DO
NO HARM-THE INVITATION TO A MIDDLE PATH SPIRITUALITY CALLED
COMPASSION
©
Dick Rauscher
INTRODUCTION:
This
article was written in response to a request in 1998 from the United
Methodist Church asking if the Stony Hill Spiritual Retreat Center
would be willing to participate in a clergy training workshop on the
importance of establishing appropriate behavioral boundaries with parishioners.
Boundaries minimize liability risk but these protective boundaries
are increasingly isolating us from human contact physically and emotionally….an
isolation that leaves us lonely and disconnected from one another.
Paradoxically, the title of the training workshop was called Do No
Harm.
This
article explores the possibility of reversing the need for protective
boundaries by learning to embrace a middle path spirituality that is
based on compassion.1 A
middle path spirituality would make the social and religious caste
categories that define who has power and who doesn’t meaningless.
It would effectively eliminate the caste categories that so
comfortably define those who are considered invisible and powerless.
In a compassionate society, the need for protective boundaries would
no longer be needed.
Jesus,
Buddha, and all the great spiritual teachers of history invited us
to do no harm by embracing a middle path spirituality that eliminates
the social caste categories of "otherness". Categories that
painfully define who is included and who is excluded. They referred
to these arbitrary social and religious categories as illusions2 and
taught that all reality is simply a part of the Unity we call God.
If these arbitrary categories we use to socially define ourselves are
indeed nothing but illusions and could therefore be eliminated from
our thinking, then we could truly learn to embrace a compassionate
middle path spirituality that these spiritual teachers have been teaching.
Middle
path spirituality is defined simply as the ability to live life non-reactively
in the gray of paradox, ambiguity, uncertainty, and not knowing. A
psychological place of emptiness where the love and compassion of the
great spiritual teachers of history are encountered.
Middle
Path spirituality reflects the integration of knowledge and insights
from the field of psychotherapy with the spirituality and the spiritual
disciplines of both current and ancient religious traditions. It is
a creative spirituality that manifests an obvious and simple
truth. All of the conflict and violence we see around the world is
created by the rigid beliefs and certainties of black and white thinking.3 If
we truly intend to live a life that does no harm to others, then
we cannot let anything that does cause harm to others
enter into the way we think or live our life… …regardless
of our contemporary cultural values, our various religious theologies,
or our own ego’s opinions, beliefs, or certainties.
In
our Western culture, and especially in the Christian Church, we have
learned to blame conflict, violence, and suffering on the devil. This
practice of blaming the devil for evil and suffering effectively eliminates
virtually all responsibility for our own actions and therefore any
possibility of world transformation. Until we are willing to acknowledge
that violence and evil is created in the crucible of rigid certainties
and black and white beliefs embedded in the hearts of each of us ,
compassion will continue to be destroyed by a powerful enemy. I find
no conflict, suffering, evil, or violence in the world that does not
have it’s roots deeply embedded in the rich soil of black and
white thinking. Can we begin to see this truth in our own lives?
Learning
to walk the middle path of compassion requires revisiting the original
teachings of people like Jesus and Buddha. For Christians especially,
it means returning to a time before the emerging theology of the early
Christian church turned the soft compassionate teachings of Jesus into
the granite certainties, absolutes, and beliefs of the "faithful".
Sadly, these rigid black and white theological beliefs have once again
defined who is included and who is excluded….this time from the
Kingdom of God and eternal life. The suffering these rigid theological
certainties have caused over the last 2000 years is incalculable.
THE NEED FOR
CHANGE
Recent
federal legislation defined what constitutes sexual harassment in the
workplace. Because of the liability issues created by this legislation,
boundary training workshops are currently being offered by virtually
every governmental, religious, corporate, educational, and voluntary
institution.
