http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2011.607410

It also is difficult to extrapolate from it the concept of “personal sin,” that is, some way in which I, as a specific individual, transgressed divine commands and moral laws, as a result of which I require personal salvation. If there is original sin, how is it transmitted down through the generations? Is it acquired simply as a result of being born as a human, or passed along like a cultural meme?  Neither alternative seems particularly fair.  Then, at the other end of the temporal spectrum, how is it that Jesus (who, after all, had a mortal aspect) acquired the power (whether divine, or otherwise) to eradicate everybody’s sin, simply as a result of his death? The demise of one discrete being, no matter who he was, seems insufficient to counter a problem of this magnitude, not only for the past, but for all time into the future. While Augustine has a lot to say about original sin, he does not really engage with these sort of analytical issues.

Both Heidegger and Sartre attempted to confront this issue – Heidegger indirectly but thematically, and Sartre specifically.  Heidegger characterized Dasein as the only being for whom the meaning of its own being is an issue.  “Being” is what it is for anything “to be,” and what it is for Dasein to be in particular.  Heidegger was no theologian.  In his later work, he critiqued the prospect of what he called “onto-theology,” that is, monotheistic religion, because it obscured Dasein’s quest for the meaning of Being.  Although he frequently is characterized as such, Heidegger was not an existentialist.  His primary concern was the minutiae of being-in-the-world; the way Dasein relates to objects (such as rocks), tools or instrumentalities (objects used for the accomplishment of some objective), and other persons.  Some commentators (e.g. Dreyfus) translate Heidegger’s concept of these interactions as “coping.”  This is not quite right, though, because it imports a sense of resignation or futility to these activities, when in fact they comprise the central modality of Dasein’s project of existence.  A more accurate translation is that Dasein attunes or comports itself with experiences and phenomena it encounters in the world, using strategies and techniques it adopts as a result of the way objects and people are situated and present themselves, and the uses and responses they suggest.  Although not typically associated with clinical psychology, Heidegger’s concept of attunement particularly is useful for understanding Axis II personality disorders – which might best be characterized as a misfire of this attunement process, when it becomes out of calibration with facts and states of affairs in the world.

Sartre, on the other hand, is a true existentialist.  His primary concern was the sense of alienation or “angst” people experience as a phenomenological reality, when confronted with the impossible task of assigning meaning to the events and situations comprising the human condition, as per above.  It certainly is possible to understand Sartre’s existentialism sui generis. Contextually and conceptually, though, it makes more sense to consider it as a response to Christian theology’s narrative of the human condition. For Sartre, God’s main problem is his transcendence; the impossibility of ever being sure a divine presence exists. Although this starts off as an epistemological argument (lack of certain knowledge), it ends up as an ontological one (there is no such being).  As a result the human condition is hopeless, and the only possible response to it is one of despair.  Sartre may have been less frustrated had he come across, or been able to articulate, a means of direct access to the divine – something akin to Descartes’ lack of doubt in the reality that he was a thinking being.  If knowledge could replace belief, then it wouldn’t be necessary to have faith.

The only candidates for certain knowledge that religion has come up with are unsatisfying.  They primarily are experiential, such as radical mysticism.  One doesn’t derive the necessary knowledge from contemplation of icons, or by reading sacred texts.  It’s difficult to theorize your way out of the human condition, including, for example, the reality of death.  Sartre’s predicament really is an exercise in binary logic.  Since there’s no certain knowledge, and faith doesn’t lead to it, the only credible alternative is despair, or futility.  Is there an intermediate zone between faith, knowledge and despair?  Put slightly differently, given the impossibility of knowledge, is faith anything more than the absence of despair?

One way to understand Sartre simply is to substitute Heidegger’s concept of “Being” (that is, not the being of particular things or persons, but rather what it is for something “to be” in general) for the Christian concept of God.  If there were a monotheistic deity, it would be pure Being, or the cause of Being, or have all the attributes of Being.  If such an entity were epistemologically accessible, then Sartre would be able to solve his dilemma.  Although they struggle with this maneuver, and do not articulate or complete it successfully, this seems to be the project of later existentialist theologians such as Tillich.  It also seems to underlie the project of Gnosticism, understood as a form of proto-Christianity.

I.  Money-Changers at the Temple

One of the criticisms I made in my original note was the excessive pageantry associated with Thich Nhat Hanh’s performance.  This in and of itself was an obstacle to the effective demonstration (and any subsequent discussion) of Buddhist practices.  Undoubtedly Hanh is an expert in them.  However his presentation totally lacked any concrete theological substance.  It was not reasoned discourse deserving of serious scholarly consideration but rather a venture into the realm of pop culture.

The reason why this is objectionable is because of Hanh’s pretense he was engaging in universal spiritual practices.  The overabundance of artifacts of material culture (sumi-e/tranh thuỷ mặc’ brush painting calligraphy on display and for sale), simony, purposefully-engineered exoticism and feel-good platitudes created the attractive illusion of a complete spiritual experience.  To paraphrase analogous imagery from the Judeo-Christian tradition it was no different from the money-changers at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Hanh explicitly invited his audience to partake of all of the benefits of traditional institutional religion (in the case of Buddhism, enlightenment, satori, kensho, nirvana, achieving a state of utter immanence with the world and the falling away of the ego) without any risk of the punishment for wrongdoing within Buddhist tradition.  He inferred analogous elements found within the Judeo-Christian tradition (such as, for example, hell and eternal torment) could be dispensed with summarily.

“Spiritual” implies a notion of universality.  One of my objectives is to liberate the spiritual from this and similar Platonic conceptions and to clarify its specific spatio-temporal etiology.  This is not mere semantics.  Making this distinction is crucial to exploring the social and anthropological implications of the introduction and adaptation of Buddhist practices into the lives of Westerners of traditionally non-Buddhist ancestry.

