One bread, one body

One of the things that has struck me this week during my time visiting Sister Annabel Laity, a senior monastic at Plum Village Buddhist community in France, is how much emphasis is placed on community.

Not ideas about community, but the practical reality of it. People prepare food together, eat together, clean together, walk together, meditate together, hold an umbrella for each other in the rain. Very little is done alone. Both Buddhism and Christianity understand something that our culture often forgets: we do not become ourselves in isolation.

The title of the retreat which Sister Annabel and I will lead together in September is, Towards a Global Spirituality: Buddhist-Christian Wisdom for Inner Peace in a Troubled World.  Although these traditions often use different language, both invite us to see reality more clearly.  Both the Buddhist and Christian contemplative traditions recognise that much of our suffering arises from the illusion that we exist separately from one another.

Interbeing, Communion and Oneness

As long as we imagine ourselves to be isolated and self-contained, we remain trapped in fear, competition, and division. But when we begin to glimpse the deeper unity that underlies our apparent separateness, our relationship with everything changes.

The Plum Village tradition of Buddhism speaks of interbeing: the insight that all things arise in relationship and depend upon one another. Christianity says the same, while using the words of communion and oneness: that we belong to one another as members of one Body, that we live, move, and have our being in God who is infinite communion, infinite relational love.

We ‘Inter-Are’

In both Christianity and Buddhism, oneness is not merely a philosophical idea to sign up to, but a fundamental truth which we come to recognise through a transformation of perception, in the opening of awareness. We come to recognise that no life stands alone, that we ‘inter-are.’

From this recognition and the daily practice of living an ethical life, flow compassion, justice, and peace, because we can no longer see the suffering or flourishing of another person, another being, as unrelated to our own.

No grain of wheat becomes a loaf by itself…

Christians have traditionally spoken about the reality of interbeing using the word communion. Nowhere is that more beautifully expressed, I think, than in the Eucharist, the sacramental meal that makes visible and invites us to participate in the mystery of our oneness.

One of the most beautiful things said about the Eucharist I have ever come across, was said by Saint Augustine. In a truly extraordinary sermon he says:

‘Be what you see; receive what you are.’ (2) In the same sermon he says: ‘It is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table. It is your own mystery that you are receiving.’

On first hearing, these words can sound rather strange. Surely, when we come to the Eucharist, we are receiving Christ. We are receiving the Body of Christ. But Augustine wants us to see, to know something more. When we receive the Body of Christ, we are also receiving an invitation to see who we truly are.

The words spoken at communion are simple: ‘The Body of Christ.’ And we respond: ‘Amen.’

Augustine points to Saint Paul’s image of bread and wine.  No grain of wheat becomes a loaf by itself. No grape becomes wine by itself. No person comes to fullness of life alone. What we celebrate at the altar is woven into and is the source of creation itself. The grains do not cease to exist in the bread. The grapes do not cease to exist in the wine. Yet something new emerges from their gathering together.

Many grains, one loaf. Many grapes, one cup. Many persons, one Body. The Eucharist reveals a mystery that lies at the heart of Christian life, of all of life: the mystery of oneness in diversity, communion without the loss of uniqueness. A mystery that has been glimpsed by all the great contemplative traditions of the world.

‘That they may all be one’

This is the same mystery we hear in the prayer of Jesus, ‘That they may all be one.’ Jesus does not pray that we become identical. He prays that we all become one in love.

In our culture, we often imagine that we must choose between individuality and unity, oneness. Either we remain separate individuals, each enclosed within a separate life, or we dissolve into some larger whole.

The Christian vision is different. The Christian vision is communion. The more deeply we enter into God, the more deeply we discover our connection with one another, our oneness with the One.

Meditation: a practice of oneness

When we sit in meditation, we allow our scattered attention to return to the One. We allow ourselves to be gathered. Letting go of our constant preoccupation with our thoughts, with ourselves, we allow ourselves to become still. We allow ourselves to rest in God’s presence.

Meditation is a practice of oneness because it gradually loosens our habitual sense of separateness and allows us to experience this communion, this oneness for ourselves.

Whether we recognise it or not, our lives are intertwined and inseparable. We affect one another constantly. We belong to one another far more deeply than we realise.

The purpose of meditation is not to escape the world – but to return to the world with new sight. What might have seemed ordinary and familiar becomes radiant. The person standing before us becomes a luminous mystery. We begin to see that every human being bears within them the presence of Christ. This is where the Eucharist leads us.

‘You are the body of Christ’

‘My friends, says Augustine, ‘if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostle Paul… “You are the body of Christ, member for member.” [1 Cor. 12.27] If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying “Amen” to what you are.’

As we come to recognise Christ in the bread, we come to recognise Christ within us, that God is our being. We begin to recognise Christ in the community gathered around the table. Then we begin to recognise Christ in the stranger. In the hungry. In the lonely. In the vulnerable. In the person who irritates us. In the person we have overlooked. In the person we find difficult to love.

Notice the question. ‘When did we see you?’ A new way of being is always rooted in a new way of seeing, with having our sight restored, our awareness opened. Can we see who is standing before us? Can we recognise the presence of Christ hidden within the ordinary circumstances of life?

The Cosmic Christ

Can we see that the person before us is not separate but inseparable from us, that we are one within the one Body of Christ? Augustine would say that this is precisely what the Eucharist teaches us. We come to the altar to receive Christ. But we also come to learn how to recognise Christ.

‘The cosmic Christ, son of the living God, is present in all things,’ writes Sister Annabel. ‘In our refectory in the monastery, we have a calligraphy of [Thich Nhat Hanh] that reads, “The bread you hold in your hand is the body of the whole cosmos.” When contemplating these words, I feel Buddhism and Christianity and maybe all religions coming together.’