‘When I think about silence, I realise there is not really any such thing. I think instead about the need to go within ourselves.’ Photo: by Katerina May on Unsplash
‘When I think about silence, I realise there is not really any such thing. I think instead about the need to go within ourselves.’ Photo: by Katerina May on Unsplash
A Quaker friend and I recently discussed whether silence for Buddhists was the same as silence for Quakers. I have been told many times that each form is distinct, as my friend went on to do. But in all my experiences of the two, I’ve never noticed any significant difference in the quality of the silence, or the nature of the energy that develops among a group of people sitting together. Any differences are more to do with those present than what they are, or are not, doing.
Many of the people who insist on a distinction are Quakers who have turned away from Buddhism and decided it is not for them. But I consider both practices to be important parts of my spiritual journey; I could never choose one or the other. I’m so glad neither of them demands that I do choose – the openness of these traditions is part of why I feel I belong in both of them, along with my personal sense of connection to God, or the universe, or the oneness of everything, or Buddha-nature, or whatever you want to call it.
So I’m curious as to why some Quakers find Buddhism, especially the ‘Plum Village’ tradition proposed by Thich Nhat Hanh, but then leave. The tradition applies mindfulness to everyday activities and tries to bring an ethical and spiritual dimension to decision-making. Sound familiar? Equally, I wonder why some people try Quakerism, find it doesn’t suit them for some other reason, and become Buddhists, or return to traditional forms of Christian worship. Why can’t we all stay open to all forms of spiritual connection?
Why do we need to feel we are in the right group, and what harm does that do across the planet? How many wars come from the need to be right? How much terrible suffering?
In several places around the world, torture and horrific punishments are taken against people who are deemed to be spiritually ‘wrong’ just for being different. I think this attitude is probably the biggest reason why people turn their backs on conventional religions, and instead gravitate to newer, more liberal, spiritual traditions.
It all boils down to psychology, wanting to be in the in-group not the out-group, and an individual need to fit in or belong somewhere. That is our immediate mistake. We all already belong to this planet, to this universe, and in this moment. We are part of the whole, just a bunch of molecules expressed as us, each as we are. We are not right or wrong, but we create these divisions in order to acquire a sense of individual identity. This same neediness creates horrendous problems for other members of our species, and often for ourselves too.
For me, spirituality is about our connection to all that is – to the world, this planet and the oneness of everything. Whatever you call that oneness – God, Buddha consciousness or the universal energy that is life – doesn’t matter. We all have that in common. We squabble about it – about the gender of this oneness, or about what it said or didn’t say to us, or what is written about it. We create rules of sacrilege against holy words or objects, in order to punish each other, to punish those who do not belong to our group. The life of Salman Rushdie is a prime example: even after the Fatwa was lifted he was attacked by a religious fanatic who believed they were doing God’s work.
There are not very many steps from ‘our silence is different from your silence’ to death threats based on these differences. It is astonishing how quickly a society can close in like this when it feels threatened.
I want to use my spirituality to bring people together. I want to make connections and bonds based on similarities, and I’m glad to say that among Quakers there is a group called the Universalists that does exactly that. Universalists explore what we all have in common, and write wonderful, learned papers on that topic.
When I think about silence, I realise there is not really any such thing. I think instead about the need to go within ourselves, to resolve our inner conflicts, and to finally know ourselves. From that point, we can settle down and listen for intuitions, or promptings, or higher knowings. Sitting facing each other can be a distraction to this process, and does not necessarily mean we are any closer or more connected as individuals, though this is often cited by Quakers as to why their Meetings are superior. Learning to look deeply at oneself can be daunting, but leads to the deepest connections on an emotional level. These are far greater, for me, than anything I have experienced in a Quaker Meeting.
If we all thoughtfully consider what we have in common, we will discover that it is far more than what makes us different. If we base our status on highly-divisive explorations of those differences – as, for example, some Catholic and Protestant scholars were once wont to do – then we engender an ‘us and them’ separation. Separation breaks down humanwide co-operation, destroys connections, and makes lives harder for all other humans – even those who lock themselves into rich estates with guards and so much privilege.
Quakers have a valuable resource in Advices & queries. I return to it often, to remind myself to not get arrogant about my own rightness. Number seventeen suggests ‘Think it possible that you may be mistaken.’ The Plum Village tradition has a similar intent when practitioners ask ‘Are you sure?’
