Lotus and Lily Field Notes

Listening right now to “Illinoise” by Sufjan Stephens.  There is something special about this guy.  I just heard “Casimir Pulaski Day” and the sweetness of the banjo and quirky delightful horn arrangements and lines like “and He takes and He takes and He takes” in reference to a friend with bone cancer–not quite pissed off at the Almighty, but not covering over the difficulties either.  I find Stephens’ story fascinating: his parents gave him his unusual name because they were followers of Subud at the time; he has since converted to Christianity.  I know little about the details of his faith, but what comes across in his music is a warm open sensitivity to the quirky possibilities of life that makes the oft-maligned old faith look pretty good.
Listen to this music makes me glad to be alive, open to creative possibilities for myself, and less stuck on issues of names and forms, allegiances or resistances for or against any particular tribes.  What a nice gift!

One other personal note: a huge relief today, as a workplace complication I had been dreading was suddenly smoothed out very nicely.  I am hoping, hoping, this will free up some emotional energy and enable me to focus more of my time and attention on this blog and the creative projects of various kinds that inspire me to write it.  What shapes those will take–not known yet.  Electronic fantasies on chant, or barbarian kings and their Psalms, or the mystical garden of the Song of Songs, or more adorations of the divine mother, or some combination thereof.  Although you wouldn’t think so from the title, Sufjan Stephens’ “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us” fuels all these musings and helps generate a beautiful sphere of hope.

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It’s getting clearer and clearer to me that in terms of worldview and philosophy Buddhism really can’t be beat.  But I was born and will remain a “cultural Christian,” from my evangelical roots (not as intense as Jesus Camp, but not completely unrecognizable either) to  my current immersion in the contemplative liturgical scripture-infused world of chant.”Cultural Christian” is a riff on the “cultural Judaism” I learned about from hanging out with Hebrew students at UC Berkeley as an undergrad.  (See some manifestations here and here.)  I know that Christian identity is different from Jewish identity, but I feel some kinship with these good souls who recognize the incredible richness of their tradition, don’t want to abandon it entirely, but don’t subscribe to its philosophical or religious tenets.

There is one lone Wikipedia entry, a brief stub, on Cultural Christianity, which succinctly states, “The term usually is used pejoratively by other Christians to describe these individuals, whose spiritual understanding or practice they see as underdeveloped or superficial.”  Pooh.  Just when I thought I had a good thing going .  Yet another reputation to salvage?  (Peter Brown’s The Rise of Western Christendom makes clear that name-calling has been an excellent Christian strategy for millenia: from “pagan” (the equivalent of “hick” or “rube”) to “Arian” to “Nestorian”, it’s a classic technique.  OK, not just Christians enage in this, but we’ve been pretty good at it.
Still, the concept fits me pretty well: it describes my reliable passion for certain “classical Christian “artefacts and my very tenuous and unstable relationship its core concepts (Buddhism just says it better for me, almost all the time).  Something to keep playing with in the endless identity game.
As always when we have a really good Peregrine rehearsal: I’m in love with Gregorian chant all over again.  This evening it came at a particularly rich time, after several nights hearing the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche expound on Buddhist wisdom (and somehow I snuck in there a viewing of Jesus Camp, which stirs up a whole host of its own personal issues about which more later, if all the conceptual planes circling my airport ever manage to land).

But into this maelstrom comes that inimitable, unforgettable, aesthetic spiritual transformative musical experience of singing chant really well with people I’ve been singing with for years.  It just all opened up and was sublimely perfect.  At moments like this, I really don’t care what identity I have.  It just feels great to be alive.

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This week the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, the source of most of my insights about Buddhism, is giving a series of talks at Nalanda West about analytical meditation.  I have been taking classes at his center and reading his books for almost two years now; this week is the first time I’ve actually heard him teach in person.  It has been moving and quite wonderful.  There is an ease and naturalness to his presentation that is thoroughly disarming–he presents himself as totally uninterested in glamour, and laces his talks with self-deprecating humor and earthy examples–tonight it was the story of him listening to the Rolling Stones’ Emotional Rescue in a monastery in Sikkim in the 70s (“I guess we were hoping to be rescued from the monastery”).
But underneath all that is a deep and pervasive wisdom.  And inspiration as well: when he said, tonight, “we keep telling ourselves same lies over and over and over again until we actually believe them: that we will last forever, that our experience is solid and permanent, that our concepts really exist.” In the midst of a somewhat tangled set of life circumstances just now, these words were deeply meaningful.

