In Zen, we practice wisdom, compassion, and service. In other words, we see, we feel, and we try to help. In that order.
*Bussho Lahn. Singing and Dancing Are the Voice of the Law: A Commentary on Hakuin's "Song of Zazen."
My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love.
*Galatians 5.13 (CEV, Christian Bible)
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When a hospice chaplain, due to serving many conservative evangelical Christians, I would take an old hymnal of conservative Protestant hymns when visiting patients and their families. This same hymnbook we sang from in the church of my childhood.
One day, I sat and perused that hymnal, looking for a hymn to sing from my boyhood. I was alarmed to see how many hymns were about getting to heaven. I got the sense one could conclude the congregants from my childhood and youth were too focused on getting to another place, far far away, so being obsessed with that anticipation.
As a child and youth, I did not consider this marked focus on a faraway heaven an obsession. Such hope was woven into the church and larger culture. To think or talk about heaven, and to sing about it, was as natural as breathing to us.
Looking back decades later, and no longer part of that culture, I found that preoccupation with heaven odd. I wondered if this demonstrated that Earth was treated as a springboard to get somewhere else, so life here was not given the honor it deserved. Similarly, I now consider that such a perspective contributes to the abuse of Earth and the consequent loss of species and climate change. However, I do not deny that such hope played a positive role in the lives of my fellow churchgoers, as it did for my family and me.
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In one of the foundational sutras (scriptures) for Zen Buddhists, the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha responds to a compassionate one (bodhisattva) Mahamati -
The Buddha told Mahamati, "They [srota-apanas, those of the first stage in Theravada Buddhism, the Buddism whereby practitioners focus on attaining nirvana] do not give rise to the different kinds of behavior involving love or the desire to embrace women or to misdeeds involving the mouth or body that give present pleasure but ensure future suffering. And how do they do this? By attaining the bliss of samadhi. Thus, they put an end to desires, but not the desire for nirvana.
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While some of the above might sound too ascetic, I cite it all to lead us to the last two lines and to be fair to the ethic of the norms of that time represented in Mahayana Buddhism. So, "By attaining the bliss of samadhi. Thus, they put an end to desires, but not the desire for nirvana."
"Samadhi" refers to a deep state of meditation and detachment, an absorbed state, or a state of concentration during meditation. Such equanimity is a legitimate place on the path. The Buddha does not deny this. Here, he says, is the extinguishment of craving: "Craving, grasping," to me, is a better rendering for modern Western readers of what Buddhists mean by "desire." This grasping, or greed, is one of the Three Poisons, the fundamental sins, so to speak. Greed was, similarly, one of the Seven Deadly Sins among early desert dwellers (Desert Fathers and Mothers) in the Christian era.
The Buddha challenges the Theravadians greed for nirvana. The Buddha challenges covetousness for anywhere other than right here, now, where life is taking place. This focus can shut out the more important of compassion and serving to help others. I have no recollection of any hymns from my upbringing with lyrics affirming compassion for others, except likely we had some about trying to get others in the Christian sheepfold, such as one that we sang exuberantly about bringing others in from fields of sin. But what about compassion without any intent to bring anyone anywhere, rather love and help them who and where they were - that is, no agenda to convert to the faith?
What did nirvana imply? Freedom from the Wheel of Samsara - suffering. Freedom from going through cycles of birth-and-death. Interesting that the Buddha sees a yearning for nirvana as a potential trap. But where does yearning become lust for nirvana? Or is yearning itself a sign of coveteousness?
The sutra presents, not that the Theravada is wrong, but comes up short. The Buddha teaches the Mahayana. Mahayana Buddhism teaches nirvana here-and-now. Mahayana teaches not entering nirvana, so to be a compassionate being and help lead others, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, if it takes that, out of suffering. This would be like saying, "Heaven can wait. Delay it. Too many beings need you."
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A Buddhist tale tells of two men searching for escape from a desolate land. They finally arrive at a wall. One climbs up and looks over. On the other side is a paradise-like land. Everyone there seems joyful. This man climbs down the other side of the wall with great delight. He waits for his friend to climb over, too. The second man climbs up, looks over, and decides to stop. He finds his way down the wall, choosing to remain in the desolate land with others who remain there.
Now, consider this. What if we could find Christian hymns affirming Christians prioritizing an aspiration to remain in suffering realms, so to provide help for suffering beings rather than go to a materialistic, happy heaven, which the Buddha would refer to, in the words of this sutra, as a "village of the senses"? Who needs streets of gold, anyway, or a crown on the head? Is it not true that we feel most blissful when we help someone out of pure love?
I have no problem with people believing in heaven. The Buddha had no problem with people believing in nirvana or wanting that. In fact, he taught about nirvana. The Buddha's foundational teaching is the Four Noble Truths, showing a path from suffering to nirvana.
So, what is this writing about, if aspiring for a heaven or nirvana is okay? We go back to this attachment, greed for a heaven or nirvana, or even another life here.
The Way is not first about you or me getting a vacation-like place or a no place elsewhere or after this life. The way is about love, loving, now.
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Recently, in a meditation group, persons expressed concern about the challenge of helping the suffering world. How to do this? What arose to me, in silence, was, "I do it one person at a time." Now, that is more important to me than talking or singing or dancing about some heaven, nirvana, or paradise. In the moment of compassionate connection with another being, that is fullness of life. It is that simple.
When my mother passed on, weeks later, and after a sense of connection to 'her' in silence, an inner voice appeared. I was told not to try to connect with her anymore, she had more work to do. For years, I thought that work was maybe on her spiritual evolution. After decades, I sensed that this "more work" was a continuance of her life on Earth, what she already was. My mother was a conservative evangelical Christian. Yet, too, I could call her a Christian bodhisattva. She was one of the most Christ-like, Buddha-like, compassionate beings I have known. She could rightly be called a Baptist bodhisattva. I feel much blessed to have known her, and her generous, quiet spirit blessed many. I sense there is much work to be done after we depart this realm we now live in.
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After decades of meditation and walking the intimate way, my focus on heaven or afterlife disappeared, slowly, of course. I trust I have become a more here-now compassionate being. I leave others to agree or not on that. I certainly feel an in-love with this life I did not have before, earlier in life. I feel a reverence for this Earth and its many beings. I believe nirvana, heaven, paradise, New Jerusalem... point to something. I just have no idea what the details are.
So, the Buddha says, "Give your heart to this world and its beings. Lift your aspiration above getting free of all this." And Jesus says, quoting the Gospels, "The reign of the skies is all around you now."
I find I do not need to know the details about somewhere else, after somewhere, or another time. I need to be totally involved in this one life now given me - and us - and make a difference one person at a time. I need to love and be loved now. I need to help and be helped here. I will leave the theories about other lives or an afterlife to others. I will respect others' need to sing about a heaven. That is okay. Those songs point to something. Now, how about you?
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*Quote from Lankavatara Sutra from Red Pine, The Lankavatara Sutra: Translation and Commentary.
