CAMP Spirit

Recently, as a result of reading a book on political theology for today’s world (which I intend to review in a future column), I was exposed to the "engaged Buddhism" of Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who now lives in exile in a Buddhist religious community in France. The heart of engaged Buddhism is the concept of mindfulness, in which traditional Buddhist meditation leads not to inactivity but to awareness, and empathy leads to interdependence. Awareness and empathy produce healing in the form of equanimity and compassionate connection, which cause us to act out of wisdom and compassion; shame over one’s previous inaction or harmful action is unproductive and paralyzing. This is in direct contradistinction to the Western Christian religious concepts of original sin, inherited guilt, and predestination, which, in my opinion, often sap one’s joy from the spiritual journey because of their pessimistic emphases.

In his important book Teachings on Love (Parallax Press, 1998), Thich enunciates a principle upon which most of the world’s great religions are grounded: True love—also referred to as Happiness, Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise, or Being with God—depends upon four elements, which he calls "immeasurable" since they will grow day by day as they are practiced by the spiritual seeker. These "four immeasurable minds" are love, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

Love is the intention and capacity to offer joy and happiness, which one develops through looking and listening deeply to those around us, both human and non-human. Daily and mindful observation leads to an extinguishing of our natural impulse to anger and impatience with self and others. Compassion is our willingness to experience what others are experiencing, to "suffer with." It can transform our personal sorrows and anxieties as we connect with others’ pain as though it were our own. Joy must be a component of true love, for it overcomes sadness and joylessness that can extinguish our ability for true happiness or communion with the Divine.

Equanimity, a mere approximation of a Sanskrit word, is our ability to face all things with even-mindedness so that we do not cling to feelings or people in an obsessive, inappropriate, or self-destructive way; by daily practice of this state of mind we are thus able to overcome the extremes of hatred and possessiveness which block our capacity for true love and spiritual fulfillment.

Westerners are often frustrated by Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism because they do not lay out their tenets in linear fashion like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, but instead move in a cyclical fashion through a series of interconnected ideas and back again. We are often used to formulas such as "to acquire A, do B, and do not do C; if you do D by mistake, be sure to do E and F, and you will still have a chance at A." (Of course, this is an oversimplification, but bear with me.) Thich Nhat Hanh, in explaining the four immeasurable minds, stresses that they are interconnected and cannot be approached in linear fashion or in isolation:

"For love to be true love, it must contain compassion, joy, and equanimity. For compassion to be true compassion, it has to have love, joy, and equanimity in it. True joy has to contain love, compassion, and equanimity. And true equanimity has to have love, compassion, and joy in it. This is the interbeing nature of the Four Immeasurable Minds. When the Buddha told [his student] to practice the Four Immeasurable Minds, he was offering all of us a very important teaching. But we must look deeply and practice them for ourselves to bring these four aspects of love into our own lives and into the lives of those we love." (Teachings on Love, p. 9)

As we look out upon a contemporary world in trouble because of human arrogance, jealousy, and hatred—much of which is done in the name of God—let us try to incorporate some of these precepts in order to make a difference one day at a time, one step at a time, one person at a time.

This is mindfulness at its very best, and true mindfulness will surely save our global community. May it be so!