The World Beings - Part 2 of 2 - Part 1: Christian Points of ContactContemplations, Essays - Maurice Walsh
St Paul said: 'There now remain faith, hope and love (or 'charity'): these three. But the greatest of these is love' (1 Cor. 13:13), and elsewhere it is said: 'God is love' (1 John 4:16). The Greek word used in these passages is agape, which is close in meaning to the Pali metta, meaning essentially pure love without sensual or other emotional attachment. It is scarcely necessary to point out that Buddhists and Christians alike are well aware of the ambiguities of the word 'love', and that slogans of the type 'Make love not war' are a falsification of either teaching. Taken in isolation, the words 'God is love' might seem to depersonalise God by equating him with an abstract quality, but the context shows that this is not intended. But it is interesting to note that in Buddhism metta is the first of the four brahmaviharas, the practice of which is said to lead to rebirth in the Brahma-world. And it has already been pointed out that the practice of this represents a Buddhist way of carrying out the difficult Judeo-Christian injunction: 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.
Conclusion
The position of religion in the world today is a peculiar one. Despite persecution and repression in some parts, and confident predictions of its forthcoming disappearance in others, it has not only not vanished but has begun to display a vitality and resilience which have astonished and dismayed its critics. True, extraneous factors such as nationalism have often played a part in this. Nevertheless, there can no longer be any doubt that there has in recent times been a real resurgence of what can at least broadly be called 'religion', though its manifestations have been many and varied, ranging from fundamentalist Christianity through a variety of nationalist-coloured forms (Christian, Islamic and even Buddhist), to the wave of occultism and the sub-cultures of hippydom and drugs now happily past their peak. Not all of these manifestations are desirable, and the dangers of some are obvious. But all point to a disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the apparently triumphant materialist values whether these appear in a 'communist' or a 'capitalist' guise. The fact is that this dissatisfaction goes far deeper than a mere emotional reaction against the shoddy values and the general mental and spiritual impoverishment which are the inevitable concomitants of a purely materialist outlook.
The materialist world-view implicit, until recently, in most scientific thinking is demonstrably inadequate to the task of explaining the world, as a growing number of scientists are coming to realise. ESP phenomena are being studied with increasing seriousness, if sometimes for the wrong reasons. Moreover the actual evidence for survival of bodily death and even for some kind of reincarnation or rebirth is now so strong that it is gradually but inevitably forcing recognition in some unlikely quarters. Even things like astrology are being regarded with something less than the total disdain which was the standard reaction until only a few years ago. All this belongs, admittedly, only to what may be termed the lower reaches of 'religion': its main importance is that it breaches the bastion of materialism, thus removing, for a significant number of people, a serious obstacle to faith in something higher. To put it crudely: many educated people now feel able to admit openly that after all, Darwin, Marx and Freud did not know all the answers. For some, this is a new and exhilarating experience, and perhaps rather frightening. But the inevitable question arises: What now?
What the new knowledge actually docs, in the first place, is to disprove once and for all that basic and yet so improbable assumption of materialistic science (or 'acientism' as it has been called), which is that inanimate matter by pure chance, by some incredible series of flukes, 'contrived' to teach itself to think. We now have proof, or as near proof as makes no difference, that what we call 'mind' is autonomous, and that if either member of the pair we call mind-and-mattcr is subordinate or illusory, it is matter and not mind. So far, so good. The worrying thing is that this recognition seems at one fell swoop to bring back chaos in the place of science's carefully-ordered cosmos. The attraction of materialism to the scientific mind was that it produced a neat and tidy, ultimately finite system. Actually it still does — as far aa It goes. The difference is merely that the mind (whatever 'mind' may be) that can grasp such a system is itself outside of that system — which ought logically to have been obvious all along. A stone cannot perceive itself, though a dog can perceive it, while a man can not only perceive the stone but — to some extent at least — 'understand' it.