II.  Truth and Consequences

So far this simply is a modest criticism of Hanh’s methods and technique.  Far more disconcerting is for any one person (or organization) to present an incomplete and piecemeal portrait of a venerable 2,500-year-old tradition such as Buddhism.  Hanh does not speak for all Buddhists nor is he a font of Buddhist orthodoxy.  Rather he presents a sanitized version of Buddhism more fit for transportation into and consumption by western pop culture.

A good example of this is the concept of punishment after death for one’s misadventures on earth.  One of the attractive features of Buddhism is its highly developed cosmology.  Canonical Buddhist texts prominently emphasize concepts such as the the Śūraṅgama Sūtra or Chinese Chan-specific Sūtra of The Great Vows of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva.  They discuss topics such as supernatural punishment for one’s actions on earth.  One might descend the spokes bhavacakra’s six realms of existence, possibly even winding up at the bottom in Naraka, the Buddhist version of hell.  Another example is that described in the Ojo Yoshu by Genshin.  The miscreant is subjected to climbing a tree ringed with swords, then sliding downward as the points of the swords shift upwards to impale him.  These punishments rival those of Dante’s Inferno.

Hanh conveniently omitted these frightful elements from his presentation.  They cannot be disregarded simply as appendages suitable for being discarded when Buddhism is dumbed-down for western audiences.  Hanh’s failure to present these counterpart elements is disingenuous.  They are inseparable aspects of Buddhist thought.

III.  Orthodoxy versus Orthopraxy

Hanh’s muddling of concepts also is worrysome because it is an attempt to define the limits of orthodoxy.  Faith (Śraddhā) is an important component of Buddhist practice.  It is emphasized by occasionally-neglected canonical texts such as Kasibharadvaja Sutta, Kalama Sutta, Mahaparinirvana Sutra and notably in the Pure Land school). Hanh on the other hand implies that, for western culture, Buddhism is strictly orthopraxic in nature.  Good conduct is exoteric and can be measured behaviorally.  All one has to do is adhere to formulaic algorithms such as chanting, proper posture and the seamless performance of rituals.  What one actually believes is a moot point.

Hanh cannot dismiss the concepts of orthodox Buddhism simply as esoteric symbolism for the benefit of western consumption (for example, the misnomer Buddhist hell does not exist as a literal place but rather is an allegory for negative emotions).  There is no benefit to a Buddhism which has been cleansed or purged of its critical tenets, even for a sycophantic post-modern western audience.  Hanh’s approach is insidious because he effectively establishes himself as the arbitrator of canonical doctrine, which he then can attenuate to the perceived needs and requirements of his followers.  This is a slippery slope (and accounts for Pope Benedict XVI’s recent statement that Buddhism is “autoerotic”).  Who among Hanh’s audience would make the literal acceptance of the six realms part of their daily practice and affirmations as Christians do (to varying degrees) with the concept of hell, purgatory, sin and atonement?  How many Western Buddhists practice their faith spurred with the fear of being reincarnated upon their death as an animal, or a hungry ghost?  How many Western Buddhists prepare themselves for their entry into the bardo/antarabhāva upon their upon their death?  One cannot lead an enriched spiritual life if it is devoid of eschatology or punishment for wrongdoing.  This same thinking has fueled everything from pogroms to massacres such as the ones that occurred within culturally Buddhist Cambodia.

IV.  Noble Truths

Dreyfus’ proposal regarding the proper understanding of the Four Noble Truths also is incorrect.  Fundamental tenets of Buddhism, they are Dukkha (the nature of suffering); Dukkha Samudaya (suffering’s origin); Dukkha Nirodha (suffering’s cessation); and Dukkha Nirodha Gamini Patipada Magga) (the path).  The latter three necessarily issue from the first.  They are conditional – not independently, individually authoritative.  Each is a clarification of and an elaboration on its immediate predecessor.  All ultimately are contingent upon the plausibility and sustainability of the First Noble Truth (Dukkha).  The west does not require the concept of Dukkha just like persons in East Asia do not need a Christian concept like original sin or transubstantiation.  Proclaiming the Four Noble Truths to be axiomatic to the human condition no different from affixing the same appelation to the Ten Commandments or the seven deadly sins.

The doctrine of Pratītyasamutpāda, which Dreyfus cites, also is culture-bound.  Like Dukkha it is not apriori or universally axiomatic in the way physics and chemistry are.

To elaborate this contast, compare the Buddhist notion of suffering with that of the Catholic Church.  In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, within which the Middle Way, the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths are elucidated, the Four Noble Truths are described as statements on the nature, origin, ending and the path leading to the ending of suffering.  Suffering’s end, dukkhanirodho, explicitly is described as the Third Noble Truth of the four.

For the Christian, on the other hand, suffering is not something that needs to be overcome.  In his 1984 apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II wrote:

“With these and similar words the witnesses of the New Covenant speak of the greatness of the Redemption, accomplished through the suffering of Christ.  The Redeemer suffered in place of man and for man.  Every man has his own share in the Redemption.  Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished.  He is called to share in that suffering through which all human suffering has also been redeemed. In bringing about the Redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human suffering to the level of the Redemption.  Thus each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.”

The Four Noble Truths were formulated and adopted by a specific culture to cope with suffering.  They lack the universality Dreyfus claims for them.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition suffering is an indispensable component of life.  Rather than to be fled from it is to be embraced.

V.  Zazen

It is bold to claim a specific ethno-cultural practice is useful outside of and separate from the broader ethno-cultural framework from within which it arose.  Oriental cultures, for example, have strived mightily to acquire and utilize Western industrial technology (such as the Internet).  Simultaneously their rulers show no desire for their populace to succumb, by their implementation, to the runaway westernization of morals, attitudes and social fabric.  They want to incorporate the material and procedural artifacts from a foreign culture (the west) while simultaneously attempting to preserve those of their own indigenous culture.

