WELCOME TO THE MARTIN BUBER INSTITUTE FOR DIALOGICAL ECOLOGY. a teaching and research institute affiliated with Prescott College. Hune Margulies, Ph.D, Director. Maurice Friedman, Ph.D, Chair Emeritous, MBIDE Board Of Scholars    A Brief Description Of My Book: • Essays on the principles of Dialogical Ecology. Between Buber and Zen. An Introduction to the Principles of Dialogical Ecology: Zen and Western Dialogical Philosophy. A Study of Martin Buber and Some aspects of Zen Buddhism Zen and Buber are important to large segments of religious practitioners and academic-scholars. It is my view that my work on the confluence of Zen and Buber, will offer a new and much needed alternative restatement of profound religious and philosophical impact. In my view, Martin Buber was the most important Jewish philosopher of the 20th century. His philosophy of Dialogue was seminal in the development of humanistic Christian thought and in the development of existentialist religious philosophy. The advent of Zen and other contemplative Buddhist traditions in the West, makes it very important to compare and reconcile the Dialogical Philosophy of Buber with the principles and practices of enlightenment embodied in Zen. The confluence of both teachings, will provide scholars and practitioners with a clear understanding as to the possibilities for the creation of community and the rise of enlightenment. The interest in Buber in the West is vast, and as my research shows, when presented in the light of my work, so it is for Japanese and east-Asian circles. This book is aimed at seekers of spirituality, practitioners, scholars of Judaica and of Zen and Buddhism. I'm working on the intersection between the Dialogical philosophy of Martin Buber and some aspects of Zen and Dzogchen Buddhism. I have coined a new term for this new synthesis philosophy: Dialogical Ecology. Buber's greatest innovation lies in the affirmation that there is no "direct" relationship to God, separate from the rest of ordinary life. The dialogue with God passes through a dialogue with the whole of being. There whole of being is Man, Nature and Mind, and God is not a separate category. At least not insofar as human relationship with God is concerned. In addition, the dialogue between man and his own mind-spirit is only one form of spirituality. Dialogue with man and with nature are also spiritualities and are also the gates to liberation. Within or inside are only words and depict no reality outside of them. Normally, when we talk about spiritual life, we think of communion through ritual practices. From a dialogical perspective, the spiritual life is the encounter of the whole of being with the whole of being. This is the core distinction and contrast between mysticism and dialogue. The varieties of mystical approaches situate the spiritual life within the inner core of a person’s spirit-mind. But the dialogue between man and his own mind-spirit is only one form of spirituality. Dialogue with man and with nature are also spiritualities and are also the gates to liberation. Within or inside are only words and depict no reality outside of them. Genuine dialogue cannot be ritualized into cultic practices, it can only be lived and actualized in the ordinary activities of daily life. There is a moment of inception and that moment cannot be planned, it cannot be attained through a practiced intentionality. The summum bonum of spiritual life is not the ecstatic communion with God, but the dialogue with the divinity that actualizes itself in the way we live our daily life activities. The important thing is to constantly remember that dialogue is not the goal as goals are normally understood in spiritual life. Dialogue is the spiritual life. In essence, dialogue is the starting point for a spiritual life, and it is also the goal of our spiritual life. The point of spiritual life is not unity or identification with god in the mystical sense, and it is not to elevate (a geographic term) to a state of exultation through the perfecting of our ritual practices. The goal is to establish a dialogue with god and the means is to engage in that dialogue. Dialogue, as is the Zen's satory, is actualized or expressed through our regular ordinary life, in the every day and in the here and now. Zen does not ask whether God exists or not. Zen asks whether God is relevant at all in the path to, and at the shores of liberation. Whatever answer we provide, we are making God into an It. Buber taught that nothing about God can be said, but we can address and encounter him/her in the whole of being. Zen says basically the same, only the word God is substituted for liberation or enlightenment. This book will introduce the concept and philosophy of Dialogical Ecology. Dialogical Ecology is a concept that describes the confluence between the philosophies of Martin Buber, Zen Buddhism, and several strands of religious Existentialism. Buber's I-Thou philosophy and some aspects of Zen relate with each other in a variety of intrinsic and interconnected ways. The importance of this goes beyond the academic. The encounter between Buber and Zen can enhance both and resolve issues and conflicts within both. Dialogical relationships are a form of engaged meditation. Dialogue and meditation are practices that include both social and individual dimensions. Dialogue is an I-Thou