The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage.   By Steve T. Georgiou

One Spirit, One Community: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Friends on the Path

• The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage.   By Steve T. Georgiou

Only occasionally does a book come along that is so totally refreshing and energizing that, when you reluctantly arrive at the end, your first inclination is to simply start again at the beginning. A serendipitous encounter in 1993 while on the isle of Patmos led the author to Robert Lax, a great American minimalist poet, a sage, a man who lived slowly and gently with the whole of life. To most, his name is recognized as the lifelong best friend of Thomas Merton, but after reading The Way of the Dreamcatcher, I came away certain Merton was as much blessed as blessing in their relationship.

The book is an invitation to sit close and listen even more closely as the author deftly plies this gentle, holy man with the great questions of life: From where did we come? To where are we going? How shall we get there? The questions are huge, but the answers are savory and doable. This book is dense with insights that cultivate living slowly, quietly, surely: waiting on God, staying on track, learning with pleasure, praying the dream true, turning jungle into garden.

The dialogue format works well for this book because the author does not intrude: the focus is always on Lax who is mesmerizing in his wisdom and simplicity. The reader is drawn into this liturgy of encounter which is further peopled by artists, poets, musicians, philosophers, and spiritual writers who have touched the lives of the two in dialogue.

This is precisely a book to give a friend. It is utterly exquisite in its external attractiveness, but even that pales in the face of the great light within the pages. It’s a book to keep and to share, to savor and to digest, to begin and . . . to begin again.

The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax: Poet, Peacemaker, Sage
By Steve T. Georgiou.   (Ottawa: Novalis, 2002, 288 pages with 32 pages of color photos and artwork, $14.95 US, ISBN 2-89507-244-2)   USA Orders: 1-800-321-0411

• One Spirit, One Community: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Friends on the Path

The thought of community-in-spirit, which is behind the compilation Friends on the Path, is an attitude that Roman Catholics are coming to understand. Albeit that the wake of the inspiriting Vatican II enterprise is more than forty years long, now we live knowing that God is in us and we are in God. We live in the community and for the community. The Roman Catholic ideal of community is expressed chiefly in the sacraments of the church and the Word of God, particularly through the liturgy of the Mass.

Buddhism, as does Catholicism, expresses its spirit in community. The monks and nuns of this great discipline pray in group fashion, as do our own, for the benefit of all humankind and for themselves. What fascinates me about this tradition is the fact that its group prayer ethos can travel outside of clerical circles, and inhabit the world at large. It does so in the form of Sanghas, “friends on the path.” What I mean to say is that the characteristic spirit of the sangha causes its practitioners, the “friends,” literally to carry prayer within themselves, away from the venues in which most of us Roman Catholics expect prayer to reside.

Sanghas are made up of monks, nuns, and/or lay people; they “practice” as much as possible, according to the habits and standards that each community has set. What this book, complied by Dharma (the Teachings of the Buddha) teacher and Sangha-organizer Jack Lawlor, “speaks” of are the principles, methods, and actions inherent to Sangha-building-why anyone would want to build a Sangha, how one is built, what to do with and within one.

Before I go further, let me make clear that I do not and I cannot convert anyone to Buddhism. I am too die-hard a Roman Catholic; besides I do not know enough about the discipline in whose name this book’s author Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I do see, however, the way in which the Catholicism I know and the Buddhism I know of are similar. The similarity is instructive when one examines the “path” of “friends.”

This book of friends is divided into eight sections. The first, Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh’s section, describes the “living spiritual community” of the Sangha, through whose practice the world needs to rid itself of self-aggrandizement and aggression. The second is an overview of lay Sangha practice. Sections Three through Seven contribute to the reader’s knowledge of lay monastic practice, Sangha-building, residential and non-residential Sangha practice, and practice involving youth. Section Eight, “A Taste of Community Life,” describes Sangha life from communities the world around. Because each part is deeply, richly, and simply written, each is engaging. The polysyllabic vocabulary of what could be considered recondite Buddhism is not disconcerting in this context-it is surrounded by understandable, explanatory prose.

Both Buddhism and my own Catholicism understand the importance of corporate love. We do love and are loved by God as individuals. In addition, we do love and are loved corporately, as a united body. That’s the beauty of religion: you can have it all, as the shoulder-padded, dressed-for-success women of the 1980s wanted so fiercely.

While I do resist Nhat Hanh’s “comparison” of the Buddha’s forty-five years of Sangha-building and Jesus’ and the apostles’ three, the analogy is compelling because both men changed the world in such a relatively short period of time. “The Enlightened One” was not divine-Jesus is the Source-and this understanding disturbed me when Nhat Hanh compared both men. But, as my stepfather would say, I must save my breath to cool my porridge. Much can be learned from a sincere and humble recitation of fact: I must be clear, though, in stating that Nhat Hanh requires us to readjust our thinking. The Enlightened One’s life-changing principles require that we all understand the world as a different place if we see it ruled by any entity other than a Divine one.

A group that concentrates its energies towards one sublime goal is effective, powerful. The group benefits from, and the goal is reached by, the combination of forces as much as from the fact that no individual’s action is wasted through flailing about alone. The goal in the case of group Sangha practice is the healing of our fellows and ourselves from our self-inflicted, self-defeating spiritual wounds. Buddhists believe that when we achieve this, no suffering is possible. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have always thought that, irrespective of prayer, a certain amount of suffering is necessary for Catholic Christians to achieve salvation. Whatever the difference in our points-of-view, we all would do well to work toward the Buddhist dream as a way of making our wounded souls fructify.

April Lynch recently received her M.A. in Art History from U.C. Irvine: she hopes soon to enjoy a career as an art historian. She has been a member of St. Agnes since 1990.