These two phrases should be on the tips of everybody’s tongues. Without them we can become rigid, judgmental and unkind. Without them we become ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘in group’ and ‘out group’.
See page 15 for an alternative view.
Sorry, but I cannot find the page 15 for alternative view….
By BruceJJCadbury on 15th June 2023 - 11:06
For me, the central difference between Buddhism and Quaker faith is in the word faith. Buddhism is a ‘science of the mind’, a way of engaging with the world. It is about navigating the world by being connected to it ‘above the intellect’; for the great Indian mystic Sadhguru, this is what the word bu-ddha actually transiterates as.
Quaker faith is a deep appreciation of our personal and collective relation to God, not the world. Our faith gives us a direct connection through ‘that of God within us’, so that we are less likely to be led astray by misinterpretation of sacred texts into doing things in the name of God that Jesus would never countenance. The fact that some have made these mistakes does not diminish our personal relationship with God. In fact they make it even more important!
Quakers act in the world having first knowingly ‘harkened unto the Lord’. This does not diminsh the tremendous good that can be done by Buddhists, of course not. But in direct contrast to Buddhism, our faith allows us to be ‘in the world, but not of it.’ We are, hopefully, open to the Lord’s corrective voice in His pursuit of Goodness in and for all things.
By markrdibben@gmail.com on 15th June 2023 - 14:06
Just to add one last concluding sentence and correct a typo in what I said above. I meant ‘transliterates’; Buddha is a compound word formed of bu and ddha. And to conclude, the fundamental difference as I sense it between Buddhism and Quaker faith, i.e. God, does indeed make Quaker silence quite different. So long as in that silence one is listening not for oneself but, more even perceptively still, Listening for God.
If one isn’t, then yes, it would be the same.
To practice the Quaker *faith* is something quite different. Since Jesus was clear that we should follow Him, not worship Him, I have often wondered whether Meeting for Worship would be better understood as Meeting for Harkening. Quaker faith is first and foremost about our relationship with God, not our relationship with the world.
By markrdibben@gmail.com on 15th June 2023 - 14:24
I have been reflecting on this article all afternoon, it’s been tremendously helpful. Thank you.
The insights that come from rising ‘above the intellect’ (bud-dha; sorry for the typo above), i.e. from placing oneself upstream from the usual downstream intellectual thought of modernism and even postmodernism as standardly conceived, can be startling in their clarity and simplicity. They are constructively postmodern rather than deconstructively so. For they do not merely ‘separate, ‘undo’ or ‘take apart’; they separate-up-together. They are inclusive of spirituality rather than dismissive of it.
I was fortunate enough to be able to carve out some sort of academic career from these sorts of insights. They may be powerful and, in their own way, are tremendously precious.
I can, though, testify to the Voice of the Spirit being from a different source.
There are, yes, invariably insights to be gained from harkening unto the Lord; that is the power of the Light. Yet the insights are of a different quality, for Harkening is above all an Uplifting and an Alluring. An experience. The Voice of the Spirit never criticises, shames, diminishes or belittles, it always comforts, supports, deepens and beatifies. At one and the same time, then, it is Love and - just as the Beatitudes are - a Calling to the Good.
The Voice of the Spirit is from a different source - entirely.
By markrdibben@gmail.com on 15th June 2023 - 21:20
The concept that is needed is the gathered meeting. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. But, to me anyhow, in a gathered meeting something is there that isn’t just us. To some of us it is God, to some Jesus, to some an awareness of divinity, the Spirit. I don’t want to presume on Buddhists, but I wonder how they answer.
By Richard Seebohm on 25th August 2023 - 17:19
I used to lead mindfulness days for the Plum Village tradition, and the sense of spiritual community was not that different to Quakers.
By MartinCoyle on 16th March 2024 - 8:21
When I sit in silence with a group, I can quite easily envisage a pool of spirit in the place where we are (be it in a meeting house or in an outdoor silence in a noisy city) and I can, with my brain, imagine it as a pool of water made up of all the drops of water of our individual spirits. I can then usually (but no always) become deeply linked to that pool so that I forget my self. When I sit in silence by myself, in nature for example, which I do often, I am aware of the spirit as a pool of wonder, but it can be a shallower expereince, a link between me and my god, so more selfish, more about my self and the spirit. I am so much more aware of the fact that it is not about ME if I am in silence, with the pool of spirit, with other people.
By Jackie Carpenter on 13th June 2024 - 9:42
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