Unfortunately, the storehouse of Christian Wisdom has gone so long unopened amid Enlightenment cries of “I THINK THEREFORE I AM” that disciples need other Wisdom traditions to remind them what they’re looking for. Christ’s words—that calling your brother a fool is hell itself—are drowned out amid Dualism’s “Hell below is worse than Earth, Heaven above is better than both.” Inter-religious dialogue, given the impediment Christianity is facing at the hands of wider society, is a needed wake up call.
In the wisdom traditions, pieces of a transformative journey tend to be the same across faiths. Buddhism had about 500 years to find its words before the birth of Christ—it stands to reason that it would be slightly quicker in identifying the turns on the map of changed consciousness. Since both major revivals of my Christian faith have happened at the hands of Buddhists (Thich Nhat Hanh at first, and then the Koan tradition) I will always feel that Shakyamuni is an other-christ, and revere him as such.
Just to keep the game straight, we should do a “comparative terminology” post, placing buddhism side by side with Christianity. Because I want to be able to describe the way of transformation fully, I’m finding this effort increasingly necessary. Often I’ll read about spiritual states in Buddhism and realize that Christianity’s corresponding state is either undeveloped or non-existent. Then I’ll re-examine the Christian tradition, realizing that descriptors for spiritual states have been there the whole time, we just never took the time to point to them.
It’s instructive that on the Christian side, at least two states of being had to be entirely fished out of the previous Tradition. This is a difficult state to be in, for Christianity. Imagine a buddhist and a christian are both in Toledo Ohio. If the Buddhist knows the word Toledo, if he’s spent time there, he’ll be able to be honest—and not terribly freaked by where he’s standing. If the Christian is busy thinking the Buddhist is wrong, that there’s no such thing as Toledo, he’ll appear judgmental—because why would the buddhist lie-- and deluded—because he himself is standing in Toledo and doesn’t know it.
So I’d just like to run down a list of Buddhist terms, and talk about their Christian equivalents.1. Positive Samadhi: Samadhi is a state of mental equanimity that is undisturbed by desires. So long as one is sitting in meditation, this is fairly easy to rouse. Positive Samadhi is the state of equanimity enduring even though one has risen from meditation. (As a sidenote, positive samadhi is composed of Ki (Call) and Kyo (Response). The "Call Narrative" is a biblical device, a story composed of call, refusal, request for a sign, assurance of divine help and final obedience. The story form is evident in the lives of such characters as The Exodus leader Moses and the Prophet Gideon.) In Christianity, we're given a visual for the equivalent of Positive Samadhi in Jesus’ Via Dolorosa. We merely use a different term, calling it "obedience." The only problem with locating positive samadhi at the Cross is that obedience itself can look like attrition. In short, it can seem like the primary stressors in obedience are the external demands being made. In fact, in Christian obedience, the stress is interior: it comes from egotistical inability to accept the situation as it is. In buddhist terms, generally, the only stressors are internal ones: Ego, attachment, etc. These are the very stressors the passion narrative shows Christ as dealing with (If it is your will, let this cup pass from me= renouncing attachment. Not my will, but yours be done= Ego renunciation.) The truth is, suffering is pain we’ve not yet accepted. In the christian story, the passion's external drama distracts Christians from the internal one.
2. Sati (mindfulness): Mindfulness, as far as I can tell, is the ability to do things in a space of presence between forcefulness and automatic pilot. In short, it’s a space of willingness, rather than willfulness. Instead of running the show, or going somewhere else in my head, I’m letting the situation guide me. The corresponding Christian category is called “recollection.” This is a state of not letting reality, not desire, guide action. To be cheeky, recollection recalls the words of Master Yoda. "Already have you, that which you need." Recollection says that we need is God, and he isn't outside of us.
