The Deepest Spiritual Life Ezine

A Monthly Publication, Issue #2 – October 2002

Publisher: Susan Quinn

http://www.thedeepestspirituallife.com

I’M SPIRITUAL, BUT I’M NOT RELIGIOUS

‘Sangha’ means spiritual community and it is treasured because without it awakening cannot be sustained. The Sangha carries the teachings and acknowledges that we cannot awaken alone. The world of spiritual prayer and practice is sustained through teachers, spiritual friends, and community. As we practice we become part of the process of nourishing the awakening of others. Every moment of compassion or understanding that we awaken spills from us to our families, our communities, our world.—Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

During the past five years while writing my book, I heard the phrase, "I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious" a lot. It bothered me the first time I heard it, and it continues to bother me. I understand that there are people who have been disappointed and betrayed by people in religious organizations, and may never recover from their wounds; I have great compassion for them, and regret that they may never pursue a spiritual life. I also realize that terrible things have been done, and continue to be done, in the name of religion. My problems with the comment, "I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious" is threefold: 1) it judges religions for the acts of evil committed by destructive human beings who have hideously distorted the purpose of religion; 2) it prevents people from finding out the richness of being involved with religions through the belief systems, stories, traditions and community life that they offer; and 3) it suggests an arrogance and probably naivete about what religion is, and what it can offer;. So in this issue, I’d like to talk about the limitations of people seeing themselves only as "spiritual," and what religion offers in spite of the current trendiness in discounting it.

I think that people who consider themselves spiritual range from folks who are satisfied with being moved by a beautiful sunset or being surrounded by nature, to people who emulate spiritual wisdom and compassion in everyday life. If people are satisfied with beautiful sunsets, and want to limit their spiritual experiences to those moments, they are certainly entitled to do so. But there are also many people in our society who want to lead deeply spiritual lives, and either don’t know how to do it, or they decide to develop their personal spirituality on their own. I’d like to address the conditions of the latter group.

If people design their own spirituality, they may draw selectively from the religious traditions, but in many cases they probably have had limited exposure to these traditions, and they pick and choose those beliefs and practices that work for them. (By the way, I do believe there are people who have extensive knowledge of many religious traditions, and I do believe that it is possible to develop one’s own belief and practice system, but I think there may still be significant flaws in the systems they create, since they have no feedback systems.) In choosing the beliefs and practices that people want to follow, they are likely to select those ideas that make sense to them, that they appreciate, that are enjoyable, intriguing and easy to do. At least that is the kind of system I’d put together. The limitation of this approach is that this type of spirituality may be rewarding, providing a certain level of satisfaction and comfort, but it likely won’t take people deeper.

From my own experience, I have certainly appreciated those beliefs and practices that have been enjoyable and satisfying. I like sitting meditation, chanting, doing service, practicing oryoki (a Japanese form of eating meals) at Zen retreats, and meditating with my community. I have not always enjoyed doing koan practice, participating in team projects for our Zen community, and don’t like to admit that I create most of my own suffering (a Buddhist concept). I struggle with the ideas of oneness (particularly in relation to terrorists), non-violence and impermanence. What has become profoundly true for me, however, is that the beliefs and practices that I dislike, don’t understand and struggle with are the ones that have taken my practice deeper. I can’t just discard them because they are unpleasant or inexplicable, because I trust there is a reason they come with the "package." I am called to wrestle with these ideas and try to reach some kind of understanding of them. And I acknowledge that I may question some of the beliefs in my own practices for the rest of my life…..and my tenacity in facing these "religious" questions will continue to help me mature in my own spirituality, because I am motivated to test my own spiritual beliefs and preferences against those of my traditions, and explore how and why any of them might provide meaning and purpose in my life.

Another hazard of developing our own spirituality without a religious context, particularly community, is that we may develop a type of spiritual arrogance. A few years ago I spoke to a man who said that he’d been to lots of religious communities, and all the people that he met were so superficial. Of course, the chances were good that his exposure to these communities were, in fact, superficial, as well as his efforts to seek out people who were pursuing deeply spiritual lives within those communities. In every community we are likely to meet people for whom showing up at weekly meetings and socializing is more important than pursuing a deeply spiritual life. But I hope I’m never foolish enough to think that I know with certainty who those people are, or that I have a way of knowing how deeply they practice their spirituality the rest of the week, or that I deny they might have something to teach me!

As I find more and more people who profess to be spiritual and not religious, I fear that they will be missing an opportunity to truly take their spiritual experience deeper. Whether stereotypes of religion have led them to avoid religious community, or they suffered through boredom with community as a child, or oppression in a community for a lifetime, I have to believe that there is always the possibility that at some point they will realize that there is a community for everyone—including themselves. Rather than take the easy route (that is so typically American, and so isolating and lonely) of going it alone, I keep hoping that people will wake up to the fact that we are communal creatures who mature in relationship to other spiritual seekers. And to truly deepen our spiritual lives, we are called to seek out others and share our experiences with them.

The next time someone tells me that they are spiritual but not religious, I plan to pursue the line of conversation from a place of curiosity and caring. My objective in being curious is not to talk them out of their beliefs, or to discount them, but to genuinely pursue a dialogue about their reasons for judging and avoiding community. They may have a lot to learn simply through the process of sharing, and if I am genuinely willing to be present to their experience and listen to them, I will have a lot to learn, too.

YOUR COMMENTS ON LAST MONTH’S EZINE—

"This morning I was teaching a class where the workbook stated that intimacy was the highest point on the respect scale. It struck me that you used the word intimacy in your experience with the spiritual community. In this class there is usually some resistance (usually by men) to that word being used in a work setting, but this particular group was very open to it. (Perhaps because there were no formal leaders in attendance.) The point I wanted to share with you was one man's definition of intimacy -- Into me see. I think your Zen group was seeing into you and acknowledging your experience." --Carole Spencer
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CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Book signing, Barnes & Noble, 13712 Jamboree Road, Irvine, CA, (714) 508-9707, November 12, 2002, 7:00-9:00 pm

Book signing, Earth Song, 1440 Camino del Mar, Del Mar, CA, (858) 755-4254, November 14, 2002, 7:00-9:00 pm

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