Wisdom comes from the Logos: in suffering, unwillingness, finitude. In Christ’s life, the agony in Gethsemani, the temptation in the wilderness, and death on a Cross have a message. If they are saying anything, it is this: “When given a choice between A and B, choose C.” When given a choice between hunger and power, choose God’s Word. When given a choice between fighting the Egyptians and despairing of life, remember to “Stand firm and you will see the Lord’s salvation…the Lord will fight for you, you have only to keep still.” When given a choice between life and death, choose consciousness.
Studying Christianity and Zen side by side has highlighted two problems with Christianity: Firstly, many of the characters that Jesus used in his own teaching would fall short of the “demands of righteousness” currently set forth by the Catholic Church. Jesus himself, usually hidden in the unwashed masses, is periodically offered as a foil for the ecclesial ideal of righteousness. The Church seems at odds with itself: on the one hand, it insists on righteousness from its congregants and grants its clerics the ability to condemn. On the other hand, albeit faultlessly, Jesus eschewed the righteousness of his day. The popular Catholic mindset eventually relegated "following Christ’s example" to monks, nuns and mystics, instead of evolving an ecclesial model that makes the recapitulation of Jesus available to all.
Additionally, the Church never seemed to resolve the problem of eschatology that St. Paul felt so viscerally. The Gospels are a study in the how Jesus fulfilled pastscriptures, but they lead directly to St. Paul assuming too much visibility and physicality in the “coming of Christ.” The Church still groans and waits, hoping for a vision of God that, perhaps, the shortcomings of our own paradigm keep us from realizing.
The point is to offer a model of Church whose route to righteousness accords with Christ’s example, and whose ideals of time render not only the past, but the future immanent as well. In short, what I’m proposing is Christian Tantra. [bxA] Followers of Jesus have given too little attention to the way Jesus, (who was a revealed God enfleshed, whose incarnation was inherently dualist, who was born under the laws of existence,) identified with all that was cursed and outcast. He encountered everything to which the holiness of his day would have sanctioned an aversion. He destroyed death by encountering it. Taken more seriously, his example would fit more cleanly in a Tantric model than the current devotional one.
Let me briefly describe Tantra’s place in religious architecture: Both hinayana and mayahana buddhism are “sutrayana” paths. In both paths, there’s an ethic, and whatever the goal is, it's found in the adherence to the ethic. Intoxicants, sex and sometimes meat are taboo—I suppose they go against the buddhist idea of “diminishing suffering for all sentient beings.” Vajrayanis, practitioners of Tantra, call sutrayana’s bluff. Noticing that dualistic ideas of “right and wrong” still caused them to avoid what their own tradition calls taboo, they came up with the idea of “transmutation of energies.” Working with taboos intentionally, calling no energy negative or positive, they created a truly non-dual account of how egolessness puts access to all things in the hands of all people. After sufficient work with “negative energy,” Vajrayanis perceive that the label of “negativity” seems self applied. When they let the ego go, out the door as well goes labels like negative or positive. Bereft of labels for reality, they’re nonetheless left with mastery of it.
To sum up the basic differences between Tantric Paths and Devotional ones: Tantra begins with a totally realized, totally immanent ideal. Now is the only time that isn’t a mental construct. The Buddha, (or in hinduism, the Deity) we’re meant to become—this is something we already are. It then posits self-consciousness as the preoccupation keeping us from realizing it. It may take us several lifetimes to get there, but eventually there will be no self-consciousness getting in the way between us and consciousness—we’ll be exempt from the cycle of rebirths in brahman’s nirvana. In devotional paths, the ideal can logically be delayed—sometimes till after death, sometimes till the end of time. Past and future are thought to be real times, and preoccupation with either is seen as a normal part of human life. The Christian vision tells us we have one shot at gaining heaven and avoiding hell, suggesting purgatory (at most) as the way we clean up any incomplete work from our physical existences.
