the dhamma of jesus

Over time, I've found a surprising amount of compatibility between various religious traditions and how they relate to the Dhamma, leading to my own perennialist leanings. This has been particularly true with Buddhism and Christianity, the former of which I've studied and practiced for over 20 years and the latter of which I've been immersed in for the last decade. And over those last 10 years, I've found many teachings from the New Testament and the Christian tradition in general that I think are in line with the Dhamma. I'm not saying they're exactly the same, of course, but one can certainly find a lot of parallels.

I personally find Jesus' soteriological message to be a lot more subtle than what people of his time (or even now for that matter) expected—for those with 'little dust in their eyes,' as Brahma Sahampati would say.

Starting with the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, the Sermon of the Mount is a perfect example of Jesus turning people's expectations on their heads. Many were waiting for a warrior king in the line of David who'd lead them out of oppression through strength and might and military genius. But here we have the 'messiah' preaching the importance of right action and harmlessness, especially forgiveness and righteous (skillful) deeds, rather than shouting battle cries. Much of it reminds me of ideas and teachings found in the Pali Canon.

One parallel is the way Jesus points towards the importance of our intentions, teaching that anger itself is as much of a sin as acts of anger: "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment" (Mt 5:21-22). Similarly with thoughts of lust: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-29). The focus is always on cultivating intentions of helping those in need, being humble, enduring wrong-doing, and not harming others. And the Buddha is well-known for the great emphasis he places on our intentional actions (kamma).

Jesus on honesty is also similar to the Buddha. Jesus says your speech should always be truthful so that there's no need for oaths, to, "Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more is from the evil one" (Mt 5:33-37); the Buddha says, "For the person who transgresses in one thing, I tell you, there is no evil deed that is not to be done. Which one thing? This: telling a deliberate lie" (Iti 25). Truthfulness, it would seem, is an integral part of the holy life.

Jesus admonishes his followers not to act righteously for attention and praise (e.g., Mt 6:1-6), but quietly, out of love and humility (i.e., right intention). And I see a striking resemblance between Jesus' words on loving one's enemies in Mt 5:43-45 and the simile of the saw in MN 21, both teachings stressing the importance of harmlessness, patience, and endurance.

When Jesus talks about 'treasure in heaven,' I interpret it as referring to both renunciation of sensuality that's often pursued by contemplatives and the treasure of skillful deeds done out of a heart well-developed in loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, the four sublime attitudes (brahma-vihara, literally 'divine abodes'):

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. (Mt 6:19-21)

And when Jesus says, "Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you" (Mt 7:1-2), I can't help but to be reminded of the Buddha's fifth subject for frequent reflection, "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir" (AN 5.57).

Each offers a version of the golden rule. Jesus at Mt 7:12:

Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.

And the Buddha at SN 55:7:

What is displeasing & disagreeable to me is displeasing & disagreeable to others. How can I inflict on others what is displeasing & disagreeable to me?

Comparing Mt 7:15-23 to AN 4.192, both Jesus and the Buddha seem to agree that you'll know a good disciple/teacher from a bad one by their deeds, not simply their words or reputation. And they both stress the positive aspects of renunciation and having a strong commitment to ethical action and moral precepts, suggesting that these are the foundations to living a life that goes against the current of worldly passions for the sake of a greater happiness, of living heedfully, steadfastly, and with wisdom—Jesus in places like Mt 7:24-29 and Mt 16:24-27, and the Buddha in places like AN 4.184 and AN 9.41. It's not surprising, then, that Jesus' early disciples were a lot like the Buddha's monastics, wandering mendicants who even gave up filial obligations (e.g., Mt 8:18-22 vs. Sn 1.3 or DN 2).

Another passage on intention and action, while simply put, has deep implications, and is reminiscent of the beginning of the Dhammapada. In an admonishment to the Pharisees after they accuse him of demonic consortion, Jesus says:

Either declare the tree good and its fruit is good, or declare the tree rotten and its fruit is rotten, for a tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you say good things when you are evil? For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. A good person brings forth good out of a store of goodness, but an evil person brings forth evil out of a store of evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. (Mt 12:33-37)

Likewise, the first two verses of the Dhammapada make a similar point, I think:

Mind [aka, heart] precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow. (Dhp 1-2)

One passage that especially stands out to me in Matthew regarding the importance of intention, which almost identically mirrors the Buddha's point in Sn 2.2, is where Jesus says to his disciples:

Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them. (Mt 15: 17-20)

I found this rather surprising since I'd always assumed that Jesus had a rather rigid approach to Mosaic laws, i.e., "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17). But time and again, Jesus is seen doing something that seems contrary to the law even though he says he's come to fulfill it. Here's Jesus rebuking the Pharisees and their rigid approach to living a spiritual life, saying that it's really all about our intentions, not necessarily following the letter of the law. There's Jesus forgiving someone for their sins, and challenging those without sin to cast the first stone at the accused (John 8:1-11), etc.

What this ultimately says to me is that Jesus' version of fulfilling the law is very different from what many assume, with much of the means of fulfillment containing levels of Dhamma — albeit presented in a different social, religious, and cultural context — with God representing much of what Buddhists understand as Dhamma (kamma = moral commandments of God, ripening of actions = judgment of God, the deathless/unconditioned = timelessness/transcendence of God, etc.). Perhaps this is why Jesus says, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father [God]" (John 14.9) and the Buddha says, "he who sees me sees Dhamma" (SN 22.87).

