Customer Reviews

The Mirror of God: Christian Faith as Spiritual Practice--Lessons from Buddhism and Psychotherapy

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As the title of the book suggests, the author tries to present the Christian faith as spiritual practice using Buddhism's categories. To defend his thesis, he returns to the early church fathers and argues that in their writings, they made "the site of redemption the individual's interior struggle with themselves." This is important because Buddhism emphasizes this personal struggle and fears and the whole essence of meditation in Buddhism is to receive enlightenment and be freed from these struggles. He says the early Fathers of the church provided meditation techniques to help the mind to be quiet. He gives an example of the "Jesus Prayer." He argues that this is not unique to Christianity but is also present in Buddhism. It is a common practice in Buddhism to recite mantras as a way of reaching the enlightenment.

With regards to the role of the body, the author says the Tibetan Buddhists have something to teach Christianity about the body. Unlike the early Christian Fathers who saw the body as being antagonistic to the spirit, that the Buddhists approach the body not as an enemy of the spirit but as a means of expressing the spirit.

The author tries to compare Jesus and Buddha. He says "... both Buddhism and Christianity begin with a wandering teacher who gathers a band of followers. The births of both founders are surrounded with miraculous and supernatural events. After their deaths, both are recognized as more than simply mortal." He however recognizes that there are differences between them. He brings in the issue of attachment and detachment in both religions and tries to give a psychological perspective to them.

He says that "spiritualities and therapies of transcendence alone run the risk of a hollow and short-lived victory over interior forces. Spiritualities and therapies of immersion alone run the risk of drowning in the pool of Narcissus." This is a significant contribution in his work. The basic wisdom here is to acknowledge our emotions, explore them and then relate them in order for true transcendental transformation to take place.

His references to studies showing that spiritual practice helps in psychological well being are definitely a positive to his work. He says, "Those who gain meaning from their religion and practice it regularly enjoy better overall health than those who use religion instrumentally, as a way of impressing others or as a means to social status." The author discusses the contributions of modern psychology to spiritual practice. He says "Spiritual disciplines and the wisdom they produce add breadth and depth to the findings of psychology. Psychology adds grounding and realism to the spiritual journey."

The author does a good job trying to convince his readers to look at Christian faith as spiritual practice. His comparison of Christianity and Buddhism is well done.