The Buddhist practice of zazen is a good example.  Proponents such as Hanh have aggressively promoted it in the west as a kind of “spiritual technology.”  Like an Apple iPhone or an Amazon Kindle it can be used by anyone, anywhere, regardless of their individual background or beliefs.  Zazen also has infiltrated the academy.  Considerable peer-reviewed and entirely credentialed research has shown its practice alters the brainwaves of long-time practitioners and at least calms the nervous systems of everybody else.  Given these benefits, what possibly could be wrong with it?

The answer is that it is disingenuous to divest a specific ethno-cultural practice from the specific ethno-cultural environment from which it emerged – particularly, the motivation behind the practice.  There is a significant sense in which non-western Buddhists simply have fallen prey to an effective marketing gimmick.  Not only can they elide suffering but they might live forever, at least in some form.  Disaffiliating themselves from religion (in the sense of the Judeo-Christian tradition), new-age Buddhism excessively exalts an eschatology whereby normal human beings like you and me can attain a state of rarefied gurudom.  This is a form of reverse cultural imperialism.  The Judeo-Christian tradition is particularly vulnerable to rituals and traditions, which purport transcend one’s individual life and promise it will endure after one’s inevitable passing.  Reverse cultural imperialism also carries with it the significant risk of misunderstandings arising out of misalignment of practices.  This is evidenced by the collisions and collusions surrounding “masters”  like Taizan Maezumi, Chogyam Trungpa and Richard Baker.

While Buddhism is 2,500 years old the practice of zazen among the laity is of relatively recent origin.  It was encouraged by the antinomian Japanese philosopher Eihei Dogen during the 13th century.  It was transplanted to North America in the 1950s with Shunryu Suzuki’s arrival in San Francisco to minister to the Japanese-American Buddhist community.  Perceiving an opportunity, Suzuki branched out to begin working with non-Japanese Americans, themselves the undirected product of the prevailing counter-cultural currents of the time.  It was a short step from this to the “human potential” movement of the 1960s and an even shorter one to the “mindfulness” movement of the 2000s.

Just to make sure I’m not being misunderstood, there is no question but that zazen is a venerable 2,500-year-old tradition.  It requires commendable commitment and dexterity from its genuine eastern practicioners who are embedded in its culture and points of reference.  This could not be more different however than the kind of faux-Buddhism practiced by post-structuralist westerners.

The transplantation of zazen also raises serious issues of cultural equity.  What about zazen makes it portable between the east and the west, but propitiating Hungry Ghosts/pretas is not?  Why should one practice bodhicitta but not worship the mummies of Chinese Chan abbots?  While every good western Buddhist can discourse on the Four Noble Truths, there is little emphasis on the cosmological impications of saṃsāra or karma, itself a concept that has become so detached from its Sanskrit origins as to be completely meaningless (as in, “you’ve got good karma, dude!”).  This is not designed as a rhetorical question.  Among ethnologists the practices of pretas, jikiniki and gaki are thoroughly ensconced within the indigenous ethno-cultural beliefs of ther host countries.  But zazen has been corrupted so it is more palatable to western cultural tastes.  What authority (other than sages such as Hanh) renders decisions on such matters of dogma?  Is zazen somehow “safer” for western consumption, where its inappropriate or unskillful consumption presents less risk of contamination to the exporting culture?

A second example of a culturally-specific practice inextricably tied to its theological counterpart is the Buddhist tradition of alms begging.  In Japan to this day it is considered essential for Buddhist monks to sally forth from their monasteries and beg for food and supplies from the surrounding lay community.  Far from being regarded as out of place, it is an established tradition.  In western culture on the other hand the nearest equivalent to alms-begging is being homeless.  Westerners feel no compulsion to dispense alms to peregrinating monks or to anybody else for that matter.  The closest equivalent in the Judeo-Christian tradition (as it presently exists) might be Catholic cenobites.  Their means of support traditionally has been through the manufacture and sale of products such as illuminated texts or alcohol.

Buddhist apologists might regard this omission of an integral cultural practice as a necessary compromise to adapting the faith to American norms.  At what point however does the dissection of a venerable 2,500-year-old practice result in an outcome that no longer is a faithful iteration of it?  It has become over-transformed to the point where the original (functional) practice has vanished.  It may be impractical for Buddhist monks to beg in western cities.  It is culturally oblivious to contend this is the only aspect of Buddhism that needs fall by the wayside.  Conversely it would be every bit as peculiar to attempt to import the Catholic practice of solemnly reciting the Pater Noster into an eastern culture.  It lacks any concept of a Judeo-Christian god whom the prayer is attempting to propitiate and is meaningless without that point-of-reference.

A third example is exporting the Islamic practice of salah, ritual ablutions and bowing towards the Ka’ba in Mecca five times a day.  Most westerners would find such practices to be disruptive.  Most westerners don’t know what the Ka’ba is, or for that matter the direction of Mecca.  They do not know the contours and geography of the desert, the sparsity of water, the long journeys by camel, the annealing of tribal loyalty in the face of overwhelming adversity, all of which resulted in the noble faith that Islam is today.  If told to do so, they might just bow five times a day and assume it simply was for the calisthenic pleasure of their exertions.

The same might be said to be true of many new-age yoga parlors.  Yoga studios take a specific practice of physical and mental discipline.  They divest it of the Hindu philosophy, which it utterly articulates and expresses.  The result is a spirited workout routine, requiring no more commitment than scheduling a time on one’s day-planner.  This model has proven to be extraordinarily successful.  But almost nobody is in a position to apprise you Karma Yoga was fully realized through the practices and life of Mahatma Ghandhi.  He was not at all interested in relaxing his hamstrings or perfecting the Warrior Pose/virabhadrasana.

