Practically Transcendent Connecting with Something Greater by Planting Our Feet Firmly on the Ground By Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof December 7, 2014

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1 Connecting with Something Greater by Planting Our Feet Firmly on the Ground By Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof December 7, 2014 A couple days ago I had the pleasure of participating in a debate on the Resurrection sponsored by the Christian Club at Spokane Falls Community College. As you might guess, I was the debater arguing that it never happened. Toward the end of the event someone from the audience asked me if I don t believe in the resurrection then what hope is there? If I don t believe in immortality, what difference does my religion make? It makes a difference now, I said. It reminded me of a phone message left on the church answering machine in Louisville several years ago in response to news reports of my environmental activism. The angry caller said, What you re doing doesn t make any difference saving the unborn for Jesus or securing your place in Heaven for all eternity. Although he didn t leave his number and I never got to respond, I m indebted to this fellow for so succinctly and perfectly delineating the difference between his religion and mine. In his religion, all that matters is what happens before birth and after death. In my religion, all that matters is what happens between birth and death. I don t know if we exist in some form prior to birth or continue existing in some form after death, though, given the mysteries of quantum physics, I remain open to these possibilities. Even so, speculating about immortality isn t what religion is about for me. It s not about saving my soul for all eternity, or saving the souls of others by forcing my religion on them in the name of narcissistic love and selfrighteousness. Nor is it about denying the reality of the here and now, turning away from the suffering of others, or ignoring the unjust and destructive nature of our own actions in this world the one world we know does exist. And my religion certainly is not about falsely alleviating my fear of death. On the contrary, it s about making this life more meaningful, and doing what I can to help alleviate the suffering and injustices of others while I m here. This is why you will often hear me say that in my view religion is at its worst when it drives us deeper into our delusions, and at its best when it makes us more aware of the reality around us. When religion is used as a psychological defense mechanism against pain and uncertainty, it severs us from reality. When it fosters consciousness, compassion, and gratitude, it grounds and connects us to reality. So we might liken these contrasting religious attitudes to the difference between Prince Siddhartha and the Buddha he became. After he was born, his father the King had the palace surrounded with triple-thick walls to prevent his son from ever being exposed to the harsh realities of the world outside the safety and comfort of his home. But as he matured his fortress became a prison that Siddhartha wanted to escape. Once he finally ventured out into the real world he experienced the painful

2 realities the three walls were meant to protect him from disease, old age, and death. This led to a crisis of faith for Siddhartha in which his old belief system, based upon denial and deception, no longer worked. He could not return to the childish naivety he once knew under the protection of his parents and their palace walls to his autistic state, his dogmatic slumber now that he had been exposed to the real world. So he scrambled for a couple of new defense mechanisms instead. First he became an ascetic, a Puritan of sorts, denying his self the simplest of comforts, in an effort to create a place beyond the suffering, to a place out-of-touch with the real world, a place the world could not impose or impress itself upon him. Still discontented, however, Siddhartha eventually gives up asceticism for a life of overindulgence, becoming a Hedonist of sorts, gratifying all his earthly desires with abandon. But it s not until he achieves a state of homeostasis, of balance between his Puritanism and Hedonism, the Middle Way, that his psyche learns to cope with the painful realities of this world. It is only then that he becomes the Buddha, upon discovering a path based upon awareness and compassion, based, that is, upon what s really happening around him. This makes a lot of sense given that it isn t possible to have compassion for others unless we are aware of their suffering to begin with. And such awareness requires a path that gives us the fortitude to face the world beyond the autistic wall of selfdelusion, the ascetic wall of self-denial, and the aesthetic wall of self-indulgence. The autistic wall helps us avoid the world by pretending it doesn t exist. The ascetic wall helps us avoid the world by completely shunning it. And the aesthetic wall helps us avoid suffering by overindulging only in its pleasures. But to have compassion like the Buddha we must come to terms with reality, with the world, and with the suffering happening around us. So it doesn t surprise me that Buddhism requires the practice of sitting still and breathing. This is the same technique many therapists use to help their clients cope with undue anxiety and anger. This is so because the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for regulating our autonomic fight or flight response, kicks in whenever we feel threatened. Should we remain in this heighted state too long or too often, we re much like young Siddhartha, hiding behind a thick fortress of protection that prevents us from understanding what s really happening. When this occurs our vital signs, those indicators of our vitality, go into overdrive increased pulse, shallow breathing, and higher blood pressure increasing our risks of heart attacks and strokes. So therapists and Buddhists teach the practice of breathing. Inhaling and exhaling with intention, it turns out, kicks in the other part of the autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, which stimulates a state of calm and rest in us. This is so because the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems can t be engaged at the same time. Shutting on one shuts off the other. So Buddha was right; we can better deal with the anxiety of the real world by breathing with intention, kicking in 2

