Human beings seek to be happy, to
know the truth, to do good. In this
quest we find fulfillment and happiness.
A life of mere pleasure-seeking, of constant entertainment, of restless
money-making, of power-seeking, will not bring one happiness or truth, and will
not help one become a truly good human being.
To the best of my knowledge, three
different and especially profound ways to live well and happily have emerged in
human history: life under God as
explored by Hebrew prophets, Jesus, and the saints; the discovery of reason and
the search for wisdom and happiness as lived and taught by Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, and their philosopher-disciples; and the way of the Buddha with the
search for inner calm and insight. To
these three irreplaceable ways one should also add the works of science and
scholarship that may usefully contribute to one’s search for happiness and
truth. (Historically, western science is
an offshoot of Greek philosophy.).
In my judgement, one seeking to live
happily, and to understand the truth about man’s place in reality, should have
recourse to Judaeo-Christian spirituality; to reason and the life of the mind
that is philosophy; to meditative practices as developed within the Buddhist
tradition; and to the best insights from science. There are other spiritual traditions that are
very rich indeed, and no doubt one can draw spiritual nourishment from them
(such as from Hinduism, the Tao, or from native American spirituality). One way or another, four enormous figures of
human history keep presenting themselves in my search: Moses as the carrier of the I AM; Jesus as
the human being fully immersed in God; Socrates and the unending quest for
truth by means of right reasoning, with its openness to divine reality; the
Buddha and the quest for inner peace and freedom from suffering.
As I look back on my life, and
consider how to spend time remaining for me on earth, these figures keep
emerging as demanding my attention and study.
Moses is known primarily through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, in
the Law, and in the Chosen People; Jesus is known through the same scriptures,
but above all in lovingly doing the will of God and in the lives of His saintly
people; Socrates is known through right reasoning, and especially as embodied
in the texts of Plato and Aristotle, and their learned disciples through the
ages; and the Buddha is known through his teaching, (the Buddha-dhamma), and
through diligently practicing mindfulness-meditation.
The ways of the prophets, of Jesus,
of Socrates, and of the Buddha, are not identical, nor can they be unthinkingly
harmonized or “syncretized.” Each of these
ways is valid, and requires a committed life.
To give an example of an enormous tension between them—a tension
demanding much study and thought—Moses and Jesus lead one into the mystery we
call “God.” Socrates, open to all truth,
respects “the gods” and God, but employs reason as moved through an inner
dialogue with divine reality as it presents itself to consciousness. The Buddha is consistently non-theistic,
avoiding all speculation on the gods, and any explicit reliance on divine help
in the search for inner peace.
For years I have allowed my faith in
God and Christ to be illumined through the life of reason as developed by
Socrates and the best human minds who have written philosophy. On this path I have very far to go, but I
found reliable models, as in St. Anselm, with his “faith seeking
understanding.” The more difficult
challenge is to explore and live more fully the mutual penetration of the way
of Christ and the way of the Buddha.
While being true to the God of Moses and of Jesus Christ, and true to
right reasoning, I must seek to practice meditation as guided not only by
Christian mystics and saints, but by Buddhist meditators. Only in meditative practice, and in right
living, can one gain insight into how living faith in God, the life of
reasoning, and the Buddhistic way of “being lights unto yourselves” are
essentially one, or harmonize. For all
that is true is good, and worth seeking.
One must live the truth to
understand it. Otherwise, one is merely
speculating and playing intellectual games—an enormous problem in our culture
and in mass education today. The light
of Christ, of Socrates, and of the Buddha all reveal our culture and
contemporary ways of living as deeply flawed and self-destructive. In the question of Jesus, “What does it
profit a man, to gain the whole world, and lose his life?” In the Socratic insight, “the unexamined life
is not worth living.” And in the light
of the Buddha, “To cross the stream of life, bale out this boat!”