3. The 5 skandhas: The first three Skandhas are form(matter) feelings(whether we find something material pleasant or abhorrent) perceptions(the internalization of a thought-form related to an object, like the car I have in my head when you say “Mazda.”) The last two are mental formations(what “I” feel I “should” do with X) and Consciousness(the separation of a whole object into its aspects or component parts.) Suffice to say that a major objective of Buddhism is to stop Egotistically identifying with the 5 skandhas. The Christian Equivalent of this is the Dark Night of the Senses. This is when you find yourself not wanting the “stuff” you used to want. Television is boring, compulsive eating is overrated, compulsive sex takes too much work and isn’t the intimacy you’re looking for. It’s basically a state of “The whole world’s going crazy about X, and I don’t get the hype." The Dark Night of the Senses might be present if a student feels, among other things, anxiety, boredom or numbness in relation to a desire. It’s a sign of deepening “selfhood”—I take my Identity from “who I am” more than I do from desire and fulfillment.
4. Nirvikalpa Samadhi: This is a prayer state characterized by the withdrawal of the self from sense and awareness. To the outside observer, as I understand it, someone in Nirvikalpa Samadhi might fail to hear the bell at the end of meditation. The Hindu scriptures are full of people who followed their prajna energy through their Chakras, only to reach the Sanhasrara Chakra and go off-radar for a while. Nirvikalpa Samadhi’s Christian equivalent is Contemplation, a state of prayer marked by absence of words, thoughts, concepts or duality.
5. The 5 Realms: Buddhists speak of 5 Realms. The God Realm and the Human Realm are the 2 “top” or “good” realms. The Animal realm, the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, and the Hell Realm are the bottom three. When we’re reincarnated, we’re reincarnated into one of these realms. Just like the skandhas, our objective is to ultimately dis-identify with these realms to attain nirvana, a state exempt from rebirth. The nearest Christian equivalent of this is “interacting with things themselves, not our thoughts about them." We have lots of ideas about God, but none of those ideas are God himself. St. Augustine said “If you can understand it, it isn’t God.” St. Paul spends a whole long time at the beginning of his letter to the Romans talking about how people substituted their concepts of God for God himself, then exchanged the creature for the creator and fell into idolatry. To be emptied of our attachments to our ideas about divinity is to undergo the Dark Night of the Soul. We have ideas about heaven and earth and ostriches and spooks, but none of them are the things themselves. It’s important to note that for the Christian, freedom from “our concepts about things” and communion with the thing itself leads to a non-dual relationship with it. To an observer, I am looking at the flower, but from the inside out there is no “I,” no “flower” and no “seeing.” To use a Buddhist term, the flower and I are simply “interbeing."
6. Absolute Samadhi: This is a stage of spiritual growth, a bona fide part of the truth that leads to Nirvana. In Absolute Samadhi, there are no higher or lower truths, no better or worse practices. Better or worse, higher or lower—these are all labels imposed by selves according to desires, and in Absolute Samadhi, selves and desires begin not to be active. This is where, shockingly, we discover that CHRISTIANITY HAS NO EQUIVALENT TERM. I’ve decided to call the Christian equivalent “Suspension.” The term comes from St. Guerric of Igny, who said that a person who’s crucified with Christ has neither the things of earth, nor the things of heaven. On account of the nails, a crucified man can no sooner draw near to his redeemer than he can avoid the undesirables among his fellowmen. We see signs of this in the book of Genesis, when Rebekah’s parents Laban and Bethuel respond to Isaac’s marriage proposal with the words “We cannot say one thing to you, bad or good. The thing comes from the Lord.” This is important. As one becomes closer to God-as-he-is, opposites disintegrate. Morality ceases be a matter of conforming to a disembodied system of rules. An action is moral based on whether or not it worsens our attachment to self and desire. At first blush, this looks like “relativism--“ morality with no objective reference point at all. But remember that self, desire and attachment are the reference points. Just as, in absolute Samadhi, the dharma runs the game so Buddha Nature can emerge, so in Suspension, the gospel helps our inner-other-christ emerge.