Unfortunately,
these boundary training workshops are not being offered based on cultural
values. Instead, they are an institutional / corporate response to
the potential legal and financial liabilities that could be incurred
if they do not offer such training and implement appropriate corporate
sexual behavioral guidelines. It’s good to see that we are beginning
to address such issues, but how is it that we have come to a place
where social values have to be legislated in a court of law? The legislated
rights of the handicapped, the dying, the mentally ill, children, minorities,
women, homosexuals, single working parents, the elderly, the poor,
and the recent push for hate crime laws are all examples of these legislated
moral values.
I
believe this kind of legislation is needed and very important. Changing
social belief systems is not easily accomplished, and legislated moral
values can indeed change peoples behaviors. A legally mandated change
in a culture’s social behavior will, over time, lead to a change
in the social beliefs of that culture. For example, civil rights legislation
enacted in the 1960’s and 1970’s to force changes in the
rights of black minorities is slowly beginning to change racist attitudes
in our society. Racial attitudes, especially of our youth, are beginning
to reflect a significant shift toward the reality of pluralism, multi-culturalism,
and diversity.
Why
have we fallen so far short of what is possible? How is it that our
various religious institutions have never been successful in
effectively teaching compassionate social values to any Eastern
or Western culture in over two thousand years? The only exception in
modern times might be the monastic Buddhist influence in Tibet. Unfortunately,
Tibet’s neighbor China has not yet learned to embrace moral values
based on compassion. The suffering and virtual elimination of the Tibetan
social and monastic culture is a tragic example of the need for a more
compassionate global culture based on a middle path spirituality.
What
can we do to accelerate change in the rigid beliefs that cause categories
of "otherness"…..the source of judgement, suffering,
conflict, and violence in the world? How can we more effectively teach
our children the skills required to develop a compassionate global
culture? These are vitally important questions for our religious and
social institutions as we move into the third millennium. As the contemporary
mystic and spiritual teacher Sam Keen defines it, finding an answer
to these questions is the heroic task of our generation.
MIDDLE
PATH: THE WAY OF COMPASSION
Insanity
or mental illness is doing the same thing today that we did yesterday
and somehow expecting a different outcome. As the level of conflict
and suffering in the world continues to climb, it is clear that something
has to change in the way we teach the children of the world that compassion
is an important social and spiritual value. If we are serious about
becoming a culture that "does no harm", then we must be willing
to embrace fundamental changes in the way we think. The way we teach
love and compassion in our churches and in our class rooms is not effective.
We are clearly not accomplishing what is possible or needed.
It
has to be obvious to anyone seriously concerned with increasing the
capacity for compassion in the world, that teaching more religious
theology, dogma, doctrines, and individual salvation is not the answer.
In fact, throughout history, religious theology has clearly been a
major contributor to the problem of global violence and suffering.
Our news papers are filled with reports of death and suffering caused
by the increasing terrorist activities of radical political and conservative
religious groups in Ireland, Bosnia, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Israel,
Palestine, and Albania…to name only a few.
Paradoxically,
in every society, the expression of spiritual hunger is rapidly becoming
endemic. Never before in recorded history or modern times has the interest
in spirituality or the global conscious awareness of the need for compassionate
spiritual values ever been greater. Perhaps we have been so focused
on "theologically based faith" that we have ignored the spiritual
needs and hunger in all humans. Or perhaps this hunger for spirituality
is proof that religious teachings have indeed been effective. Whether
it has or not is not the issue.
The
important issue facing most of our religious institutions today is
simply the fact that we are not effectively addressing the world’s
current hunger for spirituality. At a time when the growing global
consciousness is rapidly moving toward new age values of multiculturalism,
pluralism and diversity, most of our religious institutions are retreating
in fear to conservative mythologies and theological interpretations
of faith born in the Middle Ages. They are defensively protecting their
pre-modern rigid theologies, rituals, dogmas, icons, and doctrines
and ignoring modern archaeological and biblical research. These primitive
conservative theological beliefs that create harmful black and white
categories of "otherness" are simply not making sense to
a growing number of people around the world.
To
avoid intellectual suicide, the "churched" and "unchurched" are
turning away from "religion" and searching for a spirituality
that brings a deeper meaning into their lives. A spirituality that
effectively connects them with the infinite diversity of creation and
the Creator. Their spiritual hunger is not for more conservative theology,
it is a hunger for a first hand relationship with the Creator or Unity
of the Universe. For example, the feminist Pagan Wiccan religion worships
the Goddess, and embraces inclusiveness, pluralism, and diversity.
This rapidly growing Pagan religious movement reconnects it’s
members with the earth’s never-ending cycles of birth and death,
and teaches that all creation is sacred.
Pluralism
and diversity means that individuals and cultures often travel on different
spiritual and religious paths in their search for ultimate meaning.
They will use different names for the Creator. Christianity has it’s
myths, icons, rituals, doctrines, theologies but it is only one of
the many paths that journey up the mountain toward God. It is not "the" path.
Spiritual teachers like Jesus and Buddha taught that it is the relationship
with this Reality we call God that is important, not the correct name,
the specific path that leads toward the Ultimate, or the particular
myths, rituals, and doctrines embraced on the journey.
Futurist
Barbara Hubbard believes that we are literally on the brink of a global
evolutionary leap into a compassionate Universal Human species. A conscious,
fully awakened human species capable of working in a co-creative way
with the creative Consciousness of the universe that some refer to
as God. She calls this quantum evolutionary spiritual step that humanity
is about to take the "awakening of humanity".4 She
cautions however that the path our global culture will take has
not yet been decided. The potential for self destruction or an evolutionary
path toward compassion and a conscious co-creative relationship with
the Creator of the Universe has not yet been finally decided. At this
moment in history, both are equally possible.
But
just as more conservative theology is not the answer, it is also becoming
clear that hunger and poverty cannot be eliminated by simply offering
more social welfare programs. There is steadily growing concern over
the effectiveness of these social programs and the cost of maintaining
them is quickly exceeding our society’s ability to finance them.
These programs are reflecting clearly the global reality that hunger,
poverty, and oppression of the powerless is increasing as the gap widens
between those who are defined as acceptable and those who are not.
Social programs will not eliminate the caste categories of poor, uneducated,
ill, elderly, or the racial and sexual "isms" that cause
so much of the suffering. When the money runs out, the sources of the
suffering will still be with us.
Nobel
prize winner and Buddhist peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, once told
an audience that if you want to eliminate the tree of pain and suffering
in the world, you have to chop out the roots, not trim the branches.
Like social boundaries and religious theologies, these social welfare
programs are important and needed, but they do not attack the root
of the problem. They only trim the branches.
CHANGING
OUR BELIEFS WILL CHANGE OUR BEHAVIORS
From
the field of psychology we know that the behaviors of a society or
an individual will always reflect the conscious and unconscious beliefs
of that society or individual.
If
we want to see what we believe, all we have to do is watch our behaviors.
Our individual egos and our collective cultural ego will always act
in a way so as to be consistent with our conscious and unconscious
beliefs. Our individual or social behaviors cannot be changed by force
of will. The moment we forget that we are attempting to change, we
will unconsciously revert back to the behaviors that are consistent
with our beliefs. The only way we can change our behaviors is to change
the powerful conscious and unconscious beliefs that drive them. When
we change the way we think and believe, we can begin to chop out the
roots of suffering and violence that do so much harm to others and
the earth we live on.
Earl
Nightingale gave us the most powerful secret ever discovered by humankind
when he taught that "we become what we think about. The practical
reality of this simple wisdom says that if we want to do no harm to
others or the earth we live on, we cannot let anything that is not
loving or not caring come into the way we live…or think…..regardless
of our culture’s current secular beliefs; our own personal opinions,
beliefs, or certainties; or our religious theologies.
