Spirituality and celebrating the life of the Buddha

. . . continued from my examiner column, http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-14414-Columbus-Interfaith-Spirituality-Examiner~y2010m5d28-Spirituality-Celebrating-Wesak-Life-of-the-Buddha

Stephen Prothero, author of God is Not One: the Eight Rival Religions That Run the World- and Why Their Differences Matter, tells us 'Of all the Asian religions, Buddhism has had the largest influence on European and American popular culture. Its beliefs and practices have made their way onto the television show The Simpsons, the movie The Matrix, a bestselling book by NBA coach Phil Jackson called Sacred Hoops (1996), and lyrics by the hip-hop group the Beastie Boys ('Bodhisattava Vow). Buddhism has also long attracted the attention of Western intellectuals. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called Buddhism 'a hundred times more realistic than Christianity . . . ' p176. What one reads of Buddhism in his book however, dispels much of the public misperception of what Buddhism is, how it's practiced and some of the beliefs associated with it. [full moon photo by Selena von Eichendorf. In honor of Wesak]

My dad had a beautiful Buddha sculpture in our home, a gift from Chicago- he taught Asian history for a time in his long and distinguished career at the University level. For us anyway, it showed a face of devotion and supreme meditative contemplation; nothing more. (Eye of the beholder I guess) A fundamentalist Lutheran pastor made a disparaging remark about Buddhist idols in the homes of new members after visiting us on the following Sunday. It happened to be the day dad brought a Chinese colleague to visit and join us for lunch. The colleague, who was contemplating Christianity, subsequently became a Catholic, where sculptures and statues are thought to reinforce the faith. For some, (strict Calvinists or Muslims for example) any religious artifacts from a different point of view or representations of God might deemed heretical. In other faith traditions, Hindu for example, representations of Gods are commonplace.

Here's one debunking in Prothero's book: 'Although Buddhism is widely associated in the West with meditation, most Buddhists do not meditate. Their piety consists largely of bhakti--style devotion to various Buddhas and other supramundane figures. They worship these Buddhas in temples, pary to them at home, and go on pilgrimage to sacred sites associated with their exploits.' page 177 He is witty in his comments about meditation for which Buddhists are best known, for Westerners to learn and grasp, 'In our purpose-driven culture, however, doing nothing can be hard work.' He then describes Vipassana (insight or mindfulness meditation), and Metta (loving kindness meditation).

A common conviction among Buddhists, though techniques and practices differ is that suffering is the problem. 'They trace suffering to 'ignorant craving'- our tendency to mistake things that are changing as unchanging and then to cling desperately to their supposedly unchanging forms.' page 179. That would mean homes, relationships, possessions, status, beliefs, and who we think we are. Jesus had some things to say about that too, as did the Guru!

For Prothero the greatest contribution among the great religions is the Buddhist teaching that 'the thing we are most certain of-the self- is actually a figment of the imagination. . . . ' in other words, 'According to Buddhists, the self does not actually exist.' Now put that in your pipe and smoke it! You are 'as fleeting as a breath . . . ' and most difficult of all: 'we have no soul'. For Buddhists, 'matter, sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness-create the illusion of 'I' and 'me.' But this illusion is all there is to 'myself.' p184 The problem then becomes the ego when we are more accurately all part of an interdependent web. Transcendence and The Ultimate is beyond doctrine, beyond any fixed state of being, not captured by mere words or creeds-as mystics of all religions might agree. Experiencing the blissful enigmatic smile and silence in contemplating the face of the Buddha helps us realize that this too, is a fleeting moment . . . a mere illusion.

A final cautionary note: do not think about this too deeply while driving! . . .