There is considerable cherry picking along with cultural appropriation going on here. Buddhism has flavors that are worlds apart from what is described in the post.
A spicy example is discussed in the book "Zen at War"[1]. Myanamar and Sri Lanka[2] have their own ultra nationalistic Buddhists movements.
Less obviously... It's also a lot less antisocial,
which translates in many if not most cases to less anti-intellectual
Because experts are some of the most resented earthly authority in America, and individual meditation is great for alternate facts. Going viral would be prayers answered
It's always weird to see Quakerism be mentioned somewhere else. I grew up Quaker and still sometimes attend Quaker meeting, and I related to his ceiling-tile counting; I used to count the wooden boards that formed the ceiling of our meetinghouse.
The best part about Quakerism, in my opinion, is that it teaches a very hearty disrespect of un-earned authority without teaching disrespect for the concept of authority itself. One of my favorite anecdotes is a group of Quakers who refused to doff their hats for the King, as they only doff their hats for God.
There's another old practice of refusing to swear on the Bible before telling the truth, as that would imply that they weren't telling the truth before they were sworn in.
I find the inclusion of Zen in this article is interesting, as you won't find the word "Holy" or "God", used, and "Spirit" is only used twice, once to comment on how he felt pressured to receive a message from it. The original purpose of Quaker silent worship was to remove the church-imposed barrier between man and God (the "Holy Spirit") so that anyone could be a mouthpiece for the wishes and desires of the Spirit. Modern American Quakers, especially the ones who write in Friends Journal, tend to be pretty secular.
It can be enlightening to look at well-known Biblical stories from a different point of view. For example, you might be familiar with the Book of Job: the story of a good man who loses everything—his wealth, children, and health—despite doing nothing wrong.
At the same time, a koan is a paradoxical question or story used in Zen Buddhism to break logical thinking and provoke a deeper understanding beyond words and concepts.
Even though both are separated by an immense span of time and distance, the story of Job functions surprisingly well like a koan because it presents an apparently impossible paradox: if God is just, why do bad things happen to a good person?
This question has no logical answer, and when God finally speaks to Job, He doesn't explain the suffering but instead shows Job the overwhelming mystery of creation. Job's response isn't intellectual understanding but a transformative experience.
Just like a koan, Job's story seeks to break through logical thinking to produce spiritual enlightenment.
Having only recently been made aware of Quakerism myself, I also came to the conclusion that it should have a more prevalent mention as a sub-current of Christian Mysticism. That association may potentially create a bridge to other similar mystical contemplative traditions, nowadays sometimes labeled under the umbrella term "nonduality", which includes Zen, Advaita, Daoism, Sufism, among others. As Meister Eckhart said, "Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language".
Surprisingly this is a very level headed post. I’m not a Buddhist or a Zenist or a Quakerist but I’m glad the author not once beat me over the head with how enlightened they are, or worse, throw pithy quotes my way.
To the point of the article: A lot of Quakers dont label their worship as meditation. The point of quaker worship is to open your heart to "listen". The point of meditation is often mindfulness. there is some overlap but i think it is a different ends from similar means.
Another contrast is quaker worship is done in a community looking inward towards the center of the room, Zen meditation when done in a temple is done looking at the wall. for me this is a contrast between the quaker "society of friends" and zen can be done in isolation
Quakers for me have a special place in my heart.
I'm a bit sad that in California there are very few Quaker communities when compared to Buddhist or Zen communities. The quaker communities that do exist seem to be hanging on from the counterculture movement several decades ago.
I've attended a Quaker community for the past couple of years and sadly it is dying out. Almost all of the members are past 60 y/o and almost zero young adult members or younger members attend.
I think the Quaker philosophy is powerful and unfortunately i believe it has lead to its downfall. The lack of creed and resistance to structure makes it hard for new members to feel comfortable and make it easy to be more casual about your membership. this leads to people just dropping out.
also the structure of quaker practices can seem offputting for people from more conventional religious backgrounds. For example christmas "celebrations" are done entirely in silence from the moment you enter to when you leave. this is a staggering contrast to almost every other celebration. (also in contrast to most of christianity a lot of quakers dont believe jesus was "holy" but rather an ordinary man who was more in touch with the "light", underscoring the intensity of their egalitarian beliefs)
I think Quaker has a branding problem. People think of quaker oats or amish. (amish have nothing to do with quakers). Zen is more trendy and "mystical". If quakerism was "rebranded" a lot more people would be attracted to it.
