Living the teachings of Jesus is an important focus of all progressive Christians. The teachings of Jesus are beautiful. Inclusion, economic and social justice, the focus on nonviolent solutions to social problems, forgiveness, and love of neighbor all resonate with us. The problem is there is no practical advice in the New Testament on how to attain them. The teachings of Jesus come with no how-to suggestions.

I have tried prayer, asking God to help me become a more “Sermon on the Mount” person. That hasn’t worked which for a long time I found to be very disturbing. I really thought that would be a prayer God might answer. I have also tried living more for others as an exercise of will, but unfortunately, my will has never been strong enough to move beyond self-centered concerns in a consistent manner. Striving for perfection has been nothing but frustrating.

The teachings of Buddha have come to the rescue. Before getting started, there are two introductory points to make. First, classical Buddhism is not a religion but rather a set of psychological teachings and practices to help one see the world differently. It is, therefore, easily fused into the Christian faith. There are no Buddhist beliefs which need to be explained in Christian terms. Second, there is no master teacher or guru needed to learn the practices relating to Buddhist teachings. Each individual must find his own way. As a result, what follows is my path, which has been greatly influenced by the teachings of Buddha. You may or may not find it helpful.

The goal of Buddhist teachings is enlightenment, which is well known. What I have come to learn over the years is that enlightenment has nothing to do with the big God experience, but rather, it has to do with seeing the world differently, seeing the world as beautiful, loving, and good. This happens when we create for ourselves a new psychological self which is a journey that needs explaining.

The self is a psychological structure that determines how we see the world. There is too much information in one’s environment for the human brain to process efficiently. As a result, it creates filters to organize that information and to weed out information that is disturbing or does not pertain to one’s immediate interests. We do not experience an event in an objective manner. Instead, each event is seen from the perspective of the spin placed on it by these filters. Each person sees the world differently.

From a Buddhist perspective, there is an old self and a new self. In part, the filters of the old self come from the part of the brain we inherited from reptiles. These filters organize information based on what evolutionary psychologists label as the four Fs—food, fight, flight, and reproduction. These filters are centered around survival and have the result of placing a self-centered spin on experienced events. The filters of the old self are also created from early childhood experiences, major events in a person’s life, trauma experiences, and a host of other contributing factors. When these factors come from negative experiences, fear-producing, non-loving encounters, the result is to increase the control of filters, placing a self-centered spin on events.

The Buddha teaches that life from the perspective of the old self is filled with psychological pain, grief, and suffering. The good news is that the self is not a fixed entity. There is no core self. The filters in the self can change. A new self can be created that is enlightened, which enables one to see the world differently, a world of joy, goodness, beauty, and love. Over the years, I have learned that this new self is created in two ways.

The first is through the practice of mindfulness. The goal here is to come to an understanding about the filters in your old self. We all possess psychological junk, insecurities, fears, and, for some, greed and deep anger. These filters stimulate the self-centered organizing mechanisms of the brain. By naming this stuff that lies in the unconscious, it allows you to gain some control over it. These dark filters begin to lose their power to dominate the way one sees the world. Without understanding, these dark forces of one’s character exert a powerful influence over one’s worldview.

I have practiced mindfulness in two ways. The first is to pay attention to what goes on in my daily life. How do I spend my time? What are my core values? What are my insecurities, my weaknesses, my strengths? Journaling helps because it enables you to see patterns. Major parts of character jump out at you as you review your journal entries over time. I have also practiced mindful meditation. After quieting my mind, I look at the thoughts that emerge. I pay special attention to thoughts that are ugly and try to come to some understanding of where they are coming from. This inner work is done without judgment, in a spirit of forgiveness, as your insecurities, fears, and least attractive parts of character come into awareness.

As your old self loses its power over your awareness, it becomes possible to create a new self. I do this by meditating on loving-kindness and gratitude. The goal is to open your heart to others to build habits of compassion that create new filters for guiding awareness. This work, over time, allows you to see the world in a new way. The spiritual journey involves a continuous process of mindful understanding and loving kindness creation. The result is that you come to view an event with love and compassion rather than hatred and fear. The journey is lifelong and must be an important focus of one’s life. The result for me, as I have slowly become more enlightened, is that I have become better able to live Jesus’ teaching. Rather than strive for perfection, or act from an extraordinary sense of will, living more for others has become a natural response to a new way of seeing the world.

The sad thing about a spiritual journey like the one described above is that it is a recipe for extreme athletes. It’s a journey that requires a lifelong commitment and hard, disciplined work. Most people will choose an easier way out. I did. For years I asked God to do for me what he did for Paul. I wanted a big experience that would renew my mind. (See Romans 12: 2) It never happened.

Karen Armstrong was frustrated in the same way. Her goal in life was to be taken over by the big experience of God’s goodness and love so that she could live the love required to become a follower of Jesus. In order to achieve her dream, she joined a monastery and devoted her life there to meditation and prayer. It didn’t work which led to despair and to her leaving the monastery. As irony would have it, she did have the big experience soon after renouncing her vows as a nun. Her conscious awareness was taken over by a deep experience of love. The problem was that the experience did not come from a divine encounter but rather from an epileptic episode. (1)

I suspect that a similar set of circumstances explain Paul’s encounter on the Damascus road. (See Acts 9: 1-9) He most likely had a near-death experience or an epileptic episode. Both events fill one with an experience of deep love which can have the effect of changing personality. Because a God of love would not have made it so easy for Paul and so difficult for the rest of us, we are almost certainly left on our own to become a transformed person.

Why embark on such a difficult spiritual journey? I often ask myself that question, and I don’t have a good answer. The truth is I don’t seem to have much choice. I just do it. There have been some rewards to it, however. I believe I am more at peace with life, that life is less stressful and filled with greater joy because of this work. Many people will say these happy results are due to lucky circumstances in my life. I’m not sure I agree. My attitude toward the events of my life is changing, which is the main goal of Buddhist teachings.    

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Dr. Rick Herrick (Ph.D., Tulane University), a former tenured university professor and magazine editor, is the author of seven published novels and six works of nonfiction. His latest books are The Writing of the Christian Gospels,  A Christian Foreign Policy, A Man Called Jesus, Jeff’s Journey, A Second Chance. and Moving Beyond Belief.  His musical play, Lighthouse Point, was performed as a fundraiser for the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Herrick is currently retired, living in Bluffton, SC. He is married with three children and seven grandchildren. You can find him at https://rickherrickauthor.com.

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1. See the wonderful account of her spiritual journey in The Spiral Staircase (New York: Anchor Books, 2004).