Photo: Tony the Misfit

Buddhism certainly has caught fire in the West over the last couple of decades. As we face ever greater threats to our humanity, Buddhism has become, in some ways, the “go-to” religion for those searching outside the Christian values set forth in western society.

Mark Vernon, in the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section, recently wrote about his week spent at a Buddhist meditation retreat in the UK. He outlined the process – very similar to ones I’ve experienced here in the US – of silence, sitting, walking, and eating meditations, and also work meditation. Teachers are on hand to begin and end sessions, act as helpful guides, and to intervene if a student is having issues.

Vernon espouses the importance of meditation – central to Buddhism, as most people know – for gaining insight into the idea that life is suffering, and the way to be delivered from that suffering is to accept this “noble truth” and release attachment. He grasps the importance of deepening insight in order to heal ourselves, but then he wonders about the bigger picture of possibly becoming self-absorbed:

Meditation-as-therapy flirts with narcissism when it is devoted to observing yourself, for that can lead to self-absorption and self-obsession. It’s a danger inherent in any community devoted to a particular task, though perhaps more so in one that lacks a reference point beyond the individuals taking part.

Is that what insight religions like Buddhism do? Make us more self-centered?

Is Christianity More Enlightened?

On the other hand, Vernon notes, Christianity – in theory – is about something outside of ourselves, namely God. Christians are in “service to something greater” than themselves – at minimum going and donating to the church, and at maximum living a life in service to God and others. He continues:

But I did wonder whether a God-centred spiritual practice might offer a better way to get over yourself, and in turn offer a more satisfying “therapy”.

I can see a bit of the logic from an “on paper” point-of-view, but what immediately struck me when I read about being in service to God, is that many people do this in order to get to heaven. I’m not talking about nuns or priests, or even extremely devout Christians.

But I am talking about a normal human being who follows certain rules of the religion for the purpose of, and fears around, their own salvation, and not simply because of their love of God in and of itself.

Self-Inquiry Vs. Narcissism

Besides this possibility, I also see this perspective as not seeing the whole picture. As many people who take the time to explore themselves and the “whys” of what they do often say, each of us must understand, love, and feel compassion for what is inside before we can ever truly be of service to others.

And this exploration leads to a balance or contentment that sends out a ripple effect on the world, namely through lacking the anger that so many people carry in our extremely stressed out world.

I’m not trying to say that Christianity, or any other religion, cannot lead to the same insights. In fact, meditation has become (and really, always has been) a large part of several Christian sects. But to me, Buddhism teaches an “all-one” belief system that inherently requires being of service to others, but understanding that you must continue to be in service to the self at the same time.

There is no doubt in my mind that as with all things, extreme narcissism is an option – initially. But if a person really puts time into the process, they won’t end up that way. And in a world where we need each other more and more every single day, giving yourself love is an absolute necessity.

I want to leave you with a video created in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which was yesterday here in the states. I think these quotes describe a beautiful balance between love of self and love of others, and really, how they are no different:

Do you think spending too much time looking inside makes a person self-centered? Share your thoughts below.

Community Connection

Need more great reminders of the power of MLK’s legacy? Then check out Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. Plus, stay updated with the latest stories and movements in Haiti at Matador Change.

Ascension / Photo: Joanna Vaughan

The whole of history of philosophy, religion, science, mathematics, has the same root, the same mind – the same itch. You may scratch yourself one way, somebody else may do it differently, but the itch has to be understood. The itch is the belief that existence is not a mystery. – Osho

BNT editor Ian MacKenzie offered me this quote recently, and ever since I heard it, the words have been marinating in my mind.

At first, it seemed to me that Osho was dismissing all endeavors of discovery as pointless, saying that no matter what we do we will never understand life. Ian explained it in a different way: that while we can know some things, many of the pursuits in life are simply a means to wash our minds from the uncertainty that comes with not knowing or understanding something.

Since the conversation was concerning faith, I naturally tried to understand the quote in light of my Christian perspective. What if Christianity (or every other faith) is, more than anything, a search for comfort? A search for a sense of assuredness. Something to hold on to.

Some people would even go so far as to say it’s a crutch.

There are many that take their “faith” at face value without exploring the deeper contexts, and ignoring the hard questions. However, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this isn’t entirely true for the Christian faith.

A Question Of Doubt

Photo: SMN

While faith assures us of many things, it also opens up a whole new world of questions, uncertainty, and doubt. Having faith requires a level of comfort with being uncomfortable. It requires knowing that you don’t know everything.

From what is typically seen in today’s world, this may seem counter-intuitive. There are many people who seem remarkably comfortable in their faith. In fact, they are so confident, they feel compelled to tell you and everyone else how right they are.

