From a post on a discussion list. I liked the exchange regarding some points that often serve as centers of contention between Christian and Buddhist, yet are really not at all what they first seem. The pursuit of pluralism can find a path through such things.

Hi M,

Yes, there are too many excellent conversations and too few hours for them all! I have enjoyed this one and will keep your comments to review a few times. Thank you for taking the time to write them.

We have obviously been exposed to differing perspectives on Buddhist teachings. For instance, I learned that the Four Noble Truths represent a message of hope rather than of pessimism: if one happens to experience suffering, as is likely in a world of form, then there is a way to free oneself of it. I honestly believe this is the way the message was intended, although I can not of course prove that. As always, interpretation and translation take their toll.

In reading your post, I find that much of what you says seems to echo my own feelings but with differing words. As I review it, I find the difference seems to be centered more around the concept of time rather than any fundamental disagreements.

For instance, you said, "Once this person has died, then these natural sufferings end and they are said to have entered into the second stage...", yet Buddha didn't talk about the afterlife as a subject of teaching. The cultures his words were taught in added from traditions of reincarnation, but Buddha specifically focused on this life. This is my first example of where the element of time comes into our talks: I am not dead now and so any speculation about post-death experiences remains only that. And speculation is entertainment at best, and at worst a sure course to becoming lost in the fog.

Later, you assert "...the past is real, its just in the past. It is not something we made up... it is real. The future will be real..." and I might agree if we change the tenses a bit: "...the past was real, it was not something we made up." At this moment, though, the past is not real. All we have is the effects it has caused. Here is the reality of karma: that the past bequeaths us memories and ripples of effect. If I drive erratically today, for instance, I may wake up in a hospital tomorrow. I will not be able to undo my actions, though, as the reality would be that I was in a bed and no longer in my car. Neither past nor future exist now. Their only representations are in my mind. Even while laying in the hospital bed, my body knows nothing of how it got there - only my mind has any connection to that. My body knows only that it starts this moment injured.

In the next statement, I see a point I have often pondered: "...accepting reality also means accepting your own desires for comfort, ease, love, enjoyment, not snuffing these all
out, as the Buddhist texts tell us..." And I agree: we need to accept pleasure while it is present just as we need to accept pain. I do not read any Buddhist lessons saying I should not do so. What I do read are lessons which tell me not to spend this moment of pleasure anxious about the fact that it will not last forever. And lessons which tell me not to spend this moment agonizing over the likelihood that I will experience pain again before I die. Time. What is happening now is happening now. What might happen next, whether coming pain or ending pleasure, is not happening now.

Next is one I thought struck at the core of our discussion: "I think the real danger in radical acceptance and the ACT movement is the potential of disarming people of their natural abilities to deal with problems." And, as this thread itself represents, the possibility is a real one. Misunderstanding the Buddhist (and Christian) teachings to promote fatalism or nihilism is recorded as an old and repeated problem. Yet it is also an egoic sidetrack based in the fear of ending.

Buddhism does not say we have no self. It does say there is no inherent self because of dependent origination and impermanence, and this is demonstrably true. I am not the same person I was 40 years ago - I am taller, with more scars and much new knowledge, among many differences. I am the sum of my experiences and cells and environment. Yet this does not negate the soul - it simply means that if I have a soul, it is also a changing part of who I am. The resistance to this usually comes from the ego, which wants to exist forever in its present living form. Meditating on the implications of that makes for an interesting and educational experience!

Regarding the pleasure of ice cream on a hot day, if you get in a car and drive for an ice cream, you are not eating the ice cream along the way. If a traffic jam holds you up and you are upset because the treat is delayed, you are experiencing suffering. While you are driving, you are driving, and traffic is part of driving, so all is well. This can only change if you are physically driving but mentally living in the future of eating. Once you get to the ice cream and are eating it, then you can immerse yourself in the experience, and you can feel the pleasure of sweetness and cold. Once the ice cream is done, the experience changes to whatever follows. In each of these, there is no desire or aversion unless your mind becomes preoccupied with past or future.

Finally, note that none of this should infer there is no planning for the future or no learning from the past. A part of our brain is designed to do just this and it makes sense to use it so. The confusion comes in when we mistake this part, the ego, for the whole Self. It is a tool intended to apply past lessons to future possible scenarios for the sake of continuing organism. Part of meditation practice is to learn to step aside from this constant stream-of-consciousness activity and see that it is not me, but simply a part of me doing its job. This is detachment. Like computer projections, the various scenarios come and go nonstop, but they are only imaginary possibilities, not realities within which to get lost.

Thanks for the discussion, M. Perhaps one day our schedules will once again permit us some conversation!

The views on Buddhist thought represented are mine, so expect differing opinions on them. More learned folks will likely find errors. As always, though, my focus is on the teachings of the sages such as Buddha and Christ, rather than on the way those teachings have arrived at today. In this, it makes sense to try and distill meaning from many sources rather than to accept any single scripture as, well, gospel! No offense is ever intended and my material is naturally outdated as soon as I post it! Impermanence affects everything...:).

D