On Whitewashed Tombs and Catholic Fundamentalists…

I've often taken considerable heat from those who disapprove of my outspoken expression of concern over the corruption, manipulation and distortion of truth found in institutional religion. Twice this past year, when referencing such fundamentalist adherents as "whitewashed tombs", I found a renewed level of chatter on various discussion groups about what an heretic I am.

Gandhi once remarked, "No man could be actively non-violent and not rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred." And that is why I found the recent outcry against President Obama being invited to deliver the commencement address at Roman Catholic Notre Dame University on Sunday. The Roman Catholic Church continues to disappoint, disgust and provoke me to speak out against its gross injustices, intolerances and deliberate propagation of a myth as historical events.

Now fundamentalists and Catholic conservatives are rallying with some of the most repugnant of allies -- people like Randall Terry, who has promised to "make a circus out of Notre Dame's graduation ceremony". The reason? President Obama does not support the anti-abortion agenda of the fundies, who misappropriate the title of "Right to Life" for their movement.

The problem is that the so-called "Right to Life" or "Pro-Life" groups are neither. They are little more than modern-day equivalents of the Sadducees and Pharisees, who thought themselves to be so very pious, and beacons of righteousness, yet whose disregard for social justice, compassion and care for the marginalised provoked Rav Yeshua to address them as "blind guides" and "sons of the dogs who murdered the prophets".

In Matthew 23:24, which according to the mythos, takes place a week before Jesus was allegedly crucified, we read a potent account of how the Master viewed these religious leaders:

Woe to you, teachers of the Talmud and Pharisees... hypocrites to a man!  You give tithes ...  but have neglected the more important matters of the Law -- justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides!  You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.

I could only imagine the Great Rabbi responding to the anti-abortionists with the same type of denunciation today. Now, I don't want to give the impression that I approve of abortion, because I consider all forms of violence disgraceful. I believe that all life deserves respect and honour. However, I don't believe in legislation of morality, and I never will. The separation of Church and State must be restored in the theocracy left in the wake of the Bush Cabal's near destruction of Amerika. Again, Ghandi writes, "Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed."

I'm not sure that many realise how frightfully close this country came to meeting such an end in the hands of the terrorist Bush Regime. And I am not one to join the ranks of those who whole-heartedly applaud the Obama administration either, given his backing off on the commitment to put an end to the illegal tribunals of the Bush Cabal, and to hold those responsible for such horrors accountable. But I do applaud the aggiornamento -- the breath of fresh air -- that the new President is bringing to this country's economy and recovery.

I also applaud those from Notre Dame for having the courage to extend such an invitation to the President, in keeping with that university's progressive history and theology.

I encourage people to embrace all of life as sacred and important. And that is why the anti-abortionists sicken me... because they are not truly "pro-life", they are simply anti-abortion. If they want to legislate against abortion rights, then they need to do so with their wallets. Don't tell a woman she has no right to end a pregnancy, unless you are PERSONALLY willing to pay for that woman's care during pregnancy, and support that child until it reaches the age of majority. Don't pretend to be "pro-life" if you turn your head to avoid the glance of the homeless person on the exit ramp of the highway. Don't tell me you defend the "right to life", when you do nothing to ensure that the elderly and poor have enough food, heat and adequate shelter.

In the Buddhist texts, we read the words attributed to Buddha Sakyamuni: "If you do not care for one another, then who is there to care for you? Whoever would serve me should serve the sick." (Mahavagga 8.26) And in the prophetic words attributed to Jesus, we read: "Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray, and because of this, the Way (Dharma) will be diminished and the love of many will grow cold." (Matthew 24.11-12)

That is why I continue to refer to the leadership of so many institutional churches and religions as "whitewashed tombs", because like those tombs -- coated with a bright and pleasing exterior -- we find inside the same rotting, decaying and unpleasant surroundings in which there is only death and lifelessness.

The very essence of the Mahayana School of Dharma is compassion. It remains my firm belief that compassion is more important and far more useful than religion. And the Roman Catholic Church, like Protestant Fundamentalists, continue to demonstrate that my belief is well-founded.

As you approach this new week, resolve to stay motivated by wisdom and compassion, so that your every action will benefit all beings, not just your individual selves. Let this compassion create a positive atmosphere, and bring you and the world in which you reside peace.

Namasté!

Dharma talk…

It’s interesting. If you take a look at the blogs and microblogs of the people with whom I interact most, you will seldom find very many people asking “permission” to blog about things in the way that they do. You won’t find many people asking if everyone “wants” their blogs or even their groups to focus on this particular interest or approach, or another.

