A discussion with Zen Master Dae Kwang & Father Kevin Hunt

Last summer, the Institute for World Spirituality in Chicago hosted a weekend Christian – Buddhist retreat led by Father Kevin Hunt OCSO and Zen Master Dae Kwang. Two days of silent meditation, with both Christian and Zen chanting. These are excerpts from the Saturday evening question-and-answer period.

Question: In Christianity, what is important for many people is devotional type experience-thoughts, hymns, psalms all directed to a personal God. This brings much warmth and comfort to many Christians. Now this is a dimension which is not apparent in Buddhism. I am wondering how to understand that. Is this devotional spirituality, which involves thinking and images and relating to a personal God, extraneous in Buddhism – say, something Christians do because they do not have a correct understanding of the Still Point or Buddha Nature?

Father Kevin: In Christianity, you have to consider what is the meaning of “God.” Speaking about God is not the same as knowing God. If you ask me, “What is God?” I’ll answer, “God is a three-letter word.” When it comes down to what these words and images really mean, you run up against a blank wall of Unknowing. There’s an old Christian saying that any affirmation of God is a denial of God. So the question of theistic devotion in Christianity is not a simple one.

Also, the whole question of God in Buddhism is not simple either. When Buddhists talk about God are they talking about the same God that Christians do? No. In Buddhism, the gods are still in the wheel of samsara (karma, rebirth). If Christianity had a wheel of samsara, we would never be able to place God on that wheel.

In the West, most Christians would not be comfortable with a term like Shunyata — the void or infinite emptiness. But these words may be closer to God than many of the concepts and images we use!

Question: In Christianity, the deepest level of experience is described as an I – Thou relation between you and God. Can you explain why there is no I – Thou relation in Buddhism?

Dae Kwang Sunim: In Buddhism, we say that everything is one, so there is ultimately no I – Thou. If you take away the idea of “I” and take away the idea of “Thou,” then what is there?

Question: So there is no ultimate relationship in Buddhism as there is in Christianity?

Dae Kwang Sunim: Everything is relationship. Everything is direct connectedness; you just think that it isn’t. Our job is simply to become one with everything. That’s being relationship. So if you take away the idea of “I” and take away the idea of “Thou,” what do you get? Quick! Tell me! [No answer.] I’m sitting here answering your question. That’s better than any idea concerning “I – Thou” relationships.

Question: Would you describe how you became interested in Zen practice?

Father Kevin: I didn’t get interested in Buddhism and Zen as something I wanted to study. I basically got into it because the traditional Christian explanations of what my practice was didn’t quite satisfy me. Like a drum, to get the right tone, you have to tighten the skin on the drum head. So, too, in order to firm up my practice, I learned some of their ways of doing things.

Dae Kwang Sunim: I was raised Christian. The reason I went to Buddhism is much like what Father Kevin said. The Christian tradition I was raised in didn’t have any contemplative practice. I became interested in Zen Buddhism because it contained a very strong tradition of practice. I saw it not so much as an alternative to Christianity but as offering something I had never encountered before.

Question: Were you dissatisfied then with Christianity?

Dae Kwang Sunim: I wasn’t dissatisfied. I wanted something different. Actually, many people use Zen meditation to realize what Christianity is all about. Zen, you may have noticed, is very generic. It’s like drinking pure, cool water when you’re thirsty. Zen points to something before thinking, before all your ideas. Actually God is before your idea of God, and so is Buddha. And what is that? What are you? That’s the question! And how do you attain that?

Buddha likened the human situation to a man who has just been shot in the chest by an arrow. Before he gets treated for the wound, he wants to know who shot the arrow. He also wonders which tribe made the arrow. How strong was the bow and what trajectory did the arrow take to pierce his chest in such a manner? While he is asking these questions, he dies. The most important thing in this situation is getting treatment.

The Buddha was only concerned with one thing: human suffering and taking away human suffering. He refused to talk about anything else because it was not helpful to people. He went instead right to the heart of the matter, the matter of life and death. Christ, too, was not a scholar; he was not a theologian. He pointed directly to the human condition and how to relieve it. If you look at it that way, everything else pales.