an expression of our fear and inability to know what to do to help the situation. Killing a person does not help him or us. We have to look collectively to find ways we can really help. Our enemy is not the other person, no matter what he or she has done. If we look deeply into ourselves, we can see that their act was a manifestation of our collective consciousness. We are all filled with violence, hatred, and fear, so why blame someone whose upbringing was without love or understanding? Educators, legislators, parents, journalists, filmmakers, economists, artists, poor people, rich people, all of us have to discuss the situation and see what we can do. Meditation can help. Meditation is not a drug to make us oblivious to our real problems. It should produce awareness in us and also in our society. For us to achieve results, our enlightenment has to be collective. How else can we end the cycle of violence? We ourselves have to contribute, in small and large ways, toward ending our own violence. Looking deeply at our own mind and our own life, we will begin to see what to do and what not to do to bring about a real change.

B. Looking Deeply

We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if the powerful countries would reduce their weapons arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds -- our prejudices, fears, and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of the bombs are still here, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seed of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come.

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." This is Jesus' teaching about revenge. When someone asks you for something, give it to him. When he wants to borrow something from you, lend it to him. How many of us actually practice this? There must be ways to solve our conflicts without killing. We must look at this. We have to find ways to help people get out of difficult situations, situations of conflict, without having to kill. Our collective wisdom and experience can be the torch lighting our path, showing us what to do. Looking deeply together is the main task of a community or a church.

C. The Highest form of Prayer

"'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Many people pray to God because they want God to fulfill some of their needs. If they want to have a picnic, they ask God for a clear, sunny day. At the same time, farmers might pray for rain. If the weather is clear, the picnickers will say, "God is on our side; he answered our prayers." But if it rains, the farmers will say that God heard their prayers. This is the way we usually pray.

When you pray only for your own picnic and not for the farmers who need the rain, you are doing the opposite of what Jesus taught. Jesus said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you..." When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for him is there. Jesus called this "loving your enemy." When you are able to love your enemy, he or she is no longer your enemy. The idea of "enemy" vanishes and is replaced by the notion of someone who is suffering and needs your compassion. Doing this is sometimes easier than you might have imagined, but you need to practice. If you read the Bible but don't practice, it will not help much. In Buddhism, practicing the teaching of the Budddha is the highest form of prayer. The Buddha said, "If someone is standing on one shore and wants to go to the other shore, he has to either use a boat or swim across. He cannot just pray, 'Oh, other shore, please come over here for me to step across!'" To a Buddhist, praying without practicing is not real prayer.

D. Understanding Brings Liberation

In Latin America, liberation theologians speak of God's preference, or "option," for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. But I do not think God wants us to take sides, even with the poor. The rich also suffer, in many cases more than the poor! They may be rich materially, but many are poor spiritually, and they suffer a lot. I have known rich and famous people who have ended up committing suicide. I am certain that those with the highest understanding will be able to see the suffering in both the poor and rich.

God embraces both rich and poor, and He wants them to understand each other, to share with each other their suffering and their happiness, and to work together for peace and social justice. We do not need to take sides. When we take sides, we misunderstand the will of God. I know it will be possible for some people to use these words to prolong social injustice, but that is an abuse of what I am saying. We have to find the real causes for social injustice, and when we do, we will not condemn a certain type of people. We will ask, Why has the situation of these people remained like that? All of us have the power of love and understanding. They are our best weapons. Any dualistic response, any response motivated by anger, will only make the situation worse.

When we practice looking deeply, we have the insight into what to do and what not to do for the situation to change. Everything depends on our way of looking. The existence of suffering is the First Noble Truth taught by the Buddha, and the causes of suffering are the second. When we look deeply at the First Truth, we discover the second. After seeing the Second Truth, we see the next truth, which is the way of liberation. Everything depends on our understanding of the whole situation. Once we understand, our life style will change accordingly and our actions will never help the oppressors strengthen their stand. Looking deeply does not mean being inactive. We become very active with our understanding. Nonviolence does not mean non-action. Nonviolence means we act with love and compassion.

E. Understanding brings Compassion

Before the Vietnameses monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself alive in 1963, he meditated for several weeks and then wrote very loving letters to his government, hic church, and his fellow monks and nuns explaining why he had reached that decision. When you are motivated by love and the willingness to help others attain understanding, even self-immolation can be a compassionate act. When Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified, He was acting in the same way, motivated by the desire to wake people up, to restore understanding and compassion, and to save people. When you are motivated by anger or discrimination, even if you act in exactly the same way, you are doing the opposite.

When you read Thich Quang Duc's letters, you know very clearly that he was not motivated by the wish to oppose or destroy but by the desire to communicate. When you are caught in a war in which the great powers have huge weapons and complete control of the mass media, you have to do something extraordinary to make yourself heard. Without access to radio, television, or the press, you have to create new ways to help the world understand the situation you are in. Self-immolation can be such a means. If you do it out of love, you act very much as Jesus did on the cross and as Gandhi did in India. Gandhi fasted, not with anger, but with compassion, not only toward his countrymen but also toward the British. These great men all knew that it is the truth that sets us free, and they did everything they could to make the truth known.

Buddhist and Christian practice is the same -- to make the truth available -- the truth about ourselves, the truth about our brothers and sisters, the truth about our situation. This is the work of writers, preachers, the media, and also practitioners. Each day, we practice looking deeply into ourselves and into the situation of our brothers and sisters. It is the most serious work we can do.

F. Understanding Transforms

If while we practice we are not aware that the world is suffering, that children are dying of hunger, that social injustice is going on everywhere, we are not practicing mindfulness. We are just trying to escape. But anger is not enough. Jesus told us to love our enemy. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This teaching helps us know how to look at the person we consider to be the cause of our suffering. If we practice looking deeply into his situation and the causes of how we came to be the way he is now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition, we may see that we could have become exactly like him. when we do that, compassion arises in us naturally, and we see that the other person is to be helped and not punished. In that moment, our anger transforms itself into the energy of compassion. Suddenly, the one we have been calling our enemy becomes our brother or sister. This is the true teaching of Jesus. Looking deeply is one of the most effective w3ays to transform our anger, prejudices, and discrimination. We practice as an individual, and we also practice as a group.

G. Understanding Ourselves Helps us Understand Others

In Buddhism, we speak of salvation by understanding. We see that it is the lack of understanding that creates suffering. Understanding is the power that can liberate us. It is the key that can unlock the door to the prison of suffering. If we do not practice understanding, we do not avail ourselves of the most powerful instrument that can free us and other living beings from suffering. True love is possible only with real understanding. Buddhist meditation -- stopping, calming, and looking deeply -- is to help us understand better. In each of us is a seed of understanding. That seed is God. It is also the Buddha. If you doubt the existence of that seed of understanding, you doubt God and you doubt the Buddha.

When Gandhi said that love is the force that can liberate, he meant we have to love our enemy. Even if our enemy is cruel, even if he is crushing us, sowing terror and injustice, we have to love him. This is the message of Jesus. But how can we love our enemy? There is only one way -- to understand him. We have to understand why he is that way, how he has come to be like that, why he does not see things the way we do. Understanding a person brings us the power to love and accept him. And the moment we love and accept him, he ceases to be our enemy. To "love our enemy" is impossible, because the moment we love him, he is no longer our enemy.

To love him, we must practice deep looking in order to understand him. If we do, we accept him, we love him, and we also accept and love ourselves. As Buddhists or Christians, we cannot question that understanding is the most important component for transformation. If we talk to each other, if we organize a dialogue, it is because we believe there is a possibility that we can understand the other person better. When we understand another person, we understand ourselves better. And when we understand ourselves better, we understand the other person better, too.

H. Understanding Brings Forgiveness

"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Everyone makes mistakes. If we are mindful, we see that some of our actions in the past have caused others to suffer, and some actions of others have made us suffer. We want to be forgiving. We want to begin anew. "You, my brother or sister, have wronged me in the past. I now understand that it was because you were suffering and did not see clearly. I no longer feel anger toward you." You cannot force yourself to forgive. Only when you understand what has happened can you have compassion for the other person and forgive him or her. That kind of forgiveness is the fruit of awareness. When you are mindful, you can see the many causes that led the other person to make you suffer, and when you see this, forgiveness and release arise naturally. Putting the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha into practice is always helpful.

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A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER SEVEN: FOR A FUTURE TO BE POSSIBLE

A. Rerooting

There is a deep malaise in society. We can send email and faxes anywhere in the world, we have pagers and cellular telephones, and yet in our families and neighborhoods we do not speak to each other. There is a kind of vacuum inside us, and we attempt to fill it by eating, reading, talking, smoking, drinking, watching TV, going to movies, and even overworking. We absorb so much violence and insecurity every day that we are like time bombs ready to explode. We need to find a cure for our illness.

Many of our young people are uprooted. They no longer believe in the traditions of their parents and grandparents, and they have not found anything else to replace them. Spiritual leaders need to address this very real issue, but most simply do not know what to do. They have not been able to transmit the deepest values of their traditions, perhaps because they themselves have not fully understood or experienced them. When a priest does not embody the living values of a tradition, he or she cannot transmit them to the next generation. He can only wear the outer garments and pass along the superficial forms. When the living values are absent, rituals and dogmas are lifeless, rigid, and even oppressive. Combined with a lack of understanding of people's real needs and a general lack of tolerance, it is little wonder that the young feel alienated within these institutions.

Buddhism, like Christianity and other traditions, has to renew itself in order to respond to the needs of the people of our time. Many young people all over the world have abandoned their church because church leaders have not caught up with the changes in society. They cannot speak to the young people in the kind of language the young can understand. They cannot transmit the jewels they have received from their ancestral teachers to the young. That is why so many young people are left with nothing to believe in. They feel uneasy with their church, their society, their culture, and their family. They don't see anything worthwhile, beautiful, or true.

