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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Prologue<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

My thinking about Buddhism and God goes back in some\nrespects to childhood. As the son of a Baptist minister, I remember sitting in\nchurch and just not understanding<\/em> the point of all this God talk. At the\nage of nine I refused to go to church any more, although after that I did make\nseveral attempts to re-engage with it. Perhaps I was trying to work out what\nthe point was. It seemed so unlikely that so many people would really devote\nthemselves so much to something that was so apparently tedious and pointless,\nso surely there was something I was missing behind it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a gap year between school and university, I thought I\nhad found God and at last understood what they were on about. I went to work on\na farm in a steep Norwegian valley, and had ecstatic experiences of my energies\nuniting in that landscape. I wrote lots of poetry. The experiences were genuine\nenough, but my over-hasty identification of those experiences with \u2018God\u2019 as\nother people understood him was something I later came to regret. At that point\nI had too little alternative vocabulary available to me, although I was\ndetermined to carry on exploring the spiritual landscape. I voraciously read\nbooks of literature and spirituality alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a student at Cambridge, I then encountered Buddhism. The\nBuddhists that I met did seem to have found something meaningful. I learned to\nmeditate, and was impressed by Buddhist enthusiasm for the arts and for new\nthinking about how to lead a meaningful human life. I began to call myself a\nBuddhist. However, after a while I began to encounter dogmatic beliefs there as\nwell. What did all this fuss about enlightenment, and this exaggerated\nreverence for teachers, actually have to do with the helpful practice I thought\nI had signed up to? My alienation from church services soon began to be\nrivalled by my alienation from Buddhist pujas. However, at the same time I also\nfound religion fascinating, and full of potential for human meaning and\ndevelopment. I studied the philosophy and anthropology of religion, and, for a\nwhile, became a Religious Studies teacher of 16-18 year old students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching Religious Studies readily reveals the tensions in\nwhat is at best a temporary truce between absolutism and relativism. On the one\nhand, there is a formal neutrality: one is not indoctrinating students into a\nparticular tradition, but helping them to understand it. On the other, however,\nsome of the teachers involved have strong dogmatic beliefs. To avoid conflict,\nReligious Studies can seem to teachers with such beliefs (including one of my\ncolleagues) to require them to cut them off and alienate them. I began to think\nabout the problems created by thinking about religion so much in terms of\nmutually exclusive, absolute beliefs, and about the ways that relativism failed\nto resolve these problems. It achieves little to just present students with a\nsmorgasbord of religious options, as though they were all equally \u2018valid\u2019. People\nneeded ways of benefitting from the insights of religious traditions without\nconstantly running into either absolutism or its attendant relativism, and\nrather to engage with what religion could offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, my experience of Buddhism suggested to me that\nthere might be a better way: the Middle Way. I decided to investigate the\nMiddle Way more closely, so as to find effective ways of resolving the clashes\nbetween different religious traditions. So, I embarked on a Ph.D. in Philosophy,\nin which I surveyed how the Middle Way could be applied to moral conflict\nthrough the history of Western Thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Middle Way, taught by the Buddha, is not a compromise,\nbut (as I ultimately concluded) a navigation between the opposing absolute\nassumptions of absolutism and relativism (or, indeed, between many other pairs\nof opposing absolutes). However, the potential helpfulness of this approach has\nbeen much obscured by the confusing ways that the Buddhist tradition has\ntransmitted it, taking specific examples of the ways that the Middle Way was\napplied in the Buddha\u2019s time to be the Middle Way as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After finishing my lengthy Ph.D. thesis on the Middle Way as\na basis of moral judgement, I realised that this was an unexplored approach,\nand that this would have to be only the beginning of the work I needed to do on\nit. Eighteen years later, I have written almost as many books on the topic as\nthe years elapsed. It has become a detailed, multi-disciplinary project drawing\non aspects of psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics as well as philosophy\nand religion. Although it started as an academic thesis, it has used thoroughly\npragmatic criteria throughout, and is intended ultimately as a tool of\npractice. However, most