So
if we become what we think about, and we want to teach our children
how to build a globally based compassionate society, what needs to
change? As I will show below, the primary enemy of compassion and
the source of virtually all of the suffering and conflict in the world,
both historically and currently, is the simplistic, primitive, and
immature black and white thinking process used by children to manage
anxiety that is unconsciously carried over into adulthood.
The
social caste categories of our human society are created by this primitive
thinking process. It divides the world into all or nothing categories
of "otherness"……those who are included and those
who are excluded, who is right, who is wrong, who is good, who is bad,
who is doing what they should be doing, and who isn’t. The
battle for white, right, and good is inevitable. No one wants to be
excluded, wrong, bad or criticized. So when these categories
or distinctions, based on the simplistic and immature black and white,
either/or, good/bad, right/wrong/ all or nothing thinking of childhood
are used to define our religious or social relationships; conflict,
violence, and suffering are inevitable.. This is illustrated
in figure 1 below.
FIGURE
#1:
In
mature adult thinking, the simplistic black and white categories of
childhood are gradually replaced by more sophisticated middle path
gray categories. As the adult matures and develops the ability to live
non-reactively to the anxiety of ambiguity, uncertainty, and not knowing;
conflict and violence is gradually replaced by a more mature non-reactive
middle path compassion born in the emptiness.
Changing
the simplistic belief systems of childhood into the more complex middle
path belief systems of adulthood is a very difficult journey of transformation
that very few people are able to fully accomplish.
If
we are to find ways to challenge the need for protective boundaries
and legislated moral values and work on the development of a new and
more compassionate global society, we will need to revisit the teachings
of our great spiritual mystics such as Buddha, Jesus, Moses, St. Francis,
Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, Lao-tzu, and Mohammed, to name only a few.
Without exception, they all urged us to embrace a life of compassion
that ignores the simplistic caste categories created by the ego. They
all spoke about the importance of a first hand relationship with the
Reality we refer to as God.
Marcus
Borg reminds us in his book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time that
Jesus was a spirit person, a teacher of wisdom, a social prophet, and
a movement founder, but his self-understanding did not include
messianic or eschatological. In other words, he did not speak of himself
as God. His message was theocentric. It was focused on God. Borg writes……
"And
he (Jesus) "did not expect the supernatural coming of the
Kingdom of God as a world-ending event in his own generation. Over
the last ten years, the image of Jesus as an eschatological prophet,
which dominated scholarship through the middle third of this century,
has become very much a minority position."5
Jesus of
Nazareth taught that God is compassion. To make God manifest, we need
only to become compassion. The historical Jesus was a simple spirit
person with a radically subversive / alternative social / religious
message of compassion that directly challenged the simplistic purity
code caste categories of the ancient Israelite culture. The Israelites
had carefuly divided people into various castes based on black and
white, either /or categories of purity and impurity in their attempt
to obey the Old Testament injunction "You shall be holy (pure)
for I the Lord your God am holy (pure)".
To
illustrate the religious and social caste categories refer to figures
#2 and #3. It is clear that in the social
and religious culture of ancient Israel, it would have been important
to be male, rich, heterosexual, a member of the priestly class, healthy,
born in Israel, a devote native born Jew, have married parents, and
have no physical deformities. In other words, you would have had power
and authority the more you could locate yourself on the top line of
the prevailing social and religious caste system categories.
It
is significant to note how Jesus repeatedly ignored purity code laws
and refused to acknowledge the religious and social caste categories
that made those on the bottom of the power structure invisible, untouchable,
outcasts, powerless, vulnerable, and less than human. He touched these
people, he healed them, he broke bread with them, and considered them
his friends. It is important to remember that the religious /economic
system of ancient Israel, that made the priestly class wealthy and
thus powerful, was based on tithing and careful observance of these
purity codes.
The
combination of the popularity of Jesus’ "compassion movement" with
the people, and his amazing personal charisma as a spiritual person,
soon made him a serious threat to the power structure of the religious
ruling class of the Israelite culture. The compassion movement could
no longer be ignored. Jesus’ death was inevitable, but after his
crucifixion his message of compassion as the core value of community
was a movement that grew quickly and became the early Christian church.