And then there's the salvific power of love. In Richard Gombrich's book, What the Buddha Thought, for example, he mentions that, while the idea of loving-kindness (metta) being salvific is often neglected in Theravada — i.e., the general consensus traditionally being that the four brahma-viharas themselves only lead to rebirth in the heavenly Brahma realms and not nibbana, the end of stress/suffering (dukkha) and awakening to ultimate reality — there are texts in the Pali Canon extolling kindness and how it can lead to enlightenment. One is the Metta Sutta (found at Khp 9 and Snp 1.8), which begins with extolling kindness towards the world, and climaxes with this passage:

Towards the whole world one should develop loving thoughts boundless: upwards, downwards, sideways, without restriction, enmity or rivalry. Standing, walking, sitting or lying, one should be as alert as possible and keep one's mind on this. They call this divine living in the world. Not taking up ideas, virtuous with perfect insight, by controlling greed for sensual pleasure one does not return to lie in the womb. (Gombrich's translation)

He notes that, "This conclusion to the poem surely corroborates that the whole poem is about how one may become enlightened. Moreover, it is natural to interpret 'not returning to lie in the womb' as meaning that one will have escaped altogether from the cycle of rebirth, which is to say that one will have attained nirvana [i.e., nibbana]" (87). Of course, he's careful to point out that the poem doesn't state kindness alone will produce salvific results, and that it mentions other qualities of great importance (e.g., insight and self-control), but then he brings up Dhp 368:

The monk who dwells in kindness, with faith in the Buddha's teachings, may attain the peaceful state, the blissful cessation of conditioning. (Gombrich's translation)

Or an alternate translation from Acharya Buddharakkhita:

The monk who abides in universal love and is deeply devoted to the Teaching of the Buddha attains the peace of Nibbana, the bliss of the cessation of all conditioned things.

Gombrich concludes this passage is "saying that kindness is salvific, and it is surely no coincidence that the term for nirvana, 'the peaceful state', is the same as the one used at the opening of the Metta Sutta" (87).

So it's quite possible that love is a path to nibbana, and as such, I'm inclined to agree with Gombrich that it can be salvific in the proper context. It's one of the ten perfections, after all, which are not only the skillful qualities one develops as one follows the path to nibbana, but the basis of the path to full Buddhahood as well. And this, I think, accords well with passages in the Gospels such as, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt 22:36-40), "Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love" (John 4:8), and, "I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35).

Similarities can also be found in their respective contemplative techniques. Theravadin mindfulness meditations utilizing the breath or a meditation word, especially those found in the Thai Forest Tradition, are similar to the Orthodox hesychasm prayer, popularized most famously in the 19th century Russian text The Way of the Pilgrim; the form of prayer found in The Cloud of Unknowing, written sometime in the 14th century; and the more modernized version based on The Cloud of Unknowing called centering prayer.

And there are other commonalities, like confession, where one reflects on and acknowledges their sinful (unskillful) actions by giving into anger, greed, envy, lust, etc., gains advice from a spiritual teacher (priest), and makes a commitment to try and not commit those acts again. And this is not unlike the Buddha's advice to Rahula in MN 61, i.e., reflect on your actions, and if they cause harm, consult with someone wise, and try to not repeat said actions in the future. The Buddha's monastic sangha does something similar, where certain Vinaya offenses require monks to confess them, and there's also a tradition where monks recite the rules and confess to one another any faults committed and ask forgiveness of their fellow monastics during the uposatha. Or the similarity between the Christian practice of dying to self vs. the Buddhist teachings on not-self—each designed to release our clinging-attachment to the appearances of ephemeral, conditioned phenomena (what Buddhism might term 'globs of foam,' or in Biblical terms is characterized by phrases such as, "for you are dust, and to dust you shall return") and disrupt the fabrication of self-identification view and existential egoism, thereby opening ourselves up to a direct inner experience of God/Dhamma and realizing our true nature.

So in closing, after spending years living and breathing these traditions and finding a surprising amount of compatibility, I believe that one can find numerous elements of Dhamma — truth or ultimate reality — within Jesus' teachings and Christianity in general. Most Buddhists would likely disagree that following Jesus can lead to full awakening, but I think a fair number would at least agree that one can generate good kamma and achieve happiness and favourable rebirth (whether literal or psychological) by following his example. And I suspect one can potentially achieve even more, be it union with the ground of being or nibbana itself.

unconditioned consciousness: buddhism, spinoza, and panentheism

When it comes to Buddhism and critiques of what's often labeled as eternalism — e.g., the existence of an unconditioned consciousness in Theravada, certain forms of Buddhist traditions in the Mind-only school, other traditions like Advaita Vedanta, etc. — a key question that arises is, How can something eternal be known by a human mind, which is limited in space and time? It's a good question with lots of possible answers.

One possibility is that our everyday, sensory consciousness (vinnana) that we're normally familiar with is conditioned, limited. It's the arising of awareness when a sense organ contacts a sense object, i.e., sights, sounds, tastes, tactile sensations, thoughts (SN 25.4). This form of consciousness, following the traditional understanding, arises and ceases according to causes and conditions and is therefore conditioned, inconstant. But it's possible there's an aspect of consciousness that's fundamental, primordial, a consciousness without feature (vinnanam anidassanam) that's obscured by defilements and the process of becoming, and this consciousness isn't so much eternal as it lies outside of space and time (MN 49, DN 11, AN 1.49-52).

Our sensory consciousness is similar (per Spinoza "the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; thus when we say, that the human mind perceives this or that, we make the assertion, that God has this or that idea, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind"), but instead of being without feature — being tied to or an aspect of mind-body — it lands and grows where there's passion, delight, craving, and wherever it lands, it grows and nurtures its own becoming (SN 12.64). (E.g., think about how a radio receives radio waves). But without that passion, delight, craving, consciousness doesn't land or grow and is in a sense boundless, timeless, like rays of light from the sun that are unobstructed by anything (photons travel at the speed of light and are essentially timeless and don't experience the rest of the universe even though the universe experiences them and the two obviously interact).

