ARTICLES AFTER A CHRISTIAN-BUDDHIST RETREAT

Meditation Retreat at Turvey Abbey 2006   Article 1

I came to this retreat, as I have to others at Turvey Abbey, as one who was brought up in the Christian faith. It was the evangelical tradition which in the 1950s imbued me with a deep sense of guilt and fear of hell.

I came across Buddhism about fifteen to twenty years ago and it offered a cool and spacious practice so different from the overheated judgementalism of my childhood religion.

So with all that baggage I arrived at Turvey Abbey to sit with Christians and Buddhists. It was good to be in a space where Buddhism and Christianity meet, and to be with other people who were also on a spiritual journey where it is OK to question everything and sense the pain that can result from this.

I find what I call “border areas” thought-provoking and freeing places where I can think again about spiritual belief and practice. This retreat was a place where we could all be together in the “border areas” learning from each others’ lives and practice and nobody judging anyone else.

I would like to add a post-retreat commentary on that very difficult psalm (69 in the KHV, I think). When I was in Sikkim I visited several Tibetan monasteries with our sirdar (the man who organises everything for us) who is very knowledgeable about Tibetan Buddhism. We saw statues of “wrathful deities” in the gompas and very scary-looking they were, too. These are, apparently, personifications of human emotions like anger, greed, ignorance, lust etc. and they reminded me of the problems we talked about at the retreat, asking ourselves how the psalmist can ASK FOR such destruction or picture God in that way. After seeing the “Wrathful deities, I felt that it was exactly right (as we discussed at the weekend) to see this anger etc. as a projection of human feelings. It was another occasion for me when Buddhism threw light on the Judeo-Christian tradition.

  

Meditation Retreat at Turvey Abbey 2006  Article 2

I come from a conventional non-active Christian background that I discarded in my late teens. For the next 30 years or so I followed no religious spiritual path; then I discovered Buddhism, which made immediate sense and struck a chord in my heart.

Since then I have attended retreats at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, including several Christian-Buddhist retreats held there, and at Turvey Abbey.

Of great interest is the variety of spiritual backgrounds presented at these latter retreats and the dynamics whereby many people are in the process of moving from one form of spirituality to another (not necessarily moving from one church to another),  or even embracing two at the same time! It feels good to realise that this is not a contradiction and that it’s alright to experiment. This awareness is supported by the retreat leaders’ (Christian nun and Buddhist nun) emphasis on the deep similarities and resonances between the two traditions (especially in terms of monastic practice) and the respect and tolerance expressed in discussion. This respectful attitude is also expressed  in a practical external way, for in for example a Christian agape service of remembering Jesus at the Buddhist monastery; and the Buddhist shrine room set up for the weekend retreat Turvey Abbey.

At the same time these retreats are an opportunity to enquire into    the dissimilarities between Buddhism and Christianity and to try to discern how far these are differences of semantics rather than concept. For example, there are aspects of the psalms sung at the monastic offices that I have difficulty with; likewise the concept of ‘sin’ which is absent from Buddhist terminology. But all this can be safely explored in the discussion sessions, and mutual enrichment happens.

For my part I have developed an interest in Christianity  to the extent that I now participate (still somewhat on the fringes!) in a Christian “Journey in Faith” group. While attribute this widening perspective largely to Buddhism itself, it has surely been enhanced by the Christian-Buddhist retreats.