FROM THE BOUNDARY

In the name of the Buddha? – Part two

Last time, I wrote that in Buddhism no one is excluded. In theory, this must be right because awareness doesn’t depend on ‘signing up’ to a book of rules and owing obedience to an almighty Somebody. The teachings of the Buddha are principles and precepts which have ‘weight’. The more you observe them, work with them, the closer comes enlightenment. In the lay world, ultimately it’s all down to you. Yet we’re all following the same journey, like a bubble in a river. The bubble, which is you and me in our ‘I-ness’, has no existence separate from the river. It is the river and the river is its life. This is why at the root of all religiousness is the understanding that there is no ‘I’ and ‘thou’. There’s only ‘thou’, only oneness. So, for example, for far too long, Christian understanding – with the exception of the Celtic sort – has taught that matter and spirit, the human and divine, are mutually exclusive. We’re taught to love and worship the latter and condemn the former. Surely it’s time to stop alienating us all from the world into which we were born.

There’s a Sufi song which makes this point about division. A lover went to the house of his beloved and knocked. “Who’s there?” she called out. “It is I”, the lover responded. “Go away. I don’t know you,” she said. The lover returned and knocked again. “Who is it?” his beloved asked. “It is thou,” he answered. She opened the door: one existence, you see, one world – only life. In that life, there’s nothing and no one where god-ness is not. Everything comes from the same source. The mystery of ourselves only reflects the mystery and power of everything that is. And for each of us that mystery, the mystery of our awakening, can really only be sorted in our hearts – the hearts which contain both our humanity and our awakening.

It follows that in sexual matters, at least in principle, there are no taboos other than, as the Buddha taught, that which harms ourselves and others. The Buddha refers to it as “misconduct”, but he didn’t flesh out the concept, other than to say that you shouldn’t mess about with those married or betrothed, and that monks must take a vow of celibacy. Sexual acts are thus not of themselves harmful and especially so if consensual and loving. Clearly abusive sex – non-consensual and under-age sex – is harmful. In principle, therefore, LGBT-sex is not, of itself, misconduct, and it’s to be evaluated in the same way as heterosexual sex. And that’s why I said last week that in Buddhism there are no exclusions.

Of course, as in Christianity, Buddhism has different ‘strands’. The Dalai Lama, speaking of Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism, has stated that gay sex, even though it may not be harmful in itself, is nevertheless ‘misconduct’. At the same time he has urged respect, tolerance and compassion for LGBT people, and a recognition of their human rights. This is hardly different from the mainstream Christian approach – ‘hating the sin but loving the sinner’, and all that. In a recent book, Building a Bridge, James Martin SJ has essentially sought to drag Roman Catholicism into a contemporary world. The dust jacket summarises the book’s theme: “How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community can enter into a relationship of respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” Great. However, at no point does Fr Martin confront the critical question: is LGBT-ism sinful of itself? So there’s a sense in which we’re no further forward – which brings me to Pope Francis.

It’s been reported that in April the Pope met with Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of the Chilean clergy sexual abuse scandal. According to Cruz, who is gay, he told Francis that he, Cruz, doesn’t think of himself as a bad person and that he tries not to hurt anybody. Now, the Catechism of the Roman Church acknowledges that LGBT people should be “accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” since they “are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives”. Nevertheless, it also provides that homosexual acts are “disordered”, and contrary to natural law. It must, then, have caused a tsunami in the Curia when Cruz reported that Francis had told him: “That you are gay does not matter. God made you like that and he loves you like that and I do not care. The Pope loves you as you are. You have to be happy with who you are.” I don’t suppose for a moment that the Pope spoke of gayness as God given in the same sense as St. Paul in Romans 1.
Naturally enough, the Vatican has neither confirmed nor denied Francis’ alleged remarks. Whatever Pope Francis said surely attracts the sanctity of the confessional. They’re clearly consistent with his “Who am I to judge?” remark, in 2013, in respect of a supposed gay lobby in the Vatican. You see, then, how Francis has aligned Christian faith and practice with the inclusive, merciful, precepts of Buddhism? He’s a wonderful man, isn’t he? He loves us and embraces us all – just like Jesus really.

Go safely, then – until the next time.

Curtain from the boundary: “Let us sing a song of hope... knowing that this Christian life... is the presence of God.” (Archbishop Oscar Romero).

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