And through the practice of the eightfold path, one can reach a point of fulling letting go of what isn't me or mine (SN 35.101), reach the cessation of passion, delight, craving, nibbana, where all becoming, all intention and fabrication temporarily ceases, and perhaps at this point sensory consciousness falls away and one is able to touch the deathless and catch a glimpse of consciousness without feature which doesn't land and grow, an experience of pure awareness itself not arising or ceasing, not landing and growing, not bound by becoming or time. It's the point where the conditioned world of our senses ends, revealing that dimension "where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor staying; neither passing away nor arising: unestablished, unevolving, without support [mental object]" (Ud 8.1).

But because we possess this mind-body, the fuel of the results of the stream of past kamma continues (Iti 44), sensory consciousness resumes and obscures this again, although its realization is unshakable as are its fruits until the final dissolution of our mind-body (MN 29). After that, who knows what happens?

Of course, this may not be the case, but it's the opinion of some that nibbana/awakening isn't just the cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion and experience, but the experience of something underlying it or beyond it. There are certainly many good objections to this based on teachings in the Pali Canon, and there are numerous ways to answer them. However, I personally think that this POV makes the most sense when viewed from a Spinozan POV if his Substance = consciousness, not unlike in some Mind-only traditions or Brahman in Vedanta.

In his Ethics, Spinoza reasons the underlying unity of existence in a radical way, which isn't something that's easily experienceable or obvious, but which is a perception that can be reasoned and which has effects on how we perceive, experience, and relate to any of the conditioned phenomena we come into contact with, including other beings and our own emotions. I see in his God, Nature, or Substance (and much of the Buddha's Dhamma+nibbana) the same concept as Thich Nhat Hanh's interbeing or Paul Tillich's ground of existence due to his arguments about the singularity of the Substance.

Spinoza argues that there's ultimately one Substance, that this Substance is infinite, and that it has infinite attributes. The infinite attributes, as far as I currently understand it, ties into the existence of conditioned phenomena itself and how we can have a causally deterministic world that itself is part of a singular, infinite whole. It's very much like the metaphysics of quantum mechanics and uncertainty and probabilities vs. our level of experiences and observations. And eventually, his reasoning seems to lead to a Buddhist or even Stoic-like psychology and sense of equanimity.

So in my panentheistic reading, if my understanding of Spinoza is accurate:

Substance = self-existing, being/ground of being.

Attributes = the ways intellect perceive Substance, which, while infinite, are limited to 2 knowables in human experience: thought and extension, mind and body. That said, God, Nature, Substance isn't limited to those and can be said to be both immanent and transcendent as well as outside of space and time, the latter of which falling into the realm of attributes and modes/modification (i.e., samsara).

Mode/modification = conditioned phenomena, affected by causes and conditions, modes of Substance that make up the variety of finite things in the universe and what's experienced of it via thought and extension.

Furthermore, if we allow that the fundamental nature of Spinoza's God, Nature, Substance, or whatever else we want to call it doesn't necessarily have to be material but immaterial or neither material nor nonmaterial (a la neutral monism), then his God, Nature, Substance can certainly lead into panentheistic territory (our conditioned world+something beyond it, which we can label the absolute, the transcendent, ultimate reality, etc). And if Substance = consciousness, then it's ultimately just Substance realizing its own nature via its modes/modifications, with various sentient beings having various levels of conscious experience. And whereas Spinoza argues you can use reason to glimpse ultimate reality/unity, perhaps what the Buddha is suggesting is that you can actually experience it.

the tao = the dhamma = god

Just happened to read this first chapter of Ursula Le Guin's translation of the Tao Te Ching, which is as follows:

The way you can go
isn’t the real way.
The name you can say
isn’t the real name.

Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name’s the mother
of the ten thousand things.

So the unwanting soul
sees what’s hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.

Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.

Le Guin's Notes:

A satisfactory translation of this chapter is, I believe, perfectly impossible. It contains the book. I think of it as the Aleph, in Borges’s story: if you see it rightly, it contains everything.

The first thing I thought of while reading this was the juxtaposition of a mind seeking out of craving and desire and attachment vs. a mind characterized by non-attachment in the Buddhist sense (AN 4.10), with the parts about 'name' reminding me of how name and form (nama-rupa) — our tainted conceptual understanding of our experience of mentality-physicality (or mind and body) and the sense of self we construct around it — arise through the process of dependent co-arising (SN 12.67). And, conversely, the seeing of the truth of 'things as they are' and the nature of the unconditioned, nibbana, arises from its cessation and the unfolding of transcendental co-arising (AN 11.2, SN 12.23).

In other words, you can't condition the unconditioned, but you can condition an end to conditioning, thereby opening up to the experience of the unconditioned already present and hidden in plain sight. Hence, the unwanting soul sees the hidden, i.e.:

"For a person who knows & sees things as they actually are, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I feel disenchantment.' It is in the nature of things that a person who knows & sees things as they actually are feels disenchantment.

"For a person who feels disenchantment, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I grow dispassionate.' It is in the nature of things that a person who feels disenchantment grows dispassionate.