relationship to nature conducted in full mindfulness. It is similar to the non-Itness, or non-attachment as found in Zen. We can say that I-thou is Buber's description of Zen's relationships of mindfulness, no-self and non-attachment. Buber argued that a truly realized religious experience finds its moment of inception and actualizes itself through the process of I-Thou dialogue with the three realms of existence: person with person, man-nature, man-mind. In every true dialogue, the I and the Thou create a space of "between" and in that space God emerges and becomes present as the Eternal Thou. I-Thou dialogue, in contrast to I-It relationships, requires the person to abandon any claims at commodifying the "other". This refers to the "other" in any one of the three realms. A non-commodified world, by its very nature, abandons the prevailing social institutions rooted in materialism and its socioeconomic manifestations. 'Wrong livelihoods" (borrowing from Buddhist terminology), are those activities that foster and sustain a life of attachments and cravings to the samsaric world. In this context, Buber referred to himself as a Religious Socialist. In the Buddhist traditions, Buddhadasa Bikkhu developed the concept of Dhammic Socialism in Thailand. In the West, we find important strands of Engaged, socially conscious and environmentally active Zen, such as the teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn and other fascinating teachers in America. In the general Hindu traditions, Ghandian socialism found a strong voice and some measure of theoretical endurance. I explore how a Buberian dialogical perspective can help shed new light and revive the connections between the practices of a religious life in the here and now, and the societal structures within which religious life becomes actualized. I work with the concept of non-dual relationships and equate that with Buber's concept of the "between". The idea can be subsumed by establishing that the purpose of life, or the Logos in Viktor Frankl's terms, is to say Thou to the three realms, and to be very careful not to expect nor demand a reciprocal turn. This is the difference between encounter and dialogue. I am interested in articulating ways to express or actualize a deep sense of enlightenment (in Zen's terms), or of dialogue with God (in Buber's terms) in the lived concrete. Since God is not an "it" but the "eternal Thou", Buber wrote that we can't say anything about God but we can address him. Similarly in Zen we can't speak about enlightenment but we can live it. The point of connection here is the practice of dialogue. Saying Thou with the whole of being and to the whole of being, is the practice of the mind's awakening into a state of enlightenment. To be able to actualize or practice enlightenment one must say Thou with the whole of being to the whole of being. The practice of Dialogue is enlightenment and is the result of enlightenment. Provisional Chapters: 1. Introduction: The principles of Dialogical Ecology. The Religion of the Moment of Inception. 2. Buber and Buddha: The Between. 3. The Moment of Inception: God in The Between. Enlightenment in The Between. 4. Religious Practice: Dialogical Relationship and the Emergence of God. 5. Religious Practice: Orthodoxies and Heterodoxies: Religious Alternatives and Alternatives to Religion. Great Faith, Great Doubt and Great Determination. 6. Religious Practice: The Worship of No-Worship and the Prayer of No-Prayer. A non-Institutional, Relational-based Practice for a Religious Life. 7. Religious Practice: The Canons versus the Moments of Inception. 8. Ordinary Mind. Ordinary Dialogue. 9. Time as Liberation: the Concept and the Practice of the Sabbath 10. Dialogical Community for its own sake: Enlightenment, The Sangha and Religious Socialism. Experiments and Experiences 11. Conclusions: God, Liberation and the Dialogue of the Whole of Being with the Whole of Being. Sample chapter. This is a brief introduction to the concept of Dialogical Ecology. It seeks to use no language associated with any particular religious practice, but as you read this text, it becomes obvious that it failed to do so. It does not delve into the book’s topics of Zen and Buber, that is left for the subsequent chapters, but it is fully imbued by the teachings. The following are some notes and thoughts to help us guide our thinking: Community: A Havurah (community of friends) or a Sangha (Buddhist community of friends) is not a temple nor a worship group or a prayer circle. Sometimes, however, they become just that. A Dialogical community is not lead by priests nor by any other type of formal or informal clergy. If you meet your leader on the road, just walk around and pass him/her by. No one can lead anyone anywhere in the realm of the spirit. A community may meet in people's homes or chose other outdoors or indoor places. A community uses the Sabbath-days and other communal occasions (holy-days) to gather together to explore and celebrate communal moments of inception. We believe in a religious practice outside and beside canonical codes, a faith practice that is not centered on texts, rituals, clergy or temples. Orthodoxy and Heterodoxies: Dialogical Ecology explores practices of religious life and celebration, outside and beside conventional rituals and canonized scriptures. Together, the community, chooses