I’ve learned a lot in recent months, as I extricated myself from two of the so-called “Buddhist groups” with whom I previously interacted online. I realised that not only did I find the combination of the righteous indignation of some of the more fundamentalist Theravadan and certain Nichiren adherents to be disappointing, and the irksome outbursts of some of the blatantly clueless idiots, using the boards as a place to garner attention by baiting and attempting to discredit those for whom Buddhism has been a lifelong pursuit and practice to be a waste of time; but I also noticed that I was frustrated by the lack of genuine leadership that I was seeing by members of the sangha, who indeed knew better and should have stepped in when others were being attacked.

While beginning the first week of a very slow, apparently painful recuperation from this reconstructive surgery, I spent some time considering this, and looking at my reaction and response to these phenomena, recognising that none of it is real, and that there must be a lesson therein for me.

What I kept thinking about was that although both the Dharma of the Christ and the Buddhist Dharma (indeed, the Sanatana Dharma as well) teach that we are to focus on creating a better world, there is a more basic, primal instruction that teaches us to first create a better, more awake self… a task that seems contradictory, because we also realise that the mind which perceives all illusions as “reality” can never truly correct that which is the root of the delusion – the mind itself. So we back up and realise that we are, through the mind, creating our lives… and we can learn to create better lives, improving the conditions in which awakening can more easily occur.

Thomas Merton wrote, “The centre of Christian humanism is the idea that God is love, not infinite power. Being love, God has given ‘himself’ without reservation to humanity, so the He has become man. It is man, in Christ, who has the mission of not only making himself human, but of becoming divine by the gift of the Spirit of Love.”

The spiritual path of the Enlightened and Anointed Ones does not teach that we must extract ourselves from the material world, in order to attain the inner ideal of Sacred Tranquillity and Awakening. Neither does it teach us to abstract ourselves from these material phenomena, including ritual, liturgy, and spiritual practice, as a means of achieving the desired Calm Abiding. The Dharma of Compassion teaches you and me to give ourselves to all of humanity and all beings in a service of love in which that Eternal Law (which some call Intelligence, others call God, Sunyata, Emptiness, or the Void) manifests its creative power through dependent arising and the cloud of causes and conditions. Then, freed from the bondage of our own “ideas”, we can begin living in the moment with greater awareness, and can choose to respond from a place of loving service to all.

I don’t think I will likely ever understand the bizarre phenomena of those who permit others to be so blatantly disruptive or disrespectful as one often finds on the net. Especially those who profess to be Buddhists, and allow monks, nuns, and respected authorities to be attacked. I’ll understand even less those who profess to follow Christ or Buddha’s teaching, and who do nothing to help those who are hungry, in personal or financial need, hurting or alone.

But at least now, I have come to recognise their behaviours are indicators of how very little work they have done on actually internalising the Dharma. Such folks, it seems, have turned Buddhism into a curiosity or a “religion”, much like those who have distorted the Dharma of Christ, turning that into a religion as well.

How unfortunate that more do not see with the eyes of St. Francis of Assisi, who taught, “What you are looking for is what is looking.” For after all, as Alan Watts so brilliantly queried: “If you do not get it from yourself, where will you go for it?”

Thank you for your continue patience with my intermittent lapses of posting during the past couple weeks. The reconstructive surgery was quite successful; however, when they opened the arm, they realised the damage was much greater than anticipated and were therefore not able to do the kind of procedure they’d hoped for. I will still regain about 40-50% of the use of my arm over the next six months, and the intense pain I am now experiencing, which is only unbearable because the insurance company refuses to cover one of the only narcotic pain relievers to which I am not allergic, will subside over the next twelve weeks. I continue to sit for two hours each morning and evening in meditation and remember all of you (en masse) during puja and our Eucharistic liturgy.

A few have written with hopes that this surgery would have magically caused me to waiver from my non-theistic perspective. I cannot, I am afraid, bring those folks the news for which they are hoping. I continue to believe that religion and theism are purview of those who find comfort in the imagery, superstition, ritual centring and communal traditions of such primitive practices. I see nothing inherently wrong with embracing such a path, if that is something that works for you. I draw deeply on the mythos and legends of the Christ, typified in the teachings of Rav Yeshua the Nazarene, despite a great deal a new scholarship indicating that the existence of the Nazarenes (Essenes) is (like most biblical tales) fictional and midrashic innovations of later centuries. I draw on the rich tapestry of the Divine Feminine, personified in the images of Mary the Christotokos, Kali, Kuan Yin, Tara, Vajrayogini and the Great Spirit – without feeling compelled to imagine any of those stories are based on physical beings.

Let it be comforting to you that I am well, as I know that you are. And let peace flow there between us, and love fill the space between the breaths.

Namasté!

-- dharmacharya gurudas sunyatananda

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