Praised be Jesus Christ. Last week we had in the readings for Mass, and we've been following the first letter of John pretty much in our first readings, but it struck me once again what comes to us and how I think it fits in with what we've been talking about the last few days. John would say, my dear friends we are already God's children but what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed. We are well aware that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is. I think that really does fit in to what we've been talking about, and I think particularly from last night.

[01:02]

But this whole idea of being brought together in Christ, of becoming Christ, of recognizing in each other Christ, and recognizing in everybody throughout the entire world, through all of creation, that at least they have the potential of being Christ. And it's not up to us ever to judge whether they are or are not. It's ours to love them as God loves them. But this is where it starts, you know, for us. It starts today, and it starts in this community today, and it will start again tomorrow, in this community tomorrow, and so on. I haven't talked a great deal about the rule of Saint Benedict, but I think that all of this accords with it, and particularly it accords with what Benedict is saying in chapter 7 on humility. The fundamental basic spirituality of Saint Benedict is found in chapter 7.

[02:08]

This is where his program is. And I think as much as we would love to be able to move directly from our beginning to the end, as far as enlightenment, as far as recognizing that we are in Christ and so on, it doesn't happen that way. Even Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in all the recognition of her as really being a very mystical woman, went through years and years and years of absolute darkness. And she plotted along, day by day, to the very end. But I think as you go through and read the various steps of humility, I think we recognize some of the the journey of our own lives. Not that we've accomplished the steps, but we at least recognize what they are a little bit better because we've been living this life and we've been living it together.

[03:17]

But at the very end of chapter 7, Benedict says this, Now, therefore, after ascending all these steps of humility, the monk will quickly arrive at that perfect love of God which casts out fear. Through this love, all that he once performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort. as though naturally, from habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit, and delight in virtue. All this the Lord will, by the Holy Spirit, graciously manifest in his workmen, now cleansed of vices and sins." What, basically, is Benedict saying in those last few verses, 67 through 70? I think what he's saying is very, very simple, and what he's saying is, be faithful.

[04:24]

Faithfulness is our call, and our call is to be faithful to our call. All the way through our lives, you know, however many years we spend in the monastery, or how many years we spend in life in seeking God, we seek God And it's a gradual process. We're finding God every day, but we're never finding all that God is. It's impossible. That's why I was very impressed by Teilhard de Chardin's saying, finally only one man is saved, and that is Christ. And we will see God, as it were, through Christ's eyes. That's how we can see God. But right now it's faith. Right now it is faithfulness. Right now it is the plodding along day by day by day with each other in community so that finally we come to that point where we see God through the eyes of Christ.

[05:32]

And that's just going to simply take time. What is our witness? You know, is our witness in our success in living together with each other? I doubt it. I think our witness is in our faithfulness to the trial of living with each other. You know, maybe this is what Benedict says in chapter 58, he talks about the one who directs the novices, what should he be looking for? that they truly seek God. And how is he going to have any evidence that they are truly seeking God? By their zeal for the work of God, that's prayer. By their zeal for obedience, that's listening. And by their zeal for humble service or humiliations, no, that really isn't a good translation. But that humble kind of a service to one another, that day after day toleration, carrying of each other, that day after day living and forgiving and asking forgiveness, that's the faithfulness.

[06:42]

Because it simply has to go on for years and years and years. But generally speaking, so does our life. And this is the gift of God. We go on from year to year to year as a way to seek God. Benedict says in the rule that our days are extended by the mercy of God so that we can become what God is calling us to be. I think if there are two other chapters in the rule that that have great meaning for us in our living together. They're chapter 71 and 72, on mutual obedience and on good zeal. In chapter 71, he says, obedience is a blessing to be shown by all, not only to the abbot, but also to one another as brothers. Since we know that it is by this way of obedience that we go to God.

[07:45]

And obedience, as you know, it comes from, the root word of obedience is listening. It's listening. It's hearing what God has to say and doing it. Therefore, although orders of the abbot or of the priors appointed by him take precedence, and no unofficial order may supersede them, in every other instance younger monks should obey their seniors with all love and concern. Anyone found objecting to this should be reproved. There's another paragraph there that you can read on what that all means, but I think we go in then to chapter 72 on good zeal. It says, just as there is a wicked zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life. This then is the good zeal which monks must foster with fervent love.