I have to give myself a modest pat on the back for showing up for these teachings, and not running screaming from the room.  To sit still and listen with an open heart and genuine pleasure to any spiritual teacher takes some doing (this has been a good year–Cynthia Bourgeault is another success story for the mystical Christian side of my brain).

The occasion for Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s talks is Nitartha Institute, a lovely and in-depth exploration of Buddhist philosophy that is now most conveniently being offered a few blocks from my house.  This is not the year for me to attend but I hope to do so another time.  I’m really amazed by the Nitartha Institute’s vision: to provide a context for traditional Tibetan Buddhist scholastic philosophy to be taught in a Western context, in a way that makes sense to Westerners.  This vision will take time to unfold (it’s been going for eleven years already), but as the DPR said the other night, “I’m a conversative”.

Sometimes my quixotic pursuit of the spirituality of Gregorian chant seems foolish and pointless.  But maybe there is a way in which this work can sprout its own roots and grow, just like these beautiful Buddhist projects springing up all over.

Anyway, I just keep studying and growing and listening (most recently also to Peter Brown’s fantastic Rise of Western Christendom, which is opening up huge new vistas of understanding about the context of Gregorian chant–more on this later, I hope).

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I’m feeling especially proud of having tracked down, through interlibrary loan at Seattle Public Library, a copy of the Antiphonale Romano-Seraphicum, a 1928 edition of Gregorian chant, Franciscan style.  We decided a couple of months ago to focus our chant retreat this summer (July 20-22) on St. Francis and St. Clare.  I had been planning to use some generic chants for “confessors” (saints who aren’t martyrs)–that’s what was used for St. Francis in many of the chant books I have.  But this lovely volume has many wonderful chants specifically about both Francis and Clare, including texts that speak of his preaching to the birds–really quite delightful!

As always, I feel very happy when I am able to connect with a little bit of medieval history in this way: Francis the person, and the Franciscans as an order, have always felt special to me somehow, so to be able read and sing these beautiful chants (and, this summer, to share them with others) is a rare treat!  The breadth and scale of medieval music is always breathtaking to me, and here is yet another treasure trove to explore.  Wowie!

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A few days ago the hard drive on my relatively ancient laptop (4 years: how technology underscores the notion of impermance!) started making disturbing buzzing noises; the sounds have become so alarming that I am putting the poor machine out of commission.  On a related note of identity-challenging experiences, I just returned from 4 days with my parents in California.  No one, but no one, is better equipped to totally dismantle the frameworks of one’s sense of adult competence than one’s parents, and mine play their role with great skill, for which a grateful gassho and metta-bow.

Anyway, these two events have put a damper on my blogging activity for the last week or so.  Hope to get back to it soon.

I am musing on the role of evangelism in religions; both Christianity and Buddhism has healthy components of this activity.  Where does one draw the line between a healthy commpassionate desire that all beings obtain liberation, and an arrogant presumption as to what that liberation ought to consist of?

Of course, these thoughts are completely random and have absolutely nothing to do with certain recent experiences in certain Sunday morning evangelical church services attended in fulfillment of certain filial obligations…

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Inspired by Cynthia Bourgeault’s reference to it when I met her a few weeks ago (OK, and a couple of bouts of insomnia), I have at long last started digging into Meditations on the Tarot, which I’ve owned for years but never read.  I’m on the second letter, which explores the notion of Love as the ultimate objective of the spiritual quest.  The writer contrasts this Western (Jewish/Christian/Muslim) aim with the Eastern aim of unity with Being.  Relationship/twoness on one side, being/oneness on the other.

I know this is a bit like that old saw: “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t.”

Nevertheless I think this is an important, maybe a fundamental, distinction between the spiritual journeys of west and east.  And yet: in conversation with my Nalanda West mentor today, we talked about these as two poles of a wonderfully unstable dynamic compound: “not one, not two”.   It’s all one…and yet we continue to exist and be in relationship.
The Meditations author speaks most compellingly of the power of preserving personality on the Christian path.  I think he sells Buddhism short, surely, and misses some of the nuances of Buddha-nature.  But when he says things like “those on the path of unity no longer have the ability to shed tears” there’s something valid there.

