Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"Interfaith Friendship""
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"Interfaith Friendship""
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Underneath the very real differences between religions and peoples lies a unifying foundation. (Sunday)
“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) (Monday)“When we seek what is truest in our own tradition, we discover we are one with those who seek what is truest in their tradition.” (James Finley) (Tuesday)
God is a mystery of relationship, and the truest relationship is love. Infinite Love preserves unique truths, protecting boundaries while simultaneously bridging them. (Wednesday)
How can we learn to draw from the deep aquifer, the common Source of Love for all religions, without denying the goodness of our own small spring? This is the marriage of unity and diversity. (Thursday)
Jesus and Buddha both speak about anxiety, attachment, grasping, craving, and self-absorption. Christians and Buddhists can help each other remember the teachings at the core of our faiths. (Friday)
Thich Nhat Hanh writes that the Dharma, “the way of Understanding and Love . . . teaches us to recognize suffering as suffering and to transform our suffering into mindfulness, compassion, peace, and liberation. . . . The teachings of the Buddha were not to escape from life, but to help us relate to ourselves and the world as thoroughly as possible.” [2]
James Finley describes the Eightfold Path:
Underneath the very real differences between religions and peoples lies a unifying foundation. (Sunday)
“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) (Monday)“When we seek what is truest in our own tradition, we discover we are one with those who seek what is truest in their tradition.” (James Finley) (Tuesday)
God is a mystery of relationship, and the truest relationship is love. Infinite Love preserves unique truths, protecting boundaries while simultaneously bridging them. (Wednesday)
How can we learn to draw from the deep aquifer, the common Source of Love for all religions, without denying the goodness of our own small spring? This is the marriage of unity and diversity. (Thursday)
Jesus and Buddha both speak about anxiety, attachment, grasping, craving, and self-absorption. Christians and Buddhists can help each other remember the teachings at the core of our faiths. (Friday)
Practice: The Eightfold Path
The Buddha said again and again, “I teach only suffering and the transformation of suffering.” As I often say: If you do not transform your pain, you will almost certainly transmit it. All great religion is about what you do with your pain. The Noble Eightfold Path describes the Buddha’s way to transform your pain. The Buddha said, “Wherever the Noble Eightfold Path is practiced, joy, peace, and insight are there.” [1]Thich Nhat Hanh writes that the Dharma, “the way of Understanding and Love . . . teaches us to recognize suffering as suffering and to transform our suffering into mindfulness, compassion, peace, and liberation. . . . The teachings of the Buddha were not to escape from life, but to help us relate to ourselves and the world as thoroughly as possible.” [2]
James Finley describes the Eightfold Path:
The first two steps of the Eightfold Path are Right View and Right Thinking (“right” meaning effective in evoking happiness and inner peace). These two are associated with the notion of wisdom. They help us ground ourselves in this wisdom of the Eightfold Path.
The next four of the eight steps—Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Diligence—are the paths of the moral precepts. Do not confuse this with being “moralistic.” The intuition of the Buddha is that one will not come to this inner peace unless one grounds one’s life in an inflowing and outflowing love. This is the core of what it means to be moral.
Jesus also taught an outflow of love when he said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).
Love is the outflowing way that we must relate to God and to everything [because everything flows from God] and the outflowing way we must relate to each individual person.
Practicing Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Diligence expands our realm of conscious freedom to choose love. God cannot and will not give us any gift that we do not want and freely choose—usually again and again.
The last two steps are Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. The Buddha felt none of this would work without deep meditation practice. [3]
While some people allow themselves to be changed through great love or great suffering, a meditation practice helps us stay receptive and open. It preserves and sustains what we learn in love and suffering.
Gateway to Silence: We are already one.
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References:
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Broadway Books: 1998), 49.[2] Ibid., 7-8.
[3] James Finley, exclusive Living School teaching. Learn more about the two-year program at cac.org/living-school.
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For Further Study:
Richard Rohr and James Finley, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), CD, DVD, MP3 download
Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, and James Finley, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015), CD, MP3 download
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media: 2014)
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References:
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Broadway Books: 1998), 49.[2] Ibid., 7-8.
[3] James Finley, exclusive Living School teaching. Learn more about the two-year program at cac.org/living-school.
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For Further Study:
Richard Rohr and James Finley, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), CD, DVD, MP3 download
Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, and James Finley, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2015), CD, MP3 download
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media: 2014)
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"Interfaith Friendship""
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"Interfaith Friendship""
"Jesus and Buddha"
Friday, December 8, 2017
Jesus says, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:29). Buddha says, “If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires [to hurt him] and utter no evil words” (Majjhima Nikaya 21.6).
Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matthew 25:45). Buddha says, “If you do not tend one another, then who is there to tend you? Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick” (Vinaya, Mahavagga 8.26.3).
Friday, December 8, 2017
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In his book Jesus and Buddha, New Testament theologian Marcus Borg (1942-2015) highlights numerous sayings in the teachings of Jesus that are strikingly similar, if not identical, to the teachings of the Buddha who lived some six centuries earlier. There have been some attempts to explain these similarities through historical access, which is a remote possibility. Borg suggests a more meaningful view: that Jesus and the Buddha had both discovered the same spiritual goal and destiny, or I would say the one Holy Spirit that is guiding all of history. The Jewish Kabbalah, Muslim Sufism, and the teachings of the Tao also reveal a map toward non-dual consciousness and oneness.
Let me just share just a few of the parallel teachings Borg gathers in his book [1], and you will see how they are coming from the same non-dual perspective:
Jesus says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). The Buddha says, “Consider others as yourself” (Dhammapada 10.1).Jesus says, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:29). Buddha says, “If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires [to hurt him] and utter no evil words” (Majjhima Nikaya 21.6).
Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me” (Matthew 25:45). Buddha says, “If you do not tend one another, then who is there to tend you? Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick” (Vinaya, Mahavagga 8.26.3).
Jesus and Buddha diagnose the human dilemma similarly. Our suffering is primarily based on ignorance. The vast majority of humanity lives in blindness about who we are and where we are going. Jesus and Buddha both speak about anxiety, attachment, grasping, craving, and self-absorption.
Unfortunately, Christianity became so concerned with making sure everybody believed that Jesus was God (faith inJesus) that we largely ignored his teachings on detachment, simplicity, nonviolence, and anxiety (the faith of Jesus). Our Buddhist brothers and sisters can help us remember these teachings at the core of our faith; they can help us be better, truer Christians. And we can help them, or at least give them very few reasons to dislike us! Why not try this novel idea?
On many levels, Jesus and Buddha talked about the same experience of transformation. In the end, all spirituality really is about transformation, dying before we die and being reborn as our True Selves in Love.
Gateway to Silence: We are already one.
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References:
[1] Marcus Borg, Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (Ulysses Press: 1999). These passages were selected from the chapter “Compassion.”
Adapted from Richard Rohr and James Finley, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening, disc 2 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), CD, DVD, MP3 download.
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The Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Thursday, 7 December 2017 "Richard Rohr Meditation: "Our Common Source"
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References:
[1] Marcus Borg, Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (Ulysses Press: 1999). These passages were selected from the chapter “Compassion.”
Adapted from Richard Rohr and James Finley, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening, disc 2 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), CD, DVD, MP3 download.
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The Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Thursday, 7 December 2017 "Richard Rohr Meditation: "Our Common Source"
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"Interfaith Friendship""
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"Interfaith Friendship""
"Our Common Source"
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Thursday, December 7, 2017
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[We need] a Christian identity that is both strong and kind. By strong I mean vigorous, vital, durable, motivating, faithful, attractive, and defining. . . . By kind I mean something far more robust than mere tolerance, political correctness, or coexistence: I mean benevolent, hospitable, accepting, interested, and loving, so that the stronger our Christian faith, the more goodwill we will feel and show toward those of other faiths, seeking to understand and appreciate their religion from their point of view. (Brian McLaren [1])
How can we learn to draw from the deep aquifer, the common Source of Love for all religions, without denying the goodness of our own small spring? This is the marriage of unity and diversity.
Ken Wilber says that to transcend we must include. A prerequisite for higher levels of consciousness is the ability to include our past experience and the values and perspectives of others. Those at the higher levels, the mystics of all religions, don’t reject the outer forms, symbols, and metaphors, but they insist on finding the inner meaning, depth, universality, and inclusiveness of their own spiritual tradition. Once we tap into the deeper stream of our own religion, we will recognize its fountains and springs everywhere. We cannot see this as long as we remain floating on the surface or looking at mere externals. Here we can only see differences.
Once we discover our deep source, we realize that it’s not a competition. We don’t need to put anyone down, prove them wrong, or exclude them from the great banquet. The wedding feast was Jesus’ metaphor for final and loving union. Though it is a simple metaphor, it is a good one. We are invited to the great banquet where we are all sisters and brothers. That’s not just wishful thinking. It’s the objective, metaphysical, theological, ontological shape of reality. We all came forth from God, and we will all return to God.
How did Christians turn Jesus’ message into rules for joining an exclusive, superior club? Psychology, neuroscience, and Buddhism have observed that this is how the mind works at early stages of development. With maturity, we come to recognize that all religious language is by necessity metaphorical. God is ineffable, a mystery that cannot be captured in words. In the early stages, religions get lost in protecting these metaphors, reasserting our group’s truth, and building impassable walls rather than creating bridges and gates. The global awareness we now have access to will not allow future generations to stay comfortably in our separate camps.
