Why Christians Turn to
Buddhism: Six Examples
May 23, 2017 Daniel P.
(Danny) Coleman Patheos
A small but growing number Christians in the
West are turning to Buddhism for spiritual guidance. Many are
reading books about Buddhism, and some are also meditating,
participating in Buddhist retreats, and studying under Buddhist
teachers. They are drawn to Buddhism’s emphasis on “being
present” in the present moment; to its recognition of the
interconnectedness of all things; to its emphasis on non-violence;
to its appreciation of a world beyond words, and to its provision
of practical means — namely meditation — for growing in one’s
capacities for wise and compassionate living in daily
life. As they learn from Buddhism, they do not abandon
Christianity. Their hope is that Buddhism can help them
become better Christians. They are Christians influenced by
Buddhism.
1. Julia is typical of one kind of
Christian influenced by Buddhism. She is a hospice worker in
New York who, as a Benedictine sister, turns to Buddhism “to become
a better listener and to become more patient.” As a
student of Zen she has been practicing zazen for twenty years under
the inspiration of the Vietnamese Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh,
whose book Living Buddha/Living Christ gave her new eyes for
Christ, proposing that Jesus himself was “mindful in the present
moment.” She practices meditation in order to deepen
her own capacities for mindfulness, particularly as it might help
her be more effective in her life’s calling. As a hospice
worker she feels called to listen to dying people, quietly and
without judgment, as a way of extending the healing ministry of
Christ. Like many people in consumer society, she sometimes
finds herself too hurried and distracted, too caught up in her own
concerns, to be present to others in patient and healing
ways. She turns to Zen practice because it has helped her
become more patient and attentive in her capacities to be available
to people in a spirit of compassion.
From Julia’s perspective, “being present” to
people in a compassionate way is a spiritual practice in its own
right. She calls this attention “practicing the presence of
God,” and she believes that this listening participates in a deeper
Listening – an all-inclusive Love — whom she calls God, and whom
she believes is everywhere at once. She turns to Zen
meditation, then, not to escape the world, but to help her drawn
closer to the very God whose face she sees in people in need, and
to help her become gentler and more attentive in her own capacities
for listening. In her words: “I hope that my Zen practice has
helped me become a better Christian.”
2. John, too, is a Christian who
practices meditation, but for different reasons. He suffers
from chronic back pain from a car accident several years ago.
He has turned to meditation as a way of coping more creatively with
his pain. “The pain doesn’t go away,” he says, but it’s so
much worse when I fight it. Meditation has helped me live
with the pain, instead of fighting it all the time.” When
people see John, they note that he seems a little more at peace,
and a little more joyful, than he used to seem. Not
that everything is perfect. He has his bad days and his good
days. Still, he finds solace in the fact that, even on
the bad days, he can “take a deep breath” and feel a little more
control in his life.
When John is asked to reflect on the relation
between his meditation practice and Christianity, he reminds his
questioner that that the very word Spirit is connected to the
Hebrew word ruach, which means breathing. John sees physical
breathing—the kind that we do each moment of our lives–as a
portable icon for a deeper Breathing, divine in nature, which
supports us in all circumstances, painful and pleasant, and which
allows us to face suffering, our own and that of others, with
courage. “Buddhism has helped me find strength in times of
pain; it has helped me find God’s Breathing.”
3. Sheila is an advertising agent in
Detroit who turns to Buddhism for a different reason. She
does not practice meditation and is temperamentally very active and
busy. But over the years her busyness has become a compulsion and
she now risks losing her husband and children, because she never
has time for her family. As she explains: “Almost all of my
daily life has been absorbed with selling products, making money,
and manipulating other people’s desires. Somewhere in the
process I have forgotten what was most important to me: helping
others, being with friends and family, and appreciating the simple
beauties of life. Buddhism speaks to my deeper
side.”
When Sheila reflects on the relationship
between Buddhism and Christianity, she thinks about the lifestyle
and values of Jesus. She recognizes that Jesus himself had
little interest in appearance, affluence, and marketable
achievement, and that he was deeply critical of the very idea that
“amassing wealth” should be a central organizing principle of life.
