One Life; One Focus; One Long Layover
Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be!
“I do not fear hell and I don’t think of Paradise. I ask only for God to have mercy on the whole world and on me.” — St. Porphyrios
Originally this was written on the ground in Denver, but it’ll be finished while my flight back home from Atlanta keeps being delayed.
It’s been delayed by two hours.
It’s so humid here I’m lightheaded and feel like a broiled fish. I think I might lose my mind… and then I think about how I clearly had lost it when I lived here.
You almost have to to convince yourself that you don’t live near a swamp at the foothills of Appalachia, in the shadow of the Cumberland Gap.
It’s all Civil War flags and velvet bars, Johnny Cash and house whiskey, red clay and rag weed.
I used to spend the summers thinking it would suck to be murdered right now because I don’t want to die in the sun while swamp-sweating, then I spent the winters thinking it would suck to be murdered right now because I did not want to die while the chill was in my bones.
I used to spend a lot of time dwelling on death being the Southern goth kid I was.
And still am.
Lord, I miss the desert.
Anyway.
Repentance is like drinking; we are called to choose this world or the one to come, drinking or sobriety, sobriety or recovery. Μετάνοια is as powerful as it is scary, because we can change our minds at any moment. We can always choose the world, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18), by choosing God and—paradoxically—choosing death to the self to truly live.
To behold in a glass the glory of the Lord means cleaning the mirror, cleansing the nous–purifying the soul. We can only change if we agree on what we no longer want to be… I’m a sensitive addict who has far more stories of debauchery than I care to admit, and even more that I can’t quite remember. I’m just trying to figure out who I am, like anyone else. And sobriety has taught me what the spiritual path teaches: seeking Truth is combat and the spiritual life is war, we are here to carry our tent and not pitch it for too long. It’s war to become holy, it’s war to attain union with God, and I assume the same for liberating oneself from duḥkha and the wheel of samsara.
We are here to bleed and combat the things of this world, being a good person has little or nothing to do with it. In my mind, becoming good is becoming isolated, high up on a mountain where there is no one as good as the one on top. Furthermore, embodying an ego-driven “goodness” makes one vulnerable to attack, the sort of neurotic fit we have when we wear our nice white shoes while it’s storming.
The image of a “good person” does not get their hands dirty, this image is that of the Pharisees who were bound to the letter of the law, but God “made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).
Life is holiness, becoming like God. Life is not necessarily becoming a better person nor is life shutting oneself up in our own “goodness.” This is how we get Christians, and other spiritual journeymen, with a holier-than-thou, condescending attitude. The priest Hōnen was right in teaching we are dependent on a savior and while Buddha Amitabha is the great savior buddha, he is not The Savior.
The Savior asks us to follow His example by emptying the self of its desires and will thereby becoming a vessel that’s filled by the energies of God.
We become obedient to God, submit to His will, and are deified.
This is being Christian.
This is salvation.
Being good is a misnomer, we’re becoming holy—in a similar way to the Buddhists attaining to Buddhahood. And if being “good” is the goal, then it follows the same logic as attaining enlightenment, we achieve our ends by forgetting ourselves. The aim of enlightenment in Eastern practices is to achieve moksha, or nirvana—that is being snuffed out—Christianity has a similar path in becoming dead to things of this world, overcoming the passions and becoming like God.
We are incapable of doing this without the grace of God and are wholly dependent on Him.
But just because we become dead to the things of this world does not mean we shut ourselves away, so proud of our holiness and unstained by those who are “not good.”
If one attains enlightenment and guards themselves against “losing” it by shutting their enlightened ass in a tower, then I don’t believe they attained enlightenment. This is not union with God; this is union with one’s own ego. Self-absorption is not the makings of a Buddha, and neither is it a Christian virtue.
The Christian, with humility and fear, still chops wood and carries water.
All for the glory of God.
All for the sake of salvation.
Almsgiving, praying, and fasting—tilling toward Heaven.
In the Pure Land tradition, the seeker hopes to attain enlightenment in the next life so their focus on the afterlife is different from the Christian, who has no such luxury to work out their salvation anywhere else but in this life. The Christian life is similar to sobriety—we have today to become holy, because today is all we have. I remember all the times I quit drinking and quit smoking where I set a date that would be my quitting day, until then I could drink like a fish with no thought except that tomorrow I’d be sober… But the thing is, putting something off until tomorrow means tomorrow never becomes today, it’s always tomorrow.
And from experience tomorrow is always a hangover. I don’t much care about the promises I made the day before with a hangover. I’m trying to figure out how to get out of a morning jog I was so excited about last night and an excuse for peeing in the hallway, enlightenment is the furthest thing from my mind. Plus, it’s hard to become dead to things of this world when all you feel is dead inside.
Does the Pure Land exist?
Quite possibly, but it does not exist to the Christian. If anything, it would be a denial of trust in God to work toward the Pure Land as well as shirking our duties in this life. The duty of a Christian is to rub against the things of this world. We must face them head on, in the here and now. We do not have the comfort of some place in the next life where we will have an easier time of fighting the passions. I wish we did, because then I might feel I could relax, but that is not the way things work, “there is great danger that he will be led astray, obsessed and overwhelmed […] Too often, moreover, he mistaketh the first resting-place for the goal, and taketh off his armour as if he were a victor ere the fight is well begun” (Liber O).