My heart yearns for more Quaker communities. Its so sad to see them die out.
> I think Quaker has a branding problem. People think of quaker oats or amish.
The Quakers, like many minorities, face other people who know next to nothing about them claiming them as mascots. Quaker Oats are called that not because of a special Quaker fondness for oats or a cultural association between Quakers and oats but because General Mills thought the image would be good for their brand. If they were selling socks or buckets, they would have slapped that Mona Lisa-esque visage on those products. I have heard there was a particular Quaker mill owner whose likeness they used. I'm sure his quaint, 18th or 19th century attire, and the presence of Amish in Pennsylvania, are why people think there's some connection between the two religions. (Also, both are peace churches, but Baha'i and Jains are also pacifists and people don't confuse them with Quakers.)
In Pennsylvania there's a business of some sort called "Quaker Steak and Lube". The Quakers I know -- and I grew up among them in a large, well-connected Quaker family -- have no salient connection to either steak or lube. It's just that back in the mists of time Quakers founded the state which others now thoroughly control and some businessman in Pennsylvania thought it would be funny to slap their name, initially invented as a slur against them, onto his business.
So Quakers have two branding problems: people don't know their brand and they do know other peoples' brands that pretend to have some association to them.
About Quakers withering away, I do see a lot of agèd Quakers. The group that meets near my house is pretty old. But there are still Young Friends groups that are thriving, Quaker summer camps (full of non-Quakers), and such. Quakers probably are fading away, as most non-rightwing religions are, but I don't think they're a special case. At least they still believe in procreation, unlike the Shakers.
I'm an Atheist, but I greatly respect Quakers for starting many important movements and organizations including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Greenpeace.
Would be nice if they explain what the heck a Quaker is, I thought this was gonna be an article on the peace of playing Quake and when I released it wasn’t that I thought of the Quaker oats but not much more than that
If you are young and give the silence a decent go it's OK to fall back on a book after a bit, or if you are too young to read yet, quietly working on some lego under your seat will not bother anyone. Adults are a little trickier but comtemplating a bible or Faith and Practice works. And, you know, it is meant to be voluntary.
Some influential people in my life were quakers, which has given me a lifelong interest in quakerism, but in my one interaction with a quaker meeting, I was surprised that it seemed much closer to bible based church than I had expected. I think I had expected a skepticism about holy texts as literary/cultural creation rather than the direct word of god, a philosophical attitude of god as an abstract anthropomorphism because 'god may be addressed but never comprehended', but apart from the chairs and egalitarianism, it could have been any other bible group.
Did I misunderstand something, what's your better informed take?
There are a few different varieties of Quakerism and their forms of worship differ accordingly. Some worship in silence, with members of the congregation providing vocal ministry. Some are more like traditional churches, with a pastor leading the service. Others still are more like evangelical Christian denominations.
If you're in the US or Canada and interested in experiencing silent worship, Friends General Conference maintains a directory of meetings here: https://www.fgcquaker.org/find-a-meeting/
> In meditation, I was relieved of the burden of being moved by the Spirit to speak and say something spiritually profound.
I find it interesting that the author felt pressure to be moved to speak. In the eight years I attended a Quaker school and attended thousands of meetings for worship, I never felt that vibe. Whenever there was any discussion about the expectations of behavior in a meeting (such discussion usually being done offline, i.e. not during the actual meeting), it was always quite clear that not only was speaking completely voluntary, but also you were free to say whatever moved you, as long as it was suitable for the entire group; there was no need to be "spiritually profound," whatever that means.
Granted, the daily meetings I attended were for the student and faculty (the vast majority of whom were not Quaker). But on the few occasions we got to attend the "real" meeting for worship on Sunday (held in the school's meeting house), I found it to have exactly the same tenor, only with fewer kids (and about 40 minutes longer).
20 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 50.8 ms ] threadA spicy example is discussed in the book "Zen at War"[1]. Myanamar and Sri Lanka[2] have their own ultra nationalistic Buddhists movements.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_Buddhist_nationalism
which translates in many if not most cases to less anti-intellectual
Because experts are some of the most resented earthly authority in America, and individual meditation is great for alternate facts. Going viral would be prayers answered
The best part about Quakerism, in my opinion, is that it teaches a very hearty disrespect of un-earned authority without teaching disrespect for the concept of authority itself. One of my favorite anecdotes is a group of Quakers who refused to doff their hats for the King, as