3 the parasympathetic nervous system. He called this state the Middle Way. Psychotherapists call it the ability to self-regulate our emotions. To take the analogy just a little further, the Buddha also taught that suffering, duhkha, which can also be translated as anxiety and anguish, is due to unhealthy attachments, or trishna. What s interesting about this is that Attachment Theory, a specific branch of evolutionary psychology, also relates the inability to self-regulate to what it calls insecure attachment patterns 1 developed during early childhood. Those who grew up with reliable caretakers that made them feel safe tend to cope better with anxiety, with duhkha, than do those with unreliable caretakers. Even so, like any religion, those attracted to Buddhism can use it as an excuse to avoid reality by interpreting its tenants to mean that we aren t to have any attachments to the world if we want to avoid suffering. But the heart of Buddhism is really about enlightenment, that is, becoming more aware of and, therefore, more present in the world. As retired professor of psychology, Dr. George Boeree explains in his article, Towards a Buddhist Psychotherapy, in order to improve one's life, one needs to understand and accept this fact of life, and that the effort one makes at avoiding this fact of life is at the root of neurosis. In other words, denying anxiety is denying life itself. As the blues song points out, if you ain't scared, you ain't right! " 2 If this is so, then Buddhism, at its best, isn t about avoiding emotional anxiety, it s about dealing with it. So this is one example of how religion can help us deal with what is, in what s really happening, by grounding us more firmly in the here and now. It s an example of what I m calling practical transcendence, the ability to go beyond ourselves by simply connecting with others and the world around us, not by connecting to some invisible force in the eternal ether. Religion in this context, however, makes little sense to those concerned only about eternity. Hence, Buddhism also teaches us to face our own impermanence, that we don t have individual immortal souls but are part of anatman, one universal soul, similar to transcendentalism s idea of the Oversoul. Within [humankind] is the soul of the whole, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One. 3 In the same way, Dr. Boeree explains that, With no substance nothing stands alone, and no one has a separate existence. We are all interconnected, not just with our human world, but with the universe. 4 So here are two traditions, Buddhism and Transcendentalism, suggesting religion doesn t have to be about having an other-worldly experience, but about having a worldly experience; suggesting that we need not transcend ourselves and our own 1 From, Fundamentalist Faith States, by Daniel Hill, in The Fundamentalist Mindset, ibid., p. 80f. 2 Copyright 1997, C. George Boeree. 3 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, The Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Brooks Atkinson, Random House, Inc., The Modern Library, New York, NY, 1940, p Boeree. ibid. 3

4 existence by going to a better place in the heavenly/spiritual realm, but by realizing our connection to others and our interconnection to everything. This is why the founders of Transcendentalism, Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were also both radical social activists; why, that is, they were both so engaged in solving the problems of this world. Regarding the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, for instance, which prohibited people from protecting runaway slaves, Emerson angrily wrote, And this filthy enactment was made in the 19th Century, by people who could read & write. I will not obey it, by God. 5 And Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay taxes in protest of slavery, and went on to write, Civil Disobedience, one of the major works to influence Gandhi and Dr. King. Their religious views didn t make them less engaged, but more engaged in the world. They weren t transcending the limitations of this existence but of themselves, by realizing their connection to others, awakening in them the same kind of compassion that s at the heart of Buddhism. The guy at the debate who asked me what hope I have if I don t believe in resurrection, and the angry caller concerned about my eternal soul, were both Christians, but this doesn t mean that Christianity can t also help ground its adherents to better cope with the realities of this world. Like all today s major world religions, Christianity began in response to injustice and suffering. As psychologist Erich Fromm said, Christianity did not change essentially, as long, that is, as it was made up of poor, oppressed, uneducated people feeling common suffering, common hatred, and common hope. 6 It wasn t until it became the religion of the Dominator class, Romanized by Constantine three centuries later, that it became a dogmatic religion obsessed with heavenly ideals rather than real world matters. the original religion was transformed into another one 7 Fromm said, Christianity, which had been the religion of a community of [equals], without hierarchy or bureaucracy, became the Church, the reflected image of the absolute monarchy of the Roman Empire. 8 Even so, many Christians, including many Christian churches and denominations today, remain far more committed to putting the social teachings of Jesus in to practice by helping to address the suffering of those in this world, than with concerning themselves about the next. According to the latest research, 76 percent of Americans consider themselves Christians. Only 34 percent of them, however, describe themselves as Evangelicals. 9 That means far more than half of the Christians in this country, the silent majority you don t usually hear about in the news, aren t obsessing about heaven, or the resurrection, or convincing everyone else their way is the only way. For most the Christians in this country, rather, putting the teachings of Jesus into practice is the paramount concern. Feeding the Fromm, Erich, The Dogma of Christ, (A Fawcett Premier Book, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., New York, NY, 1955, 1963) p Ibid., p Ibid., p

