Jesus, Jazz, and BuddhismJay McDaniel

Why Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism?

The spirit of Jesus is more than Christianity. It is about kindness, faith, hope, and care for the vulnerable.

The spirit of Jazz is more than Jazz. It is about delight in diversity, openness to surprise, and the freedom to improvise.

The spirit of Buddhism is more than Buddhism. It is about recognizing the interconnectedness of all things, be present to the world in a listening way, and being open to the sacrament of the present moment.

Together they invite an ecumenical spirituality.

Jesus, Jazz, Buddhism Spirituality

Faith, Hope and Kindness

Service to OthersDelight in DiversityOpenness to SurpriseAwareness of Inter-BeingCapacity for Deep

ListeningSacrament of the

Present MomentSeeking to become a

“Fat Soul”

Website and Facebook GroupsProcess Philosophy and the Culture of Possibilitywww.worldwideprocess.org and www.processphilosophy.org

Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism: Process Thinking for a More Hospitable Worldwww.jesusjazzbuddhism,org

Process Philosophy for Everyone (Facebook Group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/processphilosophyandthecultureofpossibility

Jesus, Jazz, & Buddhism (Facebook Group):https://www.facebook.com/JesusJazzBuddhism

Process PhilosophyAlfred North WhiteheadPhilosophy of OrganismRising Influence in

mainland ChinaComplements the

Universe StoryOffers strong

intellectual support for Ecological Civilizations and Ecumenical Spirituality

The Process Tradition is Evolving

It is like a tree that is growing over time.The roots are the

conceptual of Whitehead’s philosophy.

The trunk consists of key ideas available to anybody.

The branches are applications for personal and daily life and for the well-being of the planet.

Three Dimensions to the Whiteheadian Way Today

Thinking an Alternative to the idea that the world is machine-like.

Practicing an Alternative To mechanism

Being an Alternative to mechanism

The Aims of Process Philosophy Today

Personal: To help us grow in the size of our souls through understanding, feeling, and action.

Social: To help us do the great work, contributing to the well-being of our neighborhoods, villages, communities, and world.

Getting Started on your ownTwenty Key Ideas

http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/what-do-process-thinkers-believe.html

Reading Process and Reality:http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/what-is-process-thought.html

An Overview of Whitehead’s Philosophy:http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/alfred-north-whitehead-philosopher-for-the-muddleheaded.html

Whitehead’s Idea of God:http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/god-almighty-no-way.html

Articles in Accessible, Lyrical Language

Replanting Yourself in Beauty:http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/replanting-yourself-in-beauty.html

A Universe of Stories: http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/a-whole-universe-of-stories.html

The Numinosity of Rocks:http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/numinosity-of-rocks.html

Our Influence in the World:http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/our-ongoing-influence-in-the-world.html

The Soul“Let me tell you a great secret of life—a soul is not a

thing, it is not something which stands untouched by the events of your life.  Your soul is the river of your life; it is the cumulative flow of your experience.  But what do we experience?  The world. Each other.  So your soul is the cumulative flow of all of your relationships with everything and everyone around you.  In a different image, we weave ourselves out of the threads of our relationships with everyone around us." 

-- Robert Mesle, A Soul is Not a Thing: A Process Relational Wedding 

The Sizable Soul"By S-I-Z-E I mean the stature of your soul, the

range and depth of your love, your capacity for relationships.  I  mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure.  I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness.  I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions.  I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature.“ -- Bernard Loomer

1.  Capacity for Loving Relationships: A fat soul enjoys range and depth in its capacity for loving relationships, helping others to become freer in their diversity and uniqueness.  It is open-hearted.

2.  Open-Mindedness: A fat  soul can understand a variety of outlooks on life without feeling defensive and insecure.  It is open-minded.

3.  Openness to Complexity: A fat soul has the power to sustain complex relationships and enriching tensions.  It does not lapse into either-or thinking but is inclined toward both-and thinking.

4.  Tolerance for Enriching Tensions: A fat soul can live with enriching tensions without being overwhelmed.  It does not flee from constructive conflict.

5.  Personal Integrity: A fat soul does all this while maintaining a sense of integrity.  It sticks to its principles and enjoys a sense of individual freedom.

6.  Individuality: A fat soul does not lose its agency or self-creativity.  It celebrates diversity and delights in uniqueness, and it enjoys unique agency itself.

Everything has Soul

Everything has some kind of inner aliveness, some capacity for feeling and responding to its past actual world.

All things seek some kind of satisfying relation with their world, some kind of happiness, some kind of beauty.

Eros for beauty is everywhere.Patricia Adams Farmer: Replanting Yourself

in Beauty

The Universe is a Creative Advance Into Novelty

There is creativity at every level.

