Got a comment on my post called “Trying to Connect with God” which was posted November 28, 2010. I was really inspired to reply, I’ve been on the same path, struggling to make sense of a god who apparently allows so much suffering to happen. My reply got so long, and I still had another story to tell, so I thought I might as well post a lot of it here as well.
I do not believe that god is “he”, I tend to use a blend of pronouns “he/she/it/they”, and am more likely to use the word “spirit” when trying to talk about the divine. I think the first time I started to connect with the divine was when I began to do Buddhist sitting practice. I found the Bodhisattva of Compassion a presence I could relate to. The statue of Kannon at the Rochester Zen Center was a lovely androgynous being with a compassionate face. I also went on a trip to Europe, and in Brittany saw a sculpture of Jesus with the most compassionate face I’ve ever seen. He was bending over a large fish with little tiny figures in his open mouth, and I was told that these were the beings in Hell being rescued by Jesus. I thought that to see that compassionate face looking down at you would bring anyone out of hell. I began to get it that Jesus was an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
I have a favorite story about Jesus and the Bodhisattva. When the Christian missionaries came to Bhutan (I think it was Bhutan, it might have been Sikkim, one of those tiny Himalyan kingdoms anyway) and told the people stories about the man who taught forgiveness and died for the people, the Bhutanese replied “That’s a good one, we’ll put it in the list of stories we have about Padmasambhava’s many lives.” The Christians said “O no it happened only once!” The Bhutanese said “We know that being.” I’ve forgotten the source of this story, so the names may not be correct. I expect the essence remains the same.
I also think about the story in the last of the Narnia tales, The Last Battle. Aslan, the great Lion who dies and lives again in the first tale is clearly a Christ figure. In the last tale the Calormenes invade and conquer Narnia. Their God is judgmental and cruel. Aslan says: “I and [Tash] are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.” A similar notion to “By their fruits shall ye know them.” (Sorry I can’t provide the Biblical references. You can perhaps tell that I grew up Episcopalian, and it’s the King James version that comes to mind.)
I also think of Jesus saying “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it also to me.” That God is saying that people who exploit and abuse others are doing it to God. I think that God cares very much about what happens to people. That God also FEELS everything that is done to any one. The fact that he/she/it/they doesn’t always interfere is a mystery. I’ve had amazing responses to direct prayer, and also complete lack of response. Some say it’s not that God didn’t respond, it’s that he/she/it/they didn’t respond in the way we wanted or a way we can see.
People who are interested in this topic might like to read my post on “God Image.”