She doubts that Jesus would approve of the business
culture in which she is immersed, in which the accumulation of
wealth seems to be the inordinate concern. For her, then,
Buddhism invites her to rethink the values by which she lives and
to turn to values that are closer to the true teachings of
Christ. “I find this simpler way challenging,” she
says, “but also hopeful. I hope that Buddhism can help me have the
courage to follow Christ more truly.
4. Robert is an unemployed social worker
in Texas, who feels unworthy of respect because he does not have a
salaried job like so many of his friends. He, too, has
been reading books on Buddhism, “Most people identify with their
jobs,” he says, “but I don’t have one. Sometimes I feel
like a nothing, a nobody. Sometimes I feel like it is only at
church, and sometimes not even there, that I count for
anything.”
Robert turns to Buddhism as a complement to
the kind of support he seeks to find, but sometimes doesn’t find,
in Christianity. Buddhism tells him that his real
identity—his true self, as Buddhists put it—lies more in the
kindness he extends to others, and to himself, than in the making
money and amassing wealth. Like Sheila, he sees this as
connected with the teachings of Jesus. “Jesus tells me that I
am made in the image of God; Buddhism tells me that I possess the
Buddha-Nature. I don’t care what name you use, but
somehow you need to know that you are more than money and
wealth.”
5. Jane is a practicing physicist who
works at a laboratory in Maryland who goes to a local Methodist
church regularly. For her, a religious orientation must
“make sense” intellectually, even as it also appeals to a more
affective side of life, as discovered in personal relations, music,
and the natural world. But she also finds God in
science and in scientific ways of understanding the
world. She is troubled that, too often, the atmosphere
of church seems to discourage, rather than encourage, the spirit of
enquiry and questioning that are so important in the scientific
life. Jane appreciates the fact that, in Buddhism as she
understands it, this spirit is encouraged.
This non-dogmatic approach, in which even
religious convictions can be subject to revision, inspires
her. In her words: “I plan to remain a Christian and stay
with my Methodist church, but I want to learn more about
Buddhism. I sense that its approach to life can help me see
the spiritual dimensions of doubt and inquiry and help me integrate
religion and science.
6. Sandra is a Roman Catholic nun in
Missouri who leads a retreat center. Twelve months a year she
leads retreats for Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic, who wish
to recover the more contemplative traditions of their prayer life
and enter more deeply into their interior journey with
God. At her workshops she offers spiritual guidance and
introduces participants to many of the mystics of the Christian
tradition: John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart,
Hildegard of Bingen. Even as she does this, she herself is on
the very journey to God, and she makes this clear to people who
come her way.
Sandra turns to Buddhism because she believes
that its teaching of no-ego or no-self, when understood
experientially and not just intellectually, is itself an essential
dimension of the journey to God. She sees this
teaching as complementary to, and yet enriching, the teaching of
“death and resurrection” that is at the heart of Christian
faith. In her words: “Christianity and Buddhism agree
that the spiritual pilgrimage involves an absolute letting go, or
dropping away, of all that a person knows of self and God.
Indeed, this is what happened in Jesus as he lay dying on the
cross, and perhaps at many moments leading up to the cross.
Only after the dying can new life emerge, in which there is in some
sense ‘only God’ and no more ‘me.’ I see the cross as
symbolizing this dying of self and resurrecting of new life that
must occur within each of us. Buddhism helps me enter
into that dying of self.”
As you listen to their stories, perhaps
you hear your own desires in some of them. If so, you
have undertaken an empathy experiment. You need not be
“Christian” or “Buddhist” to do this. There is something to
learn from them even if you are not religious at all. Don’t
we all need to live by dying? Don’t we all need to listen
better? Don’t we all need to inquire and seek truth?
There is something deeply human in their searching, and deeply
human in our willingness to learn from them, even if we don’t share
their faith. And even if we do.