Once ensconsed a quasi-adopted cultural practice is difficult to dislodge.  It assumes a life of its own, metamorphosizing in a way even its importers must find amazing.  It acquires an economic infrastructure.  Publishers have created an industry to purvey psychological-spiritual self-help books.  Authors enjoy lucrative traveling-lecture circuits.  The outcome of these marketing initiatives is a large population identifying itself as “spiritual” but not “religious.”

This deprives the notion of spirituality of any cognitive content.  Being spiritual doesn’t give one license to selectively sample revered tenets from different cultural traditions, each with a defined historic theology and jurisprudence, to create one’s own personal religious smorgasbord.  Theologians, preachers and ministers do not undergo the travails of faith and circumspection only to end up with pablum.  Far better for one to have an institutional relationship with an established traditional religion than to be a post-modern dilettante, adrift in a sea of competing pop-spiritualities – a condition Jürgen Habermas accurately and succinctly defined as “post-modern chatter.”

There is not an unmet need in western culture for zazen to fill, which our existing cultural institutions has not historically assuaged.  There is no unrequited yearning for the heavily manufactured “Big Mind” technique of Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi, which even many American Zen Masters and practitioners consider to be caricaturesque in its artificiality.  There is no perpetual state of absence or unrequited longing.  Western civilization has done well for itself before the introduction of Buddhism.  It has been potent enough to emerge from history as the present global hegemon, however tenuously it currently holds that title.  It even won a world war against a Buddhist aggressor (Japan).

VI.  Conclusion

Buddhism (like Christianity and Islam) styles itself as a universal religion which, can be practiced by anyone, anywhere in the world.  In contrast to Judaism and Hinduism, all three have missionary traditions.  The main issue I have raised in this note is why the Judeo-Christian tradition requires elements from a specific cultural tradition arising around the same time on the border of Nepal, when it already possesses cultural traditions of its own.  If the Judeo-Christian tradition is unsatisfactory for some reason, then it should regress back to its Norse/Celtic/Hellenic/Roman paganism origins as an alternative.  There is no reason why it should redirect itself towards foreign cultures with values that, in certain cases, completely are antithetical.  There is no point to exchanging one universal religion (Christianity) for another (Buddhism).

The real issue is not “universalism A” (Christianity) versus “universalism B” (Buddhism) but rather the tension between universalism and spatio-temporally specific folkloric traditions.  The occidental heritage has plenty of esoteric and exoteric, orthodoxic and orthopraxic, literal and symbolic imagery to offer a passionate seeker, than do murky forays into incompatible thought structures.  They are not complementary to our zeitgeist, our mode of being-in-the-world.  Before we look abroad to Buddhism for answers to questions like “why is there suffering” we would do well to examine more fully our own known (and lesser-known) cultural traditions for coping with it.

Recommended Reading

Richmond, Ivan (2003).  Silence and noise: Growing up Zen in America.

Downing, Michael (2002).  Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center.

Victoria, Daizen (2003).  Zen War Stories.

Victoria, Daizen (2006).  Zen at War.

I became interested in how it might be possible to implement the philosophy of the drum circle in the context of small group psychology.  I also had several other objectives.  I wanted to synchronize the rhythm to the beating of the human heart, which is the most primordial, fundamental rhythm of human life.  I wanted to devise a method whereby individuals could become aware of their own beat; evaluate how it varied from that of the group; and then attempt to calibrate it back to that standard.  I wanted to introduce an element of discernment into the process, that is, becoming aware of small divisions of time.  I wanted the participants to become more mindful.  But I also wanted for it to be possible for learning to take place, which occurs when the individual acquires the skill to undertake these tasks successfully, and be aware that she/he is doing so.  I wanted the participants to become more mindful.

To bring this about a studio where I occasionally produce records and conduct other musical experiments acquired several dozen older-vintage drum machines of the type that used to be affixed to combo organs sold in shopping malls (at least that’s my recollection of their primary mode of being).  These offer a variety of enticing rhythms such as “waltz,” “fox trot,” “rumba,” “cha-cha” and my favorite, “60s go-go beat.”  They typically offer a rude, analog sound, which is selected by pushing a preset button.  Tempo is controlled by a dial with differing gradients of accuracy.

It is not possible to synchronize the timing of this generation of drum machines except by turning the dial.  It is not possible to get two machines into perfect synch; invariably they will drift over time.  The drum machines either overshoot or undershoot each other.  It is possible for the operators to keep trying to get in synch, but they only ever will approximate doing so.  [There is a wonderful device, no longer in production, called the “Russian Dragon” – rushin’, draggin’ – which gives a visual indication of when two machines are in synch.]

Later generations of drum machines became synchronizable, first with a timing reference called DIN-synch; and then with MIDI.  They became capable of triggering oscillators, envelopes and filters.  They evolved to using digital samples instead of analog waveforms.  While these drum machines are very interesting and useful they lack the visceral primitive qualities of their earliest predecessors, some of which actually qualify as electronic antiques.

I performed all of the interconnections necessary to power and amplify 12 of these devices – two for each member of the six-person group.  I then also connected to the sound-system a CD I had sampled and looped, which reproduced the audio of a beating human heart.

This lead to a series of interesting outcomes.  As participants drifted on and off beat they became aware of their separate identities.  They devised an active intention to get back in synch, which required them to reorient themselves towards the group.  They acclimated themselves to the dynamic of the group as they observed the predicament of others involved in similar calibration activities.  They acquired expertise as they became progressively more adept at manipulating the tempo control of their individual machine to accomplish this outcome.  They became adventuresome as they shifted into a different rhythm, which in turn introduced a new variable and destabilized the process of staying on synch.  They became sensitive to the beating of the (prerecorded) human heart.  While I can’t say for sure it’s likely that, over time, their own human hearts became synchronized to the rhythm established by the group (using the audio recording of the heart as a point of reference).