and designs their our own practices, their own prayers and their own celebrations. The aim is to by-pass conventional religion in order to point directly at the core of our religious experience and faith-identity. Every religious reformation in history was based on modifying texts and rituals. While that may be a good thing, a dialogical practice does not want to be based on texts and rituals, whether old fashion or newly adapted to fit present-day conditions. The point is to avoid that which we view as the principal error of the various reformation movements: we do not wish to replace one kind of canonical theology for another kind of canonical theology. The issue is our rejection of "canonisms" per-se, that is, our move away from any kind of codification of religious experiences. It is beside the spiritual point to replace one canon for another "better" or more acceptable-to-the-times version. The idea is to replace all canons with the practice of the moment of dialogical inceptions. Changes to an orthodoxy become, over time, new orthodoxies. An orthodoxy is an orthodoxy, and a prayer-book is a prayer-book, and it makes no true spiritual difference replacing some of the "not-as-nice" wording found in old prayer books, or adding or removing age-old embedded terminology and symbols in order to manufacture more acceptable sounding sacramental discourses. A canon is the system of "what's-always-been-there", and that is the case, whether it was there since times immemorial or was just recently added. When it comes to a true religious perspective, we make no distinction between content and method. The issue for us is the method called orthodoxy and that method applies in all branches of every institutional religion. Every branch is an orthodoxy. On Religious Practices: Therefore, the difference is in the method or practice of religious life in the here and now, in every moment and every place. Our practice is different in that we define the concept of practice in a different way. Practice should grow from a community that explores the moments of inception, and community should grow from that dialogical practice. Worship is what one does outside the temple. Temples are always too small or to big to house God. It makes no difference. We should change society in order to practice and we should make the change of society the key to our practice. The religious community of friends is non-hierarchical and non-bureaucratic. We value the differences that emerge within equalitarian practice. This is not a "spiritual" community, for we know not what a "spirit" is, nor even if the term "is" applies when speaking of spirits. We recognize within us the infinity that is contained within the boundaries of the unity we call body-mind. God does not belong to the domain of religion. We concede spiritual matters to religion, but life we keep for the realm of life. God belongs to the Between, it is not in heaven or earth, it is between You and I. We'd like to suggest some new ways of thinking or approaching the core concepts of our religious faith. We reject any institution or person's authority to name, define and own the faith contents of a religious faith. No arbiters of genuine faith need apply. The embodiment or actualization of religious practices need not always be translated into rituals and liturgies. The daily life, the “ordinary mind” life is the actual liturgy that embodies or actualized a profound and vital religious life. The life of dialogue is likewise the life of ordinary presence in the world. On God: God is a question we ask. God is a question we don't answer. God is not a thing, in other words, God is no-thing. God is what it is and we won't give it a name (the Hebrew acronym YHWY...) An apt way to put it is thus: Miguel de Unamuno once wrote that some people suffer from headaches, while others suffer from stomach-aches or heart-aches… we, in turn, suffer from god-aches. We must always ask ourselves: Do we love God or what we love is the idea we have of God? Do we love God because we have made Him/Her/It into a useful super-tool to satisfy our own needs? The concept of "le-shma" (non-commodifying) is a powerful Judaic idea. On the Sabbath: We consecrate (mekadshim: set-aside) the day of the Sabbath. Sabbath is the most genial creation amongst the Jewish intuitions of holiness. We recognize the Sabbath as the core of our faith practice, only we do not understand the Sabbath day, its holiness and its celebrations, in the conventional religious way. We do Sabbath differently. Sabbath is the day of “pure land”. We are commanded not to say “it” to anything or anyone during that entire day. We celebrate the Sabbath with a holy intent (kavannah), and it is this holy intent that points our way to a holy practice. The Sabbath is not holy time because the holy-book anointed it so. While we deny the divine authorship of the holy-books, we recognize our own ability to consecrate the day (in Hebrew: LeKadesh, setting-aside as a holy time) and imbue upon it a divine character. We are the ones who makes the Sabbath holy. For us holiness is the way we live the time of Sabbath rather than the way we worship during that time. We uphold the holiness of the day by performing holy actions, by doing and thinking and feeling holiness. A community gets together to perform the old fashion commandments of community