Portrait of Confucius. Photo: Unknown artist.
Interfaith dialogue: Beth Allen makes a soulful connection
‘Love is one of its faces.’
Almost a year ago, our Meeting was enriched by a newcomer who is studying the thought and writings of Kong Fuzi, better known to us in the west as Confucius. Our new Friend Wenjun Zou told us of Confucian meditation practices. I wanted to know more, so she and I watched a programme focussed on his thought. I was interested by the concept of ‘ren’.
Kong Fuzi taught that, because we are human, we all have a capacity for ‘ren’, which Wenjun’s teacher translates as ‘inner warmth’. Wang Shumo, a modern Confucian scholar, calls it ‘the ability to feel and to cultivate within ourselves goodness and love and a capacity for service; it is the manifestation of the transcendent in the minds of human beings. Love is one of its faces, and among others, dignity, wisdom and courage. It has to be witnessed in deep contemplative spirituality; it is a sense of eternal warmth, a pure and peaceful joy.’
This links with our Quaker concept of the inward light, our innate capacity to reach for the Divine. In ministry, Wenjun said: ‘Each of us can feel warmth in our hearts, but the problem is that we cannot hold onto it for long. Confucian practice helps us maintain this warmth and sustain it eternally. This may be an unending process, but we gradually change as we practise. When there is warmth in my heart, I feel joy, contentment, positivity and an open mind. We keep on practising to hold the inward light or warmth – that is our contribution to make the world a better place.’
I want to find out even more. This could be another exciting interfaith journey! In my experience, interfaith and interchurch discussions go through several stages. We start with a polite exchange, focussing on the positive ideas and experiences that we share. We try things out, like religious tourists; we go back with relief to our own tradition, and then venture out again because we enjoy the enrichment. Later, the conversation deepens and becomes less polite; we acknowledge negatives in our own tradition and in the one we are learning about. We begin to accept each other at a more realistic and profound level, and we recognise the wrongs of the past. Later still, we begin to understand the moving tides of global history and the changes in society which affect the development of all our faiths; the conversation deepens as, together, we understand and learn.
Douglas Steere, a US Quaker, took part in many such conversations. He distilled his experience into his 1971 Pendle Hill pamphlet, Mutual Irradiation, which has guided me since. He considered that the essential basis of these conversations was mutual respect, a climate of sincere seeking, and ruthless frankness. He concludes: ‘Something happens in the course of understanding another’s truth that irradiates and lights up one’s own tradition, and that may give one a hint of a truth that embraces both, a hint of a hidden convergence.’
As the possibility of a Confucian/Quaker dialogue opens up, I take the idea of inner warmth into my own understanding of inner light. Are there any other Confucian Quakers out there? Wenjun and I would love to know!
Comments
You might like to read my article on ‘Daoism and Creativity’ in the Quaker Universalist pamphlet 46.
Roger Hill
By rbabingtonhill@gmail.com on 21st November 2024 - 10:58
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