Gateway to Silence: We are already one.
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References:
[1] Brian D. McLaren, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Jericho Books: 2012), 10-11.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, unpublished talk at New Mexico Interfaith Dialogue, The 23rd Annual Spring Colloquium, “Mystics and Prophets: Ancient Light for Today’s World,” March 7, 2017.
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References:
[1] Brian D. McLaren, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Jericho Books: 2012), 10-11.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, unpublished talk at New Mexico Interfaith Dialogue, The 23rd Annual Spring Colloquium, “Mystics and Prophets: Ancient Light for Today’s World,” March 7, 2017.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"Interfaith Friendship""
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"Interfaith Friendship""
"God Is Diversity"
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
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I have been drawn to the living heart of every spiritual tradition I have encountered. . . . What I found irresistible was the essential unity at the core of all that diversity; each faith tradition was singing the same song in a deliciously different voice: God is love. (Mirabai Starr [1])
As Thomas Merton reflected, “We are already one.” We just need to start becoming what we already are. (James Finley [2])
One of my favorite mystics, Lady Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), used the old English term “oneing” to describe what was happening between God and the soul. The divisions, dichotomies, and dualisms of the world can only be overcome by a unitive consciousness at every level: personal, relational, social, political, cultural, in inter-religious dialogue, and spirituality in particular. This is the unique and central job of healthy religion (re-ligio = to re-ligament). It is precisely the contemplative mind that can see things in their oneness instead of emphasizing their distinctness.
Jesus put it so powerfully in his great final prayer, “I pray that all may be one” (John 17:21). Or as Julian put it, “By myself I am nothing at all, but in general, I am in the oneing of love. For it is in this oneing that the life of all people exists.” [3]
Many teachers have made the central, but often-missed, point that unity is not the same as uniformity. Unity, in fact, is the reconciliation of differences, and those differences must first be maintained—and then overcome by the power of love! You must actually distinguish things and separate them before you can spiritually unite them, usually at cost to yourself (see Ephesians 2:14-16). If only we had made that simple clarification, so many problems—and overemphasized, separate identities—could have moved to a much higher level of love and service.
We must go back to the ultimate Christian source for our principle: the central doctrine of the Trinity itself. Yes, God is “One,” just as our Jewish roots taught Christianity (Deuteronomy 6:4), and yet the further, more subtle level is that this oneness is, in fact, the radical love union between three completely distinct “persons” of the Trinity. The three members of the Trinity are not uniform—but quite distinct—and yet oned in total outpouring! If we remain monotheists, we will try to impose a false oneness (uniformity) and never learn to love, honor, and respect diversity. Christianity must return to its Trinitarian foundations to fully rebuild itself from the bottom up.
God is otherness and diversity, a pluriformity. The basic problem of “the one and the many” is overcome in God’s very nature. God is a mystery of relationship, and the truest relationship is love. Infinite Love preserves unique truths, protecting boundaries while simultaneously bridging them. While these two tasks seem initially like opposites, and impossible to reconcile, oneing is God’s essential task and the goal of all authentic spirituality.
Gateway to Silence: We are already one.
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References:
[1] Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Monkfish Book Publishing Company: 2012), 2, 3.
[2] James Finley, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening, disc 2 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), CD, DVD, MP3 download.
[3] Julian of Norwich, Showings, 9.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Introduction,” “The Perennial Tradition,” Oneing, vol. 1, no. 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2013), 12-13.
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An Advent Meditation
As we enter Advent, a season of expectation and preparation, CAC core faculty member James Finley offers a short video meditation. What does the story of Jesus’ birth teach us about how God is present in our lives? “God is unexplainably born in our hearts moment by moment, breath by breath.”
Watch the video (about 7 minutes) at cac.org/faculty-advent-messages.
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References:
[1] Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Monkfish Book Publishing Company: 2012), 2, 3.
[2] James Finley, Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening, disc 2 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2008), CD, DVD, MP3 download.
[3] Julian of Norwich, Showings, 9.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Introduction,” “The Perennial Tradition,” Oneing, vol. 1, no. 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2013), 12-13.
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An Advent Meditation
As we enter Advent, a season of expectation and preparation, CAC core faculty member James Finley offers a short video meditation. What does the story of Jesus’ birth teach us about how God is present in our lives? “God is unexplainably born in our hearts moment by moment, breath by breath.”
Watch the video (about 7 minutes) at cac.org/faculty-advent-messages.
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The Center for Action and Contemplation
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States
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