After working through a number of books that play softball with the distinctions between West and East, it’s utterly refreshing to hear this potent articulation of what’s *unique* about the Christian journey, not in a triumphalist sense, but in a deeply reflective, careful, and respectful way.  What a treasure!

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I’m very happy to point to a new blog in our little Buddhist-Christian community: Son-Christianity.  I mentioned the writer, In-Myoung Won (Don Erickson’s dharma name), a couple of days ago.  Within hours of our exchange he’d launched this blog, and it will be great fun to watch his most fascinating vision for a new community, informed by the Jesus sutras, unfold.

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I just posted a wonderful set of links to Buddhist-Christian resources compiled by the intrepid Victoria Scarlett of Seattle’s Lotus & Lily group.  Really great stuff there, well worth digging into.  It includes practice groups, ideas, research, and much, much more.  Thanks Victoria!

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I got a very nice email today from Don Erickson in Tampa:

Dear Joseph,
Doing some surfing, I found the Lotus and Lily group and was excited to see it. I am a chaplain at Tampa General Hospital and in the ordination process with the United Church of Christ. I am a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (2004). When asked, I often call myself a Buddhist-slanted Christian. I have a vision of building a church – with a brand new ecclesiology and liturgy – using the vehicle of the Jesus Sutras, ancient Chinese Christian texts dating back to the 7th century which are written through the lens of Taoism and Buddhism. The closest thing it seems to such a church is your group in Seattle. I am interested in the operation and structure of your group. I see that you discuss, meditate, and chant, but I wonder if there is any liturgy involved? How much interest is there? In other words, how many come to your meetings?
Anyway, I thank you for your time. I appreciate any feedback you can give me.
Metta,
Don Erickson

I shared with Don some thoughts about Lotus & Lily; since it’s a good update on where we’re at, I thought I’d share it here as well:

Hi Don,

This is very exciting! It’s wonderful to connect with you–I’m so glad you found us. Your idea is fascinating, and I hope you continue to share your work. Maybe you should start a blog–I’m finding that a great way to record the group’s process as well as my own. Plus we need to get more Buddhist-Christian bloggers out there!

Lotus and Lily definitely does have a structure, and it’s been very interesting to watch it evolve. Our sessions currently include both Buddhist and Christian (quasi-Gregorian) chanting, 20 minutes of silent meditation pretty much in the Buddhist style, and “prayers of the people”; following a short break we have a discussion about a text we’re reading and close with a Quaker-style silent circle and a gassho bow.
We are in fact just on the point of a group conversation about what we do and why, as we continue to get more intentional about our practice. Personally I’m very interested in liturgy (I sing Gregorian chant with a local group and we just released our second CD) but we have not incorporated much in the way of “high church” liturgical activities. We’ll see where our most recent conversations go–I think there may be further interest in that sort of thing.

We are pretty small right now, about seven regular members. We’ve lost a number of people recently who left the area for work-related reasons, but part of our plan is to more actively promote what we’re doing in the community. We’re confident that there’s a lot of interest–we just need to get more intentional about our outreach, and that’s what we’re preparing for now.

I’d be delighted to share more with you about what we’re up to, and would also love to hear more about your own plans.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to post your note and my response to my own blog at www.lotuslily.net, just to let people know what you’re up to. Would you mind my doing that?

Many blessings on your work–sounds totally cool!

Joseph

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I had a nice comment on my post about the Blogisattva Awards from Tom at Blogisattva:

