Both my parents came from
devout Christian families. They met in the Student Christian Movement in
pre-war
Donald seemed to speak from a deep place. His lectures on the big events of the
20th century were unique and challenged us to realize the meaning of revolution
and death camps, etc for our own lives. 'Are you for real?', he would ask us
pampered 'revolutionaries'. I noticed how he asked after the families of the
janitors in his office building, how he supported his wife, Dorothy, in passing
round the refreshments, and with what infinite tenderness he opened a door for
his young son. When 'student revolution' hit Keele in 1968, most academics were
shocked and hostile, but Donald came and talked with us just outside the
Registry Office we were occupying. Just outside as a rebuke to us for
the measure of violence used in the scuffle to force the door. But in so doing
he also found himself publicly modelling dialogue for his shell-shocked
colleagues, who probably saw him as betraying their collective dignity. Donald
it was, I later discovered, who had asked the University library to stock
several of the books of counterculture guru and scholar of Zen/ Taoism/Vedanta,
Alan Watts; and it was Donald who told us about the Third Way in Vietnam
movement led by 'engaged Buddhist' monk, activist, poet and scholar, Thich Nhat
Hanh. Even though I kept 'blowing it' in subsequent years, the experience of
having known Donald Nicholl somehow influenced me for the better and as I
approach my sixties I find his influence, as also that of my parents (also
deceased), becoming a steady background presence in my life.
In the heady environment of the early 70's I found myself influenced by
feminist liberation theologians such as Mary Daly (especially her Beyond God
the Father) and Rosemary Radford Reuther (e.g. New Woman, New
Earth). On meeting feminist painter
Monica Sjoo at a Claimants Union conference in Oxford I was fascinated by
her Swedish-pagan faith in the Goddess, which I initially took very much as a
political ideology (Myth, symbol system) which we could use to loosen the
hold of Patriarchy on our imaginations. When leading a WEA class on
Alternative Socialism at the Birmingham Peace Centre in 1974 I asked Monica to
give her first talk on the Goddess, and the handwritten screed she produced on
that occasion subsequently expanded and expanded until it became a classic of
Goddess feminism, The Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother, co-authored
by poet Barbara Mor, and published by Harper and Row.
From 1977 to 1986 I lived with Monica first in Bristol, and then in rural
Fishguard/Abergwaun in Dyfed, Cymru/Wales and was privileged to learn a great
deal from her and her 'alternative', Goddess-feminist and pagan friends, particularly
tipi-dweller, mother and emerging Holy-woman, Eveon. At the same time I failed
to make a personal transition to feeling deeply nourished either in my
relationship with Monica or from Goddess-paganism as a spiritual path and
community. It took until the shipwreck of that relationship following the
tragic death of her son, Leif, aged 15, and the approaching shipwreck of my
next long term relationship (with Daphne Francis in Galloway) that around 1996
I realised I simply had to shut up talking about religion and start to
meditate in earnest.
Fortunately Julia Langley, a lay minister of the Order of Buddhist
Contemplatives, was starting a (Soto Zen) Buddhist group nearby and quite
quickly I began to appreciate the benefits of regular sitting meditation, and
also occasional visits by monks from Throssell Hole Buddhist Abbey, where I
'took the precepts' in 2001. On moving to
In grappling with how to relate my political and religious sides, I had been
immensely helped in the mid-eighties by attending Despair and Empowerment
workshops led by or in the style of Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover,
World as Self, and in the mid-nineties I had come across a gem of a book, Beyond
Optimism - Towards a Buddhist Political Ecology, by Ken Jones who founded
the Network of Engaged Buddhists. Then around 2000 I came across the work of
Rita M Gross, who is the Buddhist equivalent of Rosemary Reuther (with whom she
has written a Christian-Buddhist dialogue book) and has written
Beyond Patriarchy - Towards a Feminist History, Critique and Reconstruction of
Buddhism
A more recent influence has been the work and example of Neil Douglas-Klotz, an
Edinburgh-based Sufi and Religious Studies scholar of Aramaic and the
'Middle-Eastern spiritual tradition'. I had first come across Prayers of the
Cosmos, his translation of the Lord's Prayer from the Aramaic in the mid
1990's and had been excited to discover that instead of or alongside the phrase
'Kingdom of Heaven' it would be legitimate to understand 'the great
Motherdom of Heaven' (another alternative that has been proposed is 'Commonwealth
of God').
When I moved to Perth I became friends with Stella Cranwell,
through whom I began to take part in Dances of Universal Peace led by Neil and
promoted by the Rahanyiat International Sufi order. I feel temendously drawn to
this circle dancing and sacred chanting, which draws on faiths from across the world.
