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Meeting of East and West: The Self in Global Consciousness
| Article
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15324 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1989 |
7,359 Words |
| Author
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Frederick J. Streng
Frederick J. Streng is professor of the history of religion in
the Department of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist
University. He is author of Emptiness: A Study in Religious
Meaning, Understanding Religious Life and numerous articles.
He is particularly interested in Buddhist/Christian dialogue. |
In the Buddhist tradition there is a story of a Zen master who was asked by his student: What is the ultimate expression of truth?
The master answered: "Yes."
The student, thinking that the master had not understood the question, asked it again. The master, feigning anger, shouted back: "What do you think I am, deaf?"
We may experience something like this when we ask ourselves about the nature of selfhood. The answers we get back somehow don't seem appropriate--they don't describe what we had in mind. They also can lead beyond the point at which we asked the question. They confront us with a situation that draws us beyond a final description into a direct awareness of our own participation in both the question and the answer. Similarly, understanding the self in global consciousness reflects both a condition and an urgency in living in today's world.
As we reflect on the different views of the "self" that are expressed in various social groups, religious institutions, and cultural traditions, we might be struck by the incompatibility of such views. For example, we find claims that there is an eternal, universal Soul in all forms of life, and yet we find denial of such a universal, self-substantiated Soul. Again we find the affirmations that a soul is a special spiritual element of life given to each person by God; or that human beings have several souls, each a deep source of vitality. These souls are sometimes related to moral or eternal qualities, sometimes not.
On the other hand, we must be impressed by some common thread in human experience. For example, all known cultures recognize qualitative differences in life experiences: better/worse, best/worst. Many spiritual leaders admonish us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Seers from all cultures assert that there are immediate and extraordinary (perhaps infinite) resources available to us to handle life's problems, and that people are responsible individually and collectively to handle their problematical experiences and behavior--for example, ignorance, evil, suffering, fear, and hostility. In both the differences and the continuities of self-awareness, there is a recognition that some experiences of selfhood are more authentic, more true to the ultimate condition of life, than others. How do we understand and live with religious differences and continuities in a world in which our own decisions about what is true, real, and authentic impinge on
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