We need roots to be able to stand straight and grow strong. When young people come to Plum Village, I always encourage them to practice in a way that will help them go back to their own tradition and get rerooted. If they succeed at becoming reintegrated, they will be an important instrument in transforming and renewing their tradition. After an interfaith retreat in Santa Barbara, one young man told me, "Thây, I feel more Jewish than ever. I will tell my rabbi that a Buddhists monk inspired me to go back to him." People form other traditions said the same thing.

B. The Jewels of our Own Tradition

In East Asia, every home has a family altar. Whenever there is an important event in the family, such as the birth of a child, we offer incense and announce the news to our ancestors. If our son is about to go to college, we make an offering and announce that tomorrow our son will leave for college. When we return home after a long trip, the first thing we do is offer incense to our ancestors and announce that we are home. When we practice this way, we always feel deeply rooted in the family.

I encourage my students of Western origin to do the same. When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted. If we can find ways to cherish and develop our spiritual heritage, we will avoid the kind of alienation that is destroying society, and we will become whole again. We must encourage others, especially young people, to go back to their traditions and rediscover the jewels that are there. Learning to touch deeply the jewels of our own tradition will allow us to understand and appreciate the values of other traditions, and this will benefit everyone.

C. Cultivating Compassion

Precepts in Buddhism and commandments in Judaism and Christianity are important jewels that we need to study and practice. They provide guidelines that can help us transform our suffering. Looking deeply at these precepts and commandments, we can learn the art of living in beauty. The Five Wonderful Precepts of Buddhism -- reverence for life, generosity, responsible sexual behavior, speaking and listening deeply, and ingesting only wholesome substances -- can contribute greatly to the happiness of the family and society. I have recently rephrased them to address the problems of our times:

1. Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking and in my way of life.

The First Precept is born from the awareness that lives everywhere are being destroyed. We see the suffering caused by the destruction of life, and we vow to cultivate compassion and use it as a source of energy for the protection of people, animals, plants, and minerals. No act of killing can be justified. And not to kill is not enough. We must also learn ways to prevent others form killing. We cannot condone any act of killing, even in our minds. According to the Buddha, the mind is the base of all actions. When you believe, for example, that yours is the only way for humankind, millions of people might be killed because of that idea. We have to look deeply every day to practice this precept well. Every time we buy our consume something, we may be condoning some form of killing.

To practice nonviolence, first of all we must learn to deal peacefully with ourselves. In us, there is a certain amount of violence and a certain amount of nonviolence. Depending on the state of our being, our response to things will be more or less nonviolent. With mindfulness -- the practice of peace -- we can begin by working to transform the wars in ourselves. conscious breathing helps us do this. But no one can practice this precept perfectly. We should not be too proud about being a vegetarian, for example. We must acknowledge that the water in which we boil our vegetables contains many tiny microorganisms, not to mention the vegetables themselves. but even if we cannot be completely nonviolent, by being vegetarian we are going in the direction of nonviolence. If we want to head north, we can use the North Star to guide, us, but it is impossible to arrive at the North Star. Our effort is only to proceed in that direction. If we create true harmony within ourselves, we will know how to deal with family, friends, and society.

Life is so precious, yet in our daily lives we are usually carried away by our forgetfulness, anger, and worries. The practice of the First Precept is a celebration of reverence for life. When we appreciate and honor the beauty of life, we will make every effort to dwell deeply in the present moment and protect all life.

D. Cultivating Loving -- Kindness

2. Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I vow to cultivate loving-kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I vow to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others form profiting form human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.

The Five Precepts inter-are. When you practice one precept deeply, you practice all five. The First Precept in about taking life, which is a form of stealing. When we mediate on the Second Precept, we see that stealing, in the forms of exploitation, social injustice, and oppression, is an act of killing.

Instead of stealing, we practice generosity. In Buddhism, we say there are three kinds of gifts: (1) the first of material resources, (2) the gift of helping people rely on themselves, and (3) the gift of non-fear. But it takes time to practice generosity. Sometimes one pill or a little rice could save the life of a child, but we do not think we have the time to help. The best use of our time is being generous and really being present with others. People of our time tend to overwork, even when they are not in great need of money. We seem to take refuge in our work in order to avoid confronting our real sorrow and inner turmoil. We express our love and care for others by working hard, but if we do not have time for the people we love, if we cannot make ourselves available to them, how can we say that we love them?

True love needs mindfulness. We have to take the time to acknowledge the presence of the person we love. "Darling, I know you are there, and I am happy." This cannot be done if we can't free ourselves from our preoccupations and our forgetfulness. In order to acknowledge the presence of our beloved one, we have to offer our own true presence. Without the practice of establishing ourselves in the here and in the now, this seems impossible. Mindful time spent with the person we love is the fullest expression of true love and real generosity. One twelve-year-old boy, when asked by his father what he would like for his birthday, said, "Daddy, I want you!" His father was rarely at home. He was quite wealthy, but he worked all the time to provide for his family. His son was a bell of mindfulness for him. The little boy understood that the greatest gift we can offer our loved ones is our true presence.

E. The Oneness of Body and Mind

3. Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I vow to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children form sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families form being broken by sexual misconduct.

So many individuals, children, couples, and families have been destroyed by sexual misconduct. To practice the Third Precept is to heal ourselves and heal our society. This is mindful living.

The feeling of loneliness is universal. We believe in a naive way that having a sexual relationship will make us feel less lonely. But without communication on the level of the heart and spirit, a sexual relationship will only widen the gap and harm us both. We know that violating this precept causes severe problems, but still se do not practice it seriously. Couples engage in infidelity; and jealousy, anger, and despair are the result. When the children grow up, they repeat the same mistakes, yet the violation of this precept continues to be encouraged in magazines, TV shows, films, books, and so on. We constantly encounter themes that arouse sexual desire, often coupled with themes of violence. If our collective consciousness if filled with violent sexual seeds, why should we be surprised when there is sexual abuse of children, rape and other violent acts?

In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of body and mind. Whatever happens to the body also happens to the mind. The sanity of the body is the sanity of the mind; the violation of the body is the violation of the mind. A sexual relationship is an act of communion between body and spirit. This is a very important encounter, not to be done in a casual manner. In our soul there are certain areas -- memories, pain, secrets -- that are private, that we would share only with the person we love and trust the most. We do not open our heart and show it to just anyone.

The same is true of our body. Our bodies have areas that we do not want anyone to touch or approach unless he or she is the one we respect, trust, and love the most. When we are approached casually or carelessly, with an attitude that is less than tender, we feel insulted in our body and soul. Someone who approaches us with respect, tenderness, and utmost care is offering us deep communication, deep communion. It is only in that case that we will not feel hurt, misused, or abused, even a little. This cannot be attained unless there is true love and commitment. Casual sex cannot be described as love. Love is deep, beautiful, and whole, integrating body and spirit.

True love contains respect. In my tradition, husband and wife are expected to respect each other like guests, and when you practice this kind of respect, your love and happiness will continue for a long time. In sexual relationships, respect is one of the most important elements. Sexual communion should be like a rite, a ritual performed in mindfulness with great respect, care, and love. Mere desire is not love. Without the communion of souls, the coming together of the two bodies can create division, widening the gap and causing much suffering.

Love is much more responsible. It has care in it and it involves the willingness and capacity to understand and to make the other person happy. In true love, happiness is not an individual matter. If the other person is not happy, it will be impossible for us to be happy ourselves. True happiness is not possible without a certain degree of calmness and peace in our heart and in our body. Passion or excitement contains within it the element of disturbance. True love is a process of learning and practice that brings in more elements of peace, harmony, and happiness.

The phrase "long-term commitment" does not express the depth of love we feel for our partner, but we have to say something so people understand. A long-term commitment is only a beginning. We also need the support of friends and other people. That is why we have a wedding ceremony. Two families join together with other friends to witness the fact that the couple has come together to live. The priest and the marriage license are just symbols. What is important is that the commitment is witnessed by friends and both of the families. "Responsibility" is the key word. The Third Precept should be practiced by everyone.

F. More than One Root

If a Buddhist woman wants to marry a Christian man (or vice versa), should we encourage them? The woman will have to learn to practice her husband's tradition, and the man will have to learn and practice the wife's tradition. Then, instead of having just one spiritual root, they will have two. But can a person have two spiritual roots at the same time? Can both of them learn Christianity and Buddhism and practice both traditions? We know that when someone does not have any root, he or she will suffer tremendously. But what about the question of having more than one root?

Before I met Christianity, my only spiritual ancestor was the Buddha. But when I met beautiful men and women who are Christians, I came to know Jesus as a great teacher. Since that day, Jesus Christ has become one of my spiritual ancestors. As I have mentioned, on the altar of my hermitage in France, I have statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas and also an image of Jesus Christ. I do not feel any conflict within me. Instead I feel stronger because I have more than one root.

Can we allow young people of different traditions to marry each other freely, with our benediction? Can we encourage them to practice both traditions and enrich each other?

G. Unmindful Speech can Kill

4. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

In the Buddhist tradition, the Fourth Precept is described as refraining from these four actions: (1) Not telling the truth. If it's black, you say it's white. (2) Exaggerating. You make something up, or describe something as more beautiful than it actually is, or as ugly when it is not so ugly. (3) Forked tongue. You go to one person and say one thing and then you go to another person and say the opposite. (4) Filthy language. You insult or abuse people.

This precept admonishes us not to lie, not to say things that destroy friendships and relationships, but to use wholesome, loving speech. It is as important as the Third Precept in preventing families form being broken. Speaking unmindfully or irresponsibly can destroy us, because when we lie, we lose faith in our own beauty and we lose the trust of others. We have to dissolve all prejudices, barriers, and walls and empty ourselves in order to listen and look deeply before we utter even one word. When we are mindful of our words, it helps us, our families, and our society. We also need to practice the Fourth Precept as individuals and as a nation. We have to work to undo the misunderstandings that exist between the United States and Vietnam, France and Germany, Norway and Sweden, and so on. And we must not underestimate the misunderstandings between religious traditions. Church leaders, diplomats, and all of us need to practice this precept carefully.

