A Zen Buddhist reflects on Ash Wednesday

Ten minutes with Hyon Gak Sunim (and two with Joseph Campbell)

I consider Zen master and fellow-expatriate Hyon Gak Sunim a friend, although we’ve never met in the flesh (something we’ve tried and failed to do, but hope to do one of these days). Below is his Ash Wednesday reflection, posted a year ago, which I’m reposting here for your own reflections. (You can read his bio here.)

A word first might be in order. Some will, no doubt, take issue with Hyon Gak Sunim’s caricature of Christian soteriology as rescue by a “Superman”-Jesus coming “from outside.” I know him well enough, however, to know that he’s quite aware that that’s only a caricature, but it’s also one which — sadly — the churches have too often fostered themselves. Hyon Gak, though, is someone who loves Jesus and sees through the poor representations of him that many of us who call ourselves Christians (of whatever variety) also see and cause us distress at times. Turning just to the New Testament (one needn’t look beyond it here) we have ample contradictions of this limp notion of a “Superman” rescuer-Jesus who “saves” a passive, helpless humanity. As I noted a decade ago in my book on the Sermon on the Mount (Taking Jesus at His Word — see here), there is nothing in Jesus’ teachings that were considered by the early Christians to be beyond human capacity to do — even if one occasionally fell short and had to get back on his or her feet. Turning to Paul, whose writings have endured one misrepresentation after another, his repeatedly stated understanding of our “rescue” is something in which we are synergistically engaged. It doesn’t simply “come from without,” but takes place very much within. For example (note the italics I’ve added): “Do not be conformed to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2); “… to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6); “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding [within ourselves] the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another…” (2 Corinthians 3:18); and — although it’s disputed as being an authentic Pauline text — “Christ in you [is] the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). “Rescue” or “salvation” — terms that could just as easily apply to the sense of urgency which attended the Buddhist teaching of the Dharma — was originally understood by Jesus-followers as cooperation with the Christ-Spirit within. It involved an inner mind-centered practice, in other words (see Matthew 6:6). This understanding, of course, has survived in the broad tradition of Christian contemplative spirituality, East and West; one has only to consult, for example, the monastic and mystical writers of the ages — from the Desert Fathers to Thomas Merton — or a collection like The Philokalia to see it in full swing.

With that caveat aside, here is Hyon Gak Sunim, whose words are pure gold, in my opinion. Below that, I have appended a two-minute clip of a lecture by Joseph Campbell, which beautifully seconds the first video’s insights.

And here is Joseph Campbell: