Beyond Good and Evil – a Zen perspective on Christianity and Morality.

An interview with Zen priest Ian Henderson.

Good and evil. Right and wrong. Sinner and saved. Ally and enemy. Life today is defined by a series of oppositions, and society demands that we take sides. For secular society these categories appear beyond dispute – you’re either a terrorist or you're not, moral or immoral. And Christians, too, appear to have no problems with these dualities. Christian leaders on television and in the pulpits ask us to take side against evil, to be among the saved, to emulate the saints. Good and evil are reality, and our salvation depends on what side we take.

And yet these black and white distinctions have very little to do with Christ's teachings. Throughout the Gospels, Christ blurs the oppositions of his time. He happily dines with sinners and tax collectors, blesses Roman soldiers, and outrages his followers over and over again. He asks us to love our enemies. This is a core part of the Christian revolution, but today most Christians cling to moralistic oppositions as the defining feature of what it means to be faithful. So how do we get out of this trap?

One way is to get a fresh perspective on Christianity from another faith where oppositions like good and evil are considered a problem, not a reality. So, we decided to speak with a practitioner of Zen Buddhism who grew up as a Christian. Ian Henderson is now a practicing Zen priest in Toronto, Canada. He grew up wealthy, attended a privileged private school, and attended an Anglican church. He knew Christian traditions well before pursuing Zen. We spoke to him shortly before he became a full-time priest. We wanted to explore why the Zen tradition thinks dualities are illusions, not realities. Surprisingly, his answers led us from Zen back to the core of Christianity.

The Turning: Tell us about how you went from being a Christian child to a practitioner of Zen.

Henderson: I went to a school that was fairly strongly Christian, and I went to church. I was a choirboy at St Paul’s church on Bloor Street, which was an Anglican church. So I loved the music of Christianity, and there was a lot about Chrsitianity which appealed to me. The one thing that I couldn’t find, and this is in 1969, was training – teaching, training, practice. A way. I understood very well that where I was at was not where I wanted to be. I was looking for a method, some kind of way of changing my life, a transformation, basically, And I just couldn’t find it at the time in Christianity. And some of the scriptural doctrine that could be interpreted in different ways, but if people were attched to a certain kind of way, it was very hard to make sense of it. I wanted things to make sense. So that was another reason.

So when I started to read about Buddhism, I came to Buddhism through Christianity because a lot of the things that Christ said made sense to me, such as ‘as you sow, so shall you reap’ – you find that in Buddhism as the law of karma and causation on the moral plane. It’s the same thing. So, that kind of thing made a lot of sense. Actually, as I got into Buddhism, I understood more about Christianity, which is interesting. Does that answer your question? ( laughs).

The Turning: Let’s talk about an idea that plays a central role in Buddhism – duality. Can you talk about what that is, and whether it is problematic?

Henderson: Well, duality is something that is evident to our senses. The nature of the intellect is to bifurcate, to divide into two. And it’s very useful - it’s what keeps us out of trouble– we don’t walk into walls, for instance. This is how we make sense of the world, right? And when you divide into two, you can go on ad finitum. And that’s why computers can be so big – it’s just how big the processor is, right? But it’s just A-B-A-B, 1-2-1-2. And that process goes on forever. It doesn’t take you back to the unity of life. And that’s the problem. When you get involved in this bifurcating intellect, and some people are brilliant at this, they can understand things in ways that other people can’t seem fathom, yet they don’t have any experiential feeling about the nature of this world. The unity of life. And it’s not so much an idea as a practice. And that’s why people practice[ meditate], to understand on this fundamental experiential level about the unity of life.

So, you get right and wrong, good and bad, judgments. And we all know that the judgmental mind is not really what we want to foster in ourselves. It’s as harsh on us as it is on others. And even this feeling of separation comes from the wrong idea about the way things are.

This idea that me and you are separate, distinct entities:in Buddhism it is felt that that is an illusion. Your idea of me, myself and I is an illusion. You should see through this, to see the unity of life. For me to hurt you is the same as me cutting off my own hand. When you get this on an experiential level and you develop it through strong training, then you really can’t hurt anyone else. Any more than you could hurt yourself, and you learn deep respect for all life. And that’s really the core of it – this ‘mind of separation’ we call it. And out of that comes the sense of self, this sense that the center of the universe is me, myself and I. And this can get way out of proportion.