They’re the ones that end any actual topic of spiritual conversation by becoming angry and asserting their argument with, “Well, God told me so, so I’m right.” How do you argue with that?

Donald Miller has a great quote about humility and faith in “Searching for God Knows What”:

If you ask me, the way to tell if a person knows God for real, I mean knows the real God, is that they will fear Him. They wouldn’t go around making absurd political assertions and drop God’s name like an ace card, and they wouldn’t’ be making absurd statements about how God wants you to be rich and how if you send in some money to the ministry God will bless you.

It seems if your really knew the God who understand the physics of our existence, you would operate a little more cautiously, a little more compassionately, a little less like you are the center of the universe.

Too many times people use religion to justify themselves in areas of doubt. Instead of admitting they don’t know all the answers they put up a facade, and refuse to be honest with themselves and others.

The Mystery of Faith

I’ll be honest. When I read the Bible I don’t understand everything in it all the time. There are some confusing parts:

Photo: radiant guy

• The concept of a trinity
• An omniscient, omnipotent, and ever-existent being
• The coexistence of a perfectly loving God with the reality of so much evil in the world.

There are areas that are simply hard for me to wrap my mind around. You know what? That’s okay. The Bible actually states that we “cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.”

That’s not to say I think God is completely mysterious and there’s no way we can ever know anything about Him. I do believe there are some characteristics of God that we can know through his revelation in the Bible and his creation.

I’ve become aware that honestly I don’t know some things and I’m okay with not knowing some things. I’m simply coming to terms with some of my human limitations.

How does a finite mind comprehend something infinite? I have problems comprehending numbers when they get too big. If I can’t understand the concept of 1 trillion (12 zeros by the way), how am I supposed to understand how big “infinite” is?

Perhaps an even bigger question: if we COULD know everything about God and completely understand all of his facets, WOULD that God even be one worthy of worship?

The Unpredictable Is Divine

Part of faith is learning to be comfortable with the uncertainty that comes with life. If life were predictable, it wouldn’t just be boring, but pointless.

The Divine as seen in nature / Photo: moonjazz

There would be no surprises and nobody would ever pick a bad stock on Wall Street. In John Ortberg book “Faith & Doubt,” he recalls a musician friend telling him “If I refuse to sing a word or play a note until I’m certain of perfection, there will never be music.”

The same is true in faith. If you wait until you know everything about life and spirituality, you miss out on the great journey that faith is. It’s dirty and messy. You fall down. You screw up. But you learn. That’s part of faith. That’s part of life. It’s a discovery.

The truth is that I can make a very good case why I believe there is a God. I’m not sure I can logically prove Him beyond a shadow of a doubt, and sometimes I’m not even sure he’s there, but that’s where faith comes in.

In our Age of Reason, this isn’t a popular stance. Everything has to be testable. Everything has to have a concrete, logical reason or some sort of rationale behind it. I’m not against reason, I just wonder sometimes if we’ve fallen in love with the concept of reason and logic.

We judge so much by reason even though we’re not completely rational beings. Most of the decisions we make are not rational. We’re emotional human beings, not simply logic machines.

As Osho says, life is incredibly mysterious. God and faith are infinitely more complex than we can comprehend, and to think that we can understand the universe, its complexity and meaning in its entirety seems arrogant at best.

Like most things in life, it comes down to balance. Some things in life can be explained. Others can’t. The secret is learning to be at ease with that which can’t be known while simultaneously searching for an understanding of what can be.

What do you think about faith versus reason? Share your thoughts below.

Photo: Daily Mail Online

Last month, a Christian couple in Liverpool was charged with “criminal offense” after a religious dispute with two of their Islamic guests.

The couple, owners of the Bounty House Hotel, and the Muslim guests were apparently having breakfast when a discussion about religion ensued. Although details are scarce, it seems the couple:

…Suggested that Mohammed, the founder of Islam, was a warlord and that traditional Muslim dress for women was a form of bondage.

Ok, certainly offensive, but worth going to jail over?

Seems a little law in the UK called the Public Order Act allows police to arrest people based on offensive comments. The law was enacted, lawyers say, in order to deal with violence and disorder on the streets, not to arrest people having an argument.

Yet police say they were charged due to use of ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words’ that were ‘religiously aggravated’.

Things getting a bit out of control here? It’s hard to know exactly what happened, and the hotel owners obviously have some questionable beliefs about Islam. But going to jail over them? Man, half of America would be in jail if we could get arrested for stupidity.

