For most of my young adult life, however, I was completely apolitical. Politics was like the Juggernaut, an entity that I couldn't move, but which had the power to move the whole of society. It was just so big and out of my control. Decisions were made by people who were groomed to make them, while I was a nobody. I didn't think I had a voice, because in the grand scheme of things, I didn't think I mattered. I wasn't rich. I wasn't college educated. I wasn't from an important family. I wasn't ruling class. I just did my best to get through the day and find something fun to do with my friends after work. My philosophy of life was very limited and pragmatic and bordering on the hedonistic, with a focus on survival and pleasure, not caring if the world around me burned.
My interest in philosophy and religion really began when I realized how unhappy I was, which was admittedly a selfish motivation to find relief from the suffering I was experiencing at the time. I wanted to be happier. I wanted to be a better person than I was. Sleepwalking through life and self-medicating just wasn't cutting it, and I decided to try something different. That journey led me to learning about things like meditation and philosophies of living a good life. Enter Buddhism and Stoicism. Buddhism plus Marcus Aurelius are what I mostly credit for my eventual political awakening, because I really did feel like I woke up to the existence of the greater world around me through them.
Buddhism helped open me up to politics primarily through my work with compassion, mindfulness, and the concept of interdependence. Developing compassion — one of the four divine abodes along with loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — helped me by breaking down the barrier between self and other so that I became more and more aware of, and receptive to, the suffering of others, which in turn gave rise to a growing desire to help ease that suffering. It seems like common sense, something we should all just know instinctively, and I thought I was already compassionate and whatnot. But my practice of Buddhism really showed me how disconnected from the world I truly was. Mindfulness helped me to better see my intentions and how they influence my actions and what I expect to come from them. (We lie a lot to ourselves about our motives.) That kind of constant self-reflection was also important for giving me the space to grow and open my mind to new things rather than always think and act on autopilot. And interconnectedness helped me to see the web of interconnectivity we're all a part of and how my actions affect those around me, which did a lot to counteract the hyper individualism I absorbed through American culture that I think prevents many of us from fully realizing our social nature as a species, and encourages self over others, competition over cooperation, profit over need, and the like.
This was all on an more individual and internal level, however, which is where Marcus Aurelius comes in. Aurelius was big on self-discipline and not focusing on the forces in life we have no control over. But he was also big on duty, and I was particularly inspired by his view of the duty of a citizen to be civically engaged, our duty to others within the society in which we live, a duty I had previously ignored. And I connected that to my individual Buddhist practice, which manifested as a conscious effort to do what I could to help address the suffering of others and make the world a better place through my actions. Interestingly enough, the Pali word Dhamma, often defined as the laws of nature or the way of right living, can also mean duty. I saw that I had a voice; I was simply failing to use it. That I had a duty to myself and to others I was shirking. And by using my voice collectively with others, I realized that I could be better heard and make more of a difference than if I were to simply stand alone. And all of this eventually led me to figure out where I stood politically, so that I could be more civically engaged, which quickly led me to discovering Eugene Debs and socialism and the religious/political mantra of, "From each according to their ability, to each according to need." That search also introduced me to the many Christian socialists and things like liberation theology, which I admittedly ignored at first due to the religious underpinnings of their socialist politics.
But years later, through my interest in monasticism and contemplation and my flirtation with Christian socialists, I began to explore Christianity in a less antagonistic way, which led me to discover Thomas Merton and his mixture of contemplative monasticism and social justice, the inclusiveness of Jesus' message in the gospels, and seeing in his words and actions a radical politics of compassion that ultimately challenges politics and systems of purity (which includes things like ideological purity, orthodoxy, etc.). Here, I'm particularly indebted to Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and Paul Knitter's Without Jesus I could not be Christian, both of which had a big impact on me.
I mean, reading the gospel accounts, Jesus was a pretty radical figure. He was essentially a pre-industrial communist, preaching unconditional love, equality, and care for all, particularly the 'least among us,' the poor, the sick, and the oppressed (Mt 25:31-46), which is the spiritual heart of liberation theology and its "preferential option for the poor." He condemned greed and hypocrisy (Mt 23), standing up the religious ruling class and monied elites of his time, going so far as flipping tables and driving the latter from the temple with shouts and whips (John 2:13–16). He was a feminist-like ally, ministering to women in ways that were forbidden for men (John 4:4-42), and refusing to judge women by the harsh, patriarchal laws of his time (John 8:1-11). He associated with those whom his society feared, shunned, and looked down upon out of ignorance and prejudice, from those considered unclean to outcasts and sinners (Mark 1: 40-45, Mark 2:13-17), which many found scandalous. He lived counter to almost every expectation and social norm of his time and invited others to follow his lead. He stripped down all the religious bureaucracy and legalism of his day, teaching that God's law is fulfilled in keeping one simple precept, 'love your neighbour as yourself' (Gal 5:13-14). He chose all of his closest disciples from amongst the working class (fishermen), those looked down upon for their occupations (tax collector), women, and revolutionary zealots rather than the class of religious elites. And his mission, inherited from his heavenly father and voiced by his mother, Mary, included throwing down the rulers from their thrones, uplifting the lowly, and sending the rich away empty (Luke 1:46-55).