In
other words, compassion is not a Christian concept, it is the
fundamental founding principle of Christianity. Walking the
middle path in figure #1 is not a concept to be embraced by Christians,
it is "the" fundamental spiritual practice of Christianity.
When Paul states in Gal 3:28 that "In Christ there is neither
Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female", he was not
stating an abstract ideal of the emerging Christian church. He was
reflecting the new social reality of the Jesus movement itself. Paul’s
message to the new Christian church was simply the spiritual teaching
of Jesus of Nazareth.
Referring
again to the social and religious categories of modern times in figures
#2 and #3, it is clear we have progressed very little in 2000 years.
Our modern social and religious caste categories still continue to
divide people into those who are included and those who are excluded.
Today the caste categories tend to be based on "success".
Conformance to what is considered successful determines a persons place
in the caste system of our society. If a person is to be visible, have
good self esteem, power, and authority in our modern world, it is important
for them to be on the top line of the lower box in figures #2 and #3.
In other words, one would want to be Caucasian, male, adult, educated,
wealthy a conservative believer of Christian theology, heterosexual,
a member of the clergy class, healthy, American, married, physically
whole (not handicapped), and not dying.
We
continue to ignore or misunderstand the wisdom of our greatest spiritual
teachers. The violence created by the battle for right, white, and
good continues to cause poverty, hunger, and suffering. Our contemporary
social caste system still divides, fragments, excludes, and continues
to create simplistic either /or religious and social categories that
result in unequal relationships in our global culture. To put it another
way, our contemporary caste system continues to weave conflict,
violence and suffering into the very fabric of our global culture by
clinging to the belief that we have to determine who we are by comparing
ourselves with others. We continue to insist in blaming our feelings
on others, to cling to the idea that we can get our personal power
only by taking it away from others, and continue to use the simplistic
thinking process’ of childhood.
The
source of conflict and violence is not out there in the world, it is
in our own hearts. Can we see that? If our intention is to teach peace,
love and compassion as the core value of our global society, then we
must each learn to let go of the certainties and knowing of our primitive
and immature egos. We must then learn to embrace the more "empty" not-knowing
of a mature adult ego.
Said
simply, to discover the truth of anything, we must first move onto
the middle path and suspend all beliefs, certainties, and knowing.
Only when we embrace emptiness, and open our hearts and minds to the
reality of what is, will we recognize truth. The core value of community
is compassion……. a radically alternative middle path wisdom
that Jesus died attempting to teach us.
SUMMARY
Psychology
teaches that our behaviors will always reflect our conscious and unconscious
beliefs…..both primitive and mature. Our ego’s simply cannot
act in any other way. Even if we attempt to change ourselves by force
of will, the moment we forget we are trying to change, our ego will
return our behavior back to that which is consistent with our inner
beliefs.
If
we wish to become compassion and do no harm to others, we must
be willing to dig out the roots of violence and suffering that harden
our own hearts. We must learn to eliminate the categories of otherness
each of us create in our own primitive black and white thinking. Conflict,
violence, and suffering will continue to dominate our global culture
until each of us as individuals can mature our thinking process and
grow spiritually into the empty silence of compassion. When we increase
our own ability to become compassion, we increase the compassion
of the universe itself. When we make compassion visible, we make the
Creator visible.
The
middle path is simply an internal journey into emptiness, not knowing,
silence, simplicity, living in the moment, and accepting reality for
what it is. The middle path is a journey that each of us must take
for ourselves, no one can do it for us. It requires the painful letting
go of the cherished ego beliefs, certainties and opinions of simplistic
thinking…..the emptying and quieting of our black and white childhood
ego’s that "know" so much. Can we learn to do
this for ourselves? On the middle path, there is no "otherness" …..only
Unity and a Oneness with the Creator of the Universe. Can we recognize
for ourselves that separateness and individualism are nothing but illusions
created by our own egos?
