Over at Carl McColman’s Anamchara: the Website of Unknowing, one of my favorite Christian blogs, Carl reflects briefly on chapters seventeen and eighteen of the anonymous Medieval mystical text the Cloud of Unknowing. There the author reflects on the story of Martha and Mary and how Martha, who has been doing all the work while Mary has been sitting with Jesus, wants Jesus to instruct Mary to get to work. Instead Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better part.
Carl considers the traditional understanding of that passage in scripture as well as in the Cloud, which is that the contemplative life is superior to the life of engagement. Then Carl suggests the reader look at how we take all the parts within ourselves and while conceding that contemplation is superior argues that for the most part we are called not to one or the other, but to a mixed life of contemplation and action.
Christianity holds a special place in my heart, and on alternative Tuesday mornings and third Thursday evenings, with some choking on the words I could say I’m a Christian. It is my natal lineage. Still, I’m really most informed, through and through by my now forty odd years of Zen practice. And if pushed would most of the time describe myself as a liberal Zen Buddhist. (There is so much in that word liberal, and the idea of liberal religion, which I find best expressed within Unitarian Universalism. But that’s for another post. These are my basic theological assertions that allow my life as a UU and as a person on this planet…)
And, I, like so many, also struggle with these two things, contemplation and action and their relationship, if any…
My natural inclination is toward contemplation.
And through the vagaries of mysterious karma I live the life of a parish minister, in which supporting the contemplative part of my life is a bit harder than being involved in the this and that of a spiritually inclined community that I am charged with fostering as well as being called to take stands in the public forum regarding the issues of the day as they are informed by a “spiritual” perspective.
What precisely that means is not usually clear. Other than how I must carefully guard the contemplative parts of my life. And, that the active is not really separate from the contemplative in any essential way. They really are joined.
As we find in another passage in the scriptures, we see all things through a glass darkly. But, here I disagree with what follows next in the text. There is no later when all is made clear. Clear and darkly are mixed irrevocably now. Now clear, now dark, now some shade of both, all swirling together in a wild dance. And that dance is life itself, or that dance is life and death itself – as that is the one thing.
Probably the best description of our situation I’ve read was from the Zen priest Shunryu Suzuki. I forget where I first found it, but as I was searching for a citation was delighted to see it quoted by the American Tibetan nun Pema Chodron in her Practicing Peace in Times of War. “All of you are perfect just as you are,” said the old roshi. But then added, “and you could use a little improvement.”
I think that’s our situation. The world is perfect as it is. That’s the insight of the spiritual eye. Everything just as it is, is. No judgment, no second thought. Just this. And, and, and, at the very same time, it needs work. Lord, it needs work. That’s the other eye. Starving children, oppressions and exploitations of every sort, greed, hatred and endless certainties all leading to small and great hurts, the suffering world crying out for justice, for mercy, for some action.
The Buddha said we must work out our salvation with diligence.
And the bodhisattva way is knowing no one is saved unless all are. And, I’m pretty sure a child who starves to death at six months of age is being robbed of something that we all have an obligation to do something about.
Because, in the last analysis we’re all one family, one thing, with binding obligations on each other.
I’m not calling for a leveling of all things. I address that in a bit. I am calling for mutual responsibility.
But first the one thing.
I think the diligence we’re called to is to cultivate the inner perspective, which ultimately is to see how we are that one family, we are one thing, form and emptiness together, and then a small step away from even that distinction.
The best phrase for that place I’ve ever heard is don’t know. Only don’t know.
It is the great and engaged agnosticism, the open heart and open mind. Curious, open handed.
And then there is the other thing, the life of separateness which is also true.
And to not turn away from decisions and actions. To use that hand without clutching too tightly, without crushing the living reality.
So, what does it look like this full life?
It is going to be a dance.
And, here’s the situation on the ground which is going to be part of the dance.
One is all economic systems and all political systems are contaminated. They include high aspirations and I’m sure genuine insights, but they are also informed by greed, hatred and endless certainty. But not to be excessively judgmental, as we are, too.
Still, the prevalent ideologies socialism, capitalism and its currently popular variation libertarianism are informed by false perspectives. The cluster of socialist views in varying degree ignore the need for the individual to be creative and free in action. The cluster of capitalist and libertarian perspectives ignore in varying degree our need for each other and our deep familial connection. And they appeal to false gods. There will never be a worker’s paradise and there is no unseen hand righting wrongs.
And all political systems are informed by a generally useful but ultimately false view of who is us articulated as the nation state. And today there is a newer system in the international corporation which overlaps with nation states, but is informed by the same false views of identity.
And that’s where we live. The economic systems and political systems that are here are what we deal with.
That’s what’s on the dance card.
Sometimes I despair of being of any real use. The forces involved are great, and I am very much aware of how small I am.
And, I know I need to act.
I can’t sit out the dance. There is no other place to be.
It is in my nature to be and to act.
It is in my nature to dance.
As is it yours.
So, what to pay attention to?
The major action we’re called to by our relationship with the world is the alleviation of suffering. Addressing the human need to work, to have a living, to have adequate food, clothing and shelter, to have access to education and health care are the tasks at hand. And like on to it is to care for our planet and to find ways to walk gently on this good earth.
Those are the critical actions we’re called to engage.
But how?
Here’s one set of dance instructions, the ones I feel most helpful.
First, don’t know, or rather it is an action: not knowing. And, then when engaging to try and not be tricked by the demons of greed, hatred and certainty that live in my heart, that are part of who I am. And when I am tricked, to notice as quickly as possible. And to re-orient my actions.
As open as possible.
As caring as possible.
Now Mary.
Now Martha.
Dancing.
Sitting.
Doing.
And then to let go, as they say, of the results.
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