The experiment lasted about an hour.  During this period the participants achieved the experimental objective of “losing track” of clock time and becoming more mindful of the “reorganized time” supplied by the group.  No participant believed they had participated for more than say half its actual duration.  As we discussed the exercise after it was over, all participants averred they experienced a greater sense of felt connection with the other members of the group.  They had participated in something generative and primordial.

The heart-beat reference was crucial to achieving this objective.  Unlike an arbitrary timing reference (e.g. a metronome, the instructions of a leader, or simple anarchy with each person doing what they felt like doing) it is grounded in a basic environmental experience of human existence.

I have a theory, which is that ecological timing references are an important element of what’s involved in being-in-the-world.  Real-world timing references include the rising and setting of the sun; the earth’s rotation; the revolution of the earth around the sun; the phenomenon of precession; and others.  These in turn became ecological pivot-points for spiritual practices such as those set forth in the Book of Hours and other daily liturgies based on the passage of time.  In the Catholic Church these include lauds (dawn prayer); prime or early morning prayer; terce or mid-morning prayer; sext or mid-day prayer; none or mid-afternoon prayer; vespers or evening prayer; and compline or night prayer.  Islam’s requirement for prayer five times a day has a similar structure.  Significantly the time for the performance of these rites is not fixed by clock.  Rather it varies with the earth-imposed constraints.  We do not impose our will on the world.  Rather (metaphorically) it imposes its will on us.

Assignment

… Each student shall engage in an ethnic or cultural experience where the student will be in the minority or be exposed to items unfamiliar to his/her every day life. … After attending, write up a summary as to what you expected before you went; what surprised you; what did not; did anything make you feel uncomfortable; etc. The key is to look at the experience as a social psychology experiment with you as the subject and have some fun exposing yourself to something you might not if not for this assignment.

Attendance at the Al-Tawheed Mosque

A. Background

As far as religious beliefs go it is my view people should adopt the religion of their place of origin. It is absurd to think that Zulus should worship Buddha or that people from Asian culture should be Christians. My people originated in Friesenland, which is an area on the Holland-German border by the North Sea. The god of the Friesens was Forseti, which is old Norse for “the presiding one.” Forseti lived on a small island off the coast of Friesenland called Heyligeland (or “holy land”), where the Friesens conducted primitive rites. Friesens were the only Germanic tribe named by the Roman historian Tacitus, which is why we still know they existed. Beowulf also mentions Friesia. Tacitus stated: “The Germans [by which he meant predominantly the Friesens], however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which they see only in spiritual worship.” This makes them sound like latter-day pantheists. Not much else is known today about pre-Christian Friesen theology, other than it also probably included the popular pastimes of sacking, plundering and pillaging.

St. Willibrord, a Northumbrian missionary (also known as the “Apostle to the Frisians”) introduced the Friesens to Christianity around 695 CE. His efforts seemingly were in vain as in 716 CE the pagan Radbod, king of the Friesens, retook possession of Friesia, burning churches and killing Christian missionaries. Etymologically my last name (“Kronemyer”) derives from “Kronemeijer,” which is old Dutch for “assistant to the King,” so it is likely this is the capacity in which we served. In 782 CE Charlemagne ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxon leaders by the river Aller for continuing to practice their indigenous paganism, which pretty much eviscerated the local political infrastructure.

Whatever the Friesen’s beliefs were, they expired many years ago. It is not clear they even would be intelligible in contemporary terms. [Although interesting of all the ancient European languages Friesen bears the most orthographic resemblance to English, which hypothetically could have been a facilitator of cross-cultural comprehension.] The world of the ancient Greeks, for example, was defined by heroes and commoners. By the time of Dante this template had changed to saints and sinners. The Homeric concept of hero would be incomprehensible to Dante, just like Dante’s concept of sinner would be incomprehensible to Homer. Christianity initially was an amalgamation of the mature religion of the archaic Israelites and Platonic concepts derived from the ancient Greeks. Beginning most likely with the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE there came a time when it became the dominant theology of Europe, supplanting its predecessors. The Judeo-Christian tradition, which is the hallmark of Western culture, stems from these events.

Rome fell in 476 CE from barbarian invasions. The Christian tradition remained active in outlying areas and due primarily to political considerations consolidated around 800 CE into what became the Holy Roman Empire. In the meanwhile a separate Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition remained active in Constantinople. Ironically one of the most significant events for Christendom was the birth of the prophet Muhammed in 570 CE. In a short while Islam became the dominant religion of the near east and over time it became consolidated into the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453 CE. It almost conquered Vienna in 1529 CE. Had the Ottoman Empire conquered Vienna it is likely Islam would have become the dominant religion of Western Europe. [Though Islam now accretes in Western Europe achieving gains it never would have been able to achieve by head-on confrontation; for example 10% of the population of France now is Muslim.] The conflict between the Habsburg Monarchy (essentially the successor to the Holy Roman Empire) and the Ottoman Empire was not resolved until WWI.

B. My Personal Religious Beliefs

I attend Catholic church. I am not a practicing Catholic and do not participate in most of its rituals, e.g., profession of faith or communion. I believe in the existence of Jesus as an historical personage; that he was the leader of a rebellious Israelite religious sect; that he most likely was crucified, as was the custom of the day when dealing with insurrectionists; and that he had humanitarian views that were distinctly different from those of his contemporary culture. I cannot however accept the truth of any the miracles attributed to him; nor do I believe he was born of a virgin; nor do I believe he was resurrected from the dead. I definitely believe there is a God understood as a transcendent deity.

