The venerable Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) often spoke and wrote about “the Kingdom of God” as a place “where all of us can learn to be more understanding and more compassionate.” Buddhists and Christians may disagree, wrote Thay, about whether suffering exists within the Kingdom of God. His own view was that we cannot have flowers without the mud:
If we take the time to look deeply, we see that understanding and compassion arise from suffering. Understanding is the understanding of suffering, and compassion is the kind of energy that can transform suffering.
Meditations on the Beatitudes provides an entryway - a “dharma door” in Buddhist lingo - into the kingdom of God as a space of struggle. The book does not strive to provide answers to philosophical questions, but offers personal experiences as a pathway toward navigating our lives on this Earth. Don’s humility in sharing what he has learned—and is still learning—invites us to learn with him.
As a Buddhist, I found this book highly relevant for my spiritual practice. First, I want my practice to be global—I want to include all cultures in my understanding of the world. Yet my default mindset often reflects my upbringing in U.S. middle-class suburbia. This book’s vignettes from Mexico, South, and Central America open windows for me. Second, I want my practice to be intimate—a word in Buddhism which means setting aside all preconceptions and being present with what is. This is the approach with which Don offers his experiences. He doesn’t try to smooth over rough edges, over-analyze, or bring anecdotes to any particular resolution. Third, I do not want to push away difficult or negative thoughts, but to recognize them and thereby, transform them. Thus, the meditations and prayers of disorientation provide an excellent way to learn from conflicting and difficult thoughts and emotions that arise. The meditations and prayers of orientation provide a gentle example of ways one might move forward, growing a lotus even amidst the mud.
Buddhists don’t recognize a separate deity-entity, and therefore don’t generally address prayers “Dear God,” as is done in this book. However, it is a simple matter to embrace the phrase as an idiosyncratic way to reach for our Buddha nature—that which is greater within us. I don’t set the phrase “dear God” aside, either, because it offers a reminder to reach outside my small self-conception for something larger and more vast, which I will need in order to grapple with true suffering. The phrase also connected me with the author, so that at least “two are gathered” for the prayer. The references to God and scripture throughout the book also offer additional opportunities to reflect on the potential for commonality between Buddhist and Christian approaches (e.g. the discussion of Matthew 7:3 on page 51). Don’s presentation of Christianity as a social endeavor within our networked, collective society also supports the book’s broad applicability. Conceptualizing racism, for example, as a social problem (p. 52-53), is aligned with Buddhists’ understanding of the world as completely interconnected. Yet, Buddhists also constantly challenge themselves to wake up to the world right in front of us, too: individual actions matter. And this book contains repeated calls for individual action in the offered meditations.
Long story short, although this book may have been written with Christian readers in mind, I would recommend it highly as a guide for interfaith explorations. I also think people of many faiths would find it valuable, as I have, as a devotional for personal spiritual development.
Thich Nhat Hanh quotes from:
https://www.mindfulnessbell.org/archive/2015/04/dharma-talk-the-keys-to-the-kingdom-of-god-2
