I’m a sham Buddhist, not a real Buddhist, because I choose to believe in God.
Not the god that fundamentalist monotheists believe in, and atheists don’t. This paranoid old man is nothing more than a projection of their fears, an anthropomorphised god they have created in their own image.
What God do I choose to believe in?
“I am o’erwhelmed by the only experientially discovered evidence of an a priori eternal, omnicomprehensive, infinitely and exquisitely concerned, intellectual integrity that we may call God, though knowing that in whatever way we humans refer to this integrity, it will always be an inadequate expression of its cosmic omniscience and omnipotence.”
That’s how Buckminster Fuller described his conviction that there is an ultimate order to the universe, and I am happy to adopt it as expressing my own chosen belief. It’s worth examining in a little detail.
Firstly, God is ‘experientially discovered’. Ch’an Buddhists renounce their desire to achieve Nirvana, which doesn’t mean that they reject the concept of Nirvana. Sh’am Buddhists renounce the idea of an anthropomorphic god who rewards believers and cruelly punishes non-believers. In letting go of the idea of this interventionist god, we are free to experience what is, which is God. Observation is revelation.
‘A priori’ means that this belief is based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation. I start with a hypothesis, I choose to believe, I have faith, and I experience the reality of God.
God is ‘omni-comprehensive’, which means all-knowing, and ‘intellectual’, which implies wisdom. Non-interventionist does not mean unaware or disinterested.
God is ‘infinitely and exquisitely concerned’, which seems a wonderful way to say that God is Love.
But no matter what I may say, what I may choose to believe, I will always fall far short of fully comprehending the truth about God. My description will always be an inadequate expression.
Which is another way of saying that belief in God is irrelevant. I choose to believe that my eudamonia is dependent on my living my life in accordance with an order which will reveal itself, rather than a belief in that order.
Sh’am Buddhism is the study of directions, acceptance of the feedback which will be forthcoming, and the development of methodologies (rituals?) which enhance my consciousness of what I am doing and how I control my own life.
Ultimately, and somewhat paradoxically, it implies that in total submission I achieve total control.
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