Truly, the second one takes off their armor they are that much closer to judging others for being unprepared, setting their eyes away from their goal, back to things of this world. This is a dangerous place to be, upping the ante by making the spiritual path more difficult by assigning value to others, pushing people away by deeming them different than ourselves. There is no time to relax, the farmer does not roll over at the crack of dawn content with harvesting their crop tomorrow. A declaration of war does not come with a kick-off clock to give everyone ample time to shore their troops. The battles rages here, within each person.
There are no good men in combat, there are no niceties in war—we take steps toward God, He takes a thousand toward us. And so do the demons. The Christian takes comfort in keeping their focus on the afterlife, their own death, and devotion to the Savior, becoming Who we worship. The threat of being led astray, obsessed, or overwhelmed can come from allowing too many thoughts to lead us—something the Buddhist seeks to overcome. This is becoming balanced; Dhāraṇā in the Buddhist tradition of single-pointed focus and within the Christian life that is on the One that is good, that is, God.
Neither the Pure Land Buddhist nor the Christian are “good.” Neither religious tradition means to make “good” people, the Orthodox Christian is becoming a warrior—fighting against themselves every day and so is the Buddhist, “Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand men in battle, yet he indeed is the noblest victor who conquers himself. Self-conquest is far better than the conquest of others. Not even a god, an angel, Mara or Brahma can turn into defeat the victory of a person who is self-subdued and ever restrained in conduct” (Dhammapada 103-105).
The virtues are cultivated on the path, reading a book about sunflowers does not a garden make. The Christian strives toward holiness; the Buddhists tends to their enlightenment. Both are self-conquests and it’s our duty to lead the campaign, but I do not blame anyone for not seeing religion or the spiritual path as this, furthermore I do not blame anyone who does not want to start the journey at all, especially knowing that it is war. I myself am on my own journey and like relapsing, falling away from The Way is no longer an option.
I know too much, I’ve experienced too much, and I’m too ignorant about what awaits to settle down and call this place home. My face is chapped, my boots are dirty, and there’s still work to do.
There is a tradition in Pure Land Buddhism that states upon death, if one invokes Buddha Amitabha’s name sincerely they have a chance at going to the Pure Land, free to work out their enlightenment regardless of the kind of life they led in this world. One might think this is a copout, but there I see a similarity in the ability to repent of one’s sins up until the time of our repose and, God willing, be saved.
In any case, the Pure Land does not await the Christian tilling toward Heaven, that being said if one were to invoke the Buddha Amitabha’s name and they were Christian I believe they might also have a chance of going to the Pure Land. This deathbed apostatizing might pave the way for the Christian to go to Sukhāvatī, but it would not be the Land of Bliss, it would be a celestial realm far from God with no recourse for their actions. The Christian attains salvation in this life, there is no next life to work it out. And perhaps it is a place of happiness where one can work out their enlightenment, but what use is this to a Christian?
A place created by a Buddha, who was once a man, to help others attain moksha. I will not pretend to know the mind of God, but I doubt He wants His creation trying to snuff itself out, it would be akin to a rejection of His love. However, just as the Pure Land offers a chance at attaining enlightenment in the next life, so in Heaven theosis continues–becoming more and more like God, “with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
In any case, the Christian has no time to become holy save this lifetime, and though the Buddhist might have eternity to the Christian that is an awfully long time to go the wrong way. Regardless, neither of which are terribly concerned with being “good,” if one is good that is nice, but not the goal and being “good” means about as much as debating what red looks like with a colorblind fella.
While the comparisons between Buddhism and Christianity abound, they are very different, while from what I have experienced, both of their followers, and opponents, do not fully appreciate the scope of either tradition’s purpose.
I’m working on seeing things from others perspective, one thing I am empty of is humility and being able to listen, it’s more tilling I need to do, but seeing how an atheist views this type of stuff is interesting because some of them aren’t rabble-rabble-religion-is-evil-blah-blah-boring-David-Cross-joke. They simply don’t see religion for what it is supposed to be just like a lot of those religion’s followers.
As for me, that’s enough to appreciate there’s really nothing to gain from proselytizing my understanding (not that I would), because what is the point if someone sincerely thinks church is where one goes to become a “good person”?
There is no point, it’d be kicking water uphill while trying to convince someone else this is the way to do things. I’d be no better than any other “good person” out there, trying to make sure everyone is aware of their own spots and sins by pointing at anything that’s not me.
That’s sobriety and I’m looking to engage with recovery.
I’m not changing hearts and minds, it’s not what I’m called to do, and I don’t have the temperament for it, and I certainly won’t be any good until I change either of my own. All I can do is carry water uphill (in a bucket, not kicking it like a maniac) and if someone asks a question earnestly, I can point them to someone who knows better—tell them to relax and enjoy the coffee before it gets cold. No matter how you look at it, none of us can rightly call this place home, we’re all just visiting.
Besides, I’m still trying to figure out how to humbly tend my garden, chop wood, carry water…
And sweep some broken glass.
Si comprehendis, non est Deus
Witness, NM 