Thinking It Through Anew (xiii)

Our friend

This is the thirteenth posting in a series of postings reflecting on Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Living Buddha, Living Christ (Riverhead Books, 2007; originally published in 1995). The introductory posting, setting the stage for the series, is (here).

Read in a Christian context, Living Buddha, Living Christ can be disorienting and even a little disturbing.  Thich Nhat Hanh uses "our" words but not the way we use them.  The Christian tradition, for example, treats the Trinity as if it is a solid, rock-like reality.  The Trinity exists and the doctrine of the Trinity as formulated in ancient times really points to the reality of the Triune God.  Thich Nhat Hanh instead treats the notion of the Trinity as a gateway to mindfulness, an invitation to experience things that cannot be conceptualized and should not be talked about.  He doesn't think in strait lines, and he uses the English language in a strange sort of way that mixes up concepts like life and death with no-life and nondeath.  There are points at which he seems to be writing nonsense.

And yet.  As our a friend, he gently offers us another way to think about our Christian faith, a way in which we begin to see that the heart of faith is not in clinging to doctrines, which we have worked out over the centuries to gain some understanding of spiritual things.  The heart of faith, rather, is a journey into deeper layers of understanding (insight) where the boundaries between things tend to dissolve.  We descend gently into God or ultimate reality or "the ground of all being" and find rest, peace, and compassion there, which then energize us for living a life less stressed and more focused on things that matter.  At the end of the day, Thich Nhat Hanh also offers churches the opportunity to rethink what it means to be "in this thing together."  Institutional and doctrinal concerns recede into the background, and he nurtures the thought that we would do well to rethink what it is that we seek in the church.

I'm not sure that Thich Nhat Hanh provides any clear answers to the questions Living Buddha, Living Christ raise for us as people of another faith.  What he does do is speak to a longing for a less institutional, less dogmatic approach to faith and to church that is alive in many parts of American society today.  Those of us inside the institutional church would do well to stop, look. listen—and seek to do "church" in a way that will speak to the actual spirit of our age.  Amen.