5 hungry, healing the sick, educating our children, liberating the oppressed, are the concerns of most mainline Christian Churches. Again, at its worst, Christianity, like any religion, can be used to avoid the realities of this world by imagining an ideal world based on unquestionable dogma and the belief in a better afterlife. But at its best, it can help us transcend our autistic reality by helping us connect to others and enabling us to cope with the realities around us. Thomas Aquinas, the 13 th century Dominican Priest, once said, Through compassion human beings imitate God. 10 And compassion, according to the Catholic mystic, Meister Eckhart, means justice. 11 Eckhart also said, There can be no love where people do not find equality or are not busy making equality. 12 So, like Buddhism and Transcendentalism, Christianity also affords us the opportunity to become aware of the realities of this world and to cope with compassion. While Christian fundamentalism was emerging in the early 20 th century, so was the Social Gospel movement, Liberation Theology, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer s call for a secular Christianity that emphasized the practice of Jesus social teachings without any church dogma. And toward the end of the 20 th century, contemporary theologian Matthew Fox introduced us to Creation Spirituality, countering the doctrine of original sin. In fact, his book, Original Blessing, got him silenced and defrocked from the Catholic Church. Not to be confused with Creationism, Creation Spirituality begins with the premise that the world we live in is good. Like Unitarian Universalism, it embraces science and actively seeks what wisdom can be mined from all religions. It not only accepts the Universe is 13.7 billions year old, but teaches and celebrates it! Creation spirituality doesn t merely ask us to take a realistic look at all the suffering in the world, but to see all its extraordinary beauty and wonder. Like Buddhism and Transcendentalism and mainline Christianity, Creation Spirituality takes us through a process of experiencing the awe and wonder of the world, facing its suffering, awakening our compassion, and taking action to make a real differences. As Matthew Fox puts it, To be compassionate is also to be prophetic. 13 Finally, I would mention another important avenue of practical transcendence, one that was born right here in our church, Religious Humanism. John Dietrich, the minister here between 1911 and 1916 and the father of Religious Humanism, first defined himself as a Humanist while here in Spokane. Like Buddhism, Transcendentalism, mainline Christianity, and Creation Spirituality, Religious Humanism is based upon coming to terms with the reality of this world and doing something positive and practical to make it a better place. Theological questions concerning the existence of God are as unimportant as those about the resurrection 10 Fox, Matthew, One River, Many Wells, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, NY 2000, p Fox, Matthew, Wrestling with the Prophets, Jeremy P.Tarcher/Putnam, New York, NY, 1995, p Ibid. 13 Fox, Matthew, Creation Spirituality, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1991, p

6 and immortality. A fundamental tenant of humanism, Dietrich said, is our faith in the possibility of improving human life. 14 And like the Buddhists and Transcendentalists and Christian Mystics, Humanism helps us transcend our selves by becoming more aware of and connecting, not with a higher power or invisible force, but with those we share our world with. As Dietrich explained, another fundamental tenant of Humanism is the belief in the fundamental unity of mankind and the necessity of bringing [people] to consciousness of this unity if a better world is to be established. 15 Yet, even without the necessity of God, and with its emphasis on human agency and responsibility, he considered Humanism a kind of religion because, as he put it, Our sojourn here becomes a wonder-awakening romance, a pilgrimage through mysteries and marvels, and as we walk together, comforting each other, inspiring each other, helping each other, loving each other, our hearts burn within us. 16 As a form of practical transcendence, a means of helping us connect with reality and with others, Humanism offers as profound a sense of meaning for our lives as any other religion, yet, as Dietrich said, it, robs [us] of nothing that actually exists. 17 So these are several examples of how religion, from a variety of traditions, can be used to help ground us to reality. At its worst, religion is a defense mechanism against this world, against everything in life, everything between birth and death. At its worst it considers the world fallen, our bodies sinful, and minds twisted by evil ideas. It asks us to be in the world and not of it, to contain all our desires, to replace our brains with doctrines, and to repress the ego, that part of us that interfaces with the empirical, sensual world. But at its best, religion, be it Buddhist, Christian, Humanist, or something else, requires us to love this world, to love ourselves, and to love others. In this way, religion ceases to be something we believe, but something we do, something that happens whenever we work to address suffering and injustice. It isn t a vertical experience between people and a deity, but a horizontal experience between people and the world. So transcendence isn t about leaving this world but about transcending the walls and defenses that keep us from it. Transcendence is outward not upward. Transcendence is what happens when we come together to create community, find meaning, and work for justice. 14 Dietrich, John H., What if the World Went Humanist? Ten Pulpit Addresses by John H. Dietrich, The HUUmanists Association, Hamden, CT., 2010, p Ibid., p Ibid., p Ibid. 6