Like
all of the great spiritual teachers of history, Jesus and Buddha invited
us to "see" the world in a new way. They knew that
how we "see" would determine the paths we would walk
and the way that we would live our lives. Until we as adults learn
how to eliminate the artificial categories and caste distinctions created
by our black and white thinking, we will be unable to teach our children
the insights and wisdom taught by these spiritual teachers. Until we
learn to dig out the roots of violence that live within our own hearts,
we will continue to have inquisitions, witch hunts, crusades, holy
wars, cold wars, world wars, Tibet’s, Israel’s, Palestine’s,
Ireland’s, Albania’s, and Bosnia’s.
Only
open, vulnerable hearts can build a compassionate global community.
We can be vulnerable only when we feel safe with one another. Compassionate
communities will evolve only when we have learned how to live on the
middle path where the categories of "otherness", and the
violence and suffering they create, no longer exist.
We
will know we are on the middle path when we no longer define who we
are by comparing ourselves with others, when we no longer blame our
feelings on others, when we learn to empower ourselves from inside
and free ourselves of the belief that our personal power comes only
by taking it away from others, and most importantly, when we learn
to embrace a mature thinking process that can replace the primitive
black and white thinking process’ of childhood.
When
we learn to walk the middle path, we will be chopping out the roots
of violence, not just trimming the branches with more legislated moral
values, work shops that teach us to establish boundaries to protect
us from one another, and social programs designed to help the powerless
and disadvantaged.
Jesus,
Buddha, and all of the great spiritual teachers and mystics of history,
have spoken to us of the same truth………. that compassion
has nothing to do with good deeds or believing in a certain way theologically.
It is the result of a first hand encounter with the compassionate Creator
of the Universe forged in the silence and emptiness of the middle path.
When we have the courage to undertake this journey of transformation
and spiritual growth that leads to the development of a middle path
spirituality, only then we will stop doing self-righteous acts "of" compassion,
and learn to "become" compassion. A compassion that
knows no categories of otherness. A compassion born in silence and
listening, not knowing, emptiness, and humility. A compassion we call
God.
To
become a person who does no harm in this moment I must learn
to walk the middle path……a journey of spiritual growth
and transformation…..to a place of emptiness and humility.
May
I develop the wisdom of not-knowing.
To
change and grow, I must be willing in this moment to shed
my beliefs, certainties, and opinions just as a snake sheds it skin
to grow.
May
I develop the courage to not-know.
To
know the truth of anything I must be willing in this moment
to suspend belief and disbelief.
May
I develop the skill of emptiness and listening.
To
know the truth of anything, I must be willing to live in this moment
with attention, honesty, gentleness, and compassion.
May
I develop the gift of awareness.
To
grow spiritually I must be willing to live in this moment
as a co-creator with the Creator of the Universe making love and
compassion manifest.
May
I become compassion.
Life
is like a brilliant flash of light and then it is darkness for eternity.
May
I live my wild and precious life fully awake and conscious.
As
I live this moment of my wild and precious life, will I stay
awake and do these things, or will I fall asleep and do something
else?
1. See
article called COMPASSION: THE MIDDLE PATH at www.stonyhill.com website
for a briefer treatment of this material. Back
to text.
2. See
figures #2 & #3 for detailed charts of some ancient and current
cultural categories / caste distinctions referred to as illusions by
Jesus, Buddha, and other spiritual teachers throughout history. Back
to text.
3. See figure
#1 for a visual diagram of black and white categories vs middlepath. Back
to text.
4. See Conscious
Evolution by Barbara Marx Hubbard for a well presented discussion
on the need for a new co-creative pro-active meme or social vision.
These visions or memes will shape our future as a species. Our survival
as a species will be determined by the choices we make in the next
few decades. Back to text.
5. Meeting
Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus & The Heart
of Contemporary Faith, Marcus J. Borg, Harper Collins, 1995. Back
to text.
Figure
2
Figure
3
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