"For a dispassionate person, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I realize the knowledge & vision of release.' It is in the nature of things that a dispassionate person realizes the knowledge & vision of release. (AN 11.2, Thanissaro)

And I think Le Guin is right that this chapter contains everything, much like how the footprint of the elephant encompasses all others. And in the same vein, I'm a perennialist in the sense that I see all of our various religious traditions as smaller footprints encompassed by a larger, universal truth we're all struggling to apprehend. Just different fingers all pointing towards the same moon (i.e., the Tao = the Dhamma = God, etc.).

Tao is a word that's used to described both the nature of things as they are and the way that's in line with the nature of things as they are. This, I think, is akin to Dhamma, which is also used to describe the nature of things as they are as well as the way that's in line with the nature of things as they are. God, nature, or whatever else we want to call it from the Western POV is synonymous, as it is an all-encompassing term denoting the totality of being. The morality of kamma = the will of God. And words like nibbana, the unconditioned, etc. are simply ways we characterize the underlying nature of reality — i.e., the ground of being, the existence of which is neither dependent upon nor determined by anything else — that we may glimpse with unrestricted awareness (AN 10.81). When we remove ignorance and see the world free from attachment and unclouded by ignorance, we are awakened. Our darkness has been enlightened. We step through the door to the hidden and perceive the oneness that lies on the other side. But people have a habit of getting stuck on the words and concepts and grasping them as the true reality. They see the finger and its ornaments and focus on that, missing the moon that we all are able to see when our eyes are not shrouded and we are looking in the right direction.

The real question is, am I on to something with all of this or just an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill heretic?

i'm a spinozist now i guess?

I've found it difficult to put my spiritual/religious beliefs into words, often relying on the words of others to articulate them. Recently, for example, I've been delving into Spinoza's Ethics (especially through the Seekers of Unity series), and I find myself very drawn towards this work, as many others before me have been.

I'd definitely say that I'm a believer in panentheism, i.e., the idea that what we call God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and the world are interrelated and that, ultimately, they are of the same substance. What we perceive to be distinctions between things like mind and body, for instance, are merely distinctions between modes, attributes, or appearances of phenomena that arise and cease through the complex causality that our individual minds conceptually perceive. We see the movement of the parts but not the stillness of the whole. But just as the individual waves of the ocean — due to things like the movements of winds and currents and the gravitational pull of the moon — appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world of the ocean they inhabit, they are in reality all of the same substance, i.e., water, out which they arise from, return to, and are but modes of being of. In much the same way, our individual selves appear to be unique and isolated phenomena distinct from each other and the world we inhabit. And while the water itself can be said to have inherent existence, needing nothing else to exist or be conceived, the modes or properties of the waves cannot and need the substance of water to exist and be perceived.

From the perspective of the human mind, the world appears as one thing and we as another, and so too does 'God' or that which transcends it all. We are in the world, and ultimate reality lies outside even that. This ultimate reality or what we call God is something that seems alien to us and beyond our grasp. However, in truth, we are more like the waves of the ocean, passively unaware of our essence and the substance that makes our modes of being possible, an essence which is empty of inherent existence yet the same essence as the world as well as that which both lies beyond it and underlies it, or maybe better, contains it all. From the Buddhist POV, I think this idea is mirrored in Nagarjuna's line, "Samsara does not have the slightest distinction from Nirvana. Nirvana does not have the slightest distinction from Samsara" (Verses from the Center, 25:19). Samsara represents the world and nirvana represents that which transcends the world and lies outside of ordinary human experience. And while from our human POV there are noticeable distinctions between samsara and nirvana, conditioned and unconditioned, world and God, mind and body, us and others, or anything else we can differentiate, from the ultimate POV there's not the slightest distinction between them; the distinctions are illusory.

Interestingly enough, Buddhism also defines 'the world' or 'the all' in terms of our individual, sensory experience of it, i.e., "the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and aromas, tongue and flavors, body and tactile sensations, intellect and ideas" (SN 35.23). What we know is constrained in many ways by the nature of the human mind and where/how consciousness 'lands and grows' due to where "there is passion, delight, and craving for the nutriment of consciousness" (SN 12.64). But these sensory experiences locked into the apprehension of the modes of expression, being, or appearance of phenomena are illusory and comparable to a glob of foam floating down the Ganges, a bubble, a mirage, a hollow banana tree, a magic trick—i.e., empty and void (SN 22.95). It's as if our minds are conditioned to grasp the attributes of the waves, whose individual existence are inconstant, imperfect, unsatisfactory, empty and void because they do not exist from their own side, and not the substance they are an attribute or mode of. Nevertheless, understanding the causality of the conditioned world can act as a cause for the human mind's understanding of the reality of things as they are, abusing us of our notions of separateness and inherent selfness, thereby touching the deathless element through ceasing the mental processes of craving and clinging and 'I-making and my-making.' Clinging to our identity as an independent wave is ultimately unsatisfactory and stressful because it traps us within the causal modality of arising and ceasing, birth and death; letting go of that clinging 'unbinds' one and opens them up to experiencing the waterness of the waves.

The true reality, on the other hand, is one that can be said to be unborn, unmade, unconditioned, existing from its own side, stable, eternal. Spinoza reasons that this reality is analogous to God or substance, "that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception" (Ethics, I, Def. III). In Buddhism, this is somewhat comparable to nirvana, the "unborn, unbecome, unmade, unfabricated" (Ud 8:3). This reality or substance or whatever you want to call it is akin to the primordial water that's modified into all the various waves that we conceive of and that form the basis for our subject-object dualism and the illusion that we are one wave distinct from all the others and the ocean we all inhabit, when in fact everything that we see, hear, taste, touch, feel, and cognize is of the same substance or reality that comprises what sees, hears, tastes, touches, feels, and cognizes. Its true essence is eternal oneness, while its attributes or expressions are infinite.