I also began to consider what Buddhist, Christian or even 'Goddess'
translations I might draw upon with which to make sense of La Ilaha
Ill-allah - there is no god but God [who is beyond gender] - one of
the two central affirmations of Islam. Monica and Daphne had both been very
critical of Islam as another terrible Patriarchal religion, but by this time I
was learning to become a little less aversive and opinionated ideologically,
the more so as I had begun to smell a rat concerning 911 and the wave of
Islamophobia currently sweeping the West, every bit as irrational as the
witch-hunts of the late Middle Ages or the anti-semitism of 30's Germany.
Both locally in Tayside and nationally through the UK 911 Truth movement I have
come to know several very impressive Muslims personally, and have also come to
respect much about their faith and practices. Although like other
religions Islam has its fundamentalist wing, which can lead to intolerance and
violence, my overwhelming sense is of a religion of peace, a set of practices
for helping the 'Ummah' (literally the indivisible Motherland of
adherents) through the hard times of life. It grieves me that in the UK the
potential for Interfaith dialogue is being corralled into the space permitted
according to Home Office colonial style agendas (don't mention the war, don't
investigate 911) for managing and bearing down on Muslims and Islam as some
kind of inherently problematic and terrorism-susceptible religion, when,
as the brilliant Nafeez
Mohammad Ahmed has shown, since 1945 'The Problem of International
Terrorism' has shifted around according to whom Western elites wish to demonise
and frame for their own long term geo-strategic objectives. (If we Buddhists
had been sitting on all that oil, the world would doubtless have been hearing
of Buddhist suicide hi-jackers, train-bombers, etc.)
I consider it deeply racist of many 'educated' Westerners to continue to
believe in the juicy 'meme' of Islamic terror, in the absence of reliable
evidence (beyond intelligence agency and police hearsay faithfully relayed by
profit-hungry media), and in the presence of overwhelming evidence of
Western/Zionist (including Christian Zionist) aggressions and false-flag
terrorism, as well as the conscious insistence of Western elites on maintaining
'demonic' structures of global economic violence which each decade kill more
than Hitler and Stalin combined (see theologian David Ray Griffin's Christian
Faith and the Truth behind 911 as well as websites such as Muslims, Jews and Christians Against 911 False
Witness ).
So where have I got to?:
a) My Buddhist faith, practice and 'sanghas' nourish me - and I would
definitely recommend some or other spiritual practice to everyone who wants to
deeply accept themselves/the world as they/'It' are - without which no
healing change can unfold.
b) As I journey further I find myself more and more sharply aware of my
dependence on the sheer mystery of Life, that which is beyond words and beyond
my control, whether approached as 'Suchness', the Unborn, the Eternal, Sacred
Unity, the Holy One, Reality, the Ground of our Being, the Supreme Identity,
God, Allah, the Goddess, the Mother, our Source and Sustainer, etc. On a good
day life is less of a problem and Gratitude for the opportunity to take
whatever arises as a path of practice. On a good day I aim less to anxiously,
aggressively and conceitedly engineer outcomes than to tender 'offerings'. And
yet as a foolish being I still keep blowing it and depend utterly on Grace, on
That which accepts us all just as we are.
c) The world is drifting towards an abyss - of course many have already been
dashed to pieces by earlier manifestations of collective 'sin' or the 'error'
of institutional greed, hate and delusion, all founded on fear.
d) Among those forces of institutional delusion are 'certaintist'
Fundamentalisms, which are as much 'Free-market', Statist, Nationalist,
Political and Scientific as Religious.
e) As well as being part of the problem, religions can and must become part of
the solution. At its best, the worldwide movement for Interfaith dialogue
offers fruitful avenues for Awakening to Life Abundant, to Love, Wisdom and
Compassion, deeply and swiftly enough for enough of us to help make a
difference and turn our lawless, 'godless' world back from the brink(s).
f) Even if things may well have gone too far for humanity to avoid mass war,
starvation, environmental poisoning and climate chaos, let us at least live in
the awareness of the precious beauty of life, which evokes in us now the
passion of a Tigress defending her young, and now the inexpressible tenderness
with which many Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, Armenians, Cambodians, Tutsis and others
must have helped their old people and children down from the cattle trucks at
the gates of Hell.
Shalom
Aleichem! (Hebrew); Shlama! (the Aramaic of Jesus); Salaam Alaykum! (Arabic).
Homage to the Three 'Jewels' : A recent little piece I wrote explaining some of the rich layers of meaning which Buddhists experience when we 'salute the shrine': Homage to the Buddha, Homage to the Dharma, Homage to the Sangha. (Oct, 2006)