For a little kid, when they are growing up, 2 or 3, that’s very important to develop that sense of self. They need to feel who they are, they have to go through it. But when you get to be twenty, this starts to get in the way. We all know people with big egos, it’s very painful.

And people who are selfless, and for me that’s the core of the Christian teaching, this compassion, this selflessness, this giving, is at the very core of spirituality, giving totally to the point of giving your sense of self away. And that is the essence of Zen training, learning to give yourself to everything you do.

The Turning: I think one of the things which is difficult for Westerners, whether they’re Christians or not, is this idea that there is something else in my head other than my ego. Particularly in North America where every advertisement that we see is appealing to our egos. You should be more ambitious, you should be more greedy… When you say we should put the ego aside, what’s taking it’s place?

Henderson: What is there in the first place. Your true self. Your ‘God nature’. Your deity, the divine within. The Eastern masters used to say this in a lot of different ways, so you wouldn’t get attached to one way. So Zen master Umon said that you should think of Buddha as a shit stick. That was like calling him toilet paper. And it was to snap people out of the idea that Buddha was something outside of them, like Buddha is up there in heaven, and I am down here on earth, and never the twain shall meet. And he was saying, no, it is one. You are the divine. But this mind of separation is so possessive. And so a lot of people don’t believe it.

But almost everybody I’ve met has had some experience of this oneness – a beautiful sunset, or some point in their life when things just sort of melted , and they felt that this creation is wonder. They couldn’t even put it into words, they just had this feeling that this is it, this is the divine. And that’s exactly it, it’s this touching it, and it’s not just touching it, it’s trying to bring it into your life, more and more. And consequently the ego’s demands get listened to less and less. At first they are very loud, especially when you start. And it’s a big hurdle to stop listening to those demands… To me it was the training that helped. Learning to stop listening. It takes training, it’s work. And people do it in different ways. Christ’s example is just by giving. Giving and giving. And the first thing in the East, if someone wants to learn about spirituality, they talk about giving. So really, there’s not that much difference.

You know, we’re so possessed by this right and wrong, winners and losers, but when you look at it from a totality aspect, we really aren’t that far apart. We’re not even that far apart from animals. We’re all in creation together, it just depends on where you’re focusing. If you’re focusing on the distinctions, you can get more and more of them. But if you’re focusing on the oneness aspect, you can see that we’re not really that far apart.

The Turning. For all of us there’s this feeling that we’re okay, but those other people, what’s with them? They’re nuts, they’re doing it all wrong. The Americans are at war with another country right now. There’s a lot of talk of us and them, and these things seem to be absolute realities. Those people over there are threatening our country. These things don’t seem to be illusions. So how do you talk to your students about those distinctions or illusions? Aren’t there some real enemies in the world?

Henderson: No, there isn’t any such thing as an enemy. That’s the whole basis of it, this ‘us versus them’ kind of mentality. There just isn’t an enemy. The enemy is within if there is an enemy. The enemy is your own ignorance, and you have to take responsibility for your own ignorance, for your own bad thinking habits. We know that psychologically, when we see something in someone else that is wrong, it’s usually the aspect of ourselves that we won’t acknowledge. … A great way to go about discovering yourself is to listen to yourself when you’re critical, and say ‘wait a minute, I’m probably doing that because that’s the way I am, and I don’t like to see it in myself. So I project it onto others’.

It’s the same with states – we like to project our negativity onto some person out there, we say they’re bad, they’re evil, and we have to wipe them out. But evil is never conquered by evil. Evil is only conquered by love. Christ said that, Buddha said that. So, why don’t we listen to these great teachers for once and say, ‘so if that is the case, I have to stop this feeling of separation, this feeling that they are wrong and I am right’. That is fundamentally a bad attitude.

The Turning: You said at the beginning of this that back in the 1960s, you searched for this within in Christianity but you didn’t find it. A way of transforming people, of transforming yourself. So what was it about the Zen tradition which attracted you?