The Buddha demonstrates that through the practice of virtue, concentration, and discernment, the human mind can cognize nirvana, the unconditioned, the deathless element, etc. making the mind into the mind of enlightenment characterized by 'consciousness without feature.' Spinoza, on the other hand, argues that "the human mind is part of the infinite intellect of God; thus when we say, that the human mind perceives this or that, we make the assertion, that God has this or that idea, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he is displayed through the nature of the human mind, or in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind; and when we say that God has this or that idea, not only in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human mind, but also in so far as he, simultaneously with the human mind, has the further idea of another thing, we assert that the human mind perceives a thing in part or inadequately" (Ethics, II, Prop XI, Corollary) and that "the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are as necessarily true as the ideas of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLIII), suggesting a rational means of achieving the same type of knowledge: "The knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God which every idea involves is adequate and perfect. The human mind has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God" (Ethics, II, Prop. XLVI&XLVII).

I realize that the analogy of waves and water breaks down in the sense that the wind and gravity which represent the causal conditions that shape the waves aren't themselves water, as well as the fact that the element of water is comprised of atoms that in turn are further divided, while these laws of nature and all the particles within it are but part of nature itself, whose reality is said to be singular, self-contained, one infinite substance. But I think it conveys the general idea clearly enough, especially if we compare the wind in the analogy to the passions of the mind fuelled by ignorance and greed, hatred, and delusion churning the water of the ocean into waves, and which when stilled give rise to an experience of peace and an ending to the wave's rounds of rebirth.

That leads me to also say that I'm a perennialist in the sense that I strongly believe this reality — whether we call it God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. — is a unity that paradoxically contains or is capable of infinite modes of expression, being, or appearance. And I see in each spiritual tradition a sincere search for and genuine understanding of this unity through a combination of imagination, reason, and intuition, with the first two arising from our dualistic awareness, and the latter achieved through nondual consciousness. The human mind, as a dependently arisen product of causes and conditions, is the experience of samsara; the mind of God is the experience of nirvana (the deathless element often alluded to in Buddhism = Spinoza' one eternal substance). And they are one. We are ultimately one with all of the things we seek to know, understand, and love. The human mind, in so far as it's characterized by its particular mode of being, much like the temporal wave in the ocean, is finite and limited, and our ignorance of things as they are blocks the light of this understanding from illuminating our mind. But the human mind, in so far as it shares its substance with God, strives to understand itself and seek truth in its existence.

Our salvation or enlightenment is achieved through the process of overcoming our ignorance of reality by releasing our mind's grasping of the appearances and letting go of our self-identity view, thereby opening ourselves up to an intellectual understanding and/or love of God, the One, Truth, Nature, Substance, Universe, Dhamma, Brahman, etc. and realizing our own nature, or as Ruksana put it in The Circle, "real recognizing real." In Buddhism, one is encouraged to develop selflessness in regards to the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and sensory consciousness in order to achieve this realization. Judaism has a similar concept in Kabbalah called bittul, 'selflessness' or 'self-negation.' In Christianity and Islam, one is encouraged to die to yourself or 'die before you die.' Another method involves love, effectively doing the same thing. In Buddhism, for instance, metta or loving-kindness can also be salvific. And this method seems even more predominant in Christianity. Jesus says to love God and love others as ourselves (Mt 22:37-39). And we are all interconnected, so loving others as ourselves is also loving ourselves. And John goes even further, saying God is love, and it's that act of unconditional love which becomes the positive form of selflessness that equally removes the mental passions and clinging that cloud our vision and prevent us from truly seeing things as they are. So ultimately we're left with God loving God, which in reality is just the act of loving itself—a singular, loving or unbound state of consciousness free from misperceptions and passions and sense of self.

While I've spent a lot more time with Buddhism, I've also found myself drawn strongly towards Christianity in recent years. In Christianity, I see the inheritor of the Greek Mystery cults and Platonic philosophy that, in the ancient world, used both ecstatic and rational means to point practitioners towards God, the One, the Form of the Good, Logos. And in Jesus, I see a person who had such mystical experiences and intuitive realizations, seeing himself in God and God in himself, unifying his individual mode of being with the substance underlying it, reflecting and pointing towards this constant and eternal state of consciousness. And just as John states that God is love and whoever is without love doesn't know God (John 4:7-8), Spinoza states that, "The intellectual love of the mind towards God is that very love of God whereby God loves himself, not in so far as he is infinite, but in so far as he can be explained through the essence of the human mind regarded under the form of eternity; in other words, the intellectual love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself" (Ethics, V, Prop XXXVI).

What I find eminently important in all of this, however, is how each of these traditions and ways of talking about experience and reality agree on the reality and power of interconnectedness. Whether in terms of causality (such as in the focus of actions and dependent co-arising in Buddhism) or the oneness of reality (such as in the relational nature of the trinity), each of these approaches make interconnectedness a centerpiece. As Clare Carlisle puts it in an article for the Guardian: "Spinoza's world view brings to the fore two features of life: dependence and connectedness. Each wave is dependent on the sea, and because it is part of the sea it is connected to every other wave. The movements of one wave will influence all the rest. Likewise, each being is dependent on God, and as a part of God it is connected to every other being. As we move about and act in the world, we affect others, and we are in turn affected by everything we come into contact with." And this understanding not only gives us insight into the nature of our world, but in how to live a life characterized by virtue, freedom, and happiness through our knowledge of causality and, ultimately, love of God. Because the more still we, as waves, can make ourselves, the closer we are able to come to experiencing our own waterness.

toward a worldwide culture of love

I enjoyed this recent article from bell hooks, which connects Buddhism, love, and social engagement. I think that what she's talking about is what led me to become politically and socially engaged in the first place. I think in many cases, developing compassion, empathy, and love will naturally inspire one to address the suffering of others when possible, and that many of the ways love is expressed coincides with what we'd label ‘leftist’ political and social movements precisely because such movements are often motivated by love and a desire to protect and uplift others. They're less focused on 'me' and more on 'us' in the sense of all of our lives and predicaments being interconnected.