The future of the universe, like the future of an individual soul, is not predetermined.

Whitehead’s Cosmology The universe is a creative advance into novelty. This creativity is the ultimate reality. The Soul of the universe – God – is a self-actualization of this creativity and so are we.

The universe does not have an absolute beginning. It unfolds in a beginingless and endless series of cosmic epochs. The universe story tells the story of one of them

There is no such thing as dead matter. The universe is made of events, not things. The “building blocks” of the universe are not solid, nugget-like blocks at all, but rather momentary pulsations of energy which, in human and other forms of sentient life, are occasions of experience.

Every act of experience in the universe has subjectivity of its own, conscious or unconscious. It is a process of feeling the past actual world and adding something new, of concrescence.  In concrescence the many of the universe are present in the one of the immediate experience, and in responding to the many that are becoming one, something new is added to the ongoing history of the universe. The subjective immediacy of the experience perishes and it become an ongoing influence in the world.

A Moment of Experience

God as the Soul of the Universe

The Different Sides of GodGod as Mind of universe, aware of pure potentials which may or may not be actualized in universe: (Primordial nature)

God as Heart of universe, feeling the feelings of all experiencing subjects, sharing in their experiences (Consequent nature)

God as Guiding Presence of universe, luring the universe through fresh possibilities relative to the situation at hand (indwelling Lure)

God as composed of universe, because the many of the universe are forever helping making God (Divine multiplicity).

The Social Vision of Process Thinkers All living being have intrinsic value

(value for themselves) as well as value for others. This means that we should live with respect and care for the community of life.

The world is a community of communities of communities, human and ecological. We live within a republic of stories (Arlene Goldbard)

Just peacemaking. It is important to act in ways that are non-violent and that promote the well-being all. All have dignity.

World loyalty. It is important to live with a desire for the well being of all life, and at the same time to recognize our special responsibilities to kindred humans, especially the vulnerable.

Transition communities. The great work today lies in helping build local communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and spiritually satisfying, with no one left behind.

Process and Justice

A Multi-Polar World: the Political Implications of Process thinking:

www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/a-multi-polar-world-political-implications-of-relational-power.html

Economic Justice , Poverty, and Process Thinking

www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/economic-justice-and-process-philosophy.html

FamousNaomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,which knew it would inherit the earthbefore anybody said so. The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birdswatching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous briefly, to the cheek. The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,more famous than the dress shoe,which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries itand not at all famous to the one who is pictured. I want to be famous to shuffling menwho smile while crossing streets,sticky children in grocery lines,famous as the one who smiled back. I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

First LessonPhilip BoothLie back, daughter, let your headbe tipped back in the cup of my hand.Gently, and I will hold you. Spreadyour arms wide, lie out on the streamand look high at the gulls. A dead-man’s float is face down. You will diveand swim soon enough where this tidewaterebbs to the sea. Daughter, believeme, when you tire on the long thrash to your island, lie up, and survive.As you float now, where I held youand let go, remember when fear cramps your heart what I told you:lie gently and wide to the light-yearstars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

The Gap in the CedarRoy Scheele

I saw this much from the window:the branch spring lightened into placewith a lithe shudder of snow. Whatever bird had been there,chickadee or sparrow,had so vanished into air, resilient, beyond recall,it had to be taken on faithto be taken at all. In the moment it took the tree to recover that tremblingsomething went wide in me— there was a rush of wings,the air beaten dim with snow,and then I saw through the swirling.

Red Brocade PillowNaomi Shihab Nye The Arabs used to say,When a stranger appears at your door,feed him for three daysbefore asking who he is,where he's come from,where he's headed.That way, he'll have strength enoughto answer.Or, by then you'll be such good friendsyou don't care. 

Let's go back to that.Rice? Pine nuts?Here, take the red brocade pillow.My child will serve waterto your horse. No, I was not busy when you came!I was not preparing to be busy.That's the armor everyone put onat the end of the centuryto pretend they had a purposein the world. I refuse to be claimed.Your plate is waiting.We will snip fresh mintinto your tea.

The Peace of Wild Thingsby Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild ThingsWendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Scraps of LightDeborah Gordon Cooper

I see the way the chickadeestake turns at the feeder.I watch a neighbor take her husband’s hand.I see the way the sun will findthe only interruptionin dark clouds, to toss this amber lightacross the pines.I see a row of cars stop on the road,until the orange cat has safely crossed,

then take off slowly, shouldshe change her mind.I watch the way my brother lifts out mother fromthe wheelchair to the car,the shawl he lays across her lap.I save up every scrap of light, because I know that it will takeeach tiny consolationevery dayto mend the world.