Pepsi executives will disagree with me. As I’ve been writing this, my music choices lead me to a single Coke-enthusiast’s conclusion: Michael Jackson is the real thing. The walls of my apartment are echoing with his words today. If you want to make the world a better place, says the King of Pop, take a look at yourself and make a change.
I have a confession to make: though looking in the mirror of the scriptures used to be a daily reality for me, that’s not been the case for years. I’m writing this, not because I regret that, but because recent developments have furnished the means to bring a potentially new energy to an old practice.
I have been reading a good number of books lately, in which one tradition’s resources are used to unlock another’s mysteries. In one way or another, Thich Nhat Hanh, Cynthia Bourgealt, and Adyashanti all use Buddhism to unlock Christianity. They sound, inevitably and inescapably, like outsiders. But their efforts have given me cause, not just for reflection, but for conversion and redirection of life. In the first place, I would not be aware of the treasures in my own tradition, nor would I have followed them to the monastery, without the insights of Thich Nhat Hanh. Since leaving the monastery, the meaning I find in Christian scriptures has been tainted with the pain of my journey and its mistakes. It’s only since reading Cynthia Bourgealt that I’ve felt anything close to a desire to chew the cud of those ancient words again.
As it was taught to me, the method of lectio divina, or scared reading, happens in four phases. The Carthusian Guigo II passed them down to the Benedictine Tradition, just as the Trappist reform was bringing it young energy. In order, Lectio Divina’s steps are: Lectio (close reading), meditatio (thinking) oratio (praying) and contemplatio (resting in God.) As with all methods, this one is portrayed as sequential, at least for beginners. That is, of course, where formal Lectio begins to lose me. In my adult life I have not found a way simultaneously open my heart and adhere to a method. Because I’ve habitually used reason to sugarcoat defensiveness, it is too easy to use reason to bypass vulnerability entirely. This baseline anxiety is a cause for fear every time I enter a time of silence: to pray or to write, to read the scriptures or gaze at my bellybutton. Though it’s not always the case—though lectio has often been heavy with grace for me—the method’s so warped by my own psychology that it’s fruitless 9 times out of 10.
Encouraged by the the above authors, and their vital work in Buddhist-Christian dialogue, I’ve decided to switch my methods, reapproach the Gospels and see where it leads. Again, I want to announce my limitations: I am not a Zen Teacher. At best, I’m the Buddhist equivalent of an informed novice, showing off what little knowledge he has. At worst, I am something of a hypocrite. But I’ve been a haughtily informed novice before, and I’ve been a hypocrite before too. My readers can be, on that score, absolutely sure that I’m credible.
I want to read myself in the light of the gospels again. And as I have in the past, I want to use Buddhism to clean the windows. Should God make my eye clear enough to see the light, I want its rays to play freely across my page. My “method” (though I cringe to call it that) will be the “Steps to Solving Koans” outlined in the post of May 4th, “One Hand Clapping: a Round of Applause from a Teacher who became a Student.”
Those “Steps” are:
- Admit your fear
- Make a decision to accept your fear
- Answer with your body, not your mind.
- Make a non-verbal response
Those “steps” are the lens through which I’ll evaluate Gospel Characters. In that effort I will inevitably be filling in details the scriptures omit. In theology studies, with a sneer, we budding scholars called that “Isogetical” (giving the scripture meaning the author didn’t intend.) In the monastery, with equal venom, we worried about “psychologizing the gospels.” I'll certainly do both. If I fill in the blanks, I hope it is with the human condition, with maneuvers common to all people. I hope readers will trust that my effort, in the end, is to evangelize my psychology—precisely because I am capable of imposing my will on God.
Far beyond the task of evaluating people’s inner lives, my effort’s curiosity has a second object. I don’t know whether Koans fall into different, established types. If they’re like psalms or parables, I’m sure they do. My limited knowledge can confirm, though, that Koans do particular types of heavy lifting in the transformational journey. Here are five things I’ve noticed about them:
- Koans Collapse time: later becomes now.
- Koans Collapse place: everywhere becomes here
- koans collapse process: all goals are realized
- Koans divorce response from stimulus: I ride my bike to ride my bike, not to get to the store
- Koans unite opposites: Being and Non-being, listening and speaking, etc. All people become me, I become everyone.
I’ll be particularly interested in stories that do that work. At best, I’m looking for stories that qualify as koans themselves. At the least I’m interested in hearing how the echoes of koan-like voices make the stale sound of old stories good as new again. At worst, I'll find Buddhist Truths that resonate with Christian teachings too long unheard. Because it's often confused me the most, I'll begin with the Gospel of John. Look for numbered entries under the heading "Kairos, Koans and Conversion." The word Kairos, "God's time" is intentional. Rather than being scheduled, posts will occur as often as I can stand to hear myself hold forth.
Apologies to the Gloved One: I've been a victim, too, of a selfish kind of love. And it's changed the way I hear. But his highness' next line was "it's time that I realized." This tells me, at least, that my lectio is too laden with reason, that I need to be open to intuition's breakthroughs. If I will live and die faced with the man in the mirror, I might as well accept the scriptures' help, and familiarize myself with his toothy and awkward grin.
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