Love compels us to move away from things like greed, selfishness, and competition and towards generosity, compassion, and cooperation. That's at least why I was drawn towards social engagement and more to left-leaning politics, because that's where love and compassion directed me. A mind suffused with love, for example, will see someone struggling with injury or illness within a system that makes it difficult for them to afford and access care and be inspired to help, whether through charity or through supporting a more accessible and universal healthcare system.

That doesn't mean I think that only people who are political active or on the left end of the political spectrum are capable of love, only that I see why she connects love to the end of domination, and how that tends towards movements and ideas that we associate with the label 'leftist' today. Alternatives to capitalism. Universal healthcare. Addressing climate change. Gender equality. Black Lives Matter. Etc. Because much of that domination is rooted in fear and anger and greed. Systems and institutions and cultures have been built to protect what we have from others and to maintain positions of privilege for certain segments of the population, and love compels us to confront and end those things because of the suffering they engender—from sexism and racism to imperialism and militarism and the profit motive.

Love is also a key component of most spiritual traditions, and it suffuses their soteriology. And I'd even go so far as to say that, after studying and practicing in multiple spiritual traditions myself, a truly spiritual person who follows the underlying message of their respective faiths will necessarily be empathetic, inclusive, and ultimately, intersectional in their politics, but more importantly in their actions, as a result of the presence and development of love regardless of what their politics are. I think this can be seen from the lives and works of people of faith like bell hooks, Giro Seno'o, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Oscar Romero, Malcolm X, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gustavo Gutierrez, MLK Jr., Rachel Held Evans, and countless others. As Franciscan friar and author Richard Rohr puts it:

"If we are going to have truly prophetic people who go beyond the categories of liberal and conservative, we have to teach them some way to integrate their needed activism with a truly contemplative mind and heart. I’m convinced that once you learn how to look out at life from the contemplative eyes of the True Self, your politics and economics are going to change on their own. I don’t need to teach you what your politics should or shouldn’t be. Once you see things contemplatively, you’ll begin to seek the bias from the bottom instead of the top, you’ll be free to embrace your shadow, and you can live at peace with those who are different. From a contemplative stance, you’ll know what action is yours to do—and what is not yours to do—almost naturally."

Love moves us to act against suffering and injustice, because love motivates up to try and heal rather than harm. Love moves us to swim against the current of what she terms "dominator thinking and practice," which "relies for its maintenance on the constant production of a feeling of lack, of the need to grasp"; and that conversely, "Giving love offers us a way to end this suffering—loving ourselves, extending that love to everything beyond the self, we experience wholeness" and through that "we are healed." And that love can be expressed in many ways, not just in the realm of the political. It can be expressed in any number of daily personal interactions and small acts of kindness and generosity.

should monks, and Buddhists in general, protest social injustice or engage in politics?

A question was raised on a Buddhist forum I once frequented more regularly that I've been thinking a lot about myself recent, whether monks, and Buddhists in general, should protest social injustice or engage in politics.

This question, and the question of Buddhism and politics in general, is one of the reasons I've backed a bit away from Buddhist communities over the years. More often that not, they tend to want to remain outside of politics and keep things as PC and nonpolitical as possible, partially because much of the Dhamma is focused on internal dynamics and purification, partially because they don't want to ruffle any feathers, and partially because they think political engagement in samsara is ultimately pointless. In addition, the Buddha himself does seem to discourage monks from speaking about these things, which makes many completely distance themselves from confronting social evils, not speaking up for the oppressed, etc. My own practice, however, has lead me in the opposite direction, giving me compassion for the suffering of others and the feeling of a moral duty to address injustice when and where I can.

That said, the following is a bit of a jumbled mess, but what follows is my general approach to morality and the way I see conventional morality, Buddhist morality, and the scientific study of morality intersecting, all of which suggesting to me from a rational and pragmatic POV the existence of (or at least the need for) a shared moral responsibility—one that we're not forced to abide by, but one that would certainly be beneficial to acknowledge and attempt to live by. It ultimately ends in a form of the safe bet argument in response to those who eschew the world as something inherently bad or insubstantial, and morality as the crutch of the deluded and weak-minded masses, because I can't persuasively argue against either possibility.

From a personal POV: I don't know if morality is objective. If it is, the basis could be called God, Dhamma, or the laws of nature. Whatever one wishes to call this foundation, objectivity in this sense basically means that morality extends from something larger than us, a force or process that shapes our moral framework and how it functions, and all of these things fit that description. I'm not well-versed enough in the subject to say for certain, but I'd argue that it's objective in the sense of evolving from nature and operating within the framework of psychological laws, but not necessarily emanating from a supranormal source. In one YouTube video, for example, Dr. Andy Thomas discusses what he believes to be the biological basis for morality and its origins in the "evolved architecture" of our minds.

But even if morality isn't objective in that sense and is inherently relative, I treat it as such, much like Kant with his "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Furthermore, a morality arising out of consciousness of oneself, consciousness of others, and wholesome mental states such as empathy and compassion seems the most rational and humane, in my opinion, and leads to a demonstrably safer, more stable, more cohesive, and more flourishing society. One could debate whether or not morality has some objective basis, but it doesn't really matter if it does from my POV as long as it has efficacy. And I've come to the conclusion that the larger, more complex, and interconnected our world becomes, the more expansive and inclusive our morality must also become.

