Reactions to this “post out of nowhere” may well range from “Oh, good, I can learn something about world religions” to “Geez, we were just getting used to not being pestered every other week!”  To the latter, my only tender of comfort is that this “blog in the wind”—although it is in two parts—is not likely to be followed by another for some time, as the hiatus continues. Breathe a sigh of relief! To the eager seekers for knowledge, I can just extend the disappointing news that this blog is in no way an attempt to summarize in an “informational offering” a lesson on the world religions that I and my studying-and-conversation-colleagues have covered so far. Then what in heaven’s name is it?

            This is a somewhat organized, somewhat wandering set of reflections on some things that have “stood out,” caught my attention, as I have read and conversed with my “learning partners.” While our primary source has been Huston Smith’s classic and widely regarded book, The World’s Religions, other sources have been used, individually and collectively, from time to time, but this piece is in no sense an attempt to summarize or reference any of the sources. These are simply some ideas, beliefs, practices, people, sayings, etc. that are things I liked, some things I learned, some that I didn’t like, and some that I didn’t understand—although I’ll try to concentrate on the first two.

            This first set of reflections is “topical” and will concentrate on the first three religions we explored—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.  And so, in no particular order, here are some things that have come to mind.

Among the several things I’ve often found that two, but not all three, of the religions have in common, one was a “founder.” 

• Siddhartha  Gautama—who became known as the Buddha (One Who Is Awakened) was the founder of the religion that bears his name. According to legend, he was born in ca563 BCE and died at the age of 80 ca483 BCE.
• And I was fascinated—because I had not known—that Confucius, obvious founder of Confucianism, was born ca551 and died at age 72  ca479, which made him a contemporary of Gautama.
• Hinduism, the outlier here, had no known founder and, as the oldest known active religion, dates back as far as the 1500s BCE. However, Mahatma Ghandi, born in 1869 and assassinated in 1948, became in modern times a signatori figure in Hinduism for his commitment to non-violence while, as the same time, he played a major role in India’s independence from the British, renamed and redeemed its “untouchables,” and became the inspiration for MLK’s civil rights movement.in the US.

And, for whatever it’s worth as a humbling fact, all three of these world religions are much older than either Christianity or Islam.

Compared to Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, the three religions I’m concentrating on here have what seem to me rather “foggy” (but possibly attractive) concepts of a Divine Being/God.  The term “Godhead” plays a significant role in both Hinduism and Buddhism. 

• Hinduism says that there is an “infinite center”—an Atman–of every human life that is termed the Brahman, the Godhead, a term not easily defined. Two seemingly contradictory concepts have been embraced in Hinduism—one conceived in personal terms is a kind of Panentheism that sees God  and the world to be interrelated; the other, conceived trans-personally, resembles Deism and sees God utterly removed and aloof from the world. And yet Hinduism places these in a paradoxical relationship where both may be true!
• Buddhism, on the other hand, posits no personal God  and yet also uses “the Godhead,” mysteriously undefined, to point, perhaps, to an Impersonal Entity.
• Confucianism comes no closer to a God than not completely ruling out the supernatural by proposing that there might be, somewhere, “a power on the side of right.”

Readers of my blogs would know that, as I have aged and “the finishing line” has crept closer, I have—no surprise—shown more interest in what I can know/what I can believe about what, if anything, lies beyond this life.  So I have looked with curiosity at what these world religions have to say.

• Hinduism seemed to be the most straightforward in its belief in reincarnation—the passing of the soul through a sequence of bodies, also known as transmigration. So, a hope for ”something beyond,” but not exactly “heaven!” 
• Buddhism was a bit more puzzling, at least for me, since, on the one hand, it says that humans have no soul and yet, one of the things that most fascinated and attracted me was its use of the metaphor, or image, of “the Crossing.” Much of the substance of Buddhism, which I won’t try to unpack here, is embedded in what this means for each individual. That said, it is a voyage across “life’s river,” which connects rather than divides two shores, one human, one divine. Before crossing, the two shores seem distinct; after crossing there is no dichotomy, no distinction between time and eternity—they are two sides of the same coin. Complicated? Yes. Does it settle the paradox of no soul, crossing to eternity? No. Does it seem to leave possibilities open? To me, Yes. And I’ll leave it there.
• Confucianism is both simpler and extremely vague. Confucius inherited, in a sense, early Chinese religion’s emphasis on Heaven and Earth as inextricably connected, with emphasis on Heaven, the home of the ancestors. Although Confucius didn’t drop Heaven altogether, he shifted emphasis to Earth—the spirits should not be forgotten, but people came first. His philosophy was not metaphysical—he didn’t talk about spirits, even though he didn’t deny they exist, and said that we don’t even understand life, so why should we think that we can understand death. Thus his emphasis was, unapologetically, on the living.