Freedom of religion, freedom of speech and protection from bodily harm seemed to be getting all jumbled up here. Plus, commentary by the Daily Mail brought up another good point:

It is striking that the Crown Prosecution Service has thought fit to bring this case, when no action was taken to prevent the appalling persecution of Fiona Pilkington, whose disabled daughter was savagely bullied, who called for police help in vain at least 30 times, and who eventually killed herself in despair.

Hmm, makes you wonder what is really going on here.

What do you think about people being arrested for religious offense? Share your thoughts below.

Feature photo: yoshiffles

Photo: mugley

Time for some controversial religious and political talk from the left:

Frank Schaeffer is a reformed fundamentalist Christian who still considers himself a Christian today. But when it comes to a poll stating that 35% of people in New Jersey believe that Obama may be the Antichrist (the numbers look a bit lower here), he notes “that within our culture, we have a subculture which is literally a 5th column of insanity…can Christianity be rescued from Christians?”

He also believes that as a former life-long Republican, the party must not continue to “cater to the village idiot” (in his words, fundamentalist Christians).

I get where Schaeffer’s anger, his inflammatory speech, and his reactions are coming from. I can’t watch news on TV for fear of a Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly popping into view and just pissing me off from the first moment they open their mouth. After seeming to bridge some of our differences in the US with Obama’s sweep in the elections, it now feels as if America has become more fractionalized, and fundamentalist on several fronts, than ever before.

At least if you look at corporate media and polling.

Reality Or Reactionary?

Nosing around the internet, I came across such sites as catholicanarchy.org, written by a doctoral student in theology, Michael J. Iafrate. He covers issues from a religious perspective that are close to my own heart, like the unconscionable reality that corporations get away with everything because they are considered a “person” in the eyes of the law.

And what about the activist church/organization Los Angeles Catholic Worker? To them:

If we too desire to become citizens of His Kingdom, then we must live our lives in proximity to and in solidarity with those who are at the margins of our society…[we] regularly offers prophetic witness in opposition to war-making and injustice.

I can certainly get on board with that perspective. Plus, there’s the Christians for Peace in El Salvador, a faith-based organization that bridges the poor communities in El Salvador with ones in the US, and “is politically non-partisan, committed to nonviolence and supportive of the faith journeys of one another.”

Photo: gnuckx cc0

There is no doubt in my mind that there are Fundamentalist Christians who believe Obama is the Antichrist, that all women should stay in the kitchen, and that people like me are going straight to hell really, really soon.

There always have been fringes of every belief and religion, and there always will be.

Yet, is the loud, Fundamentalist Christian sector really becoming the majority, or is that what mainstream media would like us to believe? Is this viewpoint necessary to keep the news sector churning, and to keep us in fear, whether on the left or the right?

It is worth taking a look at the people who surround you, the continued growth of Christian organizations who are social-justice, food-justice, and eco-justice oriented, and getting news from mainstream media in little sound bites instead of heaping spoonfuls before you come to a conclusion.

And, by the way, I’m not a Christian, Fundamentalist or otherwise, if you have yet to guess.

Do you think that Fundamentalist Christians are really taking over the religion, or is it a media ploy? Share your thoughts below.

“Gay Liberation” sculpture, NYC / Photo: Tony the Misfit

As people in the US continue to debate over whether or not two people who love each other tremendously, but are the same sex, should be allowed to marry, a new survey shows that gays may be more religiously devout than their non-gay counterparts.

The Barna Group, apparently a well-known evangelical pollster, surveyed 9,000 gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans and found that 70% describe themselves as Christian, with 60% saying their faith is “very important” in their lives.

David Gibson of Politics Daily added:

…Both anecdotal evidence and some research shows that gays and lesbians who are involved in their churches and denominations are often more committed to the church and more involved in ministry than their straight brethren.

Scott Thumma of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research has been studying gays in churches since the 1980s, and says that he has found gay congregants in every denomination, even evangelical and Mormon congregations.

What are some of the reasons for the stronger showing of faith? Gibson noted a few possibilities, including the desire to “avoid the risk of eternal punishment,” or the draw to minister to others because of their own experiences, which brings in the Christian ideals of forgiveness, redemption, and acceptance.

There is also the theory that once a person has discerned one call from God, they are more adept at understanding God’s call to ministry.

No matter the reason, it certainly makes me wonder if conservative, straight churchgoers will continue to call gay people heathens. This survey seems to throw that insult out the window.

What do you think about the survey’s findings? Share your thoughts below.

Here we go with the shock advertising again. How does this advertisement strike you – as valid or infuriating?

Somewhere in Texas / Photo: Answers in Genesis

Here’s how Answers in Genesis describes themselves:

An apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry, dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively…we also desire to train others to develop a biblical worldview, and seek to expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas, and its bedfellow, a “millions of years old” earth (and even older universe).