And in that story, I found something inspiring as well as unifying. All are one with the universal Christ, and Christ is one with all (Gal 3:28), which is radically egalitarian. Next to loving God, loving our neighbour as ourselves is the greatest commandment (Mt 22:34-40), which is radically compassionate. And the relational nature of God in the form of the trinity itself reflects the interdependent nature of humanity, the aspect of individuals as communal species-beings. Pope Francis himself once said something in an interview that I think perfectly summarizes why I'm drawn to both Christianity and communism, and why I see in Jesus a revolutionary of the people:
It has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom.
And that resonates with me because I believe that kind of equality and freedom requires both a political (external) and spiritual (internal) foundation, a radical material and mental shift in our understanding of, and approach to, the way society is structured because both matter and spirit are intertwined. In a similar vein, Pope Francis has also said that the gospel requires Christians to reject an economy that exploits, that:
"The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings."
And if that's true, then I think it most certainly require them to reject capitalism, because the god of capitalism is the profit motive, Mammon in the abstracted-flesh. As critics of capitalism such as Marx point out, capitalism thrives on the exploitation of labour and resources, and its internal logic is characterized by contradictions that sow the seeds for things like inequality, poverty, unequal social relations between capital and labour, massive capital accumulation into smaller and smaller hands, and the drive for accumulation for accumulation's sake. It conditions people to be slaves to money, and fosters the metastasizing of a consumeristic culture and a thing-oriented society rather than a people-oriented society with an overall focus on production for profit rather than human need. And my reading of the gospel concurs with that critique from a spiritual point of view, seeing in Jesus a radical and transformative figure who valued people above all.
All of that said, the negative contributions of religion shouldn't be ignored or understated. Religious ideas and institutions have been the basis for an incredible amount of intolerance, oppression, and violence. One can rightly criticize much about religion in general, especially in its institutionalized forms, from how it's turned many away from rationality and promoted bigotry, individualism, and conservatism to how it oppresses certain marginalized groups within society; and I'd agree with all of those criticisms. But much of that comes from the church (or equivalents) as an institution of privilege and power, and one can see the same effects in other institutions, even Marxist ones. (There are as many sects of Marxism as there are Christianity, and many of them are just as concerned with orthodoxy and intolerant of what they consider heretical or heterodox as any dogmatic Christian denomination.) So this isn't something limited to religion alone. A religious institution is just one of many social institutions of power that can, and often do, run on a politics of purity and utilize various divisions (class, cultural, economic, ethnic, religious, etc.) to maintain power for those at the top, which in the west has historically been wealthy, white, male elites. And the logic of any institution is first and foremost to preserve itself, regardless of the form it takes.
Ultimately, though, I see religious language and stories as symbols pointing us towards something deeper, to a moral knowledge that I feel is rather intuitive, and to a unitive and even psychologically-healing experience that pierces the illusion of our dualistic way of thinking, the illusion of separation between subject and object, between the non-spiritual and the spiritual, between matter (body) and spirit (mind). I know that many people grasp these symbols and stories too tightly, or else hold them in the wrong way, so that they turn to bite them like the proverbial snake, creating fanatics and fundamentalists; and I share the concerns of others about those kinds of people, and about those forcing others to agree with them. But that doesn't mean there isn't something of value here, that they haven't helped our progress as much as they've served to hinder it. Historically speaking, the religious and philosophical seekers of the time were often its best scientists. And science itself is just as easily capable of destroying whole cities as religion if held inappropriately.
In essence, religion is something that's not only helped me to be a better version of myself, but it's a huge part of what got me interested in politics, and leftist politics at that because I think they best reflect the material means by which a world characterized by peace, love, and equality can be realized. And I've found that a lot of my fellow religious seekers are of a like mind, particularly those drawn towards mysticism. I'd even go so far as to say that, after studying and practicing in multiple spiritual traditions, I've come to the conclusion a truly spiritual person with a mature understanding of what lies at the heart of all religious traditions will necessarily be empathetic, inclusive, and ultimately, intersectional in their politics, but more importantly in their actions regardless of what their politics are. I think this can be seen from the lives of people like Giro Seno'o, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Oscar Romero, Malcolm X, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gustavo Gutierrez, MLK Jr., Rachel Held Evans, and countless others. As Franciscan friar and author Richard Rohr puts it:
"If we are going to have truly prophetic people who go beyond the categories of liberal and conservative, we have to teach them some way to integrate their needed activism with a truly contemplative mind and heart. I’m convinced that once you learn how to look out at life from the contemplative eyes of the True Self, your politics and economics are going to change on their own. I don’t need to teach you what your politics should or shouldn’t be. Once you see things contemplatively, you’ll begin to seek the bias from the bottom instead of the top, you’ll be free to embrace your shadow, and you can live at peace with those who are different. From a contemplative stance, you’ll know what action is yours to do—and what is not yours to do—almost naturally."
And in my case, I am naturally drawn towards realizing a loving global community, with no needy person among us, all living "from each according to their ability, to each according to need."
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