In 1223, seven young men from some of the wealthiest families of Firenze (Italy), formed an intentional spiritual community, then known as the Laudesi -- or Those Who Praise the Blessed Mother. Ten years later, after a profound spiritual experience, the seven men withdrew from society, devoting themselves purely to the interior life, in the seclusion of Monte Senario, about ten miles north of Firenze. Within seven years, the community experienced another visionary experience, in which they adopted a simple, black religious habit, and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
The community, which would formally come to be known as the Servites, chose a spiritual path of personal sanctification based on contemplating the sorrows attributed to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who according to the biblical narrative, watched her son's torture and death, while maintaining a mindfulness of surrender, which Catholics have sought to emulate in facing their own life's challenges, pain and suffering.
From my earliest recollections as a child, it was to this poignant aspect of surrender and grace displayed in the life of the Blessed Mother that I found myself drawn. In fact, when I took my first Refuge Vows, at the age of seven, I asked that my own heart be forever consecrated and enjoined to Her Heart, as the Bodhisattva and Mother of my spiritual practice and development. When three of my spiritual brothers joined me in forming our own intentional community, in 1981, our practice drew upon the Four Noble Truths, the Five Precepts, the charism of Francesco d'Assisi, and a devotion to the Mother of Compassion and Grace.
To the casual observer, it seems that my spiritual path is one of contradictions, twists and turns. In fact, I am quite certain that several of those closest to me have done their fair share of wringing their hands, and imagining somehow that I've either lost my mind, or become some horrific heretic, because they don't understand (or perhaps, cannot understand) who it is that I am and have always been. Not to say that my spiritual journey has not been one of evolution, growth and transformation. I am grateful that it has indeed evolved and deepened in its scope, understanding and praxis. But the foundational ideology has always been the same.
My first spiritual director, a visiting Benedictine priest, named Fr. Henri LeSaux (who would come to be known, by the permission of his religious superiors, and Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, as Venerable Swami Abishektananda, advised me as a young altar boy, not to discuss with anyone, until I was an adult, some of the things I'd realised, through my own intense, personal spiritual experiences, as a child of seven. Among these was the simple and clear understanding that the biblical narrative, which I found contradictory and even disturbing, was never intended to be taken literal; and the more important awareness that there was no magical, Cosmic Babysitter, sitting on a throne in some imaginary wonderland, called "Heaven", called "God". I understood that the word "God" was a word humanity created to explain things they did not understand.
It seemed obvious to me, even at that age, that Jesus didn't come to start a church, but instead to advance a new way of life... a life that transcended the intolerance, inequity, pain and suffering of this existence. And it seemed apparent to me that both Jesus and Buddha taught identical philosophies. What's more, as a child who had a "love for wisdom", I was deeply drawn to understand philosophy, and felt that in Jesus, Buddha and some of the other profound influences in my life (Thomas Merton, John of the Cross, Therese Lisieux, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Teresa d'Avila) were people who lived a philosophy of love and non-violence... not necessarily "religious" figures.
I would imagine that it makes no sense to my family, who were raised to believe that they have to blindly obey what their pope and his institutional church teach, to avoid some imaginary eternal punishment, when they hear me say that I don't believe in such nonsense, yet who know that I still celebrate the Eucharistic Liturgy of the Desert Fathers every day. If I were in their shoes, it might confuse me as well!
And when I tell them that I am not Catholic, but that I am still faithful to my vows as a consecrated and ordained successor to the apostles, I know that must be difficult for them, and others like them to comprehend. In fact, it probably seems very unsettling, when I point out that their own denomination's claim to having been established by Christ, and to have had the disciple Peter as its first "pope", is nothing more than a fabrication... a wilful misrepresentation of the truth, used to justify the institutionalisation (and later bastardisation) of the Way of the Christ. But I have never been one to easily hide and compartmentalise the spirituality I live and the one I let others see.
