At Saturday's farmers market, three
men asked whether I'd thought about becoming a Catholic.
One turned out to be the son of two
close friends of mine from the 1970's. We spoke energetically of our
love for them – and of the plane crash that killed them so young.
“At each moment, do not rely on
tomorrow. Think of this day and this day only, because the next
moment is uncertain and unknown,” wrote 13th Century
Japanese zen master Dogen. I first read that while riding on a train
through North China. Just then the train lurched to a sudden stop,
on a bridge. Outside my window a peasant lay dying, hit by the
train. Point taken. I have Dogen's words on a T-shirt.
Constant awareness of our fragility
and individual insignificance seems important. Most religions teach
the transitory nature of this life, yet organized religious groups
pile on the pomp and pompousness their founders eschewed. Sometimes
Christian kids fall in love with the pure loving-kindness of the
Buddha's words as a refuge from churches' hypocrisy. Sometimes
Japanese kids appalled by hypocrisy in temples love the purity of
Jesus's words.
Jesus advised us to take the
lowest-status seat at the table, not the highest, and let others
raise us up if they choose. Too, if you harmed “the least of these
my brothers,” you harmed Him.
Patrul Rinpoche lived that way. An
erudite and much-admired (Tibetan Buddhist) lama, he wandered the
country, dressed in an old sheepskin, not as a lama. When traveling
to some great religious event where he or another lama was to teach
hundreds or thousands, he walked. Alone. No fine horse. No
retinue. Once a poor woman with three children was traveling to hear
Patrul Rinpoche speak. A poor stranger started traveling with them,
helping her with the kids and sharing food he begged. When they
reached their destination, he excused himself. Next day she was
shocked to see him on the high platform, teaching mindfulness and
compassion.
Were Jesus and Patrul not brothers?
Seems we're all pathetic humans,
struggling to make our way. If being part of a group helps, fine!
That's not my style, but I can use all the help I can get, whether
the words are Lakota, Biblical, Buddhist, or Taoist. Most religious
folks are deeply convinced of their Truth, but can't all be right –
unless each religion is groping toward describing something none
fully comprehend, and being Hindu, Moslem, or Christian is like using
the words “moloko,” “leche,” or “milk.” Nothing to
fight over.
Most religions teach humility, which
atheists learn from their awe at natural wonders. Some teach
mindfulness, or even that mindfulness means nothing without
compassion, faith nothing without good works. Admirable thoughts.
But faith, not reason, brings us to religion. One doesn't learn it
from a tract. We can't create it on demand, like regenerating an
amputated finger.
Humility and loving-kindness are good,
and greed and hatred unhelpful, whether we seek a spot in heaven, a
better rebirth, or neither. I think Jesus and Buddha would look
askance at good conduct motivated by self-interest.
My guess? Deep inside we sense that
we are a small part of something bigger, and would like to preserve
it, and our kind. I think we crave harmony; but life erodes our
consciousness of that craving. We join religions to revive it –
disguising our personal insignificance and muting death's finality.
-30-
[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 4 August 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A spoken version will air on both KRWG and KTAL (101.5 FM, www.lccommunityradio.org. and be available at KRWG's website.]
[Patrul Rinpoche lived most of the 19th Century (1808-1887), in Kham (eastern Tibet, a wonderfully wild place I got to wander through briefly in 1985, a journey strictly forbidden by the Chinese authorities back then). Wild, beautiful, tough, cold, mountainous country. Dogen, the 13th Century Buddhist teacher quoted early in the column, kind of revived Zen in Japan in his time.]
[I mentioned young people appalled by the hypocrisy of "Christian" churches, which I saw particularly in the 1960's, with racism and civil rights issues. Just didn't make sense that people could be so strict in their observance of Christian rites and customs yet not see that giving blacks a fair chance was something Jesus would have supported pretty strongly. But one friend was half-Japanese, and had been born in Japan. We were born soon after World War II, and her father, a U.S. serviceman, had skipped out on her mother. Her mother was a Christian. a decade or so after my friend's birth, her mother met a Christian man. Very Christian. She dated and married him, planning to move to the U.S. Texas, maybe. Excited about it, because he said his whole family was Christian. Fundamentalist Christian, which must mean they were truly, deeply Christian. (You can see where this is going. She couldn't.) When they arrived, her husband's mother set her straight, that being Japanese (and an unwed mother, perhaps) she was unacceptable and unwelcome. "He married you, we didn't!" Uhhh . . . ?]
[ Ran out of space, but originally intended to express wishes that (a) public figures from Trump to Ocasio-Cortez would display more humility, tolerance, and compassion and (b) we, including this columnist, would display more of those qualities in our comments on those figures and our debates on public issues.]
No comments:
Post a Comment