practitioners are not interested in reading detailed\nacademic work, which led me also to try to write introductions, and to found a\nsociety, the Middle Way Society, to support the practice as well as developing\nthe theory of the Middle Way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the term \u2018Middle Way\u2019, and its clearest application,\ncome from the Buddha, my work from the beginning has been based on its\nuniversality. It is a principle that is by no means restricted to \u2018Buddhist\u2019\ncontexts, and can be applied in any other context. At first, following this\nthrough has entailed some degree of distancing from Buddhism. I have had to\nsomewhat labour the point that the Middle Way does not have to be interpreted\nin ways that appeal to Buddhist tradition or its authority. Although for a\nwhile I have called myself a Buddhist and been the member of a Buddhist Order,\nI no longer have any such personal commitments. My personal commitment is to\nthe Middle Way, and that is not the same as Buddhism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, my emphasis until recently has been on establishing\nMiddle Way Philosophy as something separate from any one religious tradition. In\nrecent years, however, I have been through a process of looking back and\nre-engaging with the two religious traditions that have influenced me so much\n(Christianity and Buddhism). This was partly a way of balancing my own\nperspective, so as to be consistently positive as well as critical, and to\ndeepen my appreciation of what each tradition offered without in the least\naccepting any of the absolutism that might be found there. This has led me to\npublish a pair of books, \u2018The Christian Middle Way\u2019 and \u2018The Buddha\u2019s Middle\nWay\u2019. In each case, I wanted to apply the Middle Way to the tradition in an\nentirely pragmatic, integrative way, separating out the ways it could be\ninterpreted helpfully and unhelpfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another major recent influence must also be mentioned:\nJung\u2019s Red Book<\/em>. This extraordinary document, written and illustrated by\nJung as a record and reflection of a series of self-induced visions that he\nexperienced around the time of the First World War, was not published until\n2009. Studied carefully, it is as rich and rewarding as any religious scripture\n(and it resembles a religious scripture in style). However, unlike earlier\nreligious scriptures, it shows a constant awareness of the visionary\u2019s\nresponsibility for his visions. It is a record of Jung\u2019s encounters with a\nvariety of figures encountered in those visions, representing archetypes of\nGod, the hero, the anima (feminine) and the shadow (evil). It also records the\nprocess of his learning to engage with them with deep seriousness without\nprojecting them as in any sense \u2018supernatural\u2019 entities beyond himself. The Red\nBook<\/em> also discusses the Middle Way, quite explicitly in places. In relation\nto God, Jung\u2019s Middle Way is a navigation between both psychological and\nsupernatural kinds of reductionism. God cannot be reduced to a set of abstract\nbeliefs either way (there is no \u2018just\u2026\u2019 anywhere), but his full power lies in\nrecognising him as a full-blooded aspect of human experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the Jung of the Red Book<\/em> (not necessarily\nalways consistent with the later Jung), who has primarily inspired me with a\nsense of the importance of God, not as a supernatural ruler, creator or\nrevealer, but rather as an experience. I also feel no differently about\nBuddhism. Buddhism is also not helpfully seen as a set of revelations of truth from\nthe enlightened, but as a way of engaging with our experience and making\nappropriate judgements about it. Religious traditions themselves are thus far\nless important than how you choose to interpret them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I no longer identify myself either as a Christian or as a\nBuddhist, because, as things stand, accepting either label would be too great a\npotential source of misunderstanding. However, my appreciation of both\ntraditions has grown a good deal deeper as a result of the process of\nexploration and writing I have been through in the last few years. I was thus\nvery happy to accept the invitation from Mud Pie to try to give a brief\nexpression to some of the key points of the relationship between Buddhism and\nGod as I see them, and would like to express my gratitude to its founder, Tony\nMorris, for his generous support and encouragement.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Buddhism\u2019 and \u2018God\u2019 are not just a pair of abstract\nconcepts. Each relates to a living experience for millions, even billions, of\npeople. \u2018Buddhism\u2019 is a tradition of practice found throughout Eastern and\nSouthern Asia, and now also increasingly in the West. \u2018God\u2019 is the focus of a\nsense of basic meaning and value for the two biggest religions in the world \u2013\nChristianity and Islam, as well as Judaism from which both are descended. I\ncannot trifle with these concepts. What I write must at least attempt to\nrespect such a massive weight of human experience: of awe, ecstasy, and\ninspiration as well as conviction, debate and conflict. If one can say this\neither for \u2018Buddhism\u2019 or \u2018God\u2019 alone, how much more so when they are combined?