7. Enlightenment: This is a state of increased humility, or deepening non-self. This is another place where Christianity entirely lacks an equivalent term. Two weeks ago, an Under the Influencepost referenced the Dark Night of the Self, a term of its own devise. The Dark Night of the Self was intended to troubleshoot our relationship with our false selves, and the desires that create them. The premise is that sometimes, even a healthy ego isn’t the solution to a wounded one. Better desires aren’t necessarily the answer to unhealthy ones. Non-self and Non-desire need a Christian voice, if we’re going to take those things on. Humility, then, is the best concept we have for this, but we should be careful not to define that as “my desire not to be so prideful.” Still, there, self and desire run the game. There might be a way to “cut off thoughts of self and desire,” but at worst, in trying to eliminate the thoughts, we might get caught up in them. The better way to handle thoughts of self and desire is to treat them like blades of grass to a man in need of glasses. They arise, we don’t go nuts about them, and we let them be “backdrop” for what’s really going on. Nothing to see here, folks...
8. Nirvana: To a buddhist, this is a state when all the karmic clinginess has been cleansed from a person. Rebirths are not necessary, because no part of a person’s self-consciousness, no clinging to the skandas remains, it has all yielded to cosmic consciousness. The nearest that a Christian comes to this is Divinization. When a Christian is divinized, separate self-consciousness ceases to distinguish Christ from the faithful, the faithful from God. If my speculations about Christian reincarnation are are right, a Christian, thus fully transformed by Christ’s paradigm, would need no further incarnations.
When two equally competent masters meet, they don’t compete. They battle to better one another: if there's an element of "showmanship" involved, it's so the other sees, when sitting at the feet of a particular tradition, what's best about it. When the queen of Sheba saw Solomon’s wealth and wisdom, the scripture says “there was no more spirit in her.” Both came bearing gifts—par for the course among equals— and both went away richer than they’d come.
As the search for Wisdom goes, we could do worse.
3. The 5 skandhas: The first three Skandhas are form(matter) feelings(whether we find something material pleasant or abhorrent) perceptions(the internalization of a thought-form related to an object, like the car I have in my head when you say “Mazda.”) The last two are mental formations(what “I” feel I “should” do with X) and Consciousness(the separation of a whole object into its aspects or component parts.) Suffice to say that a major objective of Buddhism is to stop Egotistically identifying with the 5 skandhas. The Christian Equivalent of this is the Dark Night of the Senses. This is when you find yourself not wanting the “stuff” you used to want. Television is boring, compulsive eating is overrated, compulsive sex takes too much work and isn’t the intimacy you’re looking for. It’s basically a state of “The whole world’s going crazy about X, and I don’t get the hype." The Dark Night of the Senses might be present if a student feels, among other things, anxiety, boredom or numbness in relation to a desire. It’s a sign of deepening “selfhood”—I take my Identity from “who I am” more than I do from desire and fulfillment.
4. Nirvikalpa Samadhi: This is a prayer state characterized by the withdrawal of the self from sense and awareness. To the outside observer, as I understand it, someone in Nirvikalpa Samadhi might fail to hear the bell at the end of meditation. The Hindu scriptures are full of people who followed their prajna energy through their Chakras, only to reach the Sanhasrara Chakra and go off-radar for a while. Nirvikalpa Samadhi’s Christian equivalent is Contemplation, a state of prayer marked by absence of words, thoughts, concepts or duality.