Henderson: The training. Zen very much emphasizes training and a teacher. That was the other core thing. Like finding somebody whom I had confidence in, that they knew the truth, they had experienced it. Because you know we can fool ourselves. And knowing that within oneself, you have to go to somebody who is more developed than you, who can tell you when you’re getting too full of yourself.

The ego is wily, it’s tricky. Just when you think you’re being good, precisely that. You know, Christ said that when you’re giving, don’t think about how much you’re giving. Because as soon as you start to think ‘ look how good I am giving ten dollars to this hobo’, well as soon as you’ve done that, you’re not giving anymore. You’re just giving your ego a boost. To give is to do it without thinking, to not know, to do it without separation. To give without a sense of giving. To give without a sense of ‘I’ am giving to ‘you’. So that’s really hard to do, so you need somebody who knows how to teach.

And it’s hard, because every layer, everything feels like this sense of self doing something. So how do you get over that. So that’s why Zen was attractive. I’m sure there’s mystical Christian practices that I am totally unaware of that teach the same thing.

The Turning: Buddhism seems to have made major inroads in the West in the last forty years or so. All you have to do is go to any bookstore or magazine rack and you’ll see many Buddhist magazines there. Do you or your teachers find that disaffected Christians are coming to Buddhism like you did?

Henderson: There are some Christian Zen teachers. Sister Elaine McGinnis is a Canadian nun who went to Japan and she trained in Zen. And quite interestingly, she went through the koans and she was given permission to teach by a Zen teacher, a Buddhist teacher, who said you’ve passed all the koans, you’ve seen into (reality), you can teach Zen Christianity. Now, a koan in Buddhism is a training method. It’s a conundrum, a spiritual problem which you have to solve, and demonstrate to your teacher that you understand. Now, she might ask instead of ‘Who is Buddha?’ she might ask ‘Who is Christ? Show me your Christ nature. ‘ So there is cross fertilization going on.

I think the Christian example to Buddhists is the one of giving, of compassion, which seems to be the core of Christianity. And that’s something that maybe Zen neglected a little bit. It got into the wisdom side of things. What’s that wonderful verse in Christianity – ‘without love, all of this is nothing…’ Is that Psalm or something?

The Turning: It’s from Paul.

Henderson: From Paul – well it’s just brilliant . No matter how much wisdom you might have, if you can’t give, if you can’t be loving and with people, what good is it? So it’s not just the wisdom, it’s the being able to be there for people.

The Turning: Obviously in the West we put a lot of stock in money and status, how our careers are going. In the Zen tradition do those things matter much?

Henderson: Well, in Zen there isn’t really a Zen point of view. That would be a misunderstanding of Zen. You could ask me what’s my point of view as a Zen Buddhist, and I can give you my personal point of view. But I can’t talk about Zen because there really isn’t any such thing. So, in other words, there isn’t a doctrine. It’s what you find within and the way you express it. There are teachings but they aren’t like doctrines. It’s more like you have to experience your own nature and then come out of that experience.

Now, with respect to materialism and materialist values – it is a bit of a trap. It’s not that there is a doctrine about it. But you know, people who get really wealthy, it’s hard for them not to get arrogant. I grew up coming from a little bit of wealth, went to a private school where I went to church everyday, twice on Sunday. And I saw some of the wealthiest families in Canada, and some of those kids were the most arrogant people I had ever met in my life. And they didn’t even deserve it, they just inherited it. They didn’t even make it, but they thought they were a cut above everybody else. And so it seemed like such a trap, dangerous in a way. And there’s no end to it because people who had a boat wanted an airplane, and the people who had the best car wanted a boat. It just kept going and going and going. And you could see that if you weren’t satisfied, you couldn’t be satisfied, because that does not give satisfaction. The satisfaction had to come from within.

The Turning: Do you think that the desire for the better boat, the better plane is rooted in anxiety?