Another concept, or practice, that was common to two, but not all three, of these religions, was meditation, which has never been a part of my life—and I’ll come back to that.

• The purpose of meditation in Hinduism is to unite the human spirit with God. As a key example, the goal of one of the several forms of yoga, known as raja yoga, is to direct its practitioner to “the beyond that is within.” It is a complicated path of 8 steps, which I won’t try to lead us through, but one of the “postures” meant to keep the body from distracting the mind is the world renowned lotus position. Initially uncomfortable and difficult to maintain, when it is mastered it is said to be highly conducive to meditation. One encounters words and phrases such as “breathing,” “attention turned inward,” “alone with the mind,” “contemplation of the divine, “ and the final goal of “the mind completely absorbed in God.” Not a particular path, I confess, that I would be inclined to pursue.
• Meditation has an important, though not equal, role in each of the three branches of Buddhism—more central to Theravada, the conservative branch primarily focused on monastics than to Mahayana (to which I’ll return in a moment), a more liberal but socially active branch of mostly laypeople. But it is quite important in the third branch of Buddhism, Vajrayana, better and more popularly known as Tantric Buddhism, where sex is seen as linked directly to God and is central to the ultimate goal of meditation. With no intention to make this any more summative than I already have, I want to turn to a single group in Buddhism, which is, utterly unpredictably, a sect of the Mahayana branch, familiarly known as Zen. My initial reading of Huston Smith’s presentation of Zen found it so dense I felt like I was slugging through molasses! I suppose I should have taken note of his warning that entering Zen is like “stepping through Alice’s looking glass” into a wonderland of obscure conundrums, flagrant contradictions, and abrupt non sequiturs! That said, it still follows that central to Zen is a three-step training in a process of meditation that few students survive. The initial step, called zazen, calls for meditation sitting silently in the lotus position hour after hour, day after day, and, sometimes, year after year until they can pass through a second stage to arrive at the final stage, known as sanzen, and—however long it takes—reach the ultimate mystical experience known as satori. But even then, Zen does not permit the adherent to withdraw completely—(s)he “neither leaves the world nor withdraws from the world.” Yet another expression of the paradox that is Zen!
• The closest Huston Smith comes to speaking of meditation in the practice of Confucianism are his mention of “self-contemplation” as one of the benefits of art; and when he speaks of becoming a “chun tzu, a fully realized human being,”he makes reference to an “interior side to the self,” using such terms as self-examination and introspection. That’s about it. But in other readings on Confucianism, it is not difficult to find references to meditation and its purposes, such as calming the mind, body, and spirit; reaching a peaceful state; becoming a thoughtful person toward oneself and others. And one finds relatively uncomplicated descriptions of “simple” meditation methods, such as “sitting still to free the ego and get in touch with (one’s) real self.” It’s also important to note that Confucian meditation is turning inward in order to also turn outward—not only for self-awareness, self-enhancement, self-discipline, but also as an empowerment tool for finding the truth and creating social change.
• Although, as noted earlier, meditation has not been a part of my life, it is a daily practice of one of my conversational partners in this study of world religions. I have, consequently, become interested in understanding and trying to develop the personal skills, attitudes, and practices that might lead to making meditation a valued and recurring experience. So while I “cherry-picked” rather highly complicated, even bizarre, examples of meditative practices that caught my attention from Hinduism and Buddhism, one would not be surprised that it is the Confucian method and purpose of meditation that I find most attractive.

Those who know me are fully aware that I covet, but do not possess, the “gift of brevity!”  Thus, as noted at the beginning, these reflections have gone on longer than I intended, so I will stop for now and follow up soon with a second installment. As this first set of reflections was topical, I will concentrate in the second set on each of the three religions and call attention to a couple of ideas, concepts, practices that have caught my attention In each of them.  Until then, I hope you will stay tuned.