Zen: How to talk to Catholic Christians

How to speak to Christians as a Buddhist

(Zen Confidential) May 8, 2025: A Patron sent me an email that basically says, "I have a friend who just found Jesus, and she's driving me CRAZY!!"

Why is she driving him crazy? It's because my Patron's friend is convinced that there is ONLY ONE true religion, one way or path, and she thinks anyone who doesn't follow it -- that is, anyone who doesn't go "full Yazoo" -- is on AC/DC's Highway to Hell.

Is there ONLY ONE TRUE WAY? My Patron wants to know. Yes, is my answer. There IS just one true way.

• Darby Crash, frontman of the Germs and an early Hollywood Zen Buddhist, wrote "The Slave," which goes: "It starts in your head/ And moves to your hands/ Your body starts shakin'/ 'Cause you're in demand/ You do the slave to the beat/ Of the neuro-sutra can can// You're lashed 'twixt the stars/ With your ice and motor cars/ You do the slave to the beat/ Of the neuro-sutra can can// Oh yea, yea, pull out the Zen/ I've got a Buddhist principle in my hand/ Your life seems wasted/ Your bodies laced in/ Don't stop now, you've got to trace it/ You put your hands together/ Writhe in the shackle/ You twist your body round/ 'Til it starts to crackle/ You do the slave to the beat/ Of the neuro-sutra can can// Right here right now/ Shake it in and out now/ Lights on off now/ Make it spin and fight now"

Unfortunately, it's different for absolutely everyone! Let's touch on a lot of the basics that make Zen [and other forms of Buddhism] different from "religions."

For one thing, in Zen there is nothing to "believe" in [except maybe Taoism]. There is a practice, and there are principles, and the practitioner puts those principles into practice. That's kind of it.

What is Catholicism? It's Universalism

The main practice is zazen ("sitting meditation"), often defined as shikantaza ("just sitting"). Through this practice, attention is cultivated. But even this is saying too much.

Speaking of not speaking, we could say that Zen is the practice of not filling silences. To wit, there is the Great Silence from which we all come and to which we all go. Religion kinda sorta sometimes puts a great big Jesus statue right in the center of that silence, or a great big Buddha statue right there in the middle of serene silence.

It tries to fill the void, the peace of silence, as if it could improve on it, gilding the lily, giving the snake legs, papering over the gaps and blanks, pretending that we can fill the not-knowing with some kind of knowing.

Jesus had a foreskin?

One can't reason with blind faith, so what talking?

But in the end, the job of a spiritual practice is not to remove uncertainty. Rather, in my experience at least, a practice humbles us before that uncertainty. There's a big difference. Every time I think I finally found the One True Way, something changes -- me, the world around me, the situation, life -- and I have to change along with it, grow, go with the flow, and keep going, keep living, keep not knowing. No fake certainty!

• Zen and Zazen with Muho: Spiritual bypassing, and what is the role of the sutras in Zen?

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• Shogan Jack Haubner, May 8, 2025; Darby Crash, Germs, "The Slave"; What is Catholicism? (video); Strangest Catholic relics (video #short); Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly