Interspiritual Refuge

It's been my experience that when things happen that are beyond our control — and we are shocked into a struggle to deal with them — our spiritual life is challenged in a positive way. Our refuge is tested and has the opportunity to deepen exponentially.

In Jeff Wilson's book, Buddhism of the Heart: Reflections on Shin Buddhism and Inner Togetherness, he writes, “Our ideas of power and control are really illusions.... Although it's the most difficult of all difficulties, acceptance is the only real option.”

Yet, as my teacher, Rev. Koyo Kubose of the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism (brightdawnsangha.ning.com), teaches and his father, Rev. Gyomay Kubose, taught, “acceptance IS transcendence.”

I recently experienced a situation that has seemingly ended a long friendship. It was something that was totally unexpected on my end and caused me a period of shock and hurt. This situation emerged outside of my awareness and challenged my trust, and expectations of how I thought a friend would behave. It left me with no good choices for resolution, only ones that would lead to further negative consequences from resentment or an exchange of strong words.

I am a “fixer.” I think many of us are, in this culture. It is very hard for me to just accept a situation that is in any way uncomfortable or challenging. Yet, I was in a situation that seemingly couldn't be fixed, so I had no choice but acceptance. But, admittedly, in this and other situations in my life, this acceptance did not feel like transcendence, but instead like failure and a collapse of a major belief structure.

Our lives, in the West in 2012, are relatively comfortable and “in control.” It is easy to take for granted that every day will continue much like the day before … and that most of our plans will work out and our expectations will be reasonably fulfilled. Even though we know that, realistically, it isn't really the case.

Things can go wrong and sometimes horribly so: we can lose our jobs, suffer an illness or accident, or the death of someone close to us. Things can go wrong in not so horrible ways, too, that cause us to suffer none-the-less: problems on the job, a fender bender, losing electricity, or, as in my recent experience, a misunderstanding with a close friend.

And each time one of these events happen, I try to immediately “fix it.” By fixing it, I try to make it go away — clinging, or attaching to my current state. But making it go away doesn't make it go away; it just seems like it does. Making it go away is really either denial, repression, or blame.

This situation, though, was such a blow to me that my fix-it impulse burned out rather quickly and my ego motivation to try to do something about it retreated almost as quickly. The deep hurt I felt made me give up and that was a very good thing. Although, initially, the giving-up type of acceptance felt like failure, I have started to enter the initial phases of positive, or active, acceptance. The shock, hurt, and anger are lessening and I am now in a stage that I can only describe as an opening-up, and a feeling of spaciousness.

Richard Rohr, (a Franciscan Friar, ordained Roman Catholic priest, and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation), talks about this spaciousness in his book, Falling Upward: Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.” He writes: “The opposite of rational is not always irrational, but also can be transrational or bigger than the rational mind can process.” He says, the transrational “has the capacity to keep us inside...a larger horizon so that the soul, the heart, and the mind does not close down inside of a small and constricted space.”

His "transrational" process is non-dual thinking: not either-or, not right-wrong, but both-and. Sometimes things just happen.

I am reaching this transrational, transcendent point with time ... through long periods of quiet reflection and reading of both Buddhist and Christian teachings. In Buddhism, it is taught that we must “hear, think, and meditate” to grow in our practice. In Christianity, there is a traditional Catholic practice called Lectio Divina (Latin for divine reading).

In this situation, I discovered a productive way of reaching active acceptance by reflecting on my situation in an interspiritual way that I now refer to as dealing with “Tough Grace” through “Calm Abiding.”

In A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life, Wayne Teasdale, a Catholic monk and champion of interfaith dialogue, who coined the phrase “interspiritual”, writes of “Tough Grace” as like the concept of “tough love.” Tough love is where families and friends help a loved one out of destructive patterns by challenging her. He says “tough grace” is the “Divine's way of reaching certain souls who may need a measure of suffering to rise above their preoccupations.” He calls it “divine communication” that “operates through illness, injustice, psychological problems, and misunderstandings to bring us to a single-minded attention of what is important for our ultimate development.”

And what I found particularly true to me was this benefit he writes about: “Tough grace brings about a radical simplification of our lives” that “highlights just what we need for the spiritual journey and counsels us to leave the rest behind.” He says, “suffering stretches us and stimulates our growth” and claims that when suffering is rightly understood and embraced generously, it is ultimately a path to spiritual transformation.

But, as I found, to get there you have to sit through the uncomfortableness. This is where Buddhist teaching counseled me. Pema Chodron teaches a method of sitting with uncomfortable feelings and strong emotions that she calls “Calm Abiding.” We just sit with the discomfort, abiding with it — in it — while not identifying with it, telling stories about it, or repressing it. I see it now like a bird sitting on its eggs or a soon-to-be mother living in the discomfort and uncertainty of the nine months of pregnancy with trust and confidence that her uncomfortable body will transform to produce a child.

We make it through challenges not by “overcoming them”, as Western cultural heroes illustrate, but by enduring, abiding, sitting with. This wisdom is repeated in all spiritual traditions as is beautifully illustrated in Tao warriors of stillness and inaction. Sitting with uncomfortableness or “sitting in the questions” is a great spiritual strength that Rev. Koyo teaches as “don't conclude.”

And in circling back to Buddhism and Shin Buddhism for my interspiritual refuge, I hung on to what I have proven to be true in my life before: when human reasoning and strength, or self power, has been exhausted, we come back to our simplicity, our naturalness. I found peace by giving up. In the giving up, I transcended my expectations, my judgment, my ego, and my self power.

And for a final interspiritual volley, I will close with more wisdom from Richard Rohr. He talks about the concept of “hitting bottom” saying “it is often when the ego is most deconstructed that we can hear things anew and begin honest reconstruction.”