[08:47]

They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other." What a powerful statement it is. It comes from Romans chapter 12. They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other. Not demanding respect from others, but showing respect to others. That's primary. I can't control what anybody else does, what they say to me, what they do to me, anything of that sort. But I can control what I do, how I respond, or how I make even the first move. So they should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another's weaknesses of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another. Again, you read that letter of St. Gregory Nazianzen about his friend Basil. Their competition was not to see who could get the better grades in their schoolwork.

[09:53]

Their competition was to give to the other the honor. That's what Benedict is talking about. No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead what he judges better for someone else. To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers, to God loving fear, to their abbot unfeigned and humble love. Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ. May he bring us all together to everlasting life. Faithfulness. Faithfulness is His message to us. It's the message of the chapter on humility. It's the message of good zeal. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. That is what it takes to live this life, the year after year living of this life. That's how I want to sum up. That's not too bad. Well, I hope.

[10:55]

I've been waiting for that this whole time. Comments? In your experience visiting the Tibetan monks, did you have, could you draw a parallel, please, there, of the Venerable I think so. Number one, I think that there's a... of those who live in community, you know, not all Tibetan monks live in a community. Some of them, and perhaps many of them, go from community to live kind of aramidical lives. Some in little apartments in the given area. I was thinking specifically of Dharamsala. but also up in the mountains, in the caves, they do that as well. But I think the one thing that stands out first of all is their dedication to Alexio.

[12:03]

you know, of reading the sutras and memorizing them, knowing them, that these are the things that go on with them continually. When you see a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and a lot of other Buddhist monks for that matter, the rosary kind of thing, you know, the beads that they count on, even when they're talking to you they're counting on the beads because they're They're saying the little prayers that go with that. So I think the whole idea of pray always is another thing that I think is common between us. I think a third thing that might be common between us is what is it that holds us together as a community? And the thing that holds us together as a community is the teacher. in our case, the abbot. They will call their, in translation at least, they will call their leaders abbots. But an abbot isn't necessarily someone who leads a community either.

[13:07]

It generally is somebody who is a good teacher for the monks and for people outside as well. uh... i think the fourth thing that uh... that really was outstanding from my standpoint was their hospitality uh... that recognition of uh... of something that is common to all of us uh... uh... you know that there are some strange ways that they that they have been strange to us not to them strange to us ways of uh... talking about it you know this great belief that they have in uh... in reincarnation and the and the continual circle of of existence that never has a beginning it'll never have an end uh... it's a continuous uh... circle and so that you look at anybody and you treat them very kindly, because everybody that you look at once was your mother. There's something in that that speaks to the heart of Christianity as well, that when we look at anybody, there is Christ.

[14:22]

There is the image and likeness of God. If I thought more about it, I could come up, I think, with more parallels. But one of the things, you know, the reason that I think the the Benedictines and the Cistercians were asked to take a special interest in Buddhism is because Buddhism is a very monastic. It has a lot of monastic expression. And back in the 1970s, when Cardinal Pignatoli asked the Abbot Primate and the General of the Cistercians to take a special interest in this, I think that they knew what they were saying, what they were doing. And it's been a very rich exchange to listen to their teachings and so on. I was at the Gethsemane encounter and it was... were you there?

[15:23]

But it was a very, very interesting thing to hear, and the Dalai Lama gave about four, I think, teachings during that time. Now we had, our group had met with him also in Dharamsala, and we also met with him at the world religions, but also there was the coming together of other forms of Buddhism and other teachings given so that, you know, a lot of things were coming forth that we found as parallels. The one thing, I think, that disturbed the Buddhists about Christians was the crucifixion. That's very hard for them to understand, you know, that God would. That seems so unpeaceful to them. If you want to read more, you can read more about that in the book, The Gethsemane Encounter. I think it's quite interesting. It's that out-generators. I saw James Wiseman and somebody were putting out a book. I mean, I know they have the

[16:26]

you know, they're kind of news, almost as a magazine, almost. But then, just recently, when I see a farmer, sometimes I'm thinking, why is somebody putting up a book on encounter? Yeah, well, they had a second one, too, which I didn't go to. The first one, David kind of was the leader of that, and then Patrick Henry from our Ecumenical Institute was kind of taking care of the non-monastics who were... That's that underlying notion, you say, of reverence, that somebody could have been my mother or my father, and then really to believe that really does set up an openness to man, you know, or, what can I say, that of receptivity to the person and a concern and respect and reverence.