From a scientific POV: Science is looking at morality and striving to uncover and articulate a scientific (one could say naturalistic or even objective) moral framework. Andy Thomas is one, as I've already mentioned above, with his views on the biological origins of morality. Sam Harris is another such example, who lays out some of his ideas in his book, The Moral Landscape. In it, he argues that things which are "morally good" are so because they pertain to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures," which is comparable to my views on morality and moral responsibility. And as a social species, an argument can be made that that morality naturally extends outside of us/beyond our conventional selves.

From a Buddhist POV: The Buddha seems to offer kamma as a type of natural law, primarily psychological/existential in nature, which mirrors much of what Dr. Thomas proposes in the aforementioned video. This may be unique to our own evolutionary psychology, or it may be something common to all sentient beings to various degrees that intrinsically stems from the manifestation of consciousness itself. Whatever the case, the Buddha makes a strong case for the efficacy of actions and the results of such actions being coloured by the intentions underlying them, which goes far beyond mere worldly agreement (e.g., AN 6.63, MN 60, MN 61, MN 76, MN 136, DN 2, etc.). He also advises that certain actions are better more moral/skillful and in line with the Dhamma than others and lead to our long-term welfare and happiness, actions that have wholesome intentions and that also take the happiness and suffering of others into consideration. Moreover, the Buddha himself offers a form of the golden rule in SN 3.8 — expressing that one who loves themselves should harm no other — and seemingly points towards the social nature of morality and hints at a shared connection and, one could argue, responsibility in DN 16 in reference to the Vajjians and the ways they conduct themselves as a society.

For me, this makes logical and intuitive sense in the context of the precepts, ten wholesome actions, four brahmaviharas, selflessness, and conditionality. Our actions have consequences, which reverberate out into the world. The ways we act matter. The decisions we make matter. And the intentions underlying those actions and decisions matter. Generally speaking, the more wholesome and in harmony our actions and decisions are, the more we can be expected to grow and prosper. Not just as individuals, but as a society as a whole.

I tend to look at it this way from a personal and Buddhist POV: We begin with bare conscious awareness, which leads to awareness of ourselves. "I think, therefore I am." This awareness is immature, incomplete, and imbued with some level of ignorance, however, and primarily concerned with our own survival and happiness. Then, through observation and reflection, we become aware of other living being who also desire happiness and freedom from suffering, physically as well as mentally. This is a more mature state of awareness, but one still clouded by ignorance. And through the practice of continued reflection, we hopefully, ultimately, become aware of the illusion between self and other, so that there's no longer any rigidly defined distinction between 'us' and 'them,' between our long-term welfare and happiness and the long-term welfare and happiness of others. From this state of awareness, we see that interconnectedness binds us all together, especially within the context of our socially-created world, which is why I see a moral responsibility for others underlying Buddhist morality as much as conventional social morality. This kind of morality and the world itself may never reach a state of perfection; but that's no reason not to make an effort, out of empathy and compassion, and wisdom, to make the world better and infuse all aspects of life with the spirit of Dhamma.

Another way I look at it dialectically: We want to be happy and not suffer, and we see that same desire in others, therefore we should not do anything to cause harm and suffering to others (thesis/passive morality/observing the precepts to refrain from x). We want to flourish, and we see that same desire in others, therefore we should seek to do what will lead to the flourishing of all (antithesis/active morality/our wholesome actions in the world). The less selfish we become and the more we break down the barriers between self and other, our shared responsibility for one another shines through, so that we eventually reach a point where we 'love our neighbour as our self' and more naturally do what we call good, right, moral, and for the long-term welfare and happiness of all (synthesis/collective moral responsibility/societal growth and prosperity).

And here, I'll just stop to note that I realize people are different, possessing variegated inclinations, desires, motives, and degrees of engagement. I'm only speaking in general terms and principles. I don't expect a monk in a mountain hermitage, for example, to have the same level of engagement or social responsibility as the average lay-person. Their moral responsibility towards others may be more in the form of being a positive example and teaching, but there's still a level of responsibility there. That's one of the reasons I think the Buddha connected the monastic community to the lay-community via alms.

In essence, our moral responsibility towards others flows naturally from the basic building blocks of morality, be they Buddhist or humanistic. While this logic may not hold for solitary, independent beings (although I think it still would), we are a decidedly social species and grow and flourish when we work together and share each other's burdens. And as the Buddha's conversation in DN 16 illustrates, this isn't limited to just the morality and actions of the individual, but also includes what we'd call the political, the collective organization and social engagement of people in a society and our individual responsibilities within that context. We don't live in isolation. We all depend on others, even monks and nuns, and the shape of society has a great deal of influence on who we are and the quality of our lives (e.g., the forms of and access to education and healthcare, societal infrastructures, socioeconomic systems, etc.). And our voice in that shaping of society is the realm of the political. Of course, this may only be true in appearance to those who see conventional reality as deceptive and illusory, and from the transcendental point of view may not be inherently real or true with a capital 'T'. But even if that's the case, what kind morality would they offer to those immersed (or perhaps trapped) in this 'deceptive conventional reality'? A purely selfish and individualistic one? I'd hope not.