Never in the history of humankind have we had so many means of communication, yet we remain islands. There is little real communication between the members of one family, between the individuals in society, and between nations. We have not cultivated the arts of listening and speaking. We have to learn ways to communicate again. When we cannot communicate, we get sick, and as our sickness worsens, our suffering spills onto other people. When it has become too difficult to share and to communicate with those in our family, we want to go to a psychotherapist, hoping that he or she will listen to our suffering. Psychotherapists are also human beings, There are those who can listen deeply to us and those who, because they themselves have suffered so much, do not have the capacity. Psychotherapists have to train themselves in the art of listening with cam and compassion. How can someone who has so much suffering within himself or herself, so much anger, irritation, fear, and despair, listen deeply to us? If you wish to see a psychotherapist, try to find someone who is happy and who can communicate well with his or her spouse, children, friends, and society.

Training ourselves in the art of mindful breathing is crucial for knowing how to take care of our emotions. First, we recognize the presence of, for example, anger in us, and we allow it to be. We do not try to suppress it our express it. We just bring the energy of mindfulness to our anger and allow our mindfulness to take care of it the way a mother holds her baby when it begins to cry. We do this by practicing mindful breathing, while sitting or while walking. Walking alone in a park or along a river, coordinating our steps with our breath, is a very effective way to care for our anger, to calm it down.

In his Discourse on Mindful Breathing, the Buddha taught, "Breathing in, I recognize my feeling. Breathing out, I calm my feeling." If you practice this, not only will your feeling be calmed down but the energy of mindfulness will also help you see into the nature and roots of your anger. Mindfulness helps you be concentrated and look deeply. This is true meditation. The insight will come after some time of practice. You will see the truth about yourself and the truth about the person who you thought to be the cause of your suffering. This insight will release you. The transformation in you will also help transform the other person.

Mindful speaking can bring real happiness, and unmindful speech can kill. When someone tells us something that makes us happy, that is a wonderful gift. But sometimes someone says something to us that is so cruel and distressing that we feel like committing suicide. We lose our joie de vivre.

The Fourth Precept is also linked to the Second Precept, on stealing. Many people have to lie in order to succeed as politicians or salespersons. A corporate director of communications told me that if he were allowed to tell the truth about his company's products, people would not buy them. He says positive things about the products that he knows are not true, and he refrains from speaking about their negative effects. He knows he is lying, and he feels terrible about it. Many people are caught in this kind of situation. In politics, people lie to get votes.

This precept is also linked with the Third Precept, on sexual responsibility. When someone says, "I love you," it may be a lie. It may just be an expression of desire. So much advertising is linked with sex. There is a saying in Vietnamese: "It doesn't cost anything to have loving speech." We only need to choose our words carefully, and we can make other people happy. To use words mindfully, with loving-kindness, is to practice generosity. Therefore this precept is linked directly to the Second Precept. We can make many people happy just by practicing loving speech. Again, we see the inter-being nature of the Five Precepts.

H. Mindful Consuming

5. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

In modern life, people think that their body belongs to them and they can do anything they want to it. When they make such a determination, the law supports them. This is one of the manifestations of individualism. But, according to the teachings of emptiness, non-self, and interbeing, your body is not yours alone. It also belongs to your ancestors, your parents, future generations, and all other living beings. Everything, even the trees and the clouds, has come together to bring about the presence of your body. Keeping your body healthy is the best way to express your gratitude to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors, and also not to betray future generations. You practice this precept for everyone. If you are healthy, everyone can benefit from it. When you are able to get out of the shell of your small self, you will see that you are interrelated to everyone and everything, that your every act is linked with the whole of humankind and the whole cosmos. To keep yourself healthy in body and mind is to be kind to all beings. The Fifth Precept is about health and healing.

This precept tells us not to ingest poisons that can destroy our minds and bodies. We should specially avoid alcohol and other intoxicants that cause so much suffering to the individuals involved and to the victims of intoxication -- abused family members, those injured in automobile accidents, and so on. Alcohol abuse is one of the main symptoms of the malaise of our times. We know that those who are addicted to alcohol need to abstain one hundred percent. But the Buddha also asked those who have only one glass of wine a week also to refrain from drinking. Why? Because we practice for everyone, including those who have a propensity toward alcoholism. If we give up our glass of wine, it is to show our children, our friends, and our society that our life is not for ourselves alone, but for our ancestors, future generations, and our society also. To stop drinking one glass of wine a week, even if it has not brought us any harm, is a deep practice, the insight of someone who knows that everything we do is for our ancestors and all future generations. I think that the use of drugs by so many young people could be stopped with this kind of insight.

When someone offers you a glass of wine, you can smile and decline, saying, "No, thank you. I do not drink alcohol. I would be grateful if you would bring me a glass of juice or water." If you do it gently, with a smile, your refusal is very helpful. It sets an example for many friends, including the children who are present. There are so many delicious and healthy beverages available -- why must we continue to honor a beverage that brings about so much suffering? I have asked rabbis, priests, and nuns if they think it would be possible to substitute grape juice for wine in Sabbath rituals, the Eucharist, and other sacramental occasions, and they have said yes.

We must also be careful to avoid ingesting toxins in the form of violent TV programs, video games, movies, magazines, and books. When we watch that kind of violence, we water our own negative seeds, or tendencies, and eventually we will think and act out of those seeds. because of the violent toxins in so many people's minds, and in our minds, too, it has become dangerous to walk alone at night in many cities. Young people stare at television sets hour after hour, and their minds are invaded by programs selected by irresponsible producers.

The Fifth Precept urges us to find wholesome, spiritual nourishment not only for ourselves but also four our children and future generations. Wholesome, spiritual nourishment can be found by looking at the blue sky, the spring blossoms, or the eyes of a child. The most basic meditation practice of becoming aware of our bodies, our minds, and our world can lead us into a far more rich and fulfilling state than drugs ever could. We can celebrate the joys that are available in these simple pleasures.

The use of alcohol and drugs is causing so much damage to our societies and families. Governments use airplanes, guns, and armies to try to stop the flow of drugs, with little success. Drug users know how destructive their habit is, but they cannot stop. There is so much pain and loneliness inside them, and the use of alcohol and drugs helps them to forget for a while. Once people are addicted to alcohol or drugs, they might do anything to get the drugs they need -- lie, steal, rob, or even kill. Trying to stop the drug traffic is not the best use of our resources. Offering education, wholesome alternatives, and hope, and encouraging people to practice the Fifth Precept are much better solutions. To restore our balance and transform the pain and loneliness that are already in us, we have to study and practice the are of touching and ingesting the refreshing, nourishing, and healing elements that are already available. We have to practice together as a family, a community, and a nation. The practice of mindful consuming should become part of our national health policy. Making it so should be a top priority.

The Five Wonderful Precepts are the right medicine to heal us. We need only to observe ourselves and those around us to see the truth. Our stability and the stability of our families and society cannot be obtained without the practice of these precepts. If you look at individuals and families who are unstable and unhappy, you will be astonished to see how many of them do not practice these healthy and life-affirming precepts. You can make the diagnosis yourself and then know that the medicine is available. Practicing these precepts is the best way to restore stability in our families and our society.

The practice of mindfulness is to be aware of what is going on. Once we are able to see deeply the suffering and the roots of the suffering, we will be motivated to act, to practice. The energy we need is not fear or anger, but understanding and compassion. There is no need to blame or condemn. Those who destroy themselves, their families, and their society are not doing it intentionally. Their pain and loneliness are overwhelming, and they want to escape. They need to be helped, not punished. Only understanding and compassion on a collective level can liberate us. The practice of the Five Wonderful Precepts is the practice of mindfulness and compassion. I urge you to practice them as they are presented here, or go back to your own tradition and shed light on the jewels that are already there.

I. Real Love Never Ends

In Judaism, we are encouraged to enjoy the world as long as we are aware that it is God Himself. But there are limits, and the Ten Commandments, which God gave Moses on Mount Sinai, express this. The Ten Commandments are a precious jewel of the Judeo-Christian heritage, helping us know what to do and what not to do in order to cherish God throughout our daily life.

All precepts and commandments are about love and understanding. Jesus gave His disciples the commandment to love God with all their being and to love their neighbors as themselves. In First Corinthians, it says, " Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is non envious, arrogant, or rude. It does not rejoice in wrong. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth." This is very close the teachings of love and compassion in Buddhism.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things." Love has no limits. Love never ends. Love is reborn and reborn and reborn. The love and care of the Christ is reborn in each of us, as is the love of the Buddha. If we invoke the name of Buddha or pray to Christ but do not practice love and understanding ourselves, something is wrong. If we love someone, we have to be patient. We can only help a person transform his or her negative seeds if we are patient and kind.

To take good care of yourself and to take good care of living beings and of the environment is the best way to love God. This love is possible when there is the understanding that you are not separate from other beings or the environment. This understanding cannot be merely intellectual. It must be experiential, the insight gained by deep touching and deep looking in a daily life of prayer, contemplation, and meditation.

"Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing." Love instructs us not to act in ways that will cause suffering now or in ways that will cause suffering now or in the future. We can discern when something that seems to be joyful has the capacity to destroy future happiness, so we do not abuse alcohol, ingest unhealthy foods, or hurt others by our words. Real love never ends. It will be reborn and reborn.

J. Practicing and Sharing

Peace activist A.J. Muste said, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." He meant that we can realize peace right in the present moment with each look, smile, word, and action. Peace is not just an end. Each step we make should be peace, should be joy, should be happiness. Precepts and commandments help us dwell in peace, knowing what to do and what not to do in the present moment. They are treasures that lead us along a path of beauty, wholesomeness, and truth. They contain the wisdom of our spiritual traditions, and when we practice them, our lives become a true expression of our faith, and our well-being becomes an encouragement to our friends and to society.

Our happiness and the happiness of others depends on not only a few people becoming mindful and responsible. The whole nation has to be aware. Precepts and commandments must be respected and practiced by individuals and by the entire nation. When so many families are broken, the fabric of society is torn. We must look deeply at this in order to understand the nature of these precepts and commandments. Everyone must join in the work. For our world to have a future, we need basic behavioral guidelines. They are the best medicine available to protect us form the violence that is everywhere. Practicing precepts or commandments is not a matter of suppression or limiting our freedom. Precepts and commandments offer us a wonderful way to live, and we can practice them with joy. It is not a matter of forcing ourselves or others to obey rules. \

No single tradition monopolizes the truth. We must glean the best values of all traditions and work together to remove the tensions between traditions in order to give peace a chance. We need to join together and look deeply for ways to help people get rerooted. We need to propose the best physical, mental and spiritual health plan for our nation and for the earth. For a future to be possible, I urge you to study and practice the best values of your religious tradition and to share them with young people in ways they can understand. If we meditate together as a family, a community, a city, and a nation, we will be able to identify the causes of our suffering and find ways out.

Go To Chapter Eight

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A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER EIGHT: TAKING REFUGE

A. A Safe Island

In every religious tradition there is a devotional practice and transformational practice. Devotion means relying more on yourself and the path you are following. Both of these are paths that can help us relieve suffering. But being devoted to the Dharma can be different from practicing the Dharma. When you say, "I take refuge in the Dharma," you are showing your faith in it, but that may not be the same as practicing. When you say, "I want to become a doctor," you express your determination to practice medicine. But to become a doctor, you have to spend seven or eight years studying and practicing medicine. When you say, "I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha," this may be only the willingness to practice. It is not because you make a statement that you are already practicing. You enter the path of transformation when you begin to practice the things you pronounce.

But pronouncing words does have an effect. When you say, "I am determined to study medicine," that already has an impact on your life, even before you apply to medical school. You want to do it, and because of your willingness and desire, you will find a way to go to school. When you say, "I take refuge in the Dharma," you are expressing confidence in the Dharma. You see the Dharma as something positive, and you want to orient yourself toward it. That is devotion. When you apply the Dharma in your daily life, that is transformational practice.

Mindfulness is the key. When you become aware of something, you begin to have enlightenment. When you drink a glass of water and are aware that you are drinking a glass of water deeply with your whole being, enlightenment is there in its initial form. To be enlightened is always to be enlightened about something. I am enlightened about the fact that I am drinking a glass of water. I can obtain joy, peace, and happiness just because of that enlightenment. When you look at the blue sky and are aware of it, the sky becomes real, and you become real. That is enlightenment, and enlightenment brings about true life and true happiness. The substance of a Buddha is mindfulness. Every time you practice conscious breathing, you are a living Buddha. To go back to yourself and dwell in mindfulness is the best practice in difficult moments. Mindfulness of breathing is your island, where you can be safe and happy, knowing that whatever happens, you are doing your best thing. This is the way to take refuge in the Buddha, not as mere devotion but as a transformational practice. You do not have to abandon this world. You do not have to go to Heaven or wait for the future to have refuge. You can take refuge here and now. You only need to dwell deeply in the present moment.

B. Mindfulness is the Refuge

In Buddhism, we take refuge in Three Jewels -- Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. These refuges are a very deep practice. They are the Buddhist trinity:

I take refuge in the Buddha,
the one who shows me the way in this life.
I take refuge in the Dharma,
the way of understanding and love.
I take refuge in the Sangha,
the community that lives in harmony and awareness.

Many years ago I encountered some children on a beach in Sri Lanka. It had been a long time since I had seen children like that, barefoot children on a very green island with no sign of industrial pollution. These were not children of slums; they were of the countryside. I saw them, and to me they formed a beautiful part of nature. As I stood on the beach alone, the children just ran toward me. We didn't know each other's language, so I put my arms around their shoulders -- all six of them, and we stood like that for a long time. Suddenly I realized that if I chanted a prayer in the ancient Buddhist language of Pali, they might recognize it, so I began to chant, "Buddham saranam gacchami" (I take refuge in the Buddha). They not only recognized it, they continue the chant. Four of them joined their palms and chanted, while the other two stood respectfully. This chant is a common prayer, like the Our Father. "I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha."

I motioned to the two children who were not chanting to join us. They smiled, placed their palms together and chanted in Pali, "I take refuge in Mother Mary." The music of their prayer did not differ much from the Buddhist one. Then I embraced each child. They were a little surprised, but I felt very much at one with each of them. They had given me a feeling of deep serenity and peace. We all need a place that is safe and wholesome enough for us to return for refuge. In Buddhism, that refuge is mindfulness.

C. The Foundation of Stability and Calm

When we were in our mother's womb, we felt secure -- protected from heat, cold, and hunger. But the moment we were born and came into contact with the world's suffering, we began to cry. Since then, we have yearned to return to the security of our mother's womb. We long for permanence, but everything is changing. We desire an absolute, but even what we call our "self" is impermanent. We seek a place where we can feel safe and secure, a place where we can rely on for a long time. When we touch the ground, we feel the stability of the earth and feel confident. When we observe the steadiness of the sunshine, the air, and the trees, we know that we can count on the sun to rise each day and the air and the trees to be there tomorrow. When we build a house, we build it on ground that is solid. Before putting our trust in others, we need to choose friends who are stable, on whom we can rely. "Taking refuge" is not based on blind faith or wishful thinking. It is gauged by our real experience.

We all need something good, beautiful, and true to believe in. To take refuge in mindfulness, our capacity of being aware of what is going on in the present moment, is safe and not at all abstract. When we drink a glass of water and know we are drinking a glass of water, that is mindfulness. When we sit, walk, stand, or breathe and know that we are sitting, walking, standing, or breathing, we touch the seed of mindfulness in us, and, after a few days, our mindfulness will grow stronger. Mindfulness is the light that shows us the way. It is the living Buddha inside of us. Mindfulness gives rise to insight, awakening, and love. We all have the seed of mindfulness within us and, through the practice of conscious breathing, we can learn to touch it. When we take refuge in the Buddhist trinity -- Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha -- it means to take refuge in our mindfulness, our mindful breathing, and the five elements that comprise our self.

Breathing in, breathing out,
Buddha is my mindfulness, shining near, shining far.
Dharma is my conscious breathing, calming my body and mind.
I am free.
Breathing in, breathing out,
Sangha is my five skandhas, working in harmony.
Taking refuge in myself,
Going back to myself.
I am free.

When we practice this exercise, it takes us directly to a place of peace and stability, to the most calm and stable place we can go. The Buddha taught, "Be an island unto yourself. Take refuge in yourself and not in anything else." This island is right mindfulness, the awakened nature, the foundation of stability and calm that resides in each of us. This island shines light on our path and helps us see what to do and what not to do. When our five skandhas -- form, feelings, perceptions, mental states, and consciousness -- are in harmony, there will naturally be right action and peace. Conscious breathing brings about calmness and harmony. Aware that practicing this way is the best thing we can do, we will feel solid within and we will be a true vehicle for helping others.

D. Embracing Not Fighting

In the Orthodox Christian church, the idea of the Trinity is quite profound. Sometimes our Orthodox friends call the Trinity their "social program." They begin with the Holy Spirit and the Son. The Father belongs to the realm of inexpressibility, but it is possible to touch the Son and the Holy Spirit. We have the capacity to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit whenever and wherever in manifests. It, too, is the presence of mindfulness, understanding, and love, the energy that animates Jesus and helps us recognize the living Christ. When a Christian makes the Sign of the Cross or says the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, she is taking refuge.

The Buddha said that his body of teachings would remain with his students but that it was up to them to make it last. If we don't practice, there will be only books and tapes, but if we practice, the Dharma body will be a living Dharma. Dharmakaya later came to mean soul of the Buddha, spirit of the Buddha, true Buddha, or nature of the Buddha. It developed an ontological flavor -- ground of all being, ground of all enlightenment. Finally, it became equivalent to suchness, nirvana, and tathagatagarbha (the womb of the Tathagata). That is a natural development. The Dharma is the door that opens to many meanings.

In the Greek Orthodox church, the idea of deification, that a person is a microcosm of God, is very inspiring. It is close to the Asian tradition that states that the body of a human being is a minicosmos. God made humans so that humans can become God. A human being is a mini-God, a micro-theos who has been created in order to participate in the divinity of God. Deification is made not only of the spirit but of the body of a human also. According to the teaching of the Trinity in the Orthodox church, the Father is the source of divinity who engenders the Son. With the Word (Logos), He brings about the Spirit that is alive in the Son. This is very much like the nondual nature of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

Alphonse Daudet wrote about a shepherd on a mountain who made the Sign of the Cross when he saw a shooting star. The popular belief is that at the moment you see a shooting star, one soul is entering Heaven. Making the Sign of the Cross is a form of taking refuge in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When you believe that something is the embodiment of evil, you hold out a cross to chase it away. In popular Buddhism, when people see something they think of as unwholesome, they invoke the name of Buddha. These are all practices of devotion. When you shine the light, darkness disappears. We may understand this as a kind of fight between light and darkness, but in reality, it is an embrace. Mindfulness, if practiced continuously, will be strong enough to embrace your fear or anger and transform it. We need not chase away evil. We can embrace and transform it in a nonviolent, nondualistic way.

E. Touching the Living Christ

When we invoke the Buddha's name, we evoke the same Buddha-qualities in ourselves. We practice in order to make the Buddha come alive within us, so we can be released from afflictions and attachments. But many people who invoke the name of Buddha do so without really trying to touch the Buddha seeds in themselves. There is a story of one woman who invoked the name of the Buddha hundreds of times a day without ever touching the essence of a Buddha. After practicing for ten years, she was still filled with anger and irritation. Her neighbor noticed this, and one day while she was practicing invoking the name of the Buddha, he knocked on her door and shouted, "Mrs. Ly, open the door!" She was so annoyed to be disturbed, she struck her bell very hard so that her neighbor would hear she was chanting and would stop disturbing her. But he kept calling, "Mrs. Ly, Mrs. Ly, Mrs. Ly, I need to speak with you." She became furious, threw her bell down on the ground, and stomped to the door, shouting, "Can't you see I'm invoking the name of the Buddha? Why are you bothering me now?" Her neighbor replied, "I only called your name twelve times, and look at how angry you have become. Imagine how angry the Buddha must be after you have been calling his name for ten years!"

Christians may do exactly as Mrs. Ly did if they only follow the rituals mechanically or pray without really being present. That is why they have been urged by Christian teachers to practice "The Prayer of the Heart." In Christianity, as well as in Buddhism, many people have little joy, ease, relaxation, release, or spaciousness of spirit in their practice. Even if they continue for one hundred years that way, they will not touch the living Buddha or the living Christ. If Christians who invoke the name of Jesus are only caught up in the words, they may lose sight of the life and teaching of Jesus. They practice only the form, not the essence. When you practice the essence, your mind becomes clear, and you attain joy. Christians who pray to God also have to learn deeply Christ's art of living if they want to enter His teachings. It is by watering the seeds of the awakened qualities that are already in us, by practicing mindfulness, that we touch the living Buddha and the living Christ.

F. A Mini-Pure Land

I became a monk at the age of sixteen in the tradition of Zen, but we also practiced Pure Land Buddhism in our temple. Pure Land Buddhism, which is very popular throughout East Asia, teaches people that if they practice well now, they will be reborn in the Western Paradise of the Buddha Amida, the Land of Wondrous Joy of the Buddha Aksobhya, or the Heaven of Gratitude of the Buddha Maitreya. A Pure Land is a land, perhaps in space and time, perhaps in our consciousness, where violence, hatred, craving, and discrimination have been reduced to a minimum because many people are practicing understanding and loving-kindness under the guidance of a Buddha and several bodhisattvas. Every practitioner of Buddha's way is, sooner or later, motivated by the desire to set up a Pure Land where he or she can share his or her joy, happiness, and practice with others. I myself have several times tried to set up a small Pure Land to share the practice of joy and peace with friends and students. In Vietnam it was Phuong Boi in the central highlands, and in France it is our Plum Village practice center. An ashram, such as the Community of the Arch in France, is also a Pure Land. A Great Enlightened Being should be able to establish a great Pure Land. Others of us make the effort to begin a mini-Pure Land. This is only a natural tendency to share happiness.

A Pure Land is an ideal place for you to go to practice until you get fully enlightened. Many people in Asia practice recollection of the Buddha (Buddhanusmrti), reflecting on the qualities of the Buddha -- visualizing him or invoking his name -- in order to be reborn in his Pure Land. During the time of practice, they dwell in a kind of refuge in that Buddha. They are close to him, and they also water the seed of Buddhahood in themselves. But Pure Lands are impermanent. In Christianity, the Kingdom of God is the place you will go for eternity. But in Buddhism, the Pure Land is a kind of university where you practice with a teacher for a while, graduate, and then come back here to continue. Eventually, you discover that the Pure Land is in your own heart, that you do not need to go to a faraway place. You can set up your own mini-Pure Land, a Sangha of practice, right here, right now. But many people need to go away before they realize they do not have to go anywhere.

G. Devotional and Transformational Practice

The practice of taking refuge can be done every day, several times a day. Whenever you feel agitated, sad, afraid, or worried, you can go back to your island of mindfulness. If you practice when you are not experiencing difficulty, it will be easier to go back to your island of self when the need is great. Don't wait until you are hit by a wave to go back to your island. Practice every day by living mindfully each moment of your life, and the practice will become a habit. Then when a difficult moment arrives, it will be natural and easy to take refuge. Walking, breathing, sitting, eating, and drinking tea in mindfulness are all practices of taking refuge. This is not a matter of belief. It is very grounded in experience. If I am ever in an airplane and the pilot announces that our plane is about to crash, I will practice mindful breathing and taking refuge in the island of self. I know that is the best thing I can do. If, down below, you know that I am practicing mindful breathing and taking refuge in the island of self, you will have confidence. I always practice walking meditation at airports. I try to leave for the airport early so that I will not have to rush when I am there. Mindful breathing unites body and mind. Many people call mindfulness the heart of Buddhist meditation. It is the first condition for touching anything deeply. When you practice mindfulness, you touch the Holy Spirit and become peaceful and solid.

Taking refuge in the Three Jewels is at the foundation of every Buddhist practice. Taking refuge in the Trinity is at the foundation of every Christian practice. Devotional and transformational practice may sound distinct, but devotional practice can also be transformational, and transformational practice requires devotion. Devotional practice relies more on the other, but there is also self-effort. Transformational practice relies on the self, but a community and a teacher are also necessary. Mindfulness and the Holy Spirit are at the heart of both.

Go To Chapter Nine

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A Response to:

"Living Buddha, Living Christ"
by Thich Nhat Hanh

CHAPTER NINE: THE OTHER SHORE

A. Continuation

Recent polls show that nearly one-fourth of all Europeans and North Americans believe in some form of reincarnation. We seem to feel there must be a next life so that those who have acted improperly in this life will pay for their misdeeds. Or we feel that this earthly life is just too brief to be decisive for all of eternity. Or we are afraid that when we die we might be reduced to nothingness. So, revolting against the fact that we have to die, we prefer the idea of continuing with a new body, like changing our clothes. Will we continue or not after death? How? Where? When?

Reincarnation implies a re-entrance of the soul into the body. The third-century Christian theologian Origen taught about the pre-existence of the soul from all eternity before its incorporation into a body, a kind of "pre-incarnation." This idea is actually close to reincarnation, because if you are incarnated once, you might be incarnated twice, or more. The sixth-century Council of Constantinople condemned Origen for this teaching. Even today, most Christian leaders say the idea of reincarnation does not fit with Christianity. But resurrection does have to do with reincarnation. An immortal soul does not need to be resurrected. It is the body that does. According to the teaching of the Last Judgment, everyone will have his or her body resurrected. Elements of reincarnation are certainly present in the teachings of Christianity.

B. Manifestation and Remanifestation

At first, we might think of reincarnation as a soul entering a body. The body is seen as impermanent and the soul as permanent, and when we get rid of one body, we re-enter another. You may be surprised to know that people in Buddhist Asia are not fond of reincarnation. They want the circle of birth and death to end because they know it represents suffering without end. In popular Buddhism, reincarnation is accepted literally, without much examination, but as we continue to study and practice, the idea of an immortal soul gives way to another idea that is closer to reality. If we study the teachings of the Buddha and if we observe our own mind, we will find there is nothing permanent within the constituents of what we call our "self:." The Buddha taught that a so-called "person" is really just five elements (skandhas) that come together for a limited period of time: our body, feelings, perceptions, mental states, and consciousness. These five elements are, in fact, changing all the time. Not a single element remains the same for two consecutive moments.

Not only is our body impermanent, but our so-called soul is also impermanent. It, too, is comprised only of elements like feelings, perceptions, mental states, and consciousness. When the idea of an immortal soul is replaced, our understanding of reincarnation gets closer to the truth. The idea of reincarnation is somehow still there, but our understanding is different. We see that there are only rapidly changing constituents.

In Buddhism, we do not actually use the word "reincarnation." We say "rebirth." But even rebirth is problematic. According to the teachings of the Buddha, "birth" does not exist either. Birth generally means from nothing you become something, and death generally means from something you become nothing. But if we observe the things around us, we find that nothing comes from nothing. Before its so-called birth, this flower already existed in other forms -- clouds, sunshine, seeds, soil, and many other elements. Rather than birth and rebirth, it is more accurate to say "manifestation" (vijñapti) and "remanifestation." The so-called birthday of the flower is really a day of its remanifestation. It has already been here in other forms, and now it has made an effort to remanifest. Manifestation means its constituents have always been here in some form, and now, since conditions are sufficient, it is capable of manifesting itself as a flower. When things have manifested, we commonly say that they are born, but in fact, they are not. When conditions are no longer sufficient and the flower ceases to manifest, we say the flower has died, but that is not correct either. Its constituents have merely transformed themselves into other elements, like compost and soil. We have to transcend notions like birth, death, being, and non-being. Reality is free from all notions.

C. True Faith is Alive

In the beginning, we might have embarked upon the path of Buddhism thanks to a belief in reincarnation, but as we continue to practice and touch reality, our beliefs change. We needn't be afraid of this. In the course of our study and practice, as we touch reality more and more deeply, our beliefs naturally evolve and become more solid. When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us. Making a long-term commitment to a concept is much more dangerous. If ten years pass without the growth of our belief, one day we will wake up and discover that we can no longer believe in what we did. The notion of ten years ago is no longer sound or adequate, and we are plunged into the darkness of disbelief.

Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of rigid beliefs an notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom, and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness. Some people think that prayer or meditation involves only our minds or our hearts. But we also have to pray with our bodies, with our actions in the world. And our actions must be modelled after those of the living Buddha or the living Christ. If we live as they did, we will have deep understanding and pure actions, and we will do our share to help create a more peaceful world for our children and all of the children of God.

D. Each moment is a Moment of Renewal

All of us possess the energy of mindfulness, the energy of the Holy Spirit, only its intensity and strength vary in each person. Our daily practice is to increase, to strengthen that power. There is no need to wait until Easter to celebrate. When the Holy Spirit is present, Jesus is already here. He does not have to be resurrected. We can feel Him right now. It is not a matter of reincarnation, rebirth, or even resurrection. Dwelling mindfully, we know that each moment is a moment of renewal. I wish I could be like Asita and Simeon, the holy men who came to see the Buddha and Jesus, and tell you how important your birth is.

