MINDFULNESS AND ISLAM

Now, lest there be any confusion about the matter, let me say this right at the outset: I am not a Muslim, and Islam is certainly not my favourite religion. No, not by a long shot---but that’s for another day. Actually, I have no favourite religion at all. Having said that, I can find some good---and, yes, plenty of bad---things to say about every religion. Today, I will say some positive things about Islam. It’s high time that somebody did.

I’m ‘into’ mindfulness---which is all about health and wellness---and the essence of mindfulness (which, by the way, is not a religion) is this---unconditional surrender to what is. Such surrender is the result of a choiceless awareness to life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. In essence, the word ‘Islam’ means voluntary and total submission---in peace---to the will of the Almighty (Allah) together with a striving after Truth so as to do the will of Allah. Submission and surrender are essentially the same thing, for both involve a letting-be and a calm acceptance of whatever is. The word ‘Islam’ refers to that total peace that comes from such submission or surrender.

In Islam this submission is anything but fatalism. It is often said in Islam that the Almighty does not change the fate of a person, or a people, unless that person or people changes what is in themselves. Also, the notion of insha’Allah (‘God willing’) embodies qualities such as patience, resoluteness, wisdom, compassion, equanimity and non-reactivity---all qualities that are otherwise embodied in mindfulness. The Arabic word sabr denotes a calm and unconditional acceptance of what is---that is, there here-and-now---manifesting itself in an imperturbability that refuses to succumb to worry and anxiety. Such equanimity can only arise when there is a calm acceptance of reality or life---on life’s own terms.

The monotheism in Islam may appear to some to be overly strict and remote but at least it avoids the anthropomorphism of traditional Christianity and embraces an ‘all-Encompassing’ Reality (Qur’an 2:115). Those words---‘all-Encompassing’---appear in many places throughout the Qur’an, which, it must be remembered, contains, among other things, the religious, civil, social, legal, and military codes of Islam. (You need to keep the latter especially in mind when reading portions that present as militant or aggressive in nature.) Now, Allah---‘the [sole] deity, God’---is ‘of all things, encompassing’ (Qur’an 4:126) and, as such, is not so much omnipresent but Omnipresence itself, for it is axiomatic in Islam that the Almighty Divine Life cannot be said to be ‘in’ any place nor be ‘everywhere.’ Nor can the Almighty Divine Life be said to be ‘nowhere.’ All such talk would limit the limitless.

In short, we are talking about an ‘all-Encompassing’ Reality---One Presence and One Power active in the universe. This is the true meaning of the statement, ‘There is no God but Allah’ (Qur’an 47:19). This uncreated and unmanifest Presence is not ‘transcendent’ in the Judeo-Christian sense---at least not in the sense of some supposed anthropomorphic deity in the ‘upper regions’ (whatever that means). No, we are talking about a Reality that is truly limitless, encompassing all things including all of space---and yet beyond all space as well. Nor is this Presence ‘immanent’ in the Christian sense, for the Presence cannot be said to be contained ‘in’ anything. Nor can this Presence be said to be in any way ‘separate’ from the universe (that is, the sum total of all that is) for the notion of separateness denotes divisibility whereas this Presence is indivisible. All in all, it is a mature concept of deity.

Now, you need not call this Omnipresence 'God' or ‘Allah’---I generally don’t---but you can if you wish. The really important thing, as I see it, is this---this boundless and limitless presence and power of life fills all, is all, and empowers all, for everything is truly an individualised expression of life.  This presence and power---this All-in-All---is most fully and personally experienced in the silence. It is experienced as peace, calmness, tranquility, equanimity, wisdom, love and compassion---indeed, as all those things ordinarily associates with the sacred or the divine. The regular practice of mindfulness affords a unique opportunity to cultivate these qualities---simply by a calm, choiceless awareness of whatever is.

This post would not be complete without at least some albeit brief mention of Sufism. Every religion has its ‘inner’ or esoteric side, and Islam is no exception. Like all mystics, the Sufis assert that it is possible to fully embrace the Divine Presence in this life. Almost every religion looks with suspicion upon the mystical tradition, the main reason being that if it be possible to embrace this Divine Life in some direct, immediate and unmediated fashion, then there is a loss of control, authority and dependency. How terrible! Bring it on.

