“What is brighter inner than it is outer?”
“The soul?” I responded. A little Platonic and not something I’d typically endorse, but he was first generation Asian and I thought it might be close to what he was looking for.
“Very close. Do you want me to tell you?”
“Let me think about it.” He was waiting for his girlfriend, so I knew he’d be around for a while.
After his 15 minutes of shopping I didn’t have any better answers. As I was ringing him up at the register he told me that the answer was “enlightenment”.
“So what makes you think enlightenment comes from within?”
“The world”, he said. “If you look around it’s always changing - never the same. Like a river - you never step into the same one twice. Even my physical appearance might change - new hairstyle, new clothes - but the inner self stays the same. Enlightenment can’t come from change, otherwise you couldn’t keep it.”
Unfortunately there was another customer behind him, so I didn’t have a chance to say what I was thinking.
I didn’t mean enlightenment came from the world - I meant that it comes from God. Enlightenment (or whatever the Christian version of that is) comes from the God who exists apart from us. Our inner self isn’t static either. We have good and bad elements in us and if we let Him in God will change the inner self to be more like Him.
Genesis 1 says that all humans, male and female, were “Created in the Image of God.” The text specifically mentions male and female in this context and I think that’s an important thing to notice. Men don’t bear the Image - neither do women. Both of us corporately bear the Image.
This may initially sound a little strange, but it is the best way to understand the passage. The passage is literally “‘Let us make humankind* in our image, according to our likeness...” (NRSV emphasis mine) God is referring to himself as plural - an interesting fact for the monotheistic Hebrew culture where this was recorded. I think it’s best understood as a literary device. God is described as plural to draw out the comparison to humanity’s plurality (male and female).This fits the author's intention to link humans and God as sharing the same image and likeness. (Sailhamer, Pentateuch as Narrative, Zondervan, pp. 95-96)
And in fact, the Christian understanding is that God himself exists in relationship. God is triune. Three distinct persons who all exist as one God. It’s a confusing thing that I won’t get into here, other than to say that this ancient drawing does a pretty good job of conveying it.
(Image from Wikipedia)
The key point here is that Christians don’t follow a God who is an impersonal monad. His existence is a relational existence - just like ours is. Men and women wouldn't be complete without each other and the Father, Son, and Spirit likewise.
I wish I had been able to have a longer conversation about this. Even though I disagree with some central elements of the Buddhist approach there are still areas where this Westerner can learn from it. In many areas of our thinking the West hasn’t been entirely converted to Christ. For instance our tendency to try to fix the evil in others and ignore it in ourselves. This is where Buddhism (and Christ) has something to teach Westerners. They’re correct that it must happen from within. The consistent message of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount is to work on your own inner sin - don’t focus on the sins of others. The reason we are able to make progress in the inner life, however, is because of the (internal) Image of God planted in us, and the (external) work of Christ in the world. Does change come from within or without? The answer is “yes”.