[17:44]

But even from the standpoint of taking care of all sentient life, is just amazing. I remember one time we were, I'm not even certain where we were, it was one of these places, one of the monasteries perhaps, and we were standing, you know, our group, most of us were standing on the bare ground, on the grass or whatever it was, and all of a sudden I looked around and all of the Buddhist monks were standing on concrete. They weren't standing on the earth. And I finally looked around at Khalsang, the venerable Khalsang, and I said, we're not supposed to be standing on the ground, are we? He said, well, this is the time of year when a lot of bugs and all the rest of it will be on the surface of the ground, and we don't want to step on them. So we got off and stood on the... But just that appreciation for sentient life, you know.

[18:47]

I mean, the bugs are there for a reason. I asked Khalsang one time, I said, I have a hard time with reincarnation. I mean, you talk about somebody being reincarnated, He told me, now I don't know if he, maybe I misunderstood him, but he said somebody can be reincarnated in a number of places at the same time. That put a different bent on reincarnation for me, from the standpoint of what is life, what is conscious life, and I don't think it's the same thing. And again, I don't know, I'm not certain what he meant by that. They also will say, of course, that everything is illusion. That, you know, this isn't real, this is an illusion, everything is an illusion, everything we sense is an illusion.

[19:52]

So we were waiting for a bus one day, and the bus was coming down the road, and I looked at Khalsang and I said, Can I stand in front of that illusion? He says, do not stand in front of that illusion. Well, they have a wonderful sense of humor, they do, they really do. I find that illusion to be overly, you know, like a detachment thing. I mean, we could recognize that a bus will knock you over, and you should expect that. It's a chair. It's not an illusion. It's a chair. I don't know if anything important from you is a chair. It seems to me like that's an illusion. It's an alternate reality. My understanding of Buddhism, before I read it,

[20:56]

You think they're just as important as if we Christians use the gifts and the rules of God, just use the gifts of thanks. And, you know, it is what it is. I think though that you will find also that in Tibetan Buddhism, with their four schools, is probably the most complicated of all Buddhist teachings. And some forms of Buddhism, I think, are far simpler and not necessarily atheistic. Tibetan Buddhism is basically atheistic. Which, again, what does atheism mean? You know, I mean, there's a great deal of difference in perceptions. I mentioned it before that, you know, atheists teach us something by saying all of these fine concepts of God that we throw out there and put up as things to be idolized are nonsense.

[22:14]

And they're right, because we can't package God. It's impossible. So whatever that reality is that's beyond, their point simply is that you can't name it anyway, so it doesn't exist. We have to admit that we can't name it, but that we also have a communication with the reality that is. They're telling different things all the time. I think certain strands of Buddhism are kind of collegian. It's maybe how Western people interpret it in practice. I see parallels, too, in the Gospel of the Lord, so it's where we listen to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There's a very strong correlation, a certain way of seeing the all-inclusiveness of the Buddhists, too. I think there's one. St. Francis works on a lot of respect for all forms of life.

[23:16]

When I was out working, I worked in a business situation one time, a yellow jacket being gotten into the office environment, it was on the floor on the road, and I was walking toward it to look for something to scoop it up and put it outside, and another of my co-workers was walking toward it, crushing, she got there first, and I said, why did you do that? She said, I'm just gonna stick to it. I said, well, never the less of it. Maybe it wouldn't, that's why I'm running at it. Couldn't we put it outside? What do you want it to have? That's what I mean. She said, well, what are you, a strange religion? I said, well, it's here with the living ones. Well, you're disturbing them all. I'm going to walk down the floor. I'm going to take care of them. It's like the bats that we get in the house. They do seem to be more into our humanity than we are, because we've got cheap grace that kind of insulates us.

