The phrase "manifesting your Buddha nature" is something you hear a lot when you are around Buddhists. When spirituality became the focus of the New Age movement, it was common for Christians to begin speaking about manifesting their Christ nature. For those interested in new age spirituality that meant learning to talk softly, move slowly, smile beatifically, meditate as often as possible, and try hard to look and behave "spiritually". From the beginning, the primary goal of the new age spirituality movement has been to feel good; a narcissistic focus on self and the attainment of personal enlightenment.
Having little faith that institutional Christian mainline church membership or church attendance would satisfy their spiritual hunger they turned to individual unverifiable expressions of spirituality. Because the new age paths to enlightenment lacked the depth required for authentic spiritual growth, it made it very difficult to stay in touch with one's "Christ nature" unless one was in the company of other New Age spiritual people. New age spiritual seekers found it to be a significant challenge to move slowly, talk softly, smile beatifically, and meditate in the average work environment without looking weird.
Manifesting one's "Christ nature" at home often meant dealing with sarcasm and ridicule from their adolescent children, while their neighbors were of the assumption that the stress of raising adolescent children had somehow led to a psychotic break. While the desire and hunger for spirituality was genuine, the new age path was filled with unqualified teachers and magazine articles that taught whatever they narcissistically thought was "the way" to achieve enlightenment. The spiritual hunger of their new age followers often turned into disillusionment and discouragement.
So what does it mean to authentically manifest your Buddha or Christ nature? What have we learned about authentic spiritual growth since the beginning of the new age spirituality movement?
Paradoxically, we have learned that manifesting one's Christ nature has little to do with how we feel or appear on the outside yet everything to do with our outer behaviors. The goal of authentic spirituality is not to personally feel good; it is a deep desire to change the world by manifesting a true compassion and unconditional love for others; to "become" compassion, not "do" compassion. The path to enlightenment and authentic spiritual growth is found only in the practice of compassion and selfless acts of kindness that come from deep self-knowledge. In Christian language it means becoming consciously and intentionally aware of the log in our own eye before we worry about how others are living their lives.
Mastering the demanding and challenging work of learning to pay conscious attention, moment by moment, to what we are actually manifesting in the world is a life long spiritual practice which requires training our adult observing ego consciousness to look inside for answers rather than outside. It requires learning to own our own feelings instead of blaming them on others. It means learning to accept full responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
In other words, manifesting our Christ nature or our Buddha nature is not about how we appear to others or our religious faith beliefs, it is only about practice; the practice of compassion. In fact, the religious beliefs of our primitive ego, that black-and-white part of us that "always has to be right", frequently turns our attempts to manifest true unconditional love and compassion into a hurtful and judgmental conditional love; a love that says "I am able to love you only as long as you (the condition)." Because our primitive ego is always right, when others disagree with our primitive ego, instead of accepting the fact that they simply don't agree, our primitive ego feels that the other person is saying we are wrong. Feeling criticized, our primitive ego will quickly get angry and assume "they" are wrong.
Until we become awakened and conscious of our primitive ego, the beliefs, defenses, and survival skills of our unconscious inner-child will frequently create a judgmental sense of "otherness" using primitive dualistic black-and-white categories called "us versus them". Our narcissistic primitive ego tends to be very defensive and is concerned primarily with self; our own wants, feelings, and desires. The needs of others are assumed to be unimportant and in fact interfere with our primitive ego's sense of entitlement.
Our primitive ego consciousness does not understand the concept of mutuality; the simple reality that others people's needs and feelings are just as important to "their"primitive ego as our needs and feelings are to "our" primitive ego. Virtually all of the conflict and violence we see in the world today stems from our inability to understand the importance of mutuality.
Only our adult observing ego is capable of a sustained mutuality and the ability to manifest a true, unconditional compassion for others. Our observing ego embraces mutuality from a deep sense of unity and oneness with others; a deep systemic sense of "we-ness" that observes the world and the needs of others through a lens of empathy and compassion.
Unlike our primitive ego, our adult observing ego is fully aware of the imperialistic religious superiority and the "white", Western sense of privilege built into the theologies of our various mainline religions. Our more enlightened observing ego consciousness honors and respects the feelings, beliefs, and needs of others and intentionally attempts to manifest kindness, honesty, patience, tolerance, inclusiveness, and caring; an unconditional compassion deeply grounded in the "not knowing" and "emptiness of ego" that comes with true enlightenment.
Taming our primitive ego and maturing our adult observing ego, so as to enable us to manifest our true Christ nature, is a life long process of authentic spiritual growth and enlightenment that comes only through an intentional growth in our self-awareness. There is no one path, or right path, to self-knowledge, but all valid paths to self-awareness and enlightenment require the help of a well trained spiritual teacher. It is virtually impossible for our ego to see itself. Some seek growth in self-awareness through years of mindfulness meditation or psychotherapy. Some find the life long spiritual practice of contemplative prayer for others to be helpful. Regardless of the path one chooses, the goal of self-awareness is always growth in compassion and unconditional love for the world and others. Authentic spiritual growth and growth in self-awareness are one and the same.
Learning to mature our observing ego consciousness so-as-to manifest our Christ nature, or our Buddha nature, requires a life long commitment to authentic spiritual growth. The truly enlightened person has so thoroughly tamed their ego, that when asked if they are enlightened, they have trouble understanding the question and will typically respond with "I don't know" because compassion, unconditional love, and selfless acts of loving kindness will have become simply who they "are", not what they "do". In other words, when you meet a truly enlightened person, they will have so completely tamed their ego that you will have the experience of being the only person or ego present. Enlightened people allow you to experienced the world in a uniquely new way. The truly enlightened person tends to collect disciples.
Jesus and Buddha were such enlightened souls. I suspect Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King were well on their way to enlightenment.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
Jeff from NY wrote: If what you have said before is true, that all beliefs are by nature essentially subjective and don't accurately reflect reality, then how is it the "beliefs" that you talked about in the last few Newsletter articles regarding the mainline religions in the 21st century are not also in the same category as the religious or philosophical beliefs you talk about in the articles?
Human beliefs are subjective and only reflect a partial or limited understanding of actual reality. I also believe that for most of us of our human beliefs and behaviors tend to be self-validating and simply reflect the rigid self focused black-and-white beliefs of our primitive ego. So to answer your question, the ideas and beliefs that I talked about in the articles are indeed simply my own personal subjective beliefs. They are what make sense to me at this point in my journey, but I don't assume they represent timeless certainty, nor do I assume they represent absolute truth.
The faith beliefs of our narcissistic primitive ego are almost always presented as black-and-white statements assumed to represent absolute truth. When I am writing, I try to intentionally remind myself to keep my beliefs open to intellectual integrity; in other words, open to debate, inquiry, and examination. I never assume my ideas in any way represent absolute truth, and I am open to changing my opinion if I get new data that conflict with my beliefs.
I intentionally try to read opposing points of view because it is very easy for our primitive ego to read only material that supports the beliefs we already have. I am careful to avoid assuming that any of my ideas carry a label called "timeless faith belief" which historically removes it from open inquiry and open debate.
In one of the recent Newsletter articles I said that.........................
"It is important to the future of our species to remind ourselves that, as humans, we know "for certain" absolutely nothing of what exists beyond the veil of death. Our ignorance includes the myths known as heaven, whether we even have a soul, the reality or existence of angels, the usefulness of prayer, the factual existence of God, or what the future holds for us; other than death."........................
Because none of these subjects are verifiable; they belong under the category of "faith beliefs". As I pointed out in the article, a faith belief is a "faith" belief because it is not verifiable. In other words a belief cannot be a "faith" belief and at the same time represent "absolute truth". That would represent a radical contradiction in logic and reason. Of course our primitive ego would love to believe they can indeed be one and the same.
I also try to incorporate as much modern philosophical, psychological, religious, and scientific scholarship as possible in my beliefs, especially contemporary religious and biblical scholarship, and avoid making the assumption that my beliefs will reflect ultimate reality for eternity. I assume that if I am growing, my ideas, including my faith beliefs, will continue to change and evolve over time.
Like most of us, I struggle to stay awake and self-aware of when I am manifesting my primitive ego, I try to keep my ideas flexible and open to change and modification, and I read continuously so-as-to consciously embrace the evolution of my own thinking as the consciousness of our human species continues to grow and evolve.
In order for any religion to be useful for its members, it must continue to "evolve". That means it has to speak in a contemporary language familiar to its members, and reflect a worldview compatible to a reasonably educated and enlightened 21st century consciousness. All of creation, including all living systems, are either growing and evolving, or they are dying.
I know a lot of my ideas are challenging and controversial, but I hope they are helpful. The Church Alumnae Association that Bishop John Shelby Spong talks about is growing as 21st century church members leave to search for a faith that has more intellectual integrity, despite the fact that many clergy in our mainline churches are fully aware of the 300 years of biblical scholarship that has not yet found its way into the pews of our increasingly conservative mainline churches.
I am convinced that a lot of the clergy burnout that is so prevalent in our mainline churches today is due in part to the fact that they cannot bring the insights of modern biblical scholarship that they know to be true and accurate into their preaching. It is virtually impossible for clergy to preach modern biblical scholarship when a conservative institutional church controls the financial well being of ones' family.
Part of my hope is that my writing will support and encourage clergy colleagues as they struggle to incorporate modern 21st century biblical scholarship into their preaching. If we don't allow Christianity to grow and evolve I am convinced that the Christian Alumni Association will continue to grow, and Christianity will continue its rapid decline into irrelevance.
I encourage questions and comments from my readers. They help to keep me on my "intellectual toes". ☺
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Intentional growth in self-awareness, self-knowledge requires the help of a spiritual teacher…..a therapist, a meditation teacher, an enlightened person. Our narcissistic primitive ego, the ultimate Marlboro Man, is absolutely convinced that we can do it on our own. If your goal is authentic spiritual growth, if you truly want to discover the logs in your own eye, then thinking about your choice of spiritual teacher is eventually going to be important for you. It is very difficult for our ego to see itself.
As in any quest, there are many paths to the Holy Grail, and all of them require the help of a teacher from time to time. There is absolutely nothing that we have, nothing that we have learned, nothing that we need to survive, that has not come from outside, or from another person. Our life and our survival is intimately and systemically intertwined with the universe. We cannot survive alone. We cannot grow alone. This includes the journey to enlightenment.
QUOTES
There is a time when we must firmly choose the course we will follow, or the relentless drift of events will make the decision for us. Herbert Prochnow
If you are ignorant, you certainly can get into some interesting arguments. Herbert Prochnow
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body. But rather to skid in
sideways, hamburger in one hand, an ice cold beer in the other, body
thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "Wow, what a ride!". Unknown
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