Basic goodness in the Christian tradition

I was drawn to the buddhist aspect of the Shambhala community, rather than the Shambhalian, but there were a number of features of the latter I very much appreciated. One of these was the idea that a path could exist that was both secular -- in the sense of non-sectarian -- and yet very much sacred.

One of the principal rifts in the Shambhala sangha has to do with the transformation of this idea, around twenty or so years ago, into a new, and resolutely Tibetan buddhist, path, complete with visualizations of deities and vows taken to a lama. Many have gone along with this shift, while many have viewed it as a betrayal of the original understanding as presented by Chögyam Trungpa. It remains to be seen where things will go from here, given the current uncertain organizational state of the community.

But I don't think it is arguable that Trungpa intended the Shambhala program to be one which Christians, Muslims, Jews, and those who consider themselves to be entirely non-religious could follow. Although Buddhism is a non-theistic path -- which is not to say atheistic as such, but rather one with simply a different focus from those both theistic and atheistic -- I find formulations throughout the Abrahamic traditions which seem quite close to the idea of basic goodness. There, it has its origin in God. But the entire universe being God’s creation, goodness suffuses it too, at its core, in its essential nature. We can contact this reality, rediscover it, aim more and more to embody it ourselves. 

Such an understanding can be found joyously expressed in the great Sufi contemplative poets (eg Hafiz and Rumi), and in the Jewish kabbalistic tradition. The Incarnation at the heart of Christianity also points directly to this notion of the sacredness, the ultimate perfection, of the world/creation. In a well-known passage from his Centuries of Meditation, the poet and theologian Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) attempts to convey a personal experience of this realization:

"The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold; the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things. The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die. But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared; which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor bounds nor divisions: but all proprieties and divisions were mine: all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world. Which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God."

“Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared.” Traherne, using the language of his tradition, sees what Buddhists call the world of appearances as the manifestation of the divine, of God, irradiating all of his perception. And where he speaks of “unlearning” and becoming a child again, this isn’t too far off a description of some of the principal effects of sustained Buddhist meditation practice (see for example Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s description of “beginner’s mind”). The paragraph as a whole wonderfully bears witness to an understanding of basic goodness. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” Not somewhat or partly good, but, ultimately, good unconditionally. Good beyond good, we might say.