[24:20]

That's what I like about Teilhard. He's very much into the earth, and recognizes that this is what God has given to us to live with. And it's part of our salvation. We're not apart from that. When the Buddhists were here, the idea of the faith, you know, they'd think, you know, they'd argue. You'd always think they're Irish, huh? The dialectic school that they have in Dharamsala, was extremely interesting. They had one in Dharamsala, another one in Dehradun, and you watch them debating, and they pick on somebody.

[25:21]

And that fellow was sitting down, and they throw questions at him. And somebody is up there countering everything that he says, and he's got to answer them back. And he got to answer, in fact, and when they When they get going on, they go... Like that, when they make their point, this is... this is the gesture, always. And it's... you know, I had no idea what they were saying, what they were talking about, but it was extremely entertaining. You know, just to watch this... Sorry, I'm not getting that. Are these testaments a test of your spirit? I don't think so, I don't know. Our tradition is that when we touch the spirit, God is a grace, hopefully. Helping myself and helping ourselves to grace. That'd be an interesting place, I guess. Maybe we'll have time to have a talk with you about something if it leads us to enlightenment, I don't know.

[26:25]

I think when I came back from India, I think my commitment to Christ was deeper than it had ever been before, because I think I had listened. I think we had listened to what was going on, and I think particularly our guide, Khao San, was a tremendously good presence for us all the way through the trip. I remember one time we had mass in the hotel room, and he came early to pick us up. And he came in with a great deal of reverence and appreciation for what we were doing, and knowing that he was not going to participate in the communion of it. But he was a presence that, you know, he recognized something. I think at the Gethsemane encounter we gave the Dalai Lama an icon of Christ. And he received it very warmly.

[27:28]

It was done by one of the monks at St. John's. It was just a beautiful piece of work. But he embraced that. And then I think when I left India, I gave a large copy of the Jerusalem Bible to Khalsang, who is a student, a very good student. And he accepted that as a very very warmly as a good gift, you know, to receive from us. And I suspect they read it, you know. They do. Well, I think the talk about listening and obedience, obedience and listening, they come out of a dialogue, like that with another world religion, and it does strengthen your own fake, perhaps, or a mixed one, a lot of one's tradition. It's such a lot of one thing.

[28:30]

And you get along well with Christ. I know, also tricking on concept in one of the books, that he felt the Eucharist, like he observed it, like it's a deep bell of mindfulness, a beautiful way to understand the Eucharist. It were mindful, were attached to people and listening. And I guess Father Martin mentioned That reminds me of something I have told very few people. This was at the Gethsemane encounter. And I had one of the masses. And the Dalai Lama came and he was sitting in the front row. And my instructions were that after the mass I was to invite him to walk with me back to the sacristy which is at the other end of the church.

[29:39]

And as we were walking you know, up the aisle to the sacristy. And we were side by side and we got to the sacristy and the Dalai Lama looked at me and he said, when you blessed me with the sacrament, I really experienced it. I thought, wow. You know, because I think he's a very intuitive sort of an individual, but he experienced something that was sacred. That was good. I mean, that said something to me. He asked you to do what? He didn't ask me to do anything. He said, when we got the sacrament, he said, when you blessed me with the sacrament, I experienced that. I mean, it was a very, very positive statement of what he had experienced. It's a school of Buddhism. He's from an idea figure. Again, what does atheistic mean?

[30:42]

Well, they are talking about spirits. They will talk about gods, deities, basically, not gods, I think. It gets translated into deities. And I always get kind of the impression that what they're talking about is more like what we talk about angels. You know, there are spirits, But the spirit world does not necessarily anticipate the possibility or the probability or the existence of a God who is supreme overall. It's sort of like, in a sense, it's like Anthony of the Desert who spends his 20 years in the cave and fights with his demons. The demons are not necessarily personalized, but they're the things that exist in our lives that we find ourselves wrestling with all the time. You know, the demons of greed and so on, all these different things. But there's definitely a recognition of a spiritual world that exists as well.

[32:00]

And so, you've had your breakfast. I had my breakfast. This is no advice to go and check your flight team. Okay. All right. Very good, thank you. There's no way of saying appreciation, but... I think this is my third time here, third or fourth time, and I like coming here. It's nice. It's good. We won't get this much though, will we? It'll probably be hot.

[32:50]

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