The pandemic and various other factors have lead to a plague of darkness across many minds. I’m not the brightest guy, but it seems there is a lack of light. Ways to generate internal happiness have existed in many forms over history. Religion is history’s first major proposal for a way to live a joyful, fulfilled, and engaging life. I lump these qualities together under the word “happiness” in this article. As the happiness technology progressed, other secular philosophies came about, like Stoicism, logotherapy, or distinguishing happiness from satisfaction. All this to say, there are plenty of options that probably mesh with your tolerance of over-the-top mysticism.

I don’t intend to offend anyone with this post. I seek to draw seemingly disparate philosophies closer because at the end of the day we’re all on this Earth together, closer than we know. I hope I have paraphrased these wisdoms faithfully. If not, well that’s what happens when you’ve got a broken brain. I believe Christianity and Buddhism point to a similar truth. That’s not to ignore the details of either religion though. The differences are unique, and a vital part of the practice. In drawing attention to their similarities to be celebrated, we can hopefully celebrate the differences too. I’m no scholar, so I can only observe these two. Many others have outlined how there are as many paths to the same truth as there are people. This article goes out to the Truth Seekers.

A good friend gave me Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation, a phenomenal bundle of notes from a Christian monk named Thomas Merton. He organized his notes during years of contemplation (aka meditation), with many, many wisdoms on the fundamental nature of God and existence. In some versions, he prefaces his book by saying how he is merely one of many Christian scholars, monks, and explorers realizing the glory of emptiness and God’s plan. After experiencing the similarities of God and emptiness, I believe these two words point to the same truth, two sides of the same coin if you will. It’s been said one of the main problems of philosophy is that most debates boil down to a disagreement in definitions.

So let’s start with broad, debatable defintions! Emptiness is interdependence. Emptiness is a fundamental nature, in that nothing exists on its own, and everything is an interconnected expression of this fundamental nature. We’ll look at a more detailed example of emptiness later. God is the loving force that created the universe. God is said to be all-encompassing, “the First and Last, the beginning and the end”. Emptiness is similar: “Because things exist, they are empty. Because they are empty, they exist.” A chapter in New Seeds of Contemplation is even called “Everything That Is, Is Holy”. Overlaps quite a bit.

As their underlying concepts, both emptiness and God are chains of cause-and-effect. God is also the first cause, as well as the chain of cause-and-effect. Buddhism chooses not to answer what was the first cause of the universe, as it doesn’t help you towards unshakeable happiness. The Dalai Lama has said “If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality.”. Ecology is the study of the interconnectedness of beings. Every plant and animal can trace the roots of its energy back to the sun. Truth seekers come from all walks of life.

The fruits of truth are peace, creativity, and kindness. To attain the generous, joyful, creative qualities of monks, Christianity and Buddhism point practitioners in seemingly opposing directions: fullness and emptiness, respectively. They are not opposites, but they’re still different enough. Details are important to a practice though, and practicing cohesively can be extremely beneficial to ingraining these details into your intuition.

In Christianity, we are asked to manifest God’s will and allow God’s light to shine through our souls and create generosity, love, and beauty for His sake. To do so, we have to empty and purify our personality through Jesus until it is refined enough to let Jesus through. Sunday is a day for great, gathered contemplation. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” - John 14:6

In Buddhism, we are asked to negate that anything exists disconnected from the universe (most importantly the self), the void of which we can relax into to create spontaneous, joyful, loving actions. After understanding that everything we percieve is fabrication, we must then choose what to fabricate. Both sides of the coin must be integrated into our subconscious mind to be truly liberated.

Both religions, when wholeheartedly practiced, ask us to develop habits of practical intellect and apply this intellect to every conscious moment. These habits are often called mindfulness. Through mindfulness, we are able to notice patterns in ourself, and through virtue we can determine what we ought to move towards. This does not mean that you actively try to change your thoughts as you arise though. You simply notice without judgement. The watchful, trained gaze of our minds can either negate the self or manifest God, and this practice leaves the mind prepared to put forth love and peace into the world. This mind will create the soil for every moment it experiences to plant something in its owner’s soul. Regardless of how the soil is prepared, both paths can grow the same fruit.

“God does not give us graces or talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body. I do not wash my feet to make them more beautiful than my face.” Merton, p56

“Those who serve the ruler directly are as much subjects of the ruler as those who serve indirectly. How far apart are they? They are like hands and feet in the service of the ruler. Are the feet different from the hands because they are farther away?” The Life-Giving Sword

These quotes both illustrate the concept of interdependence in relation to God/emptiness. The Life-Giving Sword is a Zen text from a reknowned swordsman Yagyu Munenori. Although the quote from The Life-Giving Sword refers to rulers and subjects, the deification of Japanese emperors makes service to your ruler akin to serving God. In this light, we improve the gifts we’ve been given not to make ourselves shine brighter, but to inspire others’ to share the gifts they’ve been given. This inter-being is the heart of Buddhism, and seemingly most spiritual practices. As we better ourselves, we better our world.

Although seeing how improving yourself affects the outer fringes of the world can be hard to see, it is simpler when you look at any household object around you. Look at a simple piece of paper. At first glance, you see the piece of paper as it is. Something you can write on, fold, tear, etc. But if you look with the lens of God/emptiness, you can see the sunshine, dirt, rain, and nutrients that made the tree this paper was sourced from. This paper is inseparable from those elements! Those elements are coming from inside the house!