E. Enlightenment Grows

Several years ago, after practicing walking meditation with three children in Switzerland, I asked them, "Do you think the enlightenment of the Buddha can grow?" They answered, "Yes," and I was very happy. The children affirmed something I also believe, that enlightenment is alive, like a tree. If it does not continue to grow, it will die. The enlightenment of the Buddha, the compassion and loving-kindness of Jesus, grow every day. We ourselves are responsible for their growth. Our bodies are the continuation of the Buddha's body. Our compassion and understanding are the compassion and understanding of Jesus. Awareness is the Buddha in person. If we live mindfully, we encounter the Buddha and Jesus Christ all the time.

F. Nirvana is Available Now

Some waves on the ocean are high and some are low. Waves appear to be born and to die. But if we look more deeply, we see that the waves, although coming and going, are also water, which is always there. Notions like high and low, birth and death can be applied to waves, but water is free of such distinctions. Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears. If you practice deeply, one day you will realize that you are free from birth and death, free from many of the dangers that have been assaulting you. When you see that, you will have no trouble building a boat that can carry you across the waves of birth and death. Smiling, you will understand that you do not have to abandon this world in order to be free. You will know that nirvana, the Kingdom of Heaven, is available here and now.

The Buddha seldom talked about this because he knew that if he talked about nirvana, we would spend too much time talking about it and not practicing. But he did make a few rare statements, such as this one from Udana vii, 3: "Verily, there is an unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed. If there were not this unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed, then an escape from the world of the born, the originated, the created, and the formed would not be possible." Early Buddhism did not have the ontological flavor we find in later Buddhism. The Buddha dealt more with the phenomenal world. His teaching was very practical. Theologians spend a lot of time, ink, and breath talking about God. This is exactly what the Buddha did not want his disciples to do, because he wanted them to have time to practice samatha (stopping, calming), vipasyana (looking deeply), taking refuge in the Three Jewels, the Five Precepts, and so on.

G. The Extinction of Notions

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything." We cannot talk about it, but we can experience it. We can experience the non-born, non-dying, non-beginning, non-ending because it is reality itself. The way to experience it is to abandon our habit of perceiving everything through concepts and representations. Theologians have spent thousands of years talking about God as one representation. This is called onto-theology, and it is talking about what we should not talk about.

Protestant theologian Paul Tillich said that God is not a person, but also not less than a person. Whether we speak of God as not a person, as a non-person, as not less than a person, or as more than a person, these attributes do not mean very much. One flower is made of the whole cosmos. We cannot say that the flower is less than this or more than that. When we extinguish our ideas of more and less, is and is not, we attain the extinction of ideas and notions, which in Buddhism is called nirvana. The ultimate dimension of reality has nothing to do with concepts. It is not just absolute reality that cannot be talked about. Nothing can be conceived or talked about. Take, for instance, a glass of apple juice. You cannot talk about apple juice to someone who has never tasted it. No matter what you say, the other person will not have the true experience of apple juice. The only way is to drink it. It is like a turtle telling a fish about life on dry land. You cannot describe dry land to a fish. He could never understand how one might be able to breathe without water. Things cannot be described by concepts and words. They can only be encountered by direct experience.

H. More Time for Your Tea

Wittgenstein's statement, "Concerning that which cannot be talked about, we should not say anything," might lead you to think there are things we can talk about and things we cannot. But, in fact, nothing can be talked about, perceived, or described by representation. If you talk about things you have not experienced, you are wasting your and other people's time. As you continue the practice of looking deeply, you will see this more and more clearly, and you will save a lot of paper and publishing enterprises and have more time to enjoy your tea and live your daily life in mindfulness.

Rohitassa asked the Buddha whether it is possible to get out of this world of birth and death by traveling, and the Buddha said no, not even if you were to travel at the speed of light. But he did not say it is impossible to transcend the world of birth and death. He said that we only need to look deeply into our body to touch the world of no-birth and no-death. But we cannot just talk about it. We have to practice, to experience it in our own being. The world of no-birth and no-death is not something apart from the world of birth and death. In fact, they are identical.

I. The Other Shore is this Shore

When the Buddha spoke of salvation or emancipation, he used the word parayana, "the other shore." The other shore represents the realm of no-birth, no-death, and no suffering. Sometimes the concept "other shore" is not clear enough, so the Buddha also used the word tathata, which means "reality as it is." We cannot talk about it, we cannot conceive it. Sometimes we call it nirvana, the extinction of all words, ideas, and concepts. When the concept "other shore" is misunderstood, nirvana comes to the rescue. When we think of another shore, we may think that it is completely different from this shore, that to reach it we have to abandon this shore completely. The true teaching is that the other shore is this very shore. In all schools of Buddhism, the teaching of no-coming, no-going, no-being, no-nonbeing, no-birth, and no-death exists. Mahayana Buddhists remind us that this teaching is only a finger pointing to the moon. It is not the moon itself.

J. Everything Can be Spiritual

Jesus pointed to that same reality of no-birth, no-death. He called it the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not something distinct from God, whom he called Abba, "Father." Just as the concept "other shore" can create the misunderstanding that the other shore is not this shore, the concept "Father" can also be misleading. For instance, feminists in our time ask why "Father" and not "Mother"? Eternal life is the kind of life that includes death. In fact, eternal life without death is not possible. It is like two sides of a coin. Eternal life is the whole coin. Noneternal life is just one side of the coin. Once you choose eternal life, you choose death as well, and both are life. But if you want to take only one side of the coin, you have no coin.

Theology has gone a long way trying to describe "God" or the "Kingdom of God," that wonderful reality that, in fact, cannot be talked about. Over many centuries, theology has thus become metaphysical theology or onto-theology to such an extent that we neglect the true teaching of Jesus concerning the way to live that reality. Since German philosopher Martin Heidegger, theologians have been trying to go back to the beginning and have been more careful in making statements about God.

Many people in our time want to go back to Jesus and His teaching. Sometimes terms like "secular Christianity" or "atheistic Christianity" are used to describe this movement. There are those who worry that secular or atheistic Christianity is no longer real Christianity. To me, if you live deeply the teaching of Jesus, everything you say and do in your daily life will be deeply spiritual. I would not call it secular or atheistic at all. Suppose we do not celebrate a Eucharist in a church, but sit together in the open air to share our bread, eating it mindfully and gratefully, aware of the marvelous nature of the bread. Such an act cannot be described as secular or atheistic.

K. Touching the Living Buddha

God as the ground of being cannot be conceived of Nirvana also cannot be conceived of. If we are aware when we use the word "nirvana" or the word "God" that we are talking about the ground of being, there is no danger in using these words. But if we say, "According to Buddhism, this exists," or, "This does not exist," it is not Buddhism, because the ideas of being and non-being are extremes that the Buddha transcended. When we share the Dharma, we must speak carefully so that we and our listeners do not get stuck in words or concepts. It is our duty to transcend words and concepts to be able to encounter reality. To be in touch with the source of our own wisdom is the most eloquent way to show that Buddhism is alive. We can touch the living Buddha. We can also touch the living Christ. When we see someone overflowing with love and understanding, someone who is keenly aware of what is going on, we know that they are very close to the Buddha and to Jesus Christ.

L. Trees and Birds Preaching the Dharma

The Buddha is often described as having "three bodies": Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya. Dharmakaya is the embodiment of the Dharma, always shining, always enlightening trees, grass, birds, human beings, and so on, always emitting light. It is this Buddha who is preaching now and not just 2,500 years ago. Sometimes we call this Buddha Vairochana, the ontological Buddha, the Buddha at the center of the universe.

The Sambhogakaya is the body of bliss. Because the Buddha practices mindfulness, he has immeasurable peace, joy, and happiness, and that is why we can touch his body of bliss, sometimes called the body of enjoyment or body of rewards. The Sambhogakaya represents the peace and happiness of the Buddha, the fruit of his practice. When you practice mindfulness, you enjoy within you the fruit of the practice. You are happy and peaceful, and your happiness and peace radiate around you for others to enjoy. When you do this, you are sending many Sambhogakayas into the world to help relieve the suffering of living beings. Each of us has the capacity of transforming many living beings if we know how to cultivate the seed of enlightenment within ourselves.

Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, is the Nirmanakaya, the transformation body, a light ray sent by the sun of the Dharmakaya. Those in touch with Vairochana are also in touch with Shakyamuni. But if that ray is not apparent to us, we do not need to worry. The Sun is still there. If we cannot listen directly to Shakyamuni, if we are open enough we can listen to Vairochana. In addition, many other transformation Buddhas are also expounding the same Dharama -- the trees, the birds, the violet bamboo, and the yellow chrysanthemums are all preaching the Dharma that Shakyamuni taught 2,500 years ago. We can be in touch with him through any of these. He is a living Buddha, always available.

In Christianity, mystery is often described as darkness. When Victor Hugo lost his daughter, he complained, "Man sees only one side of things, the other side is plunged into the night of frightening mystery." In many Buddhist sutras, everyone in the assembly experiences bliss when they are touched by the beams of light emanating from the Buddha. In Buddhism, the word "avidya," ignorance, means literally "the lack of light." Vidya, understanding, is made of light.

M. Rinsing the Mouth, Washing the Ears

In the Greek Orthodox church, theologians talk about "apophatic theology," or "negative theology." "Apophatic" is from the Greek apophasis, which means "denying." You say that God is not this, God is not that, until you get rid of all your concepts of God. The second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna developed a similar dialectic to remove our ideas concerning reality. He did not describe reality, because reality is what it is and cannot be described. Buddhism teaches us that reality is quite different from our concepts. The reality of a table is quite different from the concept "table." Every word we use has a concept behind it. The word "God" is based on a concept of "God." According to Buddhism, meditation on a rabbit's horns or on a hortoise's hair, things we do not believe exist, can also lead to enlightenment. These concepts are comprised of real elements that we can merge in our imagination. We have an image of horns and an image of rabbit, so why not have a rabbit with horns? The concept "rabbit's horn" is a true concept, as real as any other concept.

