My nephew, Richard Grossinger, and his wife, Lindy, visited me last month. They have a very fine publishing company, North Atlantic Books. (They publish two major crop circle books: one is by a Dutch physicist whose findings about physical changes in the plants were printed in a peer reviewed science journal, and the other is is a great overview of the phenomenon by one of the top English crop circle researchers.) Richard and Lindy's daughter, Miranda July, is a darling of the development program at Sundance, and they all were in L.A. for a staged reading of her movie script. Richard brought me some books, and this morning, feeling the need for spiritual juice, I picked up one of them. The Joy of Full Consciousness is about the Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, and his spiritual community. It turned out to be a little gift to myself.
Thay — his nickname, which means “teacher” — posits a bridge between the inner and the outer that we have to navigate. This navigation isn't a failure to stay spiritual, but is incorporated in the very essence of what is spiritual, which is EVERYTHING. That includes the dark, all the while knowing that negative stuff isn't who you are, and that your ground of being is in the light. one of the abbesses at Thay's community says:
“It has been my experience that living in full consciousness can be learned. It can become a habit, replacing the habit of unconsciousness. For example, I can now recognize whether I am being fully present or not. From time to time I see that I am not. And I simply think: 'Return.' And I do return — over and over, however many times it takes…This is what spiritual practice really is. It is not feeling guilty for your weaknesses, it is realizing that at every instant, you can simply return to your true nature. The door is always open.”
I loved Thay's commentary, relevant to our contemporary dilemma, on teachers the likes of Christ and Buddha:
“You see, we have already had so many extraordinary beings, very great teachers who have appeared in this world to help us. And just look at the mess we are still in. Surely what we need now is enlightened community, we have had many enlightened individuals. But when have we ever seen an entire community which is enlightened? It may even seem impossible. But who says this cannot be? How do you know? Why not a family, a village of awakened beings? And then a city, a region — even a whole country? And why not an awakened planet?
A new initiate into Thay's monastic order says:
“I can't repeat it too often — in this path, the role of the sangha [i.e the community] is crucial. Without it nothing can be achieved…The sangha is working upon me, shaping me, giving me the patience to wait for things to develop naturally in me.”
This, to me, is the spiritual message that's relevant for our day. I have such a conviction that we need each other, and that our immersion in the luxuries of contemporary life, which have substituted for our interdependence, has led us to get lost in stuff, which is outside the big soup in which we swim. Says another one of the new initiates:
“It is not so important whether your language is that of Nirvana, the Kingdom of God, full consciousness, the sangha, or the Holy Spirit… these are all just different approaches to the same Reality. During my studies of Christian theology, I was told that what set us apart from all other religions was that Jesus Christ was the only son God…It is one of those later doctrines fabricated by the Church. I find such dogmas unimportant, and a poor way of teaching Christianity. What is really important in any religion is to experience the presence of God, to live our lives in such a way that this experience is always close to us. This is the truly wondrous life. Whether we call ourselves Christians, Buddhists, Hindus or Moslems, I believe that we are all the sons and daughters of God….we must go beyond words and formulas. It doesn't bother me at all to be living two religions at once. My strong practice of Buddhism has taught me a lot about Christianity. They work very well together. I am leaning so much by going back and forth between them. It is a school in itself…Beyond all our differences, we can agree that God, or Buddha-nature, is everywhere, within and without. The rest is just vocabulary. Ultimately, it is the Experience that counts.”
So, thank you Richard for this smart start to the new year. I hope readers find pearls in it, too.
Speaking of what lives on that bridge, while I continue to speed-read familiar litanies about the miserable aberrations of our day, there are pieces that bring things home with special eloquence. Here's one of them:
The Bush Hitler Thing
January 9, 2004
The start: “My family was one of Hitler's victims. We lost a lot under the Nazi occupation, including an uncle who died in the camps and a cousin killed by a booby trap. I was terrified when my father went ballistic after finding my brother and me playing with a hand grenade. (I was only 12 at the time, and my brother insisted the grenade was safe.) I remember the rubble and the hardships of 'austerity' – and the bomb craters from Allied bombs.”
The finish: “I can only hope that in the coming year there will be some sign – some hint – that we are not becoming that which we abhor. The Theory of the Grotesque fares all too well these days. It may not be Nazi Germany – it might be a lot worse.”
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