The first post on this subject began with the notice that this “blog in the wind” is not likely to be followed by another for some time, as the hiatus continues. The hiatus is, of course, still underway and will be until my colleagues and I have continued our study and conversations regarding world religions that we have agreed to complete. That said, I had obviously not planned for there to be two posts—that is the result, as I confessed in the first post, of my utter lack of “the gift of brevity!” But here we are and on we go, with the promise that there will NOT be a third post in this series on Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism!

As the first set of these reflections was topical, I want to concentrate, finally, on each of the three religions, in turn, and call attention to a couple of ideas, concepts, practices that have caught my attention in each of them. I make no claim that these are the most important elements, the most commonly known, or even that my description/explanation of them is, by expert appraisal, even accurate. They are, quite simply, an offering of a few personal “take-aways.”

So, I turn first to Hinduism.

• Huston Smith’s coverage includes a section entitled, “Many Paths to the Same Summit,” in which he cites this religion’s conviction that “the various major religions are on alternate paths to the same goal,” and to reference another metaphor, that one can a climb a mountain from any side, but at the top, the trails converge. This clear reference to universalism is most unambiguously stated in these few highly selective quotations from the writings of Ramakrishna, the highly respected 19^th century Hindu mystic and religious leader: “Everyone should follow one’s own religion. . . . the Lord has laid out different paths for different people suitable for their natures. . . . Indeed, one can reach God if one follows any of the paths with wholehearted devotion.” While I understand that not every Hindu is or has been so openly welcoming of other faiths, I am deeply impressed by this “official” humility toward one’s own religion’s creeds and dogmas, this openness to those who are seriously committed to other faiths, and this belief in a Divine Being whose “arms,” to speak anthropomorphically, are open wider than most religions would declare.
• A second idea to be mentioned has to do with Hinduism’s denoting and defining four “stages of life,” namely, the student stage, which begins in early childhood and ends in early adulthood; the householder, i.e. marriage, family, vocation, civic engagement; retirement, to which I will return; and a final stage of a sort of “bliss,” without obligations or goals, ending, of course, in death. It was Smith’s account of the stage of retirement that caught my attention. No surprise, of course, since it’s where I am in my own life!  Here, with some paraphrase, is what I found particularly relevant for me, as well as some of my closest friends:

Earlier life has been so busy that there wasn’t much time to read and think about life’s meaning, but now the time has come to “discover who one is and what life is about.” . . . A time for working out a philosophy and turning it into a way of life. . . .”To find life’s meaning in the mystery of existence is life’s final and fascinating challenge.”

While this is what initially caught my attention—and will, I suspect, soon lead me to work on and post a series of blogs on my own “World View”—this period of life is also meant as a time for social service, of giving back to one’s community. Other and similar things were said, but that is enough, I think, to see why I identified with this distinct definition of the stage in which I find myself.

I’ll turn now to Buddhism and flag three things, among the many, that stand out in my mind.

• The first one I had known about for some time from my wife, who is a musician, and has to do with the Vajrayana branch of Buddhism, which, as noted earlier, owes much to Tibetan influence and is also known as Tantric Buddhism. When the monks in this order get into meditative mode and begin to chant, they start with a guttural monotone. But as their focus deepens, an utterly unique sound is produced. As Smith describes it, “by a vocal device found nowhere else in the world, they (are able to) reshape their vocal cavities,” and produce overtones that allow a single monk to produce harmonic chords with only his own voice! I must say that I find this absolutely fascinating and devoutly wish I could hear it.
• The second item from Buddhism that caught and has kept my attention is the image of “the Crossing.” Since I have already commented on that among my observations about the various approaches to an afterlife in these three religions, I won’t pursue it further here.
• Finally, returning to Buddha himself and his own followers, rather than the Buddhist religion that grew from his life and legacy, Smith suggests six characteristics of that “original Buddhism.” While all are significant, three stand out to me. First, it was empirical—personal experience, not reason or argument, was the final test of truth. The second is that it was pragmatic—Buddha was concerned with problem solving, and kept his attention on predicaments that demanded solution, not mere speculation. Finally, it was egalitarian—in contrast to the world in which he lived, he insisted that women were as capable of enlightenment as men and he gave no favoritism to caste.

Try not to gasp, but I will end these seemingly never-ending blogs with two of the many characteristics that stood out for me in Confucianism.

• The first has to do with Confucius himself and what Smith characterized as the democratic tenor of his entire philosophy, which he argues grew from the death of his father, leaving him, when he was less than three years old, with his impoverished mother. Having to make his own way through hardship and poverty gave him an identity with common people that informed his world view and motivated him to support them against oppression “from above.” In his personal life as well, he regularly cut across class lines.
• The second, and happily the last, idea and practice has to do with the commitment of Confucius and his heirs to the crucial value of tradition. As Smith observes, when tradition is no longer adequate to hold society together, human life faces its gravest crisis. Confucius was committed to what Smith terms, “Deliberate Tradition.” Other sources herald his search for “roots,” his faith in the cumulative power of culture, and argue that he saw himself as the conservationist responsible for the continuity of traditional cultural values and social norms. What he saw those “values and norms” to be would take more space than I want to fill, so I will briefly mention just three. One is the presence of ritual—routines, customs, patterns—in both communication and behavior. A call for “normative semantics,” for example—language in which words carry the common meanings they should; but also, ritual as a sense of what is right to do—a pattern for every act as defined by traditional social life. A second is the power of moral example—“moral” defined, of course, as the notion of goodness embodied over time in society and driven by every possible means into the lives of people we admire until they become habits of daily life. The power of that moral example extends to the highest reaches of society, which led Confucius to assert that “if the people no longer have confidence in their government, it cannot stand.”* Finally (Really!!), anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I was delighted to learn that Confucius was a strong supporter of the arts, based on his belief that they had the ability to transform human nature in the direction of virtue. That is confirmed by this brief quotation from his Analects, which is an appropriate way to close this overly long blog:

“By poetry the mind is aroused; from music the finish is received. The odes stimulate the mind. They induce self-contemplation. They teach the art of sensibility. They help restrain resentment.”

So ends this journey. Down the road a piece, perhaps something similar will be posted, reflecting what has most captured my attention in our study of Taoism, Islam, and Judaism. Stay tuned if you have the patience and the fortitude.

*As a brief tempering of these two Confucian characteristics, I do understand that times may come when traditional “cultural values and social norms”—i.e ritual and moral standards—may need to be questioned and contested, but the weight of “ritual arising from tradition” must also be given respect in such a challenge.