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Engaged Mysticism

Dear Editor: Thich Nhat Hahn’s Engaged Buddhism offers a worthy moment of reflection on the notion that Buddhist practice is “merely to be” (“From the Editor’s Desk,” May/June 2020). There are innumerable stories of Buddhist “responsiveness” from Maha Ghosananda’s engagement of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to the enduring presence of Japanese Buddhist monks and nuns at the School of the America’s vigils at Ft. Benning, Georgia; from the epic nonviolent resistance to Chinese occupation in Tibet to anti-nuclear and anti-war vigils around the world. The list goes on. . . One of the Bodhisattva vows is to end suffering, even as suffering is never ending.

On Secrets (July 2020)

Mysticism and Magic

When I was in college, I took a class called Medieval Mysticism.  I had high expectations for that class.  I wanted something much more than an academic experience.  I wanted something much more than a grade on my transcript.  Yes!  I wanted to hear the voice of God in my ears.  I wanted to see a vision.  I wanted to feel the presence of God in a way that would change my life forever.

On Deception (November 2013)

The Depth of Our Belonging (review)

Many people educated in the rational laws of Newtonian physics have difficulty accepting mysticism or even the concept of God. Although Mary Conrow Coelho was raised in an environment of Quaker mysticism, she found no place for that outlook in the materialistic (pre-quantum) science degree she pursued in college. Nevertheless, she continued her exploration of religion in general and mysticism in particular until she discovered the newer quantum physics, which offered her a way to reconcile the two realities of her life – the external/materialistic and the internal/mystic.

On Words (November 2021)

A Brilliant Contribution

Dear Editor: Thank-you for publishing Jim Humphrey’s “Here Sleep Dragons” in the March/April 2017 issue of Western Friend. I’ve long regarded the Quaker faith as both timeless and prescient, and a most fitting expression of 21st Century Christianity in which science, mysticism and justice advocacy meet and affirm each other. I admire Mr. Humphrey’s intimate and transcendent account of our human condition, which relates the evolution of scientific breakthroughs and worldviews, and considers conscious agency within an incomprehensibly complex and co-creative world. His is a deeply inspired rendering of contemporary pragmatic Quaker mysticism, describing a participatory universe of which we are each and all an expression, and a faith “that resides both in action and belief.”

On Balance (May 2017)