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, commonly, discussions of Buddhism and God are dealt\nwith simplistically: that is, in an over-abstracted and ideological fashion.\nThere are several groups of people with specific interests in keeping things\nthat way, so that they can maintain their exclusive claims and avoid the\npossible challenges involved in investigating other people\u2019s concepts on their\nown terms. Let me start with a brief list of those groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The\nexclusive theists<\/strong>, that is, believers in God as a supernatural entity, who\nwant to maintain the view that this belief is the correct one, the only route\nto salvation. For them, Buddhism is at best a \u2018human religion\u2019 (as the Catholic\nChurch has patronisingly described it) or at worst a Satanic threat.<\/li>
  2. The\nexclusive Buddhists,<\/strong> who believe that the Buddha\u2019s enlightenment gives a\nroute to truth not offered by any other source. They point out that the Buddha\ndid not believe in God, and may even claim that \u2018The Buddha was an atheist\u2019.\nTheistic religion, for them, is deluded because it is a form of \u2018eternalism\u2019,\nof a kind the Buddha rejected.<\/li>
  3. The\nUniversalists,<\/strong> who want to claim that Buddhism and God both point to the\nsame final \u2018truth\u2019. God and enlightenment are different ways of talking about\n\u2018ultimate reality\u2019. They argue that we should not be misled by the ideologies\nof either Buddhism or the theistic religions into assuming a conflict that\ndoesn\u2019t really exist deep down.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    It should already be obvious from this list that I do not\nwholly accept the assumptions of any of these three groups. They are each\ndogmatic in different ways. But all three are also based on the experiences of\nspecific groups of people, and those experiences tell us a good deal about the value\nand significance both of \u2018Buddhism\u2019 and \u2018God\u2019. All three are worth probing more\ndeeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is not, however, a straightforward task. The first\nmajor stumbling block is not merely a matter of disagreement. People in modern\nsociety are relatively used to disagreeing, especially where religion is\nconcerned, and in most cases won\u2019t make too much of a fuss about that in\nitself. No, the much more intractable problems are created by language. Each of\nthe three views I have listed are built on views about what \u2018Buddhism\u2019 and\n\u2018God\u2019 respectively mean<\/em>. People who\nare happy to accept disagreement within their own way of understanding those\ntwo terms can still rapidly become incandescent with rage when someone\nchallenges their assumptions about what they \u2018essentially\u2019 mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you wish to come with me on this short journey of\nexploration as to how those three mutually exclusive positions might be reconciled,\nI\u2019m afraid you\u2019re going to have to let go of any essentialist assumption that\nyou know what \u2018Buddhism\u2019 and \u2018God\u2019 \u201creally mean\u201d. That\u2019s not because I <\/em>claim to know what they \u201creally mean\u201d.\nRather it\u2019s because I have developed ways of using the terms that are motivated\nby practical considerations. If you want to stay within the security of your\nown group\u2019s way of talking about these things, then you will be responsible for\nhaving chosen that limitation, with whatever further consequences it may have. If\nyou venture beyond that zone of security, however, you will need to be willing\nto enter a land where meanings are negotiable, and where we try to take\nresponsibility for the meanings we adopt, rather than assuming that they have\nbeen divinely (or enlightenedly) revealed to us in their current form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If you do agree to come with me on this journey, it will involve, first, looking at what \u2018Buddhism\u2019 means, and what \u2018God\u2019 means, in a way that is based on the experiences of those who use those terms, rather than via the preconceptions with which their traditions may encourage them to interpret that experience. Such a journey needs to be motivated by a sense of independent judgement and responsibility. Yes, we can think these things out for ourselves. Yes, we do respect the insights that religious traditions offer us. But no thanks, we don\u2019t accept dogmatic assumptions from those traditions when they fail to do justice to people\u2019s experience, and only have the effect of creating conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Go\u00a0to\u00a0main\u00a0page\u00a0for\u00a0this\u00a0book<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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