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Sam Harris is an atheist, anti-Judeo-Christian author who is nevertheless interested in spirituality and more accepting of Buddhism and Dzogchen.
In a discussion topic where someone criticised Sam for criticising religions, Soh commented:
Sam
Harris has legitimate concerns about fundamentalist religion but rather
than targeting specific religions, he would be better off
understanding and explaining the different levels of development
contributing to acts of extremism like Ken Wilber https://www.kosmosjournal.org/.../integral-spirituality-2/
, and the different forms of religion and spirituality. You can find
genuine mystical and contemplative spirituality in any given religion,
and you can also find extremists in any religion. It has got to do with
the level of development of an individual's consciousness in the spiral
dynamics.
Clearly,
even in Islam, Sufism is a [at least comparatively] non-violent
tradition focused on contemplative practice and spiritual awakening. Its
interpretation of holy war and struggle is mostly in terms of inner
struggle against the 'ego' (the highest struggle is the struggle against
the self, according to a famous sufi master). It is my hope that people
in the world, not necessarily they have to turn into Buddhists or
Buddhism, but at least within each religion, more and more people get
attracted to the more contemplative, mystical, and genuinely spiritually
transformative aspects of their religion (sufism, kabbalah, christian
mysticism, etc etc) and transcend the merely ethnocentric and
mythic-literal aspect of religions predominant in less developed forms
of religious practices [which covers the majority of religious practice
currently] throughout the world.
And
although Buddha has never condoned (unlike certain other religions'
scriptures which I acknowledge does speak about 'holy struggles', having
studied the scriptures of all religions myself many years ago) even
once an act of violence** in the name of his teachings or religion,
nevertheless, "Buddhists" at the ethnocentric level of development have
historically been involved in violence as well, one way or another.
So
the problem isn't so much the scriptures alone, but equally important
the need to raise human consciousness up the levels and states of
consciousness, in terms of spiral dynamics and the levels of spiritual
awakening. One will always interpret and understand the scriptures from
the perspective of one's depth of psychological and spiritual
development.
On Sufism:
"The
Sufi is expected to go through ascending spiritual stations (maqamat)
ultimately conductive to a direct experience of the truth. This path may
encompass visionary experiences and ecstatic states (hal). It is often
described as moving up to the stage of ‘annihilation’ (fana) of the
self, with the final goal being the return of self and subsistence in
God (baqa). Existence in the world of multiplicity is therefore somehow
illusory, true existence being an attribute of the only God, i.e. it is
an attribute of unity. Among the celebrated Sufi masters who better
formulated this idea (often referred to as the doctrine of the ‘unity of
the being’, wahdat al-wujud), is the Andalusian metaphysician Muhyi
al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240), who exerted an influence on subsequent
Muslim thought comparable to that exerted by Plato on Western
philosophy. Faithful to the Qur’anic tenet that nothing on earth is
permanent except the face of God (Q. 28. 88: All things perish, except
His Face), the Sufi’s ultimate goal is to get rid of their ego and the
world of multiplicity to subsist in communion with God in the abode of
unity."
On Buddha's position about violence:
“Monks,
even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a
two-handle saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them would
not be carrying out my teaching”. – Buddha
"Bhikkhus,
even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a
two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them would
not be carrying out my teaching. Herein, bhikkhus, you should train
thus: 'Our minds will remain unaffected, and we shall utter no evil
words; we shall abide compassionate for their welfare, with a mind of
loving kindness, without inner hate. We shall abide pervading them with a
mind imbued with loving-kindness; and starting with them, we shall
abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with
loving-kindness, abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and
without ill will.' That is how you should train, bhikkhus.
Buddha:
"Bhikkhus, if you keep this advice on the simile of the saw constantly
in mind, do you see any course of speech, trivial or gross, that you
could not endure?"
Bhikkhus: "No, venerable sir."
Buddha:
"Therefore, bhikkhus, you should keep this advice on the simile of the
saw constantly in mind. That will lead to your welfare and happiness for
a long time."” – Buddha
...........
| ONLY BREATH | |
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. |
|
Coleman Barks, Tr., The Essential Rumi (San Fransico: Harper Collins, 1995) RumiPersian poet | |
