Posts Tagged ‘Parliament of the World's Religions’
Dialogue with Buddhist Monk and Christian Scientist
Posted by: Shirley Paulson in General on March 27th, 2010
Episode #29 of SpiritualityandChristianity.com is a dialogue with Thai Buddhist Monk, Venerable Direxis and Christian Scientist, Shirley Paulson.
Venerable Direxis and Shirley Paulson
It was easy to find people to talk to at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and it was easy to find people who have lived religious lives quite different from my own. What rich conversations, everywhere I turned! Direxis and I found easy similarities in our faith practices too, between my Christian Science faith and his Buddhism, even though our languages and cultures are worlds apart from each other. We both take seriously the importance of the movement of our thought. As Venerable Direxis puts it, our thoughts always need to move to a centered place, a place of peace, where healing happens. We surprised each other when we discovered how we both commit our lives to healing others.
Direxis’ life of devotion started earlier than mine. When he was sixteen, Direxis became a novice and by the time he was 20, he became a monk. I always loved God and wanted to be of service to others, but I wasn’t ready to devote my whole life this way until after I had a family. He now spends his life practicing meditation for the Buddha, the God, and I spend my life praying for the purpose of healing. And of course, we’re both interested in listening and learning from others, since we met at the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
When we tried to learn from each other the basis of our prayer/meditation and healing, we found such similar concepts with slightly different words. For example, we agreed we need to admit an original mind/Mind, and we both think it’s necessary to move our human thoughts away from the world of emotionalism/self-originated thought. We agree it requires meditation/prayer in order to move from the world of sensuality in order to find the peace and health of the universal love/divine Love.
Join us for a little conversation from people on the opposite sides of the world. I’m happy to discover “it’s a small world,” indeed.
Check out some of these related websites:
Christian Science practitioners
Photos from the Parliament of the World’s Religions
Please leave a comment. Let us know if you’ve had some similar conversations or discoveries.
The spirituality and practicality of Progressive Christianity
Posted by: Shirley Paulson in Podcast on February 15th, 2010
Episode #28 of SpiritualityandChristianity.com is a conversation that took place at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, December 2009.
Nick Brenton, a follower of a network of Spiritual Progressives, lives in Melbourne just a few blocks from the new convention hall. A conversation between a spiritual progressive and a Christian Scientist would naturally lead to an exploration of the meaning of spirituality. We agreed that the disconnect from human will is what allows God into the center of our lives. “Awareness” is the way Nick describes the consciousness into one’s inner being. Awareness is a joy, bringing awe and wonder. 
While we share a desire to find God at the center – whether it’s the “kingdom of God” or the consciousness within one’s being – we also agree that spirituality needs to be made practical. Nick thinks that one must take a position in the public sphere and be willing to engage politically. He said that progressives may tend to lean left, but their greater priority is to challenge the polarity of left and right. I also resist polarity, because I find Christ as type of “option 3” – that is, when left and right oppose each other, I think they miss the relevance of spiritual ideas. Prayer, we agreed, in its basic form awakens us to forces beyond the mundane life. This is where we find practical, real solutions for the human experience.
Let me introduce the magazine Nick shared with me: Tikkun — whose mission is to “create a new bottom line, a world that values compassion, creativity, ecological sanity, awe and wonder; and not just money and power.”
Why interfaith relationships are good for everybody
Posted by: Shirley Paulson in General on December 5th, 2009
The theme of the four sessions I attended on the first day of the Parliament of the World’s Religions was understanding why interfaith or inter-religious dialogue is important and how to do it.
The first session I selected was “Strengthening One’s Faith Through Interfaith Dialogue.” Before we could even start talking with others, our instructors, Peta Pellach and Jeremy Jones, instructed us to think through one or two basic ideas from our own faith experiences that were of profound importance to us. Things that we hold most dear. In my practice dialogue, I talked with a Jewish professor from Europe. I learned from our experience that sharing what we want to tell about ourselves isn’t really the goal. A good conversation begins with a sincere interest in hearing the other. And yet becoming more conscious of our own distinct messages and finding the freedom to say so makes it easier to hear the issues most profound for my conversation partner. Read the rest of this entry »
A week at the Parliament of the World’s Religions
Posted by: Shirley Paulson in General on November 28th, 2009
Pluralism in action!
I’m heading to Melbourne, Australia today, to arrive in time for the week-long Parliament of the World’s Religions! From December 3 - 9, more than 10,000 participants from 80-plus countries are expected to convene for the world’s largest interreligious gathering.
I’m one of many hundreds of participants who will make a presentation in support of the theme, “Make a world of difference: hearing each other, healing the earth.” I’m also going to participate in an off-site interfaith panel focused on the main theme but available to those not registered for the actual Parliament. I plan to tweet a favorite aha (http://twitter.com/ShirleyPaulson) moment from each of the sessions I attend, and I’ll post a blog entry here at spiritualityandchristianity.com daily. I hope you’ll catch some of the spirit, flavor, feelings, and spiritual sense of the reasons we need such a gathering of world religions.
I believe in religious pluralism. It means that people of all faiths need each other. We can’t possibly live in harmony with others without understanding something of their religious and spiritual heritage. We also can’t survive without learning our own religious traditions well enough to explain why they are a blessing to all humanity.
I first caught the spirit of religious pluralism when I attended the resurrection of the Parliament in Chicago in 1993, a century after the first truly global dialogue of faith took place, also in Chicago, in 1893. The plan emerged at that time (1993) to reconvene as a conference every five years at various places around the world. I didn’t make it to Cape Town in 1999 or Barcelona in 2004, but it’s great to have a chance to get to Melbourne. Stay tuned.
So I hope you’ll join me here and on Twitter — http://twitter.com/shirleypaulson