Lenten Dharma Reflection - The Ultimate Adversary

The Ultimate Adversary – the Ego

This Sunday, the First Sunday in Lent, adherents from the Christian tradition are reminded of a passage in the Book of Mark, which says: "The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by the Adversary. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him." (Mark 1:12-13) The narrative goes on to have Jesus' often mistranslated proclamation that the "Sovereign domain of the Divine is within you." (cf: Mark 1:15)

It's a week in which the theme of sacred covenants and baptism also play an important part in the readings and reflections (cf: Genesis 9:8-15 and 1 Peter 3:18-22). These texts are not intended to paint a picture of supernatural beings promising not to destroy the earth, or magical rituals to free us from the karmic consequences of our transgressions. In fact, we can discern the spiritual meaning by looking at two of the parallel passages, in which the Dharma of the Buddha and Dharma of the Christ illuminate the truth behind these symbolic gestures.

In Matthew 15:19-20, we read: "Out of the heart comes evil intentions, murder, adultery, sexual misconduct, theft, deceit and slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." Therefore, Peter tells us that the reason for baptism is not because the physical act washes away the appearance of dirt (which was an important part of the Hebrew tradition), but rather an appeal to our Ground of Being - something that we refer to in Buddhism as the Void or Emptiness - to release those things which cause suffering and attachment.

Similarly, some five hundred years earlier, Buddha Sakyamuni is said to have taught his disciples: "One does not become pure by washing, as do the multitudes of mortals in this world; he who casts away every transgression, great and small, he becomes a Spotless One." (cf: Udanavarga 33.13)

I have often made no secret of my opinion, shared by my patron, the late Albino Luciano (Pope John Paul I), that among the most dangerous and horrible of books ever written are the first five books of the Old Testament, attributed to the wealthy land-baron and warlord, Moses. Some have misunderstood this to mean that I favour the censorship of books, or have asserted that "what the world needs is more books, not less". All of this may be true from their perspective, and I choose to make no comment on that, since I think that what the world needs is more compassion, not more books. However, I also do not believe that just because the world would have been better off were most of the seventy-some arbitrary books that were canonised into the Christian Bible were never written, that we cannot use the misfortune of their having done so, as an opportunity to learn.

The great mystic and dharma teacher, Thomas Merton -- a pioneer in the development of the Buddhist-Catholic interreligious dialogue, tells us that the sin of Adam was a false confidence, which robbed him of the mythical "paradise". His ego-decision to buy into a delusion... a lie... was what destroyed his perfect happiness, and led to the later myths of a mean, jealous and pissy Creator-God, as a means of sloughing the responsibility for his own ego-mind on a superstitious "bad guy", who was punishing him and his descendents. In Merton's words, "All these things would only be the consequence of his preferences for what 'was not'."

Coming back to the Gospel passage, in which we read about Jesus being tempted by "the Adversary", we again must be mindful that the writers of these midrashic stories never intended them to be taken as literal or historic events. We can, perhaps revisit the history of the later, institutional church's decision to wilfully misinterpret such words as "satan" (Aramaic for "adversary") as a reference to a horned, evil demi-god -- an act meant to discredit the tradition of the benevolent, Pagan horned-god of nature. And we can further discuss how the vast majority of scriptural passages in the Latin Vulgate, in which the word Lucifer is used, are actually references to Jesus himself, not some mythical devil. But that is a discussion for another time.

The idea, as we enter these Forty Days of Mindfulness, called Lent, is that Jesus confronted the ego-self -- the "adversary" we each must confront. This ego-self, according to the narrative, tried to direct the Anointed One toward a false sense of "self-importance", superiority, and arrogance. We might not find ourselves physically transported to a desert, but can all relate to times during the day, when our own self-talk tries to distract us from compassion, toward arrogant, self-important and selfish pursuits of "power", "recognition", and "primacy".

Jesus, coming out of that experience, teaches his disciples, "The Sovereign Domain of the Sacred is within you." Unfortunately, this is frequently mistranslated, as a result of unfamiliarity with Aramaic idioms, most of which remain in use today. So we read, "The kingdom of God is at hand." Rav Yeshua (Jesus) was pointing to the truth that it was an Indwelling Essence or Love that was the source of Life, not a jealous, pissy and temperamental god, with lots of wives and a tendency to send floods and order those who didn’t please him to be killed. That beyond the illusions of separateness, they could realise that they are all One, “even as You and I are One”.

Lent is a time, then when we choose to walk with the Rabbi Jesus (Rav Yeshua) in a closer way. We have to choose to respond to Love. Lent is about trying to live in such a way that we will consistently choose to respond as Love. Today, on this First Sunday of Lent, we are invited again to all Lent to transform us. May we come to respond to others consistently with compassion. May the Love we see incarnate in the Indwelling Christ be the whole meaning of our lives.

Namasté!

- dharmacharya gurudas śunyatananda
http://dharmadudeunplugged.com

 

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