Well, Divine Life or nothing, the ‘good news’ I have for each of you is this---Muslim or non-Muslim, believer or infidel, theist or non-theist, you can never be less than life, you can never be separate from life, and you are always---I repeat, always---in direct and immediate ‘contact’ (for want of a better word) with life in all its fullness. I don’t care if some call that heresy---and they will, because they want you to be in submission (that is, bondage) to them and their authority. Reject all such nonsense. Choose to be a heretic, for the word ‘heretic’ refers to one who chooses. As truth/reality/life is dynamic and never for one moment static, those who refuse to choose----and instead remain statically wedded and glued to some fixed, rigid and ‘authoritative’ view of reality---are simply not on the side of life. Simple as that.

So, why not choose to affirm your oneness with all that is---the ‘is’ being nothing less than the ever-dynamic, all-encompassing life as it unfolds incessantly from one moment to the next. Here’s some more good advice---‘Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others,’ wrote the Sufi mystic and poet Rumi (pictured), ‘Unfold your own myth.’

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THERE WAS NO FIRST CAUSE---AND NO NEED FOR ONE

The ‘great’ monotheistic religions---Judaism, Christianity, and Islam---are indeed strange. Very strange. Each one of them postulates the existence of, and the need for, a so-called ‘first cause,’ God being that ‘first cause.’ Yes, God---who supposedly ‘is because He is’ (cf Ex 3:14)---is said to be the ultimate ‘necessary’ Being on whom or on which everything else depends for its existence. After all, is it not the case that whatever cannot account for its own existence must depend on something which can. That ‘something’ is God.

One of the many problems with the assertion that God was the first cause is the problem of infinite regress. If God made everything, who ‘made’ God? (There is a problem as well with that word ‘made,’ which presupposes a ‘maker.’) The theist will reply, ‘No, I am not saying that everything which exists must have been made by someone. I am saying that there must be something which is not made.’ Why must there be? There are no ‘musts.’ I repeat---there are no 'musts.' In any event, with a word like ‘made,’ how in the world is it possible to conceive of something ‘unmade.’ It is unintelligible. It is unspeakable. Yes, it is the case that everything in the world is limited and dependent. However, it does not necessarily follow---indeed, it does not logically follow at all---from the fact that everything in the world is limited and dependent that everything is ‘made,’ nor that there must be someone or something who is ‘not made,’ whatever that means.

Now, there are certainly states of interdependence throughout the universe. That much is clear simply from observation or perception alone. The Vietnamese monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (pictured left) uses the expression ‘InterBeing’ to refer to this state and process of interdependence, that is, the interdependent relational nature of things. Hanh, in his book Zen Keys, gives the example of a table. We recognise its existence ‘only when the interdependent conditions, upon which its presence is grounded, converge.’  Certain interdependent conditions or factors---for example, the wood, the saw, the nails, the carpenter, and so forth---come together, that is, converge, to produce the table. Some of those factors are more directly connected with the existence of the table than others, the latter being more indirectly connected. Nevertheless, all are ‘necessary’ to bring the table into ‘concrete’ existence. In a sense, the table existed ‘before being there’---at least in potentiality. Of course, we are unable to recognise its existence before all the above mentioned conditions are brought together,

However, let’s get one thing perfectly clear. Everything is not present to everything else in ‘one vast instantaneous co-implicated completeness’ (to use words penned by William James [pictured right]). Yes, there are interrelationships throughout nature, but there are also innumerable cross-currents and conflicting forces. What we find are partial unities but there is no one, vast, overarching total unity of all things. Not at all. There is no one system, completely unified, that unites all the subsystems.

However, this much is true---a single ‘logic’ applies to all things, for all things exist in the same ‘level’ or plane of existence and observability. In addition, everything has some relations with some other things; that is to say, there is no entity which is independent of all other entities. Each 'thing' is a cause of at least one other 'thing' as well as being the effect of some other 'thing,' so every thing is explainable by reference to one or more other things.

Thus, all theological talk of the supposed need for some 'first cause' is, well, nonsense. Empty words. As Professor John Anderson pointed out, 'there can be no contrivance of a "universe" or totality of things, because the contriver would have to be included in the totality of things.'

There was no first cause---and absolutely no need for one. This is just one of the many areas where Buddhism has the edge over the monotheistic religions.

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