One Buddhist teacher said that every time he pronounced the word "Buddhism," he had to rinse his mouth out three times. Even the word "Buddhism" can cause misunderstanding. People may think of Buddhism as something that can exist by itself, independent of Christianity, Judaism, or anything else. Rinsing his mouth was a kind of preventive medicine to remind himself (and his students) not to cling to the concept "Buddhism" as something that can exist all by itself. One day someone in the congregation stood up and said, "Teacher, every time I hear you pronounce the word 'Buddhism,' I have to go to the river and wash my ears three times!" The teacher approved that statement. In Buddhist circles, we are careful to avoid getting stuck in concepts, even the concepts "Buddhism" and "Buddha." If you think of the Buddha as someone separate form the rest of the world, you will never recognize a Buddha even if you see him on the street. That is why one Zen Master said to his student, "When you met the Buddha, kill him!" He meant that the student should kill the Buddha-concept in order for him to experience the real Buddha directly.

Another Zen teacher said, "To end suffering, you must touch the world of no-birth and no-death." His student asked, "Where is the world of no-birth and no-death?" The master replied, "It is right here in the world of birth and death." The world of impermanence and non-self is the world of birth and death. Salvation is possible. It is possible to enter the world of no-birth and no-death through the practice of living each moment of your life in awareness. Jewish teologian Abraham Heschel said that to live by the Torah, the Jewish law, is to live the life of eternity within time. We live in the historical dimension and yet touch the ultimate dimension. But if we talk too much about it, we move far from the ultimate dimension. That is why in Zen Buddhist circles people are urged to experience and not to talk a lot.

N. The Holy Spirit can be Identified

In every school of Christianity, we see people who follow the same spirit, who do not want to speculate on what cannot be speculated about. "Negative theology" is an effort and practice to prevent Christians from being caught by notions and concepts that prevent them from touching the living spirit of Christianity. When we speak of negative theology, the theology of the Death of God, we are talking about the death of every concept we may have of God in order to experience God as a living reality directly.

A good theologian is one who says almost nothing about God, even though the word "theology" means "discourse about God." It is risky to talk about God. The notion of God might be an obstacle for us to touch God as love, wisdom, and mindfulness. The Buddha was very clear about this. He said, "You tell me that you are in love with a beautiful woman, but when I ask you, 'What is the color of her eyes? What is her name? What is the name of her town?' you cannot tell me. I don't believe you are really in love with something real." Your notion of God may be vague like that, not having to do with reality. The Buddha was not against God. He was only against notions of God that are mere mental constructions that do not correspond to reality, notions that prevent us from developing ourselves and touching ultimate reality. That is why I believe it is safer to approach God through the Holy Spirit than through the door of theology. We can identify the Holy Spirit whenever it makes its presence felt. Whenever we see someone who is loving, compassionate, mindful, caring, and understanding, we know that the Holy Spirit is there.

O. Touching the Ultimate Dimension

One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in the ultimate dimension. I saw that it was not really dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil in order to appear on the tree the following spring in another form. I smiled at the leaf and said, "You are pretending." Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including that leaf. The Buddha said, "When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body exists. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body does not exist." The day of our "death" is a day of our continuation in many other forms. If you know how to touch your ancestors in the ultimate dimension, they will always be there with you. If you touch your own hand, face, or hair and look very deeply, you can see that they are there in you, smiling. This is a deep practice. The ultimate dimension is a state of coolness, peace, and joy. It is not a state to be attained after you "die." You can touch the ultimate dimension right now by breathing, walking, and drinking your tea in mindfulness. Everything and everyone is dwelling in nirvana, in the Kingdom of God. A farmer looking at his land in winter can already see his crop, because he knows that all of the conditions are there -- land, seeds, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and so on -- except one, warm weather, and that will come in a matter of months. So it would be inaccurate to say his crop does not exist. It is already there. It needs only one more condition to manifest. When St. Francis asked the almond tree to tell him about God, in just a few seconds the tree was covered with beautiful flowers. St Francis was standing on the side of the ultimate dimension. It was winter. There were no leaves, flowers, or fruits, but he saw the flowers.

We are entirely capable of touching the ultimate dimension. When we touch one thing with deep awareness, we touch everything. Touching the present moment, we realize that the present is made of the past and is creating the future. When we drink a cup of tea very deeply, we touch the whole of time. To meditate, to live a life of prayer, is to live each moment of life deeply. Through meditation and prayer, we see that waves are made only of water, that the historical and the ultimate dimensions are one. Even while living in the world of waves, we touch the water, knowing that a wave is nothing but water. We suffer if we touch only the waves, but if we learn how to stay in touch with the water, we feel the greatest relief. Touching nirvana, touching the Kingdom of God, liberates us from many worries. We enter a spiritual practice seeking relief in the historical dimension. We calm our body and mind and establish our stillness, our freshness, and our solidity. We practice loving-kindness, concentration, and transforming our anger, and we feel some relief. But when we touch the ultimate dimension of reality, we get the deepest kind of relief. Each of us has the capacity to touch nirvana and be free from birth and death, one and many, coming and going.

Christian contemplation includes the practice of resting in God, which, I believe is the equivalent of touching nirvana. Although God cannot be described by using concepts and notions, that does not mean you cannot experience God the Father. If the wave does not have to die to become water, then we do not have to die to enter the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is available here and now. The energy of the Holy Spirit is the energy that helps us touch the Kingdom of God. Tillich has said that speaking of God as a person is just a figure of speech. He said that God is the ground of being. This makes me think of the water that is the ground of being for the wave. He also said that God is the ultimate reality, and that makes me remember nirvana. I do not think there is that much difference between Christians and Buddhists. Most of the boundaries we have created between our two traditions are artificial. Truth has no boundaries. Our differences may be mostly differences in emphasis.

You are born in your tradition, and naturally you become a Buddhist or a Christian. Buddhism or Christianity is part of your culture and civilization. You are familiar with your culture and appreciate the good things in it. You may not be aware that in other cultures and civilizations there are values that people are attached to. If you are open enough, you will understand that your tradition does not contain all truths and values. It is easy to get caught in the idea that salvation is not possible outside of your tradition. A deep and correct practice of your tradition may release you from that dangerous belief.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, the Kingdom of God is described as a mustard seed. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." What is the seed? Where is the soil? What is it if not our own consciousness? We hear repeatedly that God is within our consciousness. Buddha nature, the seed of mindfulness, is in the soil of our consciousness. It may be small, but if we know how to care for it, how to touch it, how to water it moment after moment, it becomes an important refuge for all the birds of the air. It has the power of transforming everything. In Buddhist practice, we learn how to touch that seed in every moment, how to help it grow, how to make it into the light that can guide us.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven is also described as yeast: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." A little yeast has the power to leaven a lot of flour. The flour is our consciousness. Inside that consciousness are negative seeds: seeds of fear, hatred, and confusion. But if you have the seed of the Kingdom of God inside and know how to touch it, it will have the power to leaven, to transform everything.

P. Touching the Water Within the Waves

The Kingdom of God is also said to be like a treasure that someone finds and hides in a field. Then, in his joy, he sells all he has and buys that field. If you are capable of touching that treasure, you know that nothing can be compared to it. It is the source of true joy, true peace, and true happiness. Once you have touched it, you realize that all the things you have considered to be conditions for your happiness and nothing. They may even be obstacles for your own happiness, and you can get rid of them without regret. We are all looking for the conditions for our own happiness, and we know what things have made us suffer. But we have not yet seen or touched the treasure of happiness. When we touch it, even once, we know that we have the capacity of letting go of everything else.

That treasure of happiness, the Kingdom of Heaven, may be called the ultimate dimension of reality. When you see only waves, you might miss the water. But if you are mindful, you will be able to touch the water within the waves as well. Once you are capable of touching the water, you will not mind the coming and going of the waves. You are no longer concerned about the birth and the death of the wave. You are no longer afraid. You are no longer upset about the beginning or the end of the wave, or that the wave is higher or lower, more or less beautiful. You are capable of letting these ideas go because you have already touched the water.

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Chapter

Wednesday,

March

09,

2011

3:24

Living Buddha, Living Christ

TEN

FAITH ANd PRACTICE

PENETRATING THE HEART OF REALITY

Out faith must be alive, always growing, like a tree. It is our true religious experience that nourishes our faith and allows it to grow. In the Buddhist tradition, religious experience is described as awakening (bodhi) or insight (prajna). It is not intellectual, not made of notions and concepts, but of the kind of understanding that brings more solidity, freedom, joy, and faith. For genuine awakening to be possible, we must let go of notions and concepts about nirvana, and about God. We must let go not just of our notions and concepts about the ultimate but also of our notions and concepts about thing in the phenomenal realm. In Buddhist pratice, we contemplate impermanence, non-self, emptiness, and interbeing to help us touch the phenomenal world more deeply, release our notions and concepts about things, and penetrate the heart of reality. When we touch "things-in-themselves," we see that they are quite different from our notions and concepts about them. Our notions and concepts are the result of wrong perceptions. That is why, in order to have direct access to their reality, we have to abandon all of our wrong perceptions. When nuclear scientists want to enter the world of elementary particles, they too must abandon their notions of things and object. Friench scientist Alfred Kastler said, "Objects or things that have always been thought of as constituents of nature must be renounced." In the same way, we must abandon our notions of God, Buddha, nirvana, self, non-self, birth, death, being, and non-being.

ONLY THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT KNOW HIM

Letting go of notions and concepts may seem to be difficult, but that is exactly what Buddhist meditation teaches us to do. We can use any of a variety of methods to accomplish this. In the beginning, we sometimes use new notions and concepts to neutralize our old ones and lead us to direct experience of reality. The notion of emptiness (synyata), for example, can liberate us from the belief in a self. But then, if we are not vigilant, we can get caught in the notion of emptiness, which is even a bigger problem. To give us a second chance, the Buddha offered the notion of non- emptiness (asynyata). If we are able to see that emptiness and non-emptiness point to the same reality, both notions will be transcended and we will tough the world that is free from notions and concepts.

