The Common Ground of all Religion
A Reflection Delivered for
Universal Brotherhood Day
at the
Vedanta Society of Providence
13 September 2009
James Ishmael Ford
(This talk was delivered as part of a panel I shared with Swami Tyagananda, Minister of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Boston and Father John Sullivan from the La Salette Shrine in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.)
Now, context is important, and the context for my spirituality is found within two traditions, which for me have become one thing. The first is liberal religion manifested in the West as Unitarian Universalism. As a spiritual word “liberal” means broad and generous. I suggest while it owes everything to its direct ancestors Christianity and Judaism, Unitarian Universalism with its emphasis on the here and now also has much in common with many Eastern religions, in particular aspects of Taoism and Confucianism. And, second, I cannot say how much I owe Zen Buddhism, particularly in its Western adaptations of the Japanese Soto and Rinzai schools. Zen and Unitarian Universalism together inform my life, expressed as a deep discipline of presence nestled within a broad and generous spirit.
Also, for our purposes, today I need to hold up Catholicism and Vedanta, both of which have been very important to me, and continue to be lamps for me on my way. There’s an old joke that “Unitarians believe in salvation through bibliography.” So, let me share a bit of how this is so by holding up a few books.
I was raised a fundamentalist Baptist. By my teenaged years I’d stepped away from that tradition, embarked upon a personal quest. There is an old photograph of me from that time, looking what I assume I thought was spiritual, while holding a copy of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. I actually have to admit I only skimmed through it. Rather it was a trio of English expat writers living in Hollywood whom I really read; Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard and most especially Christopher Isherwood. In particular it was Isherwood’s Ramakrishna and His Disciples that fired my imagination and gave me some basic pointers on my way.
I learned from Swami Vivekananda that “Religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing; not in believing, but in being and becoming.” This was a revelation and reoriented my path.
I also need to mention the collaborations between Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda, minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. Their translation of the Bhagavad Gita was important, with it surprising, even shocking narrative arc. But even more important for me was their version of Shankara’s Crest Jewel of Discrimination, which probably was my first taste of what is called nondual religion, and which has become the driving insight of my interior life.
Now, I’m a Westerner, mostly of Irish descent, born and bred a Californian. So, of course, my debt to Jewish and Christian thinkers, and most importantly Catholic writers is immense. In the Western scriptures I am endlessly informed by the wisdom writings, particularly Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job, and eventually I was graced, finding the writings of Meister Eckhart and St John of the Cross, deep wells from which I continue to drink.
But I also have to hold up the singular influence on my forming spirituality reading Thomas Merton, whom I first encountered through his autobiography, Seven Story Mountain. Although of particular importance for me is his little book, Wisdom of the Desert. For instance, there I learned how:
“Some elders once came to Abbot Anthony, and there was with them also Abbot Joseph. Wishing to test them, Abbot Anthony brought the conversation around to the Holy Scriptures. And he began from the youngest to ask them the meaning of this or that text. Each one replied as best he could, but Abbot Anthony said to them: You have not got it yet. After them all he asked Abbot Joseph: What about you? What do you say this text means? Abbot Joseph replied: I know not! Then Abbot Anthony said: Truly Abbot Joseph alone has found the way, for he replies that he knows not.”
I read this and it took my breath away. I will return to this point.
Ultimately, however, for me it was the Zen Buddhist text composed in China at the beginning of the eighth century, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor where I finally found my spiritual quest given its mature shape. As the lay practitioner Huineng observed in that book, it is necessary to take a sip of water for ones’ self to know whether the water is warm or cold. And it was through this book, I learned to not rely so much on books, as well as the arc of his journey toward wisdom, which has become mine.
Out of all this I threw myself into a discipline that is predicated on the intuition we all share in something that surrounds us, that informs us, that is our origin and our destination. And as it is our birthright, as we are already swimming in it, to intimately encounter it all we need do is stop and notice. And so my practice is in fact a discipline of sitting down, of shutting up, and of paying attention. When I can’t sit down, I try to shut up and pay attention. When I can’t sit down or shut up, I try just to pay attention.
Now, all of this is preface. It is the context out of which I will try to respond to the theme for this afternoon’s discussion about what might be the common ground of all religion.
My Zen teacher’s Zen teacher, Robert Aitken once observed, “I have heard it said that all paths lead to the top of the same mountain.” Perhaps you have as well. But, Roshi Aitken then takes it in perhaps an unexpected direction. He responds to that old saying, bluntly. “I doubt it,” he says. Rather, he tells us, “I think that one mountain may seem just a small hill from the top of another.” And the old roshi ends with the call to “Let one hundred mountains rise!” I’m very much for that hundred-mountain thing. Let there be Vedanta. Let there be Catholicism. Let there be Unitarian Universalism. Each as it is. We find our way, I believe, when we sink deep into our tradition.
But. And. I’m not sure what that little connection should be. There is, however, a connection between our deep attention to our particular path and what is going on among our neighbors following their particular paths. And they tend to be a series of letting go of fond opinions, and instead of opening the heart and mind wide. In my experience we find our true ground when we surrender, the mountain, the path, even the ground, even if only for a moment. For a heartbeat we need to let go of every idea, however precious.
In that letting go we discover something. Another important book for me is another Chinese classic, the 12th century anthology of the sayings and doings of the Zen masters called The Book of Serenity. In it we learn something of what it might look like when we surrender our ideas of self and other.
The monk Fayen and some companions were caught in a snowstorm and took refuge at Dizang Monastery where the abbot, Luohan Guichen asked Fayen, “What is your journey?” In a Zen context that is always a dangerous question. How are you doing? Becomes the stuff of life and death. Fayen replied, “Going around on pilgrimage.” From this perspective not a bad answer, but not sparkling, either. Then Dizang, Zen abbots are often known by the name of their temple, pushed a bit farther, inquiring, “What do you expect from this pilgrimage?” And, Fayen gave the simplest of answers, opening his heart and revealing it.
He said, “I don’t know.” The time was ripe, what in Christian theology is sometimes called kairos, the time of fulfillment. In fact the wise teacher Dizang didn’t even need to pluck the fruit, it was so ripe. Instead he simply blew on it, gently, saying, “Not knowing is most intimate.”
And Fayen’s last doubts fell away. Perhaps that radical, wild openness, lasted only for moment. The ego reconstitutes amazingly easily. But it couldn’t matter. He had the great taste; he knew whether it was warm or cold. And from that moment on he knew what is real path was, the path of not knowing.
And I suggest it is this not knowing that is the common ground of all religion.
Thank you.
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