Keep looking. You see the forest manager who passed this tree over for a few years before deciding it could be harvested one year. You see the logger who actually harvested the tree. You hear the song that their parents fell in love to. You see the helpful person who fixed the future mother’s flat tire on her first date with her future husband. How can this exact sheet of paper have existed without the sun, without the song, without the son?

This facet of emptiness that an infinite number of conditions were required for the present moment to be as it is seems very similar to the concept of God’s plan. God’s plan is understood to be unknowable by humans. Given our inability to model turbulence past small systems, it’s easy to see why if you think about all the conditions that go into every object at every moment. Turbulent flow is definitionally chaotic, and extremely sensitive to initial conditions. We cannot understand the unbounded complexities of His plan or His motives, but they inevitably move us as wind moves a field of grass. We are moved with love. If that’s laying it on too thick, there’s a derivation that doesn’t need the overly mythical aspects of Christianity and Buddhism.

Stoicism is a very tolerant philosophy for many orthogonal beliefs. Many Stoics were faithful Christians, and it did not detract from their dedication to reason. Happiness in Stoicism revolves around focusing on internals, things you can control like your reactions to heartbreak, anger, or disgust, and letting go of externals, things you can’t control like people’s judgements, violent extremists, and traffic. Letting go of externals fits nicely with God’s plan and emptiness. Stoicism calls this concept of loving God’s (or fate’s) plan that got you to this exact point in your life amor fati. No matter the religious views of the practitioner, being a crop grateful to be alive from the soil of these infinite conditions is the Stoic key to unshakeable happiness.

“It is in the deepest darkness that we most fully possess God on earth, because it is then that our minds are most truly liberated from the weak, created lights that are darkness in comparison to Him; it is then that we are filled with His infinite Light which seems pure darkness to our reason.” p135

Here Merton talks about how God’s light is so incomprehensibly full that it appears to be darkness to us. We simply cannot comprehend its holiness. God sent an actual incarnation of himself in Jesus, and the people of the time thought he was blasphemous because the ordinary mind cannot recognize godliness. God is darkness because He is beyond conceptions. A similar concept, or lack of concepts, is found in Buddhism. One Zen monk Dogen suggested that after a certain point, we need to embrace the fact that no intellectual arguments can take you to Experience as it is (suchness). Words can take you close, but not all the way. You must drop conceptions if you want to proceed. Be careful not to pick up the concept of “dropping of conceptions”!

Within the realm of conceptions to drop is the conception of control. As you negate yourself through emptiness or prostrate yourself to God through meditation, the person controlling the experience dissolves. There is no person doing the enlightening. It was your practice, it was the initial spark that set you on a path, it was the training material and guidance, it was your brain wrapping itself around an inconcievable notion of conceptionlessness. The changes to your subconscious happen, well, subconsciously. Both religions point to needing to consciously stay in this conceptionless space until the subconscious seeds you planted start growing. The mind is doing the enlightening without you. A student searches; a master finds, most likely with their feet up.

“For God is love. Love is my true identity… if I do anything… that is not purely for the love of ~God~ [love] it cannot give me peace… rest… fulfillment, or joy”p61

Shinzen Young trying to summarize enlightenment in one word echoes Merton’s sentiment. Country music superstar Sturgill Simpson concurs. I can’t leave Marvin Gaye unmentioned either. Both God and Emptiness point to a single concept: an ungraspable, inseparable blanket of love that ties all of existence together. In my personal opinion, Buddhist concepts and thought experiments are cleaner abstractions that are easier to reason about, while Christian concepts are often more beautiful and personal. Emptiness is harder to ingrain as a friend than Jesus. If we substituted the word “God” or “emptiness” for “love”, I think there would be far less tension in our world. Again, that’s not to say that we should ignore the details of either, there can be literal devils in those details. Most people can get behind loving your family, and the Jesus and Buddha both exhibit superhuman abilities to extend the concept of “family” and love all beings. All paths point to love. Such tolerance would go a long way towards hearing opposing viewpoints charitably, which leads us to the truth on many matters. The light of truth is found outside ourselves and in our communities. Wholesomely enough, the light itself supports the person who found it. We can all revel in the sun.

Unity seems more and more pressing during these pandemic times. I am grateful for the friend that showed me the harmony in New Seeds of Contemplation, and grateful for far greater minds who have worked to unify the viscerally divisive topic of religion. Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu priest who practiced Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, among other religions. He came to the conclusion that they are all paths to the same truth. Mahatma Gandhi saw all religions are holy in their love of Truth. Martin Luther King Jr. saw the teaching of Christ in the actions of Gandhi. I am not a great spiritual activist, but I humbly contribute my attempt to unify to the voids of the internet. There can be profound impacts on the world through unity.

The further you go down a mystic path, the more the differences between paths seem to vanish. All faiths try to provide answers to the ever-present questions “What is the nature of the universe? How can I have lasting happiness?”. Enlightenment resolves these questions, and raises its own. “Now that I’m out of my own way, how can I love and serve my fellow people more effectively?” Various religions and philosophies can give you the inner light to brighten the world, and the inner strength to keep it from being crushed by the world. The source of discovery doesn’t matter. Whether that be the word of God, emptiness as outlined by the Buddha and other monks, Sri Ramakrishna, the Greco-Roman Stoics, or the love you feel for your family of kindred souls, it’s all the same. Shine and let shine.