service, making weekly commitments to deeds of public good and reviewing our deeds together the next Sabbath. Communing with nature, arts, music and creativity, and communing with each other. We celebrate the Sabbath also by culminating the gatherings with a kiddush, a communal meal. Like the poet wrote, how wonderful it is to have brothers and sisters sit together and enjoy a seudah (a feast!) Isn't it a holy deed to sometimes enjoy our communal Sabbath kiddush inviting to our table the poor of our community, sharing the gladness together with the weaker amongst us?. Can you count the blessings of Sabbath holiness that is spent together with the needy of our people? all are welcome because our people are all who enter with us into the holiness of the Sabbath. On Faith: We distinguish between beliefs and faith, and we choose faith. We distinguish between religion and religiosity, and we choose religiosity. We distinguish between rituals and practice, and we choose practice. We distinguish between conventional-petitional-prayer and the dialogical encounter of the I with the eternal Thou. We chose dialogue. Religiosity is a relationship between a person and the god that emerges in dialogue. Religion is a relationship between a person and an institution. Belief requires evidence, faith requires uncertainty. Only by suspending belief can we deepen our faith. In a general sense, we distinguish between the process that lead to creating religions, and the creative process of religiosity. We choose to engage in the creative process of religiosity, in the dialogical moment of inception. We believe that creativity is an individual and communal process. The creative process of religiosity includes all aspects of faith practices. On Holy Books: The belief in the divine authorship of the canonical texts, or of any other creedal book, is a belief we cannot share. We love our historic texts, but we do not worship them. Our relationship to the text is genuine, but we make sure not to turn the text into an idol. One can be idolatrous in one's approach to every object in the world, including God. For that to happen however, we'd first need to make God into an object. But God is not an object, so we can't do that. We dialogue with the text and we keep our stand in the world as the text does the same. We don't tell the text what it is it should be telling us, we believe in freedom of expression for the text! And we also don't allow the text to tell us what it is we should hear it say, we believe in freedom of hearing (shema!) for the community of faith. On Prayers: When it comes to praying, we explore our own personal and communal approaches to verbal and non-verbal-prayer. Prayer is the way we live and the actions we undertake. What words and actions we choose as prayers, who we direct our prayers to, what it means to practice that which we pray? We believe that one is what one prays and that one prays what one is. “Is” is a tricky term, but that’s what's so wonderful about conceiving prayer as an existential, rather than a ritual act. Prayer is an action, is the way one lives in this moment and in this place. We don't celebrate events, we create events by celebrating. In a deep sense, we pray to ourselves for we are the hearers and we are the responders to our prayers. On Worship: Conventional worship/practice is centered on the text and on the temple and on the priesthood. It is however mostly a textual religious practice. Therefore most reformations throughout history have focused on changes in the text. Ritual changes are basically changes to the language and content of text. Without holding to a faith belief in the text and the rituals emanating from the text, we learn that there need not be institutional ritual-worship in order to have a genuine spiritual practice. What is it that we do? which practices do we engage in when we say that we practice our faith outside and besides rituals and religions? The case is that everything in the world and every moment of our lives are a spiritual practice. Why not, for instance, focus our practice on community service? (tikkun olam). Social engagement --without ascribing hierarchies to different practices-- is particularly important because it helps create the societal context for the emergence of dialogue. Social engagement places us right in the midst of the opportunity for dialogue with our fellow brothers and sisters. Service is offering: we offer ourselves to the world to receive us and we allow the world to offer itself for us to receive it. We seek the worship that emerges in the moment of dialogical inception. Is there Wisdom? There is wisdom in every religion and in every spiritual system. There is also an appalling degree of non-wisdom in every religion and spiritual system. Same applies to non-religious and non-spiritual systems. Unless it is your belief that God wrote that one book, then read them all, or read none, learn from all or reject them all, or what's more important, write it yourself, or even better yet, lets write it together. It is important to reallize than from a Dialogical perspective, the encounter with God is only the first step. It is not the goal or beatifical summum bonum of life. Mystical awareness may be "satisfactory" for the seeker, but the question in Dialogical Ecology is: you found God! now what?! © Hune Margulies, 2008