LIVING BUDDHA, LIVING CHRIST CHAPTER 3 - THE FIRST SUPPER

What are you grateful for in your life?

When asked, people often express gratitude for the many physical comforts that surround them, such as a warm house, a soft bed, or a beach to lie on. Others would celebrate relationships such as friends, family, and community. Some might note the material goods they’ve accumulated such as a nice car, a big screen TV, or perhaps a boat. 

But what about gratitude for the basics of life that God (or the universe, to the Buddhist) provides to us? How often do we express gratitude for the gifts of clean, plentiful water to drink, healthy air to breathe, or simple sunshine - the driving force behind all life on Earth? How often do we really think deeply about the food we eat?

In Chapter 3 THN uses the concept of gratitude for the food we eat as a means of touching the Spirit within us. Perhaps the most ubiquitous rituals that transcend humanity involve food in some way. Families gather for Thanksgiving and consume a meal while, traditionally at least, expressing gratitude for all we have been given. Lately I suspect that Thanksgiving dinner is more a prelude to a football game than an expression of true gratitude. The Seder is a ritualized meal in the Jewish tradition that celebrates the Jewish people’s freedom from bondage, while at the same time, remembering their suffering while in servitude to Egypt. The Tea Ceremony in Japan provides a highly ritualized example from Eastern traditions. 

But most of us consider food a means to an end. We eat so we can have the energy to do other things we deem important. We rush through meals as if they are an annoyance somehow. The whole “fast food” industry bears witness to this. While not true universally, it is certainly ingrained in American and, increasingly, other Western cultures (case in point, there are McDonald’s restaurants in France now). THN claims that when we view food and the taking of meals in this manner we are, in fact, “ingesting only our ideas, projects, worries, and anxieties”.

THN claims that the Eucharist, the act of receiving communion in the Christian tradition, is a way of consuming spiritual “food” while living completely in the moment and experiencing deep gratitude. I remember attending a Christmas Eve service many years ago at an Episcopal church. In the Episcopal tradition, communicants kneel at a railing at the altar and receive communion from priests. In this church the railing was shaped like an ellipse and surrounded the altar completely. As is often the case with a Christmas Eve service, the railing was filled completely, and it was taking quite a while for the priests to work their way around to me. While waiting I had the opportunity to observe other parishioners around the ellipse. I’ll never forget the look of pure joy on one man’s face as he accepted the bread and wine. I didn’t understand it at the time (this was long ago), but that man was living completely in that moment; all his earthly concerns had been set aside. As THN would say, he was consuming the body and blood of Christ, deeply mindful of the gift he was receiving. Though his mindfulness and deep awareness, he had touched the Spirit within him.

How many of us can say the same when we partake of the Eucharist? I’m as guilty as anyone of going through the motions of communion without really thinking about the implications of the act. After all, I’ve been through the process thousands of times before. How can I be expected to be mindful all the time? I have places to be, people to see, and things to do. But THN claims that the last supper was Jesus’ way of jolting his Disciples and, by extension, us, out of our complacency. When Jesus spoke the words,

This is my Body…
This is my Blood…
Drink it and you will have eternal life,

he was calling them to mindfulness and deep awareness of His coming sacrifice and the new life that would follow. Whenever we take communion, or eat any meal, we are reborn. With each bite we touch the sun, the rain, the earth, the cosmos itself, and, by extension, the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God.

In this way THN thinks that Last Supper is a misnomer. The Last Supper was not an ending, it was a new beginning. He suggests that taking any meal should be considered a “First Supper”, because after each meal we become a new creation, both physically and spiritually.

Living Buddha, Living Christ Chapter 2 – Mindfulness and the Holy Spirit

When the Buddha was asked “what do you and your monks practice?” he replied, “we sit, we walk, and we eat.” The questioner responded, “but sir, everyone sits, walks, and eats” and the Buddha told him “when we sit we know we are sitting, when we walk we know we are walking, and when we eat we know we are eating”.

What does it mean to truly know something, to be deeply aware? We go through our days performing a multitude of tasks without really being aware of our actions. Take breathing for example. We breathe without any conscious effort at all. If we were truly aware of our breathing we would feel CO2 concentrations increase in our body, our diaphragm contract in response, and our lungs expand. We would feel air rushing through our airways and swirling deep in our lungs. We would feel our heart rate increase in response to new oxygen infused blood, and we might hear the sound of blood rushing through our ears. We might feel the calming, peaceful feeling that envelopes us as we exhale, only to begin the process anew. To be aware is to feel, understand, and love the entirety of our experience, no matter how mundane.

For the Buddhist the path to awareness is through the practice of mindfulness. In the words of TNH, mindfulness allows us to “touch deeply the present moment, see and listen deeply, and the fruits are always understanding, acceptance, love, and the desire to relieve suffering and bring joy”.

To THN, the practice of mindfulness is much like the Holy Spirit in that both are agents of healing and a pathway to God. The Buddha was called the King of Healers. Can we not make the same claim about Jesus? Oftentimes in the Bible, Christ was able to heal with just a touch. Sometimes healing required only touching Jesus’ garment. But it wasn’t the act touching that performed the miracle. It was the presence of the Holy Spirit within Jesus that brought about healing. When you touch deep understanding (mindfulness in the Buddhist vernacular) and love (the Holy Spirit in the Christian vernacular) you are healed. 

When the energy of the Holy Spirit is in us, we “are truly alive, capable of understanding the suffering of others and motivated to transform the situation”. When the energy of the Holy Spirit is present, “God the Father and God the Son are there”. THN believes the presence of the Holy Spirit can be strengthened within us through mindfulness. Citing Jesus’ baptism as evidence, he notes that, after the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus during his baptism, Jesus retired to the wilderness to strengthen the Holy Spirit within him. To THN, Jesus practiced mindfulness for 40 days to build this strength. For us, the simple act of really hearing a bird sing or really seeing the blue sky (or become aware of our tongue) through mindfulness allows us to touch and strengthen the Holy Spirit within us.

To THN, all of us have the seed of the Holy Spirit within us, the “capacity of healing, transforming, and loving”. When we touch that seed (through Buddhist mindfulness or Christian prayer) we touch God the Father and God the Son.