In closing, whether the world is real or not (you know, the whole emptiness/glob of foam thing that some use to justify indifference to the world), or whether morality is objective or not, I think we should treat them as such out of a morality responsibility to other sentient beings. Because if the world is real and morality objective, then it will be for the benefit and welfare of the many. And if they're not, nobody is hurt and at least it'll still give the appearance of providing a greater level of benefit and happiness to those trapped within this proverbial magic show. Compassion demands as much, I think. And this is eminently important in our day and age, with the advent of industrial production and nuclear weapons, not to mention the powerful forms of oppression and violence we enable with our support or lack thereof. Our collective impact on the environment alone affects every living creature on earth. To ignore this responsibility is the height of folly and selfishness, in my opinion, which is why I argue so strongly that, as social creature living in a social environment, our social nature requires social engagement if we are to steer society in the right direction.

And coming back to the question of monastic engagement, I think this includes monks and nuns to some extent. While their duty is primarily to work towards liberation and to help teach/guide/inspire others, that doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't speak out against grave evils and take political stands when their involvement may help to reduce so much suffering, especially if it's fellow Buddhists committing the grave evils (e.g., the persecution of Rohingya in Burma/Myanmar). Of course society can't be 'fixed' and I'm not saying that Buddhists' political engagement can make the world a utopia, but it can help to relieve some suffering and help make the world a more conducive place to practice the Dhamma. Too much suffering makes our lives a hell realm, and how can someone in hell practice the Dhamma? (And I think the Dhamma is reflected in many religions and philosophies, just in different terms, but that's another discussion.) And having monastics willing to speak up and stand up against a societal evil can be a powerful message. Having monks and nuns in a protest, or even sitting in meditation at the site of unrest and injustice, can be a powerful seed of good.

I would never suggest that anyone be forced to be political or socially engaged. If one wants to renounce to world so completely, is indifferent to the sufferings of others, or feels helpless to make any meaningful change and so decides to do nothing, that is their choice. And the practice of the Dhamma does not in any way require one to be worldly, political, or socially engaged. But I would argue that the possibility of engagement should be open for those who feel morally compelled to do or say something, because that in and of itself can sometimes be the practice of Dhamma in the form of right speech, right action, etc. Even the Buddha was willing to advise kings in the interest of reducing suffering, and he allowed his monks the right to overturn their bowls a form of protest/punishment.

So, in the end, yes, I think both monastics and Buddhists in general have a duty and a right as human beings to protest social injustice if they are compelled to do so in their practice of the Dhamma. The practice itself is summarized by these words from the Dhammapada: "the non-doing of any evil, the performance of what's skillful, the cleansing of one's own mind" (Dhp 183). Included in that is the cultivation of things like right speech and right action combined with things like compassion, empathy, and loving-kindness. And in my experience, all of this together has the potential to help motivate one to be more aware of the suffering around them and to engage it when possible with an eye towards limiting its impact, and that engagement can be in line with the Dhamma and Vinaya. As Thich Nhat Hanh so beautifully puts it in his forward to No Beginning, No End:

It has been said that the twenty-first century is going to be a century of spirituality. If it is not a century of spirituality, there will be very difficult times ahead for all of us and for the generations to come. If we are not able to stop and look more deeply at the suffering in ourselves, how will we be able to address the suffering in the world around us? In order for us to transform our own suffering, we must do something radical.

The first radical thing we can do to transform the suffering in ourselves is to practice stopping (shamatha). We stop in order to return to ourselves, to become calm. When we are calm, we have a better chance to see our suffering more clearly. The second radical act is to look deeply inside ourselves and see our suffering, be with our suffering, in order to understand and transform it. This is also true for the suffering in the world. We as entire nations need to stop and look deeply at the suffering in the world in order to see it more clearly without prejudice and understand how to transform it.

The practice of mindfulness in these troubled times is more important than ever. If we as individuals do not take the time to practice mindfulness, not only will it be difficult to transform the suffering in our own lives, but it will be difficult to transform the suffering in the world. It is vital to ourselves, our children, and the Earth that we have a practice that helps us to be mindful, that lets us come back to ourselves and dwell in the present moment in order to transform suffering in ourselves and others around us.</ blockquote>

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. It can be hard for many to appreciate the mindset of gratitude or thanksgiving when they're confronted by the history of the holiday itself. The mythologized celebration at Plymouth in 1621, for instance, belies the tragic fate of the indigenous peoples of the Americas that unfolded under colonialism, Manifest Destiny, the 19th century policy of native population removal, and countless broken treaties. And Lincoln's creation of a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens" in 1863 was set within the bloody context of what many consider to be the deadliest war in American history, containing within it the hope of some future peace and harmony.

Today, it seems like it's more about food, football, and a prelude to the consumeristic orgy of Black Friday than a recollection of all the things that we're grateful for, mythologized or not. At least that's how it seems to me. But the idea of gratitude itself is something I've grown to appreciate. My life hasn't always been the best, and I haven't always been the best person; but there are numerous people and things I find myself grateful for if I reflect on it, yet I find that I rarely seem to have the time or mindfulness to cultivate that sense of gratitude and appreciation. It's not really a priority in our culture, and it's an easy thing for us to overlook. I'm reminded of the Buddha's words in AN 2.118: "These two people are hard to find in the world. Which two? The one who is first to do a kindness, and the one who is grateful and thankful for a kindness done."

The world can be a harsh and lonely place sometimes, and there are so many people I'm thankful for, too many to list. I just feel terribly grateful at this moment for the many acts and words of kindness given to me over the years. I'm especially grateful for the people who have helped me expand my knowledge over the years, so that I'm not only aware of the somber history that my high school textbooks completely glossed over but my own agency in fighting to change things and right past wrongs. And I'm also grateful for the many people who have entered my life and made it one worth living, including those who sent me such kind messages today.