a contemplative perspective
The great Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh (known to his students as Thây, which means ‘teacher’ in Vietnamese) had a picture of Buddha and Christ on his altar. He saw Jesus as a spiritual ancestor. (1)
Thomas Merton, perhaps the most famous Christian monk of the last century, found that his engagement with Buddhism deepened his own Christian faith. ‘I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity,’ he said. ‘I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.’ (2)
‘The heart of Buddhist practice,’ writes Thây, ‘is to generate our own presence in such a way that we can touch deeply the life that is here and available in every moment.’ (3) The message of practice, he says, is simple and clear: ‘I am here for you.’ We have to be here for ourselves, for the gift of life, for each other. Buddhists and Christians see our lives as inseparable, elements of a single body.
Encountering our distractedness
As all of us will have experienced in daily life, we are often lost in thought. We get caught in regrets about the past and fears about the future. We become absorbed in our plans, our anger, our anxiety. At such moments, we are not really here. We are not present for life. ‘Practice,’ says Thây, ‘makes it possible for us to…establish ourselves firmly in the present moment…to help us live fully in the present. Practice makes it possible for us to say, “I am here for you.”’
Both the Buddhist and Christian contemplative traditions speak of the importance of cultivating attention – not as an end in itself, but as a way of returning to where we are, of being present in the present. And both traditions speak about this as ‘coming home.’ You might say that the primary purpose of cultivating attention in meditation is to come home.
When we meditate, we quickly encounter our distractedness. We see how easily our attention becomes scattered and dispersed. Using the prayer word and the breath, we gently gather our attention and return to the present moment. To be distracted is to be split, scattered. To attend is to become whole again, to come home. We come home to our life. We come home to each other. We come home to God.
Perhaps the most famous Christian teaching on ‘coming home’ is the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). Jesus speaks of a son who asked his father to give him the share of the property that he was due to inherit, left home, and went to a faraway country. In that distant place, the younger son squandered what he’d been given. He blew all his money by living the high-life. That’s the understanding we might take away with us after reading most English translations of the Parable.
The original Greek, however, offers a far deeper meaning. The Greek word commonly translated as ‘property’ (οὐσίαν) can also mean ‘substance’ or ‘essence’ or ‘being’ – the deepest reality of something. And the word commonly translated as ‘squandered’ (διεσκόρπισεν) can also mean ‘scattered’ or ‘dispersed.’
The Parable of The Prodigal Son
With this deeper meaning in mind, we might hear the beginning of this Parable as a rich teaching for the practice of meditation and the cultivation of attention:
A son asked his father to give him the share of the property that he was due to inherit, left home, and went to a faraway country. Far away from home, completely distracted by the many good and pleasurable things of life, what he had been given became scattered and dispersed. He lost touch with the gift of his being, the treasure of his own life, the spiritual inheritance that he never needed to ask for, because it is always being given. In the midst of his suffering, he came to himself. He recognised the deeper truth of his life, and began to make his way home. As he made his way home, he thought of the apologies he would give. But before he could say anything, his father ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him.
‘The rest of the story,’ says the Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, ‘is not about the father forgiving his son, it is about the father celebrating, welcoming his son with joy and feasting. This is all the real God ever does, because God, the real God, is just helplessly and hopelessly in love with us. He is unconditionally in love with us.’ (4)
Returning to your true home
‘When you are sitting on your meditation cushion,’ writes Thây, ‘you are established in the present moment. At that moment, you touch life deeply,’ you return ‘to your true home…the present moment. It is in the present moment that life, peace, joy, happiness, and well-being are possible.’
In meditation, we cultivate attention in order to come home. To be present for the gift of our life. To love. To be loved.
This blog is based on one of the teachings given in a recent online meditation group gathering. You are warmly welcome to join one of our future gatherings.