1. The blog I contribute to at work is part of the ferociously interbloggish “biblioblogosphere” (librarian bloggers).  I find myself intermittently getting pulled into the “chattering classes” mentality (honestly, at times it feels just exactly like high school)–but at the same time the conversations there are often wonderfully rich and powerful.  Honestly I think it helps that librarians write about issues related to running libraries–profound issues of information and its uses in a free society, but perhaps not quite as fraught, or divisive, or insular as religion and spirituality can be.  In librarianship, collaboration is the Name of the Game.  As in any online community, the library blog world goes through predictable patterns of extremely valuable interchange and silly emotional turf wars.  Hmm, sort of like any congregation.  Although perhaps peculiarly like a congregation composed entirely of the quasi-narcissistic, emotional and expressive people who write blogs (I should know, I’m one of them).  On balance, though, the reach and potency of the library blogging community is quite extraordinary, and in my opinion something to aspire to (to dip your toe in this pool, I suggest starting with Librarian in Black, one of my favorites–she will lead you into many wonderful lands).
2. I started working on that blog before I launched this one.  When I started here, I assumed I would, fairly easily, connect up with what Tom nicely describes as a “blogging congregation” (blog-gregation?)  For a variety of reasons this critical mass has not yet formed in my particular space.  The Buddhist-Christian dual-practice nature of this blog seems to me to have a lot to do with it: it’s just not that comfortable for a lot of people to hang out in the spaces in-between.  A good blog-gregation has a commonality of purpose and perspective that allows for connections to multiply.  It may be that there aren’t quite enough explicitly Buddhist-Christian bloggers, or maybe not enough Buddhist-Christians, to sustain such a social network of people who communicate in this way.  There are a lot of good Christian blogs and a lot of good Buddhist blogs (some are listed on the side-bar here): and just as in real life being a Buddhist-Christian doesn’t necessarily make you all that welcome in either community.
3. I think it’s hard to predict what a critical mass of mutually-referential Buddhist bloggers (never mind Buddhist-Christian bloggers) might accomplish.  It’s an odd and unpredictable medium.  I think a lot of blogging (good blogging and not-so-good) is driven by ego: the drive for recognition, the need to build up one’s traffic and one’s reputation.  So what would happen in a community of bloggers who are very explicitly exploring liberation from the bounds of the ego?  Does the whole thing collapse (sort of like many past Buddhist empires, which mostly fell apart in the face of the obvious self-contradiction of such a notion)?  Or does some lovely, graceful and totally unique dance of collaboration begin to emerge?  Can we model the working of the dharma, and the building of a healthy sangha, in this space?
4. One meta-comment on these thoughts: this is a longer post than I’ve written in some time.  When a blogger says to another blogger: “I’d love to hear your comments on X”, it’s sure to stimulate more thinking, more writing, and more sharing.  Thanks Tom!  And I can’t close this without acknowledging the terrific and dedicated Wulfila, who behaves just like a good blog-friend should (he’s a much more faithful reader of my blog than I am of his).  May more connections of this kind develop!

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My friend John Malcomson commented on my one year anniversary post:

I just thought of a great event title:
Christian-Buddhist? Buddhist-Christian?
A Spirituality Beyond Labels

What do you think?I love the “beyond labels” idea (especially juicy in this marketing-saturated age!).

But it makes me wonder: then why use “Buddhist” or “Christian” at all? I see a lot of advantages in being “two, not one”, but maybe we need to get to “not one, not two”.

In any case, the topic seems like as good a reason as any to get an event together….

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I’ve been chanting Psalms, and teaching about chanting Psalms, for years now.  But ever since connecting up a few weeks ago with Cynthia Bourgeault’s Chanting the Psalms, and its vivid and compelling case for the contemplative depths of this ancient practice, I have renewed my own personal engagement in this practice.  What Cynthia has helped me see is that there is a non-verbal , non-conceptual profundity to the Psalm texts.  This has nothing to do with theology or even semantics.  It has to do with engaging the words, chewing on them, letting them speak in deep ways beyond reason or linguistic meaning.

I am so grateful for this new persective, since on any given encounter with the Psalms I am more likely than not to get very ticked off by the surface layers of meaning: the dualism, the baby-smashing, enemy-cursing, self-indulgent whining that are so often present there.  But no: there’s a way to see these texts as bearing a meaning beyond the meaning, not entirely independent of it, to be sure–but purified, perfected, wise in ways I can’t quite grasp.

It’s as though there is a sweet wisdom contained somewhere in there, that may require a great deal of maturity to grasp but *certainly* requires an open-hearted willingness to embrace what’s there without any conditions at all.  That takes trust, it takes patience, it takes a willingness to suspend judgment.  All by themselves, those are good qualities to cultivate.  But as my recent experiments seem to suggest, taking the Psalms as they are might just open up something deeper as well.  I’m curious to see what that might be.

This reminds, too, of the Buddhist teaching about how to relate to one’s thoughts in meditation, which is not a rejection, not an attachment, but a willingness to just *be fully present* with one’s thoughts as they are happening and let them emerge in simplicity and clarity–almost an attitude of welcoming.

So maybe the Psalms are just a particular form of thought, a playground within which the qualities above can be cultivated in a focused way.  Shamata (calm abiding) meditation is taught with focus on a seashell, a leaf or image of the Buddha.  So maybe the Psalms can function as exactly that same sort of support: not as an end in themselves but as a framework within which consciousness can be explored.

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