Our Spheres of Unfamiliar Ideas

 Some people wonder why or how I could adopt the teachings of Christianity and Zen Buddhism at the same time when they seem like two drastically different spiritual traditions. I am not deeply involved in any Zen Buddhist community to have experienced this kind of reaction from practitioners of Zen Buddhism, but in Christian communities, I come across this discomfort among people I talk to pretty often, even if they might not verbally express it. The discomfort usually shows fleetingly in their facial expressions. Their eyes look confused and uncomfortable. Their mouths slightly clench. 

 I think many religions hold a thought that if you claim to be a believer or practitioner of one religion or spiritual tradition, the other religions or traditions should in some ways be cast out as wrong, harmful or dangerous. Or they are simply considered to not be “true.” What is unfortunate about this mindset is that it is based on fear. We are afraid of ideas that disrupt our convictions or the way we are used to thinking about life or the world. We fear that if what is true cannot be compartmentalized into a specific framework, then nothing can be true. 

This kind of fear arises from a lack of imagination. We cannot see the possibility of different traditions having space for the same ideas, because they simply appear unfamiliar. Instead we immediately guard ourselves, thinking that what is unfamiliar allows for too much room for it to become dangerous. We don’t have much confidence in ourselves or in others to make sound judgments that are true to our spirit. 

 I am not a relativist in all aspects of life though. I have strong beliefs and convictions that run contrary to other beliefs and convictions out there, probably ones that I have not even come across before. I imagine in our world of wisdom, there are clear spheres holding certain thoughts and those spheres constantly moving around and bouncing against each other. Choosing to listen first and then forming decisions or opinions after is the only way to keep the boundaries of those spheres malleable, so that they do not break when they run into each other. I also know that those spheres are not as small as we might think; they are spacious enough to hold so many thoughts in one place without one thought nullifying another. Our capacity for unfamiliar ideas is a generous one—both in what we are able to hold and how we are able to invite them into us.