Interfaith Insight - 2020
Permanent link for "Spirituality: Learning from the wisdom of other traditions" by Doug Kindschi on September 29, 2020
Does COVID-19, restrictions on our free movement, political
polarization, or racial division make you depressed or even angry?
For some parts of the nation the threats include fires and hurricanes.
During such challenging times many have turned to contemplation and
spiritual practices that give perspective and help deal with the
stress. Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr, in his daily
postings these past two weeks, has been discussing what he calls
“interspirituality.” He introduces us to persons who have combined
Christian teachings with Eastern contemplative practices in seeking a
deeper understanding of an active commitment to the love ethic that
can also help us in the healing process.
In a column titled “Wounded Healers,” Rohr introduced the work of
Lama Rod Owens, an American-born, Black, raised Christian and now a
Tibetan Buddhist monk, graduate of Harvard Divinity School, author,
activist, and one of the leaders of a new generation of Buddhist
teachers. Rohr is drawn to his teachings on “love, self-compassion,
and justice, and … the needed work of healing our own wounds so that
the healing can be passed on.”
Owens, also known as Lama Rod, his Tibetan honorific title (as in
the Dalai Lama), invites us to “genuinely feel good about who you are,
with all your flaws and foibles, you’re lovable.” In his essay,
“Remembering Love: An Informal Contemplation of Healing,” he writes,
“Healing is being situated in love. Healing is not just the courage to
love, but to be loved. It is the courage to want to be happy not just
for others, but for ourselves as well.”
For Lama Rod, healing is not a state of being, but always a
movement or process toward wholeness. Healing involves accepting our
woundedness and letting it open our hearts to the hurt, frustration,
loneliness and anger of others. He writes, “Opening our hearts to
woundedness helps us to understand that everyone else around us
carries around the same woundedness.” It is his hope and prayer that
“all beings be seen, held kindly, and loved. May we all one day
surrender to the weight of being healed.”
Lama Rod will present the Interfaith Leadership Lecture online at
4:30 pm on Oct. 7. You can register for the zoom webinar at www.interfaithunderstanding.org.
Rohr, in last week’s daily posts, introduced us to others who
have gone beyond interfaith discussion to what the late Catholic monk
Wayne Teasdale called “Interspiritual Mysticism.” They have explored
what is at the heart of the world’s deepest spiritual traditions,
namely the commitment to love. It is a love that is active and engaged
in justice, but also a love that doesn’t judge. It requires a radical
humility that seeks to serve the needs of the other rather than
judging them.
Rohr discusses the work of Bede Griffiths (1906–1993), an earlier
Benedictine monk, who spent nearly 25 years in the Prinknash Abbey in
Gloucester, England, before going to India in 1955. While most
familiar with the mystical tradition of the West, he sought the kind
of presence of God in nature that he found in the Eastern spirituality
of India. He eventually was put in charge of the Shantivanam (Forest
of Peace) Ashram that had been founded by two Benedictine monks in
1950. It was there that he practiced the blending of Christian prayer
with the Eastern mystical sense of the cosmos characteristic of
Hinduism. In preparation for each Christian prayer hour they would
read Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Sufi texts.
True to his own deep Christian faith, Griffiths in his book, “A
New Vision of Reality: Western Science, Eastern Mysticism, and
Christian Faith” writes, “If you go deeply into any one tradition, you
converge on a center, and there you see how we all come forth from a
common root. And you find how we meet people on the deeper level of
their faith, in the profound unity behind all our differences. ... The
grace of Christ is present in some way to every human being from the
beginning to the end.”
Rohr expressed a deep respect for this Catholic monk who in the
pre-Vatican II era had the courage “to follow the calling of the Holy
Spirit to live and worship in the East. He not only taught a nondual
consciousness but embodied it in his life, remaining faithful to
Christ while embracing the wisdom and practices of Hinduism.”
Another Christian contemplative cited by Rohr is Adam Bucko, an
Episcopal priest and social justice advocate. Rohr describes him as a
mentor to young people “who are discovering a spiritual life focused
on service, compassion, and justice.”
Bucko writes, “For younger people, many of us, it’s very clear we
see God as present in all of the traditions. ... Not only do they
believe that there is one underlying reality at the foundation of all
major world religions but they are also convinced that different
traditions and their unique approaches to God complement each other.”
He notes that many young people don’t identify with a particular
tradition or institution. They are not necessarily rejecting God, but
have become disillusioned with many religious organizations that seem
to be more interested in money, political power, self-preservation,
maintaining the status quo, and “having right beliefs.” This
generation, Bucko notes, is pursuing some of the big questions dealing
with justice and compassion, as well as how to live a life of integrity.
Rohr finds all of this consistent with his Christian belief and
understanding of Jesus’ example. He describes it as “God’s great act
of solidarity instead of judgment. This is how we are to imitate
Jesus, the good Jewish man who saw and called forth the divine in
Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician woman and the Roman centurions who
followed him; in Jewish tax collectors who collaborated with the
Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all stripes; in
eunuchs, pagan astrologers, and all those ‘outside the law.’ Jesus had
no trouble whatsoever with otherness. …
“Authentic God experience always expands your seeing and never
constricts it. What else would be worthy of God? In God you do not
include less and less; you always see and love more and more. And it
is from this place that we lose any fear we have about entering into
discussion, prayer, and friendship with people of other faith traditions.”
Join us online Oct. 7 with Lama Rod for a further exploration of
ways in which the various faith traditions and practices
can inform and enrich our own spiritual quest.