Pedestals

April 2, 2019

It is endlessly fascinating to me how creative we humans are in finding ways to exalt other people or ideas above ourselves. Celebrities, sports heroes, politicians, or religious figures can take on a prominence in our imaginations that supersedes the value of our own identity or self worth.

The tendency to place other beings upon pedestals of reverence was reiterated for me today as I received another email from my friend Karen in continuation of a conversation we began earlier in reference to my March 30 essay, Making Peace (below). In that essay, I had quoted extensively from a book excerpt from Ajahn Sumedho, a Buddhist monk, an excerpt that Karen had kindly shared with me and other members of our meditation group. While finding the quote insightful and wise, I had questioned some aspects of his teaching, prompting a gentle rebuke from Karen: “When I receive a teaching from a teacher of this caliber, I don’t feel it is my place to disagree. It is to be contemplated, chewed thoroughly over time, and digested. Practiced. I may not always like what I hear coming from the mouths of my esteemed teachers, or the suttas (sutras, or teachings). Sometimes the teachings make me uncomfortable, but so be it. The teachings are not meant for us to like or not like, but to lead us to real freedom.”

Now, in fairness to Karen, in a subsequent email she walked back that mild admonishment, clarifying that “I guess I do feel strongly that the teachings and practice sink to a deeper level than our (or I should say my) cognitive sphere, but as the …email I forwarded this morning says, there is more than one way to practice. It all has to be worked out individually.”

Even so, I felt a need to explain to her why I feel so ardently about my need to question authority: “I don’t share your absolute faith in the Thai forest monks, but I do respect them, and am always willing to hear what they have to say…However, allow me to share with you why my perspective is different than yours on the question of allegiance to any religious tradition. As you know, I spent 15 years following the Japanese Buddhist traditions of Nichiren Shoshu (priesthood) and Soka Gakkai International (lay organization). These organizations were once in lockstep with one another, but since I left them in 1984 they have diverged and are now bitter rivals. What they both had (and still have) in common is the expectation of unquestioning loyalty to their dogmas and to their respective leaders (the High Priest and the SGI president). I personally encountered verbal abuse for daring to question their orthodoxies. To me it is a sign of a personality or religious cult when a priest/lay leader/monk cannot be questioned. I refuse to put any religious authority on a pedestal. That is why I will not bow down to a statue of the Buddha or to a monk, after literally and figuratively having done so for years. I don’t object to you or others in our group bowing down to the Buddha statue, nor do I have a problem with your reverence for the various ajahns (teachers). I agree with you that ‘the teachings and practice sink to a deeper level than our cognitive sphere,’ which is why I’m willing to question not only their teachings but my response to those teachings. I question everything and everyone, including myself. It’s part of my learning process. But I will no longer give my power away to the Buddha or Jesus or a monk by believing that their buddha nature is superior to mine. I trust the Law and not the Person. If a monk offers a teaching that rings true to me, I’ll attempt to practice it. But as you said, it all has to be worked out individually.”

So I suppose that Karen and I are more or less in agreement about the need to honor one’s own individual path. But given the hard lessons I had to learn about the pitfalls of idealizing glorified gurus, I’m probably more reluctant to exalt leaders with halos over their heads.

Having said that, I still have my heroes: Abraham Lincoln, Cochise and Tom Jeffords, Crazy Horse, my dad, and others. Flawed beings, all. I respect and appreciate them, but don’t idolize them. If there’s any being I revere, it would have to be the source energy of love and kindness within each one of us. Whatever that is. And conveniently, it’s invisible, so I can’t find fault with it.

In Love I Trust.