And allow me to clear up a popular misconception: Tantra has been associated, in the American mindset, almost exclusively with its sexual practices. Even if they could be found, authentic Tantric consorts are well beyond the pale for Christian marriages, and the likelihood is slim as well of two married people being equally willing to practice tantra in all aspects of life. As a discipline, Tantra deals with a wider array of energies than simply sexual ones. In fact, all things—emotions, physical matter, the personal history we bring to our practice, the expectations of practice taking root in our ego—they may be easier to deal with on the level of energy than on the level of narrative. If my narrative says “I” have a problem, in the end I might imagine that “I” have to solve it. Or that “God” will solve it. Meanwhile, narratives can conceal resentments and facilitate denial of negativity. Deprive an energy of its narrative, and it may well be easier to deal with. This is all, of course, in the service of a proper theism: belief that can deal, here in duality and there in non-duality, as the reality of our lives demands.
Tantra asks practitioners to bring consciousness to bear on the attraction and aversion that underlies sin and virtue. Eve saw the fruit was “pleasing to the eye, and to be desired to make one wise.” Adam gave everything a name. While neither desiring nor naming things is inherently bad, it easy to see how attraction and desire and naming things could become problematic in light of original sin’s fundamental abstraction of creation. For those of us who aren’t the world’s paradigmatic first parents, it doesn’t really matter whether original sin or attraction and aversion came first. I’d put honest money on the claim that no modern hen finds the "chicken or the egg” problem adequate answer for any riddle of its existence. The answer is only available when the questioner unflinchingly accepts the reality of paradox, and finds the fidgeting of his own abstracted existence stilled in its light.
All of the things Under the Influence previously said about the need to internalize the messiah are important here. Guru Kripa, the process of being devoted to, then becoming the teacher—this discipline is important in Tantra, and lacking in Christianity. All of the evidence seems to indicate that the very-fine devotional practices that have driven Christian sanctity till now do not fully facilitate the assimilation of Christ’s life.
Consciousness deconstructs self-conscious narratives: as such, it helps its practitioners slip the trap of spiritual materialism. That’s a good way of saying “being who I am involves questioning the accuracy of who I think I am, and not giving those thoughts undue importance.” Without careful attention to training, even Sutrayana Buddhism can become dualistic, and allow the taboos of buddhism to become the next object of attraction and aversion. If Sutrayana buddhism, which makes claims to be non-dualistic, needs Tantra to give that non-duality legs, then the need is more important, still, for the highly dualistic Christianity.
Christ is reality. In Christian Tantra, the only problem is the self. If I am a follower of Christ, then both the permanence of my self and the Christian over dependence on logic must not compete with that, no matter how sacred or real they may seem. At least since the enlightenment and the scientific revolution, Christian modes of proving that reality have been way too cozy with logic.
By all accounts, though, Christ’s example bucks logic. If death is a problem, and dying willingly is the solution, Christ himself must be saying that "labelling of things as a problem” is the first thing that’s got to change. Tantric Christianity, all the more, solves problems by changing the degree of identification with the “self" that’s perceiving the difficulty. In Christian Tantra especially, to arrive at a zero sum when one starts with two, sometimes "adding negative two” isn’t the answer. Sometimes shutting down the mind of the one doing math is equally important: a sort of “two minus self equals zero.”
At least in terms of its way of Knowing, Christian Tantra is a vehicle that allows Christ to be its exemplar, not its foil. Tantra’s model of “dealing with suffering by consciously encountering it” is more in accord with Christian theology than most, more logical Christian theologies, and it allows the characters in Christ’s stories to be exemplars of his theology, rather than outcasts he brought up for convenience's sake. A Christian Tantric path would exalt the weak and the humble this by acknowledging that opposites are egotistical and dualist distinctions, by noting that egotism isn’t the only human option. By centralizing paradox, Christian Tantra allows for opposites like “sacred and profane” to coexist and brings "giving up self" to the fore. Christian Tantra is a way of radical acceptance, and it comes directly from Christ’s Cross.
So consider this an experiment. Keep in mind, it is a practice, and includes many different types of meditation. Breaking down what some of those are will be part of the work. Stay tuned.
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