[Buddha-l] Rohr and Finley on stages of spiritual development

[Richard Hayes]

For the past couple of days I have been attending a conference on mysticism by Richard Rohr and James Finley. Something that I find interesting is that 1150 people, most but by no means all of them Roman Catholics, are attending this conference and that they have come from all over the United States. Finley is a gifted teacher and reflects well on his monastic training as a Cistercian monk (under his spiritual director, Thomas Merton) and his Zen training and his training as a psychotherapist. Rohr is a Franciscan brother whose criticisms of the Catholic Church for the past 500 years and of American culture have earned him the contempt of many bishops and the admiration of many others. It is mildly encouraging to me to see so many Catholic priests, nuns and lay people listening to a man widely regarded as a dangerous heretic.

This weekend Rohr has been talking about levels of spiritual development (a theme that many teachers of many traditions have written about). His claim is that the Roman Catholic church and American evangelicals (the so-called religious right) been stuck at stages 1 and 2 of his 9-stage schema. (A fairly good summary of his schema is in the following Christian blog:

http://tracesword.blogspot.com/2009/05/levels-of-spiritual-development-richard.html

While I find much of the language of Christian mysticism quite alien (in that I never describe my own experiences or convictions in God-talk or Christ-talk or find myself having to translate such talk into my own idiosyncratic Buddhist frame of reference), I also find the contemplative practices that the God-talk points to (as a finger at the moon?) quite familiar. And I find myself agreeing with Rohr's claim that American religion is, for the most part, stuck at a very low level of development. I would have to include almost all the Buddhism I have seen in America as fitting into Rohr's level-one or level-two. There are, of course, individuals who are exceptions, but I would have to say that whether one is talking about the Buddhism of Asian Americans or the Buddhism of highly educated affluent whites, one is generally talking about spirituality at a very low level. Perhaps the same can be said of Buddhism (and every other religion) everywhere in the world these days. As a whole, I'd say it is not looking very good for the future of the human race.

Websites for Rohr and Finley:

http://contemplativeway.org/

It is good to take a rest from buddha-l from time to time. It's my turn to do so again. See you all eventually, perhaps.

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes
rhayes at unm.edu