Reflections From the East
If it is true that the inspiration for the Gospel of Thomas springs from the same Source as, say, the Tao Te Ching, then what can we say about the Buddha's inspiration? Having recently visited Thailand and Cambodia I found myself immersed in a population with little doubt about the reality of karma and reincarnation. Most of them lack the resources for meditation that could lead to release from the wheel of suffering. In their own view, about the most they can hope for is to be reborn a little higher on the cosmic scale through small acts of merit. Far from the promise of any sort of heavenly eternal life in the Father we are told is within our grasp, they cheerfully embrace eons of consequences for their karmic actions. Even the "gods" are subject to rebirth!
I find myself looking for the connecting link between this vastly different metaphysic and our own. The only direct encounter between classical Buddhism and Christianity that I know of is reported in Palmer's The Jesus Sutras.
Excerpts from Sutra II, (The Sutra of Cause, Effect and Salvation, circa 640 A.D.), for example:
"The One Sacred Spirit controls everything and you should do as the spirit demands: good deeds in this life. This is the only world in which you can perform good karma....You will reap the consequences of this life in the next world, but can do nothing once you are there....So He came and suffered a life of rejection and pain before returning. To know this is to know who He was, to know that the One Sacred Spirit became incarnate in the Holy Sacred Spirit. A benevolent act done in the knowldege of this suffering is the only truly benevolent act....
Talk about alternative Christianities! Try pitching that one from your local pulpit! And here's the kicker--Palmer says it was originally translated into Chinese from an Indo-Greek source, and use the traditional four elements of western cosmology (not the five elements of the Chinese).
My question therefore is, have we lost some strand of the "true" wisdom tradition (perhaps going as far back as Pythagoras, for example) that the Oriental Orthodox Order "should" consider reweving and restoring to its right place, namely, karma and reincarnation?
I find myself looking for the connecting link between this vastly different metaphysic and our own. The only direct encounter between classical Buddhism and Christianity that I know of is reported in Palmer's The Jesus Sutras.
Excerpts from Sutra II, (The Sutra of Cause, Effect and Salvation, circa 640 A.D.), for example:
"The One Sacred Spirit controls everything and you should do as the spirit demands: good deeds in this life. This is the only world in which you can perform good karma....You will reap the consequences of this life in the next world, but can do nothing once you are there....So He came and suffered a life of rejection and pain before returning. To know this is to know who He was, to know that the One Sacred Spirit became incarnate in the Holy Sacred Spirit. A benevolent act done in the knowldege of this suffering is the only truly benevolent act....
Talk about alternative Christianities! Try pitching that one from your local pulpit! And here's the kicker--Palmer says it was originally translated into Chinese from an Indo-Greek source, and use the traditional four elements of western cosmology (not the five elements of the Chinese).
My question therefore is, have we lost some strand of the "true" wisdom tradition (perhaps going as far back as Pythagoras, for example) that the Oriental Orthodox Order "should" consider reweving and restoring to its right place, namely, karma and reincarnation?
posted by Anonymous at 8:37 PM
3 Comments:
Great post, Greg. Good questions.
I'm wondering this: Might not the law of cause and effect (what you sow you reap) be, in fact, the western way of saying the same thing as karma. Also, might not our doctrine of "rebirth" (seen as a transcendening and a birth "from above") be another way of addressing reincarnation from a new perspective. Yeshua invites reincarnation, but now not only in a new body, but a new and altogether different form of human being.
Greg-
Yes, we should "recapture" karmic causality (in its Buddhist sense, which reformed corrupted Hindu conceptions of karma), and I think Lynn's spot-on about the law of cause/effect.
Here's why: The Buddha's understanding of karma was linked to the doctrine of paticca samuppada--"this is, because that is; this is not, because that is not," which Thich Nhat Hanh translates as "interbeing."
Each multi-faceted jewel (being) in the net of Being reflects every other jewel--what happens to one is reflected in all.
I'll leave reincarnation alone for the moment, although I'm intrigued by Lynn's comment.
I find myself intuitively drawn to reincarnation in some form simply because I don't believe a just and loving God would provide only one chance to "get it right". We all know of people born into horrendous circumstances whose choices in life are based on an understanding of the nature of reality arising from those circumstances. Some choose to become murderers, rapists, child molestors, etc; others overcome those negative experiences and grow from them. One's life experiences shape their reality, and while I tend to believe that our higher selves select those experiences with the intent of promoting spiritual growth, many never have exposure to loving people or positive experiences that can lead them in the direction of spiritual growth. Without a provision in the grand scheme of reality that allows for second (or a 1,000) chances, "hell" would be very full indeed.
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