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The real question is to what extent within ordinary life we can wake up to the essential inner struggle of realizing the fullness of life.
[Cont. from page 2] ...
JL: Besides the imagery of warfare, some people have compared spiritual discipline to athletic training. There is the talk, for instance, about becoming an athlete of Christ.
BD: Both the athletic imagery and that of spiritual weaponry occur in St. Paul, but the weapons he speaks of are faith, hope, and love. I am convinced that in the present world, in which peace and order are no longer possible through arms, it is best to change our spiritual vocabulary, because misunderstandings do arise on the popular level. I am much more comfortable with speaking about spiritual struggle, since that does not necessarily involve struggling against someone else. You can struggle up a mountain, or struggle to get your body in shape. It even applies to animals: a chick struggling to get out of the eggshell. Plants struggle to break through cracks in the concrete, and amazingly they manage to. And similarly, I prefer to speak of obstacles rather than enemies. The struggle against obstacles, I think, puts the essentials of the tradition of spiritual warfare into contemporary language that is proper and helpful.
JL: Do you think the spiritual path demands a special way of life?
BD: If by a special way of life, you mean a special place like a monastery, I would say no. But if the question implies making an effort, having to struggle, I would say yes. The difference between other animals around us and ourselves seems to be that dogs and cats and birds and other animals don’t have to struggle to be good at what they are. But we human beings somehow have to struggle to become what we are.
JL: Our being is to become.
BD: Yes. We experience ourselves as unfinished, and we have to struggle to become a finished product. Actually, we’re never completely finished; that’s our glory and our agony. We remain open-ended.
JL: In contemporary Catholicism, and in the past as well, there seem to be two divergent paths: there seem to be two divergent paths: there is that of those who emphasize spirituality, spiritual disciplines and growth, and then there is the more general, popular path in which salvation is available through regular participation in the sacraments and the life of the church generally. The former way sees becoming a Christian as a lifelong task; the latter stresses fidelity to being a good Catholic. Can you say something about this?
BD: You speak of participating in the sacraments. At the heart of all the sacraments, especially the eucharist and baptism, is the celebration of the struggle of Christ through death to resurrection. If you really participate in the sacrament, it is impossible not to enter into that struggle. The whole idea of the sacrament is to go through that struggle yourself in communion with the struggle of Christ, to participate day by day and hour by hour in the struggle of dying into greater fullness of life. And the real issue is not whether there is one kind of life that allows for this acceptance of death that leads to fuller life, and so is a spiritual life rather than a run-of-the-mill life. No, the real question is to what extent within ordinary life we can wake up to the essential inner struggle of realizing the fullness of life. Going to church, sending your kids to Catholic schools, and so on, by themselves don’t do anything; they’re worthless, unless they lead you into, wake you up to that struggle.
JL: Since you participate in both the Christian and the Zen communities, do you think there is an ultimate difference between Christianity and Buddhism, and what kinds of differences do you see between the two?
BD: The point is, how ultimate is “ultimate”? There are many different levels. On one level there are great cultural differences: the two traditions grew up in entirely different settings, and so are dissimilar in many respects. But the moment that you penetrate through the accidental cultural differences, you find a remarkable similarity. Sometimes now I cannot remember if I’m in a Christian or a Buddhist monastery. The atmosphere is very similar. Then you go deeper still, and you discover profound differences in approach, although it’s difficult to put them into words. Basically, the Biblical tradition centers on the Word in the widest sense: the divine speaks to us, approaches us, and we have to respond; we’re burdened with responsibility.
JL: The Bible also emphasizes hearing over seeing.
BD: And the reason for the emphasis on hearing is the call to live by the word of God, being nourished by it, responding to it. In Zen the stress is not on the word, but on the silence—the silence that is so profound that you can go down into it forever and ever. Openness, emptiness, void—all this permeates Zen. Of course, in the Christian tradition, the Word comes out of the silence and returns to the silence. But despite the teaching of the dark night of the soul and the like, the Christian tradition still stays very close to the Word. Though there are lots of words in Buddhism, they aim at silence. After everything is said and done, the Zen teacher will say, “Ah yes, but what a pity that we have to say anything at all.” The saying doesn’t really effect anything; what I think might well be the deepest level, you can experience communion and unity between the traditions, the complementarity of the Word and the silence.