The chaos which this recognition brings can look at first sight almost total. It is like a dream-world in which anything can happen, in which what we yesterday dismissed as superstition can easily turn out to be fact, in which the very criteria of what is probable and improbable cease to be clearly discernible. Once we accept spoon-bending, and the result is mind-bending! The temptation to retreat even into the bleak orderliness of materialism may be strong, and what before looked so unbearable may seem comforting by comparison. If we resist this temptation we may find it necessary to come to terms with what used to be called the 'supernatural' (and is better termed the paranormal) — though that does not mean becoming obsessed with it. But some modern Christians may well find that, 'blinded by science', they have perhaps rejected too much of their traditional beliefs, without being too sure of how to find the way back.
The traditional Buddhist view of the 'three worlds' may be helpful here. Human existence as normally experienced is in kamaloka or the realm of sense-desires. Beings normally visible to us here are human beings and animals, but there are others: the inhabitants of various 'states of woe', as well as some happier beings. Some are mischievous, some neutral or benevolent, but all arc more or less ignorant, and they pass into, or out of, these various states according to their karmic deserts. Other, definitely happier, beings also exist under the same basic karmic conditions, in rupaloka and arupaloka, the realm of form and the formless world, where consciousness is related to that of the jhanic states attainable in this life. These beings are the devas, the highest of whom are like the gods of polytheistic religions: but though very long-lived they are not immortal; likewise they may be wise but are not enlightened. Beyond all these worlds is the lokuttara or Transcendental, the Secure Refuge on the 'other shore', or the Unborn. This is beyond all imagining but not beyond the possibility of realisation in this life.
If we compare this outline with that of traditional Christianity, the differences are less great than might have been supposed. One difference is that in the Christian view the various non-visible beings in the different realms are eternally 'fixed' in their present state of woe or bliss; and of course those in the higher realms are termed 'saints' or 'angels' and not 'gods'. The only serious Buddhist objection to this scheme In principle would be its total rigidity: like trying to capture the film of the eternal flux in a single 'still'. The other main ecumenism between churches and even between religions is merely a defensive measure due to the general decline in religious belief. This view has begun to lose the plausibility it at first enjoyed. It is more reasonable to ascribe the new attitude to a deepening religiosity (however vague its outlines may sometimes seem to be) which sees the old polemical spirit as nothing short of a scandal. Of course religion is threatened in the world today, but from without far more than from within. From within, there are very evident signs of renewal. In fact, as we have seen, it is the very materialistic values themselves, still outwardly so triumphant, that are being steadily undermined from within. It may be literally true that only through the reassertion of religious values (perhaps partly through new forms) can mankind be saved from physical as well as spiritual catastrophe.
There are doubtless some irreducible differences in ways whereby Buddhists, Christians and others would explain the world, and still more perhaps that which lies beyond the world (and is, therefore, strictly inaccessible to 'explanation'). There is far less difference between their views on how we should live and act in the world. The spirit of pure, disinterested love, no matter whether it bears a 'Christian', a 'Buddhist' or any other label, is the solvent for all our problems, and the only certain recipe against impending disaster whatever form this may take. It thus makes good sense to poll our 'spiritual' resources in seeking solutions for the common problems of mankind. This is in no sense a call to any form of overtly 'political' action: but if those with specific political commitments are sufficiently imbued with this spirit of love, they will not go far wrong.
The Buddhist doctrine of anatta or 'not-self is a difficult one even for some Buddhists to grasp, but if we think of it in the ethical sense of utter selflessness we can see its practical application. True 'detachment' as preached by Christian mystics and many others, means being 'detached' not from other people's problems and sorrows (or indeed from those of the
various other beings with which we share this life on earth), but from our own worldly impulses: sense-desires, greed for power and influence and self-assertion, anger and hatred. It is not only not incompatible with 'love': it is in fact the only way in which real love — loving one's neighbour as oneself — can find full expression. The World Beings
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