5. The 5 Realms: Buddhists speak of 5 Realms. The God Realm and the Human Realm are the 2 “top” or “good” realms. The Animal realm, the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, and the Hell Realm are the bottom three. When we’re reincarnated, we’re reincarnated into one of these realms. Just like the skandhas, our objective is to ultimately dis-identify with these realms to attain nirvana, a state exempt from rebirth. The nearest Christian equivalent of this is “interacting with things themselves, not our thoughts about them." We have lots of ideas about God, but none of those ideas are God himself. St. Augustine said “If you can understand it, it isn’t God.” St. Paul spends a whole long time at the beginning of his letter to the Romans talking about how people substituted their concepts of God for God himself, then exchanged the creature for the creator and fell into idolatry. To be emptied of our attachments to our ideas about divinity is to undergo the Dark Night of the Soul. We have ideas about heaven and earth and ostriches and spooks, but none of them are the things themselves. It’s important to note that for the Christian, freedom from “our concepts about things” and communion with the thing itself leads to a non-dual relationship with it. To an observer, I am looking at the flower, but from the inside out there is no “I,” no “flower” and no “seeing.” To use a Buddhist term, the flower and I are simply “interbeing."
6. Absolute Samadhi: This is a stage of spiritual growth, a bona fide part of the truth that leads to Nirvana. In Absolute Samadhi, there are no higher or lower truths, no better or worse practices. Better or worse, higher or lower—these are all labels imposed by selves according to desires, and in Absolute Samadhi, selves and desires begin not to be active. This is where, shockingly, we discover that CHRISTIANITY HAS NO EQUIVALENT TERM. I’ve decided to call the Christian equivalent “Suspension.” The term comes from St. Guerric of Igny, who said that a person who’s crucified with Christ has neither the things of earth, nor the things of heaven. On account of the nails, a crucified man can no sooner draw near to his redeemer than he can avoid the undesirables among his fellowmen. We see signs of this in the book of Genesis, when Rebekah’s parents Laban and Bethuel respond to Isaac’s marriage proposal with the words “We cannot say one thing to you, bad or good. The thing comes from the Lord.” This is important. As one becomes closer to God-as-he-is, opposites disintegrate. Morality ceases be a matter of conforming to a disembodied system of rules. An action is moral based on whether or not it worsens our attachment to self and desire. At first blush, this looks like “relativism--“ morality with no objective reference point at all. But remember that self, desire and attachment are the reference points. Just as, in absolute Samadhi, the dharma runs the game so Buddha Nature can emerge, so in Suspension, the gospel helps our inner-other-christ emerge.
7. Enlightenment: This is a state of increased humility, or deepening non-self. This is another place where Christianity entirely lacks an equivalent term. Two weeks ago, an Under the Influencepost referenced the Dark Night of the Self, a term of its own devise. The Dark Night of the Self was intended to troubleshoot our relationship with our false selves, and the desires that create them. The premise is that sometimes, even a healthy ego isn’t the solution to a wounded one. Better desires aren’t necessarily the answer to unhealthy ones. Non-self and Non-desire need a Christian voice, if we’re going to take those things on. Humility, then, is the best concept we have for this, but we should be careful not to define that as “my desire not to be so prideful.” Still, there, self and desire run the game. There might be a way to “cut off thoughts of self and desire,” but at worst, in trying to eliminate the thoughts, we might get caught up in them. The better way to handle thoughts of self and desire is to treat them like blades of grass to a man in need of glasses. They arise, we don’t go nuts about them, and we let them be “backdrop” for what’s really going on. Nothing to see here, folks...
8. Nirvana: To a buddhist, this is a state when all the karmic clinginess has been cleansed from a person. Rebirths are not necessary, because no part of a person’s self-consciousness, no clinging to the skandas remains, it has all yielded to cosmic consciousness. The nearest that a Christian comes to this is Divinization. When a Christian is divinized, separate self-consciousness ceases to distinguish Christ from the faithful, the faithful from God. If my speculations about Christian reincarnation are are right, a Christian, thus fully transformed by Christ’s paradigm, would need no further incarnations.
When two equally competent masters meet, they don’t compete. They battle to better one another: if there's an element of "showmanship" involved, it's so the other sees, when sitting at the feet of a particular tradition, what's best about it. When the queen of Sheba saw Solomon’s wealth and wisdom, the scripture says “there was no more spirit in her.” Both came bearing gifts—par for the course among equals— and both went away richer than they’d come.
As the search for Wisdom goes, we could do worse.
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