Apparently, AIG doesn’t seem to be the only one sprinkling such wonderful Christian sentiment around the US. Dangerous Talk has compiled, and asks people to continue sending in pictures, of the worst Christian AND Atheist billboards around the country.

Personally, I can’t believe they are implying that non-believers, or to whom God “doesn’t matter,” are going to take a gun and shoot someone in the face.

Striking yes; thoughtful, absolutely not.

Here’s the same kid featured in video campaign:

Although supposedly their beef is with evolution, I don’t see how that point is conveyed with this picture. So, according to them, believing what Darwin had to say means a person is lawless and will go on a killing rampage?

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t put an African-American or Middle Eastern child on there. But I guess they know it would completely show their prejudices. With a white kid, they can get away with “anyone can be lawless and moral-free who doesn’t believe in God.”

Equal opportunity to be a murderer, I guess.

What do you think about the message of this billboard? Share your thoughts below.

Stone faced monks age solemnly / Photo copepodo

During four-months of backpacking and research across Spain, I found myself in the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, 57 kilometers south of Burgos.

I planned on experiencing as much as possible the rhythms of Benedictine monastic life.

Open to the public, the chanted prayer of the monks at Silos occurs six times a day in the monastery church. They perform their cycle of prayer in the form of plainsong, also known as Gregorian chant.

The Monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silos is home of the monks made famous when their CD, Chant, was released in 1994.

The lineage of the land here goes deep. Previously inhabited by prehistoric populations, Celtiberians, Romans, Visigoths, and Muslims, the current monastery was founded in the 10th century over a ruined Visigothic monastery that was destroyed during an 8th century incursion from Muslim invaders.

Immersed in this deep ancestry, I wonderd what would happen if I went to chanted prayer six times a day.

A Chance Encounter

Before my first chance to attend chanted prayer (7pm for Vespers), I stretched my legs and took in all the streets of the village, relishing in its medieval pattern and the sense that time has stood still.

Destinations

Community Connection to Spain

Until, that is, I passed an elderly man who looked back at me with a bewildered, wild eyes, before suddenly unfurling unbidden obscenities at me.

My stability unraveled and I rushed away, taking alternate streets to get back to my room so as to avoid running into him. I did my best to clear my mind of the experience and then headed back out to my first session with the monks in the monastery church.

For the rest of the weekend, I entered into a rhythm of going to each prayer session: Matins, Lauds, the Eucharist, Sext, Vespers, and Compline, held throughout the days.

I interspersed prayer times with walks into the wild countryside of Castile and three course country meals paired with local vintages at the traditional country inns in the village. The monks weren’t suffering for good food and wine, so I decided to join their monastic tradition on that front, too.

The Monks Arrive

Inside the Santo Domingo de Silos church / Photo labtscm

After two days of constant sung prayer, something did happen.

It was Sunday evening during Compline, the last prayer of the day. The monks arrived as usual, streaming in from a door behind the apse and standing on both sides of the church altar, a brother in the middle to guide the chant.

I loved the times of day, early and late, when there were very few visitors because then the monks were more themselves. One blew his nose while chanting, another rubbed his tired eyes.

They always showed each other great reverence, a thou relationship, bowing at each other upon entering and upon leaving. It was clear they saw each other as extensions of God.

There were four other lay people present, like me, sitting in the nave. I felt my state of presence had increased with these sessions – and now I was also finding that something significant was happening on a cellular level, as if my body and mind were pulsating at a different frequency.

I closed my eyes as the chanting washed over me. I pictured the monks on the altar, but they were emitting light from the crowns of their heads. It was a white light – but when it joined in the center of their circle, far above the dome of the church, it turned to purple.

It was like a complex maze or kaleidoscope of purple lines and luminous emissions, weaving a great cosmic tapestry with a deep purple center that acted like a tunnel, a great portal on a cosmic highway. It was truly one of the most beautiful things I’d ever “seen.”

A Glimpse Of God

As I am not Catholic and was not raised in a Catholic system. Whatever that was that I experienced was not being channeled through a particular belief system.

It felt universally sacred, offered through the discipline of intentional sound and vibration. As the chanting ceased, as the brothers bowed to each other, as one brother turned to us and wished us blessings, the few lay people got up to leave.

I sat a bit longer, still engulfed by the impact of my vision. An elderly man walked past me. I looked up and saw that it was the deranged man from the day before, the one who could not control the stream of obscenities that pushed past his lips.

But he was transformed, or better, trance-formed. His face, especially his eyes, were vibrant, clear, and shining. Plump tears were rolling down his cheeks. He stopped before me briefly and tilted his head in a respectful nod.

He then walked on past, whispering the sweetest buenas noches I’d ever heard.