polilogues

Han de Wit 0103

Question: Do mystics across traditions understand each other?

de Wit: I have also noticed that when you talk to people, also in the catholic tradition for instance – I have had a lot of contact with the monastic side of Catholicism – you see that many people who practice their tradition with great zeal have a lot in common with people from other traditions, such as Buddhism, who are dealing with the same questions and are going through the same development. And you also see that the mystics of the various religious traditions can general get along well together. But as soon as you move to a theological level, views start to diverge and you end up with big differences. This is why conferences where theology is the basis for interreligious dialogue do not create common ground. But when you are dealing with people who practice then you find that they share the same vision.

A few years ago I gave some lectures to novice masters in the Benedictine tradition (in fact these lectures were the source of my book The Spiritual Path (in Dutch: De Verborgen Bloei). They organised a sort of conference-convent in Spain where I gave my lectures and then we talked amongst ourselves and asked each another questions such as: What does it mean to realise your Buddha nature? What does it mean to let the Holy Ghost work through your heart? What does that mean in experiential terms? And when you see what it actually means as an experience, then you see that these answers bear a lot of resemblance to one another. And that is fascinating. During my lectures I would often use the term Holy Spirit: in my mind I’d be thinking "Buddha nature", but I would say "Holy Spirit". And at a certain point, because we were engaged in interreligious dialogue, they understood what I was doing and started doing it back! They were thinking "Holy Spirit" but they said "Buddha nature" to me! And then I would think to myself: “Yes, this too is an aspect of Buddha nature: fascinating!” And so it went on, back and forth. When I was speaking about the Holy Spirit, they too recognised something, and in this way we all learned a lot through that dialogue. This is why my book "The Spiritual Path" is in its eleventh reprinting. Because it is written in such general terms, because it pays so much attention to how we can actually cultivate the best in us, our humanity, the Christ in us, or whatever else you care to call it... our Buddha nature.