And so that I don't give the wrong impression here... this is not only about the way that Catholics or self-described Christians misunderstand my teaching and my work. There are a nearly equal number of self-described Buddhists, who criticise such things as my comfort with Catholic contemplative spirituality, the idea of being able to understand the spiritual writings of some of the great Catholic mystics in terms of seeing the so-called "god-concept" as a term for the groundlessness or emptiness... the inexpressible void that we know is Pure Love or Matter or Mind. And there are those who sheik with horror at the simple fact that while I prefer to eat a simple, vegetarian and predominantly raw diet, I do not reject meals with meat in them, when they are prepared for me... and have no reason to believe that eating meat is any less "spiritual" than eating anything else on the planet. Yes, I prefer to do no violence, but who am I to say that violence is only confined to sentient beings? (In fact, in the Sutta Nipata, Buddha Sakyamuni states, "Anger, arrogance, inflexibility, hostility, envy, pride, conceit, bad company... these are impure foods, not meat." And this is confirmed in the Dharma of the Christ, in Mark's Gospel, in which we read, "There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things which come our are what defile.")
Now I share these things specifically as a preface to a tradition I have kept every year, since my ordination. During the season of Lent -- the forty-day-long liturgical season of fasting and prayer among the original faith communities that developed around the teaching of the Christ -- I share with our local Sangha (intentional community) a series of reflections on what the Christian narrative of the Passion, Death and Resurrection means... particularly for those who posses the wisdom and awareness of the documented fact that those events never historically occurred, but were mythological motifs and legends, borrowed from even more primitive and ancient cultures, and superimposed over the authentic teachings of the Great Master, Rav Yeshua (Jesus the Nazarene). Central to these reflections, as one whose life is closely linked to the Bodhisattva of Compassion (known within my traditions as the Blessed Mother Mary, or Kuan Yin), is a focus on the way in which Mary moves through the pain, uncertainty and fear that she would have encountered, according to the stories, and in so doing, transcends suffering.
There will be folks who dislike what I teach. It’s a fact. And it’s OK!
There will be folks who say I am not worthy of being called a successor to the apostles. There will be those who say I am a disgrace to the priesthood and unworthy to celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy. And there will be those who say I am not worthy of calling myself a Buddhist, because my traditions fly in the face of the ritualistic attachments, superficial reliance on such things as “lineages” and religiosity and cultural interpretations of some of the things that are claimed to be attributed to the Buddha (such as the vinaya).
And that’s all OK! Really.
In the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Buddha tells his disciples that the Bodhisattva does not have to be a Buddhist: “He becomes a monk in all the different religions of the world, so that he might free others from delusion and save them from falling into false views.” (Vimalakirti Sutra VIII)
When she opened her first hospice in an abandoned Hindu temple, a devout Hindu man was outraged and confronted Mother Teresa of Calcutta about it. “What are you going to do” he asked, “show disrespect for the Mother Kali’s temple, by converting these helpless dying people to your god?”
Gently, Mother Teresa took the man’s hand and said, “My hope is to help the Hindu become the best Hindu he can be, by showing him love and compassion. I have no desire to convert anyone. If a Muslim comes to us and is in need, then with the same love and compassion, I will hope we can inspire him to become the best Muslim he can be.” Mother Teresa is, without doubt, an example of a Bodhisattva.
I don’t share these Dharma talks and reflections to gain the respect, approval or lauds of anyone. I don’t ask anyone to accept what I teach as some authoritative truth. In fact, if there was one thing I demand of all my students, it is that they take everything they learn from me, and test it with their own reasoning, their own contemplative process, and their own hearts. Let your experience and practice be your teacher.
This year, because of health issues and intense financial strain, caused by those who have taken delight in spreading fear about the "radical, heretical, atheist punk monk, who should never be allowed to be a priest, etc.", I may not be able to provide a full forty daily reflections (although I will try). But my daily practice, which intensifies during this time, will hold each of you in my thoughts, prayers and pujas, with the desire that within the ideas I share, might be found the seeds of enlightenment for each of you, so that suffering might be relieved for you and those you touch.
Namasté!
- dharmacharya gurudas śunyatananda
http://dharmadudeunplugged.com
Note: My spiritual name, Dharmacharya Gurudas Sunyatananda, encapsulates who and what I am: Dharmacharya means “teacher of the Dharma or the Way”. Gurudas means “servant of the Teacher” – and I am a servant of the Buddha and the Christ, and have never been anything more than that. Finally, Sunyatananda is a reference to the “bliss of emptiness”… a Sanskrit interpretation of what Catholics refer to as the “Immaculata” or the perfectly surrendered heart of Mary. In Franciscan life, I was known as Francis-Maria of the Immaculata. I still bear that name with humble regard and respect. The name given to me by my spiritual teachers, Ven. Abishektananda (Fr. LeSaux, OSB), and Ma Tenzin Yangchen is the one by which I am more widely known.
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