Henderson: It’s grasping – trying to find something from outside to feel the void that is inside. You’re trying to fill it up with things, and it will never, ever be filled. It’s a useless pursuit that doesn’t do anybody any good, basically. It produces people with huge arrogance which sets them back. They end up acting most inhuman, very cold. And they have to protect it, too. Which means ‘ don’t come and ask me for money.’ I work with a lot of people in construction. And the most generous people, the people who invite me into their homes are not the wealthy people, they are the people who have worked hard like me. ‘Come in and have tea, come in and break bread with me.’ The people who are wealthy say ‘ you stay outside because you’re dirty and grubby, I want to keep my nice house clean.’ Very few are exceptions to that rule. It’s dangerous for a human being to get into that. There’s nothing bad per se about money. It’s the love of money.

The Turning: Now, in the Christian tradition when our religion takes a position on something, there are lots of big names who feel free to wag their fingers at others and make a big deal of it. Christian television is founded on this principle. You can always get up and say ‘ those people are sinners, they’re doing wrong…’ and so forth. Whereas in the Zen tradition, you were saying it doesn’t work that way. That’s a huge difference.

Henderson: Well, you have the ten commandments, and we have what we call precepts. And the first five are almost identical , you know , no stealing, lying, etc… But after that it gets into the hard ones, like not praising yourself and not disparaging others. And these are precepts for the way you would behave if you were fully developed. The way you should be. So you know that you’re never going to completely be there, so it’s way to check yourself, a way to move forward. So, having those, about proper speech and not praising yourself and condemning others, is very helpful, it makes you start to check yourself.

That kind of mind is based on separation, and really there is no separation. It never did any good to hurt someone verbally, even if you’re not physically harming them because it always comes back. If you do it to a child, in anger, you’ll always regret it because you can’t take those words back. So, you can see how much harm can come out of the tongue. There is a kind of discipline in training yourself not to blurt it out, to check yourself because it could be coming from an over active ego. It could be harmful to somebody, and ultimately you are harming yourself, of course. That sense of oneness. I can’t really hurt you without hurting me.

The Turning: I think that’s the hard one for everybody.

Henderson: Sure it is, because that is the fundamental illusion. It’s an illusion that there is me and then there is the rest of the world. If you break it down on the atomic level, where is this you? There are amoebas inside of you. There’s protozoans. Where is this you? Is it the blood cells? Is it the skin, is it under the skin? Where is it? And that’s actually a koan – where is this ‘you’? And where does it stop and where does the rest of the world start? If you’re breathing a breath of air, is that Buddhist air or Christian air? You might think that I am a Buddhist and you are a Christian, but without air, neither of us can live. So is this air Buddhist or Christian? (laughs) These ideas of separation are just ideas.

The Turning: I guess the mystery is why would human beings be born with an intellect which thinks in terms of dualities? This kind of thinking is great for building a bridge, and cars and technology, but it distances us from seeing and feeling the divinity which is all around us. It seems strange. In the Christian tradition, we say that God would speak in a language that we would understand.

Henderson: Well, if it weren’t possible there would be no practice, no development, no saints. It’s like the story of Adam and Eve. The knowledge of good and evil. It’s not that it wasn’t there before, it’s the knowledge as a separation of right and wrong that is the fundamental flaw. The basic bifurcation that comes, and this is what we’re thrown into. But on the other hand, this whole world is a wonderful training ground.

Everyday is a good day, as my Zen master said. And he wasn’t just talking about the sunny ones. So if you can understand it that way, really live fully in the moment, you do see things through a different lens. It’s like cleaning the lens. A basic concept of our oneness with life, is that it’s like a cup of water. You’ve got a couple of spoons of dirt in it, which is like the intellect. But it’s not just that you’re putting it in, you’re always stirring it around with your emotions, your anger, so you can’t see through that water. That water is dirty. It’s dark and black. And life looks like that. But if you can train yourself to stop stirring it, to check your emotions, not to lash out at others, to start training yourself in a spiritual way, some of that dirt settles because it’s energy is gone. And as it settles, the water gets clearer and clearer and clearer until your mind is clear. So we have the Heruclean task of cleaning the stables.. it’s a lot of work! Nobody is different – we’re all in it together. When you engage in it, you know that you’re the same as everyone else, and you have some compassion for them.

 

 

 

 

The problem with right and wrong

What's left when you put aside your self?

Enemies are an illusion

The problem with money

Adam and Eve and the apple