Labyrinth: Faith and the Path

Faith isn't believing 50 impossible things before breakfast. Faith isn't believing that the mystery of God can be captured in words. Mature faith is risking your life, throwing yourself into it with abandon.

from The Journey from Fear to Faith by Alan Jones

“Doubt,” we said in answer to his question, “the opposite of faith is doubt.” It seemed fairly obvious.

Alan Jones, the dean of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, was speaking to us at the beginning our training to become Labyrinth facilitators. He would tell us that no, the opposite of faith is certainty. “When you're absolutely certain you have nothing to learn, there's no mystery; no risk, no real joy.” This was the first time I had heard a Christian teaching that framed faith and religion in terms of the experience and exploration of life.

The Labyrinth offers a metaphor for faith: it's a single path from the entry point to the center. But to look at the path and its convolutions only creates feelings of uncertainty. The eye vainly traces the pattern in attempts to understand where it goes, to make sure where it leads to. And the human tendency is to want the sure thing. But the moment it is unclear that the sure thing is correct, I deviate from the path, perhaps begin seeking a more certain thing. Or perhaps I'm looking for that which is more modern, more relevant, or more to my style. The problem is that in doing so I never get anywhere and I never arrive.

Faith is that which holds me to the path, especially when I come to distrust that path. Even though my mind knows that the Labyrinth path is a single path, there are days when my eye still feels the need to trace it. But rather than be swayed by the rational, I allow myself to be guided by intuition (which has a better sense of where Truth might be). When I can put my faith in the path, I will be led to where I need to be.

So as I walk the Labyrinth, I can begin to become familiar with my feelings of fear and uncertainty as they arise, how they are joined by the feeling for the need to be certain. I come to recognize how those feelings (and the thoughts created with them) begin to control and direct me. When I walk the path of everyday life, it's now easier for me to sense the moments when I would try to delude myself into a life that would be less than, so that I may begin to ease myself out of that delusion.

Understanding faith in this way, I've learned that the spiritual path is not a narrow sliver of dirt, although that's what one tends to see. Rather, the path is boulevard-wide, able to hold space for many people and their experiences, thoughts and beliefs. When I know that faith is about experiencing life, then I can approach life courageously and live it fearlessly each and every day. I can then walk a more direct line toward my Truth.

© Richard Aquino, 2007

A Sunny Day in Hiroshima

Ayako and I were the only ones who were going to practice Tai Chi that morning. Somehow the conversation afterwards wandered to her experience on August 6, 1945, when she was present at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It took me by surprise.

I don't use the word “witnessed” because I don't remember her speaking of the immediate devatsation of the explosion. I don't know how far from ground zero she was located. Maybe it didn't matter. She did say how her sister managed dodge the effects of the blast, shielded in the shadow cast by a tree. My mind had created images of Terry as a silhouette etched into the sidewalk. Fortunately, she too practices Tai Chi with us many decades later.

Instead, Ayako would talk about how when riding the bus, she would encounter the countless number of injured people; how she would hear the pervasive moaning of those slowly dying of radiation poisoning. She talked about the ruined city. She also talked of the ruination brought on by starvation and disease that was taking its toll on Japan's civilian population long before a bomb needed to be dropped. She spoke of the emotions of a society and culture that would haunt and go unspoken until the end of one's days.

Ayako is an American citizen. She was born in the United States and left with her parents as they returned to their native country just prior to the start of World War II. Our conversation happened some 14 years before the events of September 11, 2001 would occur. We haven't had a chance to talk about that.

But she is not a bitter person for it. For all she had to experience, she seems to have survived fully and wholly. Ayako has a bright and cheerful personality that everyone enjoys being around. I am humbled when I realize I can't possibly fathom what she and others who must find a normal life in a time of war must have gone through (and are going through even now).

Ayako simply wonders: how do people find it possible to harm each other in such atrocious ways? She wonders how any kind of act of violence can be justified in the name of peace.

Update: from the BBC, When Time Stood Still, a Hiroshima Survivor's Story


© Richard Aquino, 2007

Lighting the Lamp Yourself

It's one thing to have a child be "taught" religion. It can be quite another thing if the education system gives the child the tools to explore religion and spirituality. I like this approach because it allows the student to be immersed in the religious/spiritual environment.

My local Zen center would occasionally play host to student visitors. They ranged from high school to graduate students, coming because of some kind of class assignment. They would arrive armed with a list of questions and it was not unusual for me to become their interview subject. If I did my job right (and objectively) it allowed the religious practice to teach the religion while maintaining the context of secular education. This frequently led to interesting side effects.

I remember one high school freshman that I spoke with. He was a slight boy who was a first generation Vietnamese-American. His family was "culturally Buddhist, but not practicing," only going to temple on high holidays. His father dropped him off at the center with the intent of returning to pick up his son up when the assignment was over. This student chose a bunch of Westerners to find out what Buddhism was about.

I answered all of his questions and instructed him on meditation. Since it was our habit to hold discussion after meditation, I told him that he could ask that evening's meditators any question he wanted. He was quite the novice in the zendo, not moving a bit during the meditation in spite of his discomfort sitting cross-legged for all that time.

After the meditation I introduced him to the group and asked him to put any question to them. He asked a question that was not part of the list he asked me: "Why do you meditate?" You should have seen at the looks of horror on these people's faces! His "innocent" question placed them in a vunerable place, forcing them to reveal themselves not only to him but to each other as well. But how could they refuse to answer, especially considering that many of them were academic teachers themselves? They couldn't easily reject their role. He had them pinned down the way a Zen teacher would.

It was important to him to hear why these people came to Buddhism and meditation, and what they experienced as the benefits of their practice. It was interesting for me to note that none of the reasons given had anything to do with "enlightenment." He discovered a Buddhism that doesn't exist in books.The point is that it was the student's own curiosity that stimulated the question. As a tool, the class assigment created the context so that he could go out and investigate religion on his own, without parents or teachers lording over him. It gave him the opportunity to find out what he wanted to find out and not be drilled with what he should be taught.

The Buddha suggested that we should become lamps unto ourselves. I'd like to think that the Buddha was also suggesting that we choose our own lamps, fill it with an appropriate oil and find the proper flame to ignite it with. Just as there is a proper place for religious tradition, there is also a difference between religion and "my stuff about religion" or the "stuff" that another would try to impose on me. My hope is that this student will continue to visit other churches and temples so that he can encounter the different practices and people that could work for him throughout life.

© Richard Aquino, 2007


"Hey, that's not Buddhism...that's just true!"
Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral
from What's the Big Deal About Buddhism?

As an aside, this exclamation comes from an entertaining, humorous and informative conversation between Alan Jones and Theravadin monk, Ajahn Amaro. It is an excellent example of what eccumenical dialogue can sound like. Click on the link to listen to this 45 minute recording.