Christians understand that God cannot be experienced through notions and concepts. They speak of "the incomprehensibility of God." Saint John Chrysostom wrote, "Let us invoke Him as the inexpressible God, incomprehensible, invisible, and unknowable. Let us avow that He surpasses all power of human speech, that He eludes the grasp of every mortal intelligence, that the angels cannot penetrate Him, nor the seraphim se Him in full clarity, nor the cherubim fully understand Him. For He is invisible to the principalities and powers, the virtues of all creatures without exception, only the Son and the Holy Spirit know Him." "Only the Son and the Holy Spirit know Him" because they represent nonconceptual knowing. The Son and the Holy Spirit have direct accress to Go because they are free from ideas and images of God.

This nonconceptual nature of God is often described by Christians as the mystical night. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, of the Eastern Orthodox church, wrote, "Night designates the contemplation of invisible things after the manner Moses, who entered into the darkness where God was, this God who makes of darkness His hiding place. Surrounded by the living night the soul seeks Him who is hidden in darkness. She possesses indeed the love of Him whom she seeks, but the beloved escapes the grasp of her thoughts." God the Father and the Kingdom of God must be the object of our daily experience. If Christian monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen do not touch God the Father in their daily lives, their "primitive images" of God will, one day, no longer sustain their joy, peace, and happiness.

THE SLIBSTANCE OF FAITH

When you begin to practice, you need some tools, just as someone who comes to work on a farm needs tools to work the soil. With proper instruction, you can learn how to handle your tools and how to work the soil. Certain ideas and images can be accepted as tools of spiritual practice. By using them, you can acquire some peace, comfort, stability, and joy. If you continue the practice and make some progress, more sophisticated images and ideas will be provided. These are tools to help you explore the soil of your own life. The Buddha described the practice as citta bhavana, cultivating the mind and heard.

After practicing for some time, one day you will find that the images and ideas you have been using are no longer of help, and it is necessary at that point to abandon all ideas and images in order to obtain a truly deep realization. This genuine experience or insight is the very substance of faith, the kind of faith that no one can remove from you because it is not made of images, ideas, or dogma. You cannot be tempted to doubt God or nirvana because God or nirvana has become the object and subject of your own true experience. For this to happen, two things are essential: first, you have to practice for your belief to become true experience; second, the practice should not be abandoned after some stability and peace have been obtained. We shall examine the reasons for this shortly.

TAKING REFUGE

Many Buddhists invoke the holy names of Shakyamuni Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, and Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. While invoking these holy names, the practitioners' minds should be filled with the wholesome qualities of these Buddhas and bodhisattvas. This is the secret of success in the practice known as "Recollection of the Buddha" (Buddhanusmrti). There are also other ways of practicing Buddhanusmrti, such as vusualizing, reciting the Ten Names of the Buddha, meditating on the wisdom and the compassionate actions of the Buddhas, and so forth. The practioner may chant, "The Lord is Arhat. He is the perfectly enlightended. He is endowed with knowledge and action. he is happy, the knower of all worlds, the insurmountable charioteer of men to be tamed, the teacher of gods and men, the Buddha, the Blessed One."

Buddhists also practice the Recollection of the Dharma (Dharmanusmurti). The living Dharma is the way embodied by Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and all who practice it. The practitioner recites and contemplates, "The Dharma has been well proclaimed by the Buddha, It brings justice right in this life. It brings coolness and removes the flames of passion and craving. It is timeless. It brings us to a wholesome end. It says, 'Come and see for yourself.' It is recognizable by the wise ones." Or they may chant, "Homage to the Lotus Sutra,)) and similar practices.

To practice the Recollection of the Sangha (Shanghanusmrti), Buddhists recite and contemplate, "Well attained is the Order of the Blessed One's disciples. Upright is the Order of the Blessed One's disciples. Righteous and Dharma-abiding is the Order of the Blessed One's disciples. The Sangha is comprised of the four pairs and the eight types who are worthy of offerings, hospitality, gifts, and salutations, unsurpassable fields of merit in the world." All Buddhists practice taking refuge in the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Doing so brings the feeling of calm, solidity, and comfort, and nourishes faith. "I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha. (Buddham saranam gacchami. Dharmam saranam gacchami. Sangham saranam gacchami.)"

INTERIOR RECOLLECTION

In the Christian tradition, prayer produces similar effect. Prayers are drawn from the Bible, especially the Psalms, and these words become the words of the practitioner through memorizing and repeating them with concentration. Christian meditation often takes scriptures as its object, meditatio scripturarum. the meditator puts all his or her heart into this practice of prayer and meditation. That is why it is called Prayer of the Heart.

Like their Buddist counterparts, Christian practitioners do not engage in excessive intellectual or analytical scrutiniy of the scriptures. For the Desert Fathers, prayer was minimally wordy. Saint Macarius said, "It is not necessary to use many words. Only stretch out your arms and say, 'Lord, have pity on me as you desire and as you well know how.' And if the enemy presses you hard, say, 'Lord, come to my aid.'" Other early Christian monks also urged people to use short, simple prayers drawn from the Psalms. The most frequently used was "O God, com to my assistance. (Deus in adjutorium meum intende.)

Christians also practice reciting the holy name of Jesus Christ. Saint Macarius said, "There is no other perfect meditation than the saving and blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ dwelling without interruption in you." This practice is called by Christians "interior recollection" (equivalent to the Sanskrit anusmrti, and the Pali anussati). the practice consists of abandoning distracting thoughts and humbly invoking the name of Jesus with all your heart. Thomas Merton wrote, "This simple practice is considered to be of crucial importance in the monastic prayer of the Eastern Church, since the sacramental power of the name of Jesus is believed to bring the Holy Spirit into the heart of the praying monk."

For the monks of old, the secret of success in the practice was to keep the name of jesus always in mind. The name of Jesus brings the energy of God, namely the Holy Spirit, into your own being. When the monk was able to do this, he could live his daily live in the presence of God. Buddhists in the Pure Land tradition practice similarly. They know what is most essential is to maintain true concentration while reciting the name of Buddha, just as Christians know that thay have to practice with their heart and not call the Lord's name in vain.

AFFLICTIONS BLOCK THE WAY

Chirstiann emphasize Prayer of the Heart, and Buddhists speak about one-pointed mind (cittasekagata). Christians and Buddhists both realize that without concentration, without abandoning distracting thoughts, prayer and meditation will not bear fruit. concentration and devotion bring calm, peace, stability, and comfort to both Buddhists and Christians. If farmers use farming tools to cultivate their land, practitioners use prayer and meditation to cultivate their consciousness. the fruid and flowers of the practice spring forth from the soil of the mind.

Buddhists and Christians know that nirvana or the Kingdom of God is within their hearts. Buddhist sutras speak of Buddha nature as the seed of enlightenment that is already in everyone's consciousness. the Gospels speak of the Kingdom of God as a mustard seed planted in the soil of consciousness. the practicers of prayer and meditation help us touch the most valuable seeds that are within us, and they put us in contact with the ground of our being, Buddhists consider nirvana, or the ultimate dimension of reality, as the ground of being. the orginal mind, according to Buddhism, is always shining. Afflictions such as craving, anger, doubt, fear, and forgetfulness are what block the light, so the practice is to remove these five hindrances, when the energy of mindfulness is present, transformation takes place. When the energy of the Holy Spirit is within you, understanding, love, peace, and stability are possible. God is within. You are, yet you are not, but God is in you. This is interbeing. This is non-self.

but I am afraid that many Christians and many Buddhists do not practice, or if they do, they practice only when they find themselves in difficult situations, and after that, they forget. Or their practice may be superficial. Thay support churches and temples, organize ceremonies, convert people, do charity work or social work, or take up an apostolic ministry, but do not practice mindfulness or pray while they act. They may devote an hour each day for chanting and liturgy, but after a while, the practice becomes dry and automatic and they do not know how to refresh it. They may believe that they are serving the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, or serving the Trinity and the church, but their practice does not touch the living Buddha or the living Chirst. At the same time, these men and women do not hesitate to align themselves with those in power in order to strengthen the position of their church or community. they believe that political power is needed for the well-being of their church or community. They build up a self instead of letting go of the ideas of self. then they look at this self aas absolute truth and dismiss all other spiritual traditions as false. this is a very dangerous attitude; it always leads to conflicts and war. Its nature is intolerance.

THE ABYSS OF DOUBT

Another danger of the lack of authentic, regular practice and the lack of spiritual maturation is that one day the believer will fall into the abyss o doubt. When suffering, fear, and doubt come together in an intensive way, the prayer that worked a little many years earlier may no longer be effective. The ideas, images, and analogies that were invoked in the past may not be able to cover over the vast interior emptiness. The Diamond Sutra teaches that the Tathagata connot be seen through sounds or images. Christian mystics teach that God is invisible, unknowable, and free from mentalrepresentation. If we do not continue to grow, we will not be able to touch the reality of the absolute. That is why it is crucial to remember that the practice should not be abandoned after some stability and peace have been attained.

One day when you are plunged into the dark night of doubt, the images and notions that were helpful in the beginning no longer help. They onlyh cover up the anguish and suffering that have begun to surface. Thomas Merton wrote, "The most crucial aspect of this experience is precisely the temptation to doubt god Himself." this is a genuine risk. If you stick to an idea or an image of God and if you do not touch the reality of God, one day you weill be plunged into doubt. According to Merton, "Here we are advancing beyond the stage where God made Himself accessible to our mind in simple and primitive images." Simple and premitive images may have been the object of our faith in God in the beginning, but as we advance, He becomes present without any image, beyond any satisfactory mental representation. We come to a point where any notion we had can no longer represent God.

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Van Hoa Gia Dinh

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"Living Buddha, Living Christ" A Response by John WorldPeace

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