Having asserted these propositions, and despite my views on adopting the religion of one’s place of origin, I also believe it is most appropriate from an historico-theological standpoint for one to be religious according to the dominant theology of one’s time (in my case, particularly given the absence of any active Friesenland religious traditions). Like Dostoyevsky (and Thomas Jefferson) I believe in the Western religious tradition mainly because it is the religion of the people and the times, and further that it is appropriate to believe in it if only for this reason.

C. Islam and Orientalism

Curiously despite my interest in these matters I never have attended a religious service at an Islamic mosque. In addition to Judaism and Christianity Islam is one of the three great Abrahamic religions. [Before he had Isaac with Sara, Abraham had Ishmael with Hagar. According to the Bible Ishmael was expelled and went on to become the founding patriarch of the northern Arab people where Islam first took root.] Muslim culture is topical given the rise of Islamic fundamentalism; as expressed by Reza Aslan in his 2006 book No god but God, the similarities and dissonances between the monotheistic religious traditions is the main cause of the cultural clashes that have polarized modern society. Initially I was concerned that my interest in this assignment was a form of orientalism. As defined in the eponymous 1978 book by Edward Said, “orientalism” is Western culture’s tendency to characterize and romanticize Middle Eastern (primarily Islamic) thinking. I vowed however to rid my mind of preconceptions to the fullest extent possible and remain open to the possibilities presented by a different, coherent, internally-consistent worldview.

D. My Experience at the Mosque

Through a friend I made arrangements to attend the Al-Tawheed mosque in Westwood. I attended on Friday July 10, 2009 at noon. Prayer is one of the central tenets of Islam. Islam requires its adherents to pray five times a day. Friday noon is a traditional time for gathering and community prayer, otherwise devotees pray in situ wherever they might be. In comparison, while most Catholic churches offer an early-morning mass every day, the predominant focus is on Sunday mass.

A mosque is a place of worship roughly synonymous with a church or synagogue. It predominantly is a location where prayer takes place. Many mosques have prohibitions against non-Muslims from attending; this one did not (although I did feel vaguely uncomfortable and that I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb). Spatially the mosque only barely resembles the temple, the church or the cathedral. There are no pews. No images are allowed in mosques (unlike Christian churches with baroque and unsettling images of the crucified Jesus). Genders are separated during the course of the service.

Catholicism follows a prescribed and lengthy order of worship, comprising readings, prayers, a homily, and the Ceremony of the Eucharist. What goes on in the mosque is briefer and more to the point. The focus is on prayer. Prayers are led by an Imam. Although their religious roles and standing are different, the Imam is the rough equivalent of a rabbi, priest or minister. The service begins with praise to Allah. There is an invocation of blessings on the prophet Muhammad. There is a recitation of passages from the Qur’ân. The Imam makes a short and non-controversial statement. Prayer is ritualistic and accompanied by certain bodily movements, including kneeling on the floor.

Ethnographically most of the attendees were of Iranian descent. [The common place-name for this part of Westwood is “Tehrangeles.”]. From a socio-cultural standpoint Iran is a modern and highly sophisticated society. Iran’s modern history dates from 1921, which is when Shah Pahlavi’s father came to power, unifying the country, which had disintegrated into warring tribal factions much like Afghanistan today. Pahlavi himself ascended the Peacock Throne (as it is called) during WWII. While he modernized the country he also was seen to be under control of the major oil cartels. Khomeini led the Islamic revolution in 1979. While the rise of Islamic fundamentalism played a role it also was precipitated by economic factors such as regaining control of oil production. A key pivot point in Iran’s relationship with the West was the Iran hostage crisis, which did not end until Reagan became the U.S. President. A second key pivot point is the Iran – Iraq war, which also can be seen in terms of Shia – Sunni conflict, an historical rift in Islam. One of Khomeini’s objectives was to eradicate the upper class. This comprised: people associated with Pahlavi (government and military); professionals; educated people; and people with money (merchant class). This program was popular with everybody else who long had been suppressed and lived in endemic poverty.

In economic terms Khomeni’s success can be seen in Marxist terms, not necessarily religious ones. People in jeopardy got out as fast as they could, depending upon their individual circumstances. The first wave lead to a second and then a third as more people realized they had to leave in order to survive. Many of them moved to large cities, Los Angeles in particular.

E. Conclusions

I did not expect to find a hot bed of sword-waving Jihadists or incipient suicide bombers with plastic explosives strapped to their belts. I did however expect to find people who were more pious and devout than what one might typically find in West Los Angeles, more generally known for its sybaritic if not sinful tendencies. Although it might sound like a cliché, I was surprised to find people who were not that much different than myself. It no longer was clear to me they could be divided into a distinct ethnic group; the very attempt to do so is an exercise in dehumanization.

It also occurred to me that one of the key universal themes of the Iranian diaspora is the homelessness experienced by émigrés – people who have been uprooted and forced out of their country. They are exiles, strangers or foreigners in a new country. They have had to start over, frequently taking occupations or accepting social status much inferior to their former ones. They have adopted strategies to assimilate while at the same time retaining a cultural identity. The key antinomy is: emigration – assimilation. In this sense the story of Iranian emigration is like that experienced by other groups in American history (Irish in the 19^th century, Vietnamese following the fall of Saigon, current Hispanic). Completion of this assignment helped me better understand this dynamic.

The Codex Gigas is a medieval manuscript containing a version of the Bible and various other then-current tracts. It is most notable for its large depiction of the devil:

The primary motor cortex is a region of the brain that is controls muscles and executes movements when given a brain command to do so. Different parts of it correspond to different functional areas of activity. It typically is depicted as a “homunculus” or “little man.” It is not to scale in the sense that some areas of the body (such as the hands) require more refined muscle control than others. They are assigned a correspondingly greater area of the primary motor cortex. There is of course no actual homunculus inside of the brain that is directing motor activity. Rather it is a representation of how the various parts of the primary motor cortex are assigned to separate muscle groups. Here is a picture of how this looks:

It occurred to me how much the depiction of the devil in the codex resembled that of the homunculus in modern neuroanatomy. Perhaps our medieval counterparts had inadvertently stumbled onto something. Consider for example the maxim that “idle hands are the devil’s playground.” Given the close resemblance in the depiction of the hands perhaps this aphorism has some neurophysiological basis.

The Bible has various allusions to water.  In the Old Testament it is the primordial sea out of which God created the earth.  It is what Noah overcame during the great flood.  Jonah survived it after he was belched out of the whale.  In the New Testament Jesus is a fisher of men.  He performed a miracle with loaves and fishes.  Several of the disciples were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.  The fish was a symbol of the early Christian Church.  Baptism is immersion in water. 

These references are surprising since the Israelites were not a sea-going people, unlike the Phoenicians immediately to the west or the Greeks across the Mediterranean.  The preferred milieu of the Israelites was the desert.  The climate of the Levant is predominantly arid.  Abandoning the Nile, Moses led his people across the desert for 40 years.  Jesus ventured into the desert where Satan tempted him for 40 days and 40 nights.

This antinomy between ocean and desert is suggestive.  The ocean is fecund, full of life.  The desert on the other hand is barren and desolate.  Perhaps the Israelites yearned for water as a normative inversion growing out of their foundational nomadic experience.

Sophia Kishkovsky wrote an interesting article in today’s New York Times, “With Orthodoxy’s Revival in Russia, Religious Media Also Rise.”  She states: “After 70 years of state-imposed atheism and 20 years that have run the gamut from glasnost to post-Soviet chaos to a revival of Russian pride, Russians have increasingly embraced their Orthodox roots.”

The article’s primary focus is the role of the media in stimulating a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Any discussion of its role implicates broader issues unique to the Russian sensibility.  I am thinking here in particular about the closing pages of Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and Andrei Tarkovsky’s film “Stalker” (“Сталкер”).

A.            Brothers Karamazov

The schoolboys initially detested Illyusha.  They threw rocks at him.  Alyosha intervened.  Ungrateful, Illyusha bit Alyosha’s finger.  Gradually however the schoolboys and Illyusha became reconciled.  Illyusha (who was sickly) perishes.  Alyosha delivers a moving speech by a rock.  Alyosha admonishes the boys to remember Illyusha and their friendship together.  Their pact is charged with an additional element, which is their simultaneous, self-aware knowledge that they are entering into it.  Dostoyevsky intends an analogy to the formation of the early Christian church and Jesus’ hand-off to Peter – a lineage that (in principle) has continued unbroken to Pope Benedict XVI.

In his monumental treatise A History of Russian Literature D. S. Mirsky parses these events.  “Russian educated society must be redeemed by a renewal of contact with the people, and by an acceptance of the people’s religious ideals – that is to say, of Orthodoxy.”  Dostoyevsky’s religion “is Orthodoxy because it is the religion of the Russian people, whose mission it is to redeem the world by a reassertion of the Christian faith” (emphasis in original). 

Dostoyevsky believed that a state-sponsored secular religion (such as socialism) was inherently improbable.  Alternatively he proposed a religious state with secular overtones.  With its rejection of mysticism and its focus on community the Russian Orthodox Church was the ideal template for this endeavor. 

Dostoyevsky would have been in complete disagreement with contemporary theorists such as Robert Bellah who have proposed a “secular religion.”  Dostoyevsky advocates a “religious secularism.”  Alyosha left the monastery at Zosima’s urging to pursue a life in the world.  He never, however, abandoned his cenobitic leanings.  A proposed but never-written second volume of the Brothers Karamazov would have followed Alyosha’s subsequent career to foster this ideal.  

Modern Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran provide an interesting illustration of Dostoyevsky’s concept.  They attempt to reconcile the competing impulses of secularism and theology.  They strive to implement Western technology without losing sight of their fundamental religious values.

B.            “Stalker”

“Stalker” presents a second illustration of this deep-rooted aspect of the Slavic character.  Although we are unsure of its provenance, the Zone (“Зоне”) a real place.  The Stalker (played by Alexander Kaidanovsky) traverses it along with the Writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn) and the Professor (Nikolai Grinko).  Their journey also is real.  Its objective is to reach a “room” where one’s deepest unconscious desire becomes realized.

In fact there is no such room, or the protagonists abandon the thought of entering it just when they are on the verge of doing so.  It might be a figment of the Stalker’s imagination.  More likely it is a social delusion.  The Stalker actually believes there is such a place, as do the Writer and the Professor.  Regardless of whether it actually exists, the mythos of the room serves its purpose.  The Writer becomes inspired.  The Professor comes to understand technology’s insidious potency.

The problem with the room is that it raises expectations.  For this reason the Zone’s borders are zealously patrolled.  The State (or even human culture and convention) must guard against the possibility of hope becoming something more than the absence of despair.  In this respect we all live in the Zone.  The Stalker is our guide as we attempt to reconcile our conflicting impulses.  He is Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor personified.  As he tells his wife (Alisa Freindlich), if one believes in the existence of the room then its powers are real.

“Stalker” also illustrates the conflict between technology and nature.  The city bordering the Zone is devoid of nature.  It is an industrial slum.  Train tracks are built on top of dirt.  It is filmed in dismal sepia tones.  The Zone on the other hand is devoid of technology.  It is a reliquary of the natural world.  It is a primordial place covered in moss and water.  It is lush, pastoral, verdant.  It is filmed in beautiful color photography.  While it is primordial, it is not a wilderness.  It is a repository of abandoned precipitates of human culture – a world permanently frozen in time.  Dirt encrusts these artifacts (buildings, tunnels, abandoned gears, syringes, pieces of paper, religious icons).  Culture is built on top of nature but then nature overwhelms it.  Culture inexorably decays.  The Zone is a world permanently frozen in time (just as natural processes now have overtaken Chernobyl, which is an eerie fulfillment of Tarkovsky’s vision).  It is a snap-shot of ecology’s ultimate triumph over material culture and the futility of purposeful human endeavor.  It’s all we have even as it ultimately constrains us.  The Stalker’s wanderings through the Zone are non-linear, seemingly random.  We all are wanderers through the world in which we live.

[Thanks to Andrew Kronemyer for comments.]

On November 9^th the Catholic Church celebrated the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome.  The Lateran Basilica is the Pope’s cathedral – surprisingly, not St. Peters.  It is odd to have a special mass celebrating the Lateran Basilica.  As the service progressed, it became clear the Basilica was an analogy about Christ (Christ’s body), and how is body really is the true church.  At John 2:13 – 22 Jesus clears the sacrifice-vendors and money-lenders out of the temple.  They asked, “how can you prove your authority to do all of this?”  He responded, “destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”  They said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”  John continues: “But the temple he had spoken of was his body.”

While this is a good ending it is conceptually incongruous to base one of Christianity’s important narratives on something as flimsy as a physical structure.  Buildings are prone to decay and destruction.  While some medieval cathedrals survive, as do the pyramids at Giza, they are the exception.  St. Peters has been rebuilt several times.  Buildings are transitory.  There is a huge gulf between the temporal and the eternal.

Buildings can direct people’s attention.  In “The Origin of the Work of Art,” for example, Martin Heidegger postulates that the ancient Greeks were focused around the temple.  This gave their culture coherency and purpose.  Heidegger’s interesting observation flounders on several grounds, most notably the empirical fact that there only were a dozen or so Greek temples in the classic mode he envisions.  Strangely Heidegger does not mention the temple of the archaic Israelites – the very one Jesus entered and then purported to transcend.  Perhaps it was too close to the ontotheology Heidegger later went on to condemn.  But, then, so were the ancient Greeks.  They are every bit as foundational to the Judeo-Christian Tradition as the archaic Israelites.  Much of the New Testament, particularly as distilled by John and Paul, is a rendering of ancient Greek concepts into Israelite theological terms. 

If he wanted to be more consistent with his other work, Heidegger should have focused on the nature of the Greek temple as an object.  A temple is more of a tool or an item of equipment than an ordinary thing, in that worshippers use it to achieve a certain result (reverence towards a deity).  In fact this is one of the key features distinguishing religious relics (as things) from ordinary works of art.  Icons can be works of art, but (if properly deployed) become transparent to activity.  They are different than objects per se because they can be used for human purposes, not simply regarded.  Things promote a separation of self and world, which the believer wants to collapse or eradicate.  It would have been nice if Heidegger simply came out and said this rather than indulging in his usual obfuscatory prose.

Things also present a real problem for contemporary eelymosynary giving.  Too often it is based on the concept of structures, not useful activity.  People who donate to art museums and medical institutions want their names on buildings, laboratories, or even seats at concert halls.  They insist on dedicating performances to themselves.  “This lavatory brought to you by Joe the Plumber.”  Art museums themselves are collections of things.  Often donors are not particularly interested in undertaking useful works, such as opening artistic exhibitions to the public for their delectation, enjoyment and betterment, or curing intractable diseases.  Like the Lateran Basilica, buildings are objects.  This is exactly backwards.

Ms. Wilkinson quotes Msgr. Gianfranco Girotti, a senior Vatican official. “If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has an impact and resonance that is above all social.” Glosses Ms. Wilkinson: “In this age of expanding globalization, the Vatican is telling followers that sin is not just an individual act but can also be a transgression against the larger community.”

This new proclamation from the Vatican is disturbing, because it conflates the Archaic Hebrews with the Early Christians. The whole point of Judaism is that one has to “obey the law,” regardless of what one thinks. Among other places, this was reiterated at the Ten Commandments, which are a series of social injunctions (“Thou shalt not,” etc.). In this respect, Judaism is much like Islam. The emphasis is on the welfare of the tribe, not on that of individuals.

Jesus, on the other hand, was the exact reverse. He said, in effect, “It doesn’t matter if you flout social convention, so long as your heart is pure.” See, e.g., the Sermon on the Mount; and the story of Lazarus (John 11: 41-44), where Jesus did right by raising the poor guy from the dead. He did so, though, on a Saturday. He thus broke the law, which forbade any kind of “work” on the Sabbath. By “breaking the law,” he “transgressed against the larger community” – much to the displeasure of the Pharisees.

The concept of “sin,” in fact, arises only from the notion of “self” that Jesus (and his interpreters, such as Paul) devised. There cannot be “sin” without a “self” who is “sinning.” Compare tribal communities such as the Ancient Greeks, where Menelaus was happy to get Helen back, even after her decades-long tryst with Paris. She still was “peerless among women.” She had not “sinned,” and could not have sinned in principle, because she had no “self” to do the sinning.

The Vatican’s new pronouncement also has disturbing (and inconsistent) implications for the Sacrament of Confession. Confession is supported by related doctrines such as atonement, restitution, penance and absolution. These, however, are concepts of “self,” not of “community.” They are based on Adam’s “original sin,” for which Jesus atoned. He could do so, because he not only was the Son of God, but also a man. Why bother with this, if one simply is following the law?

Far be it from me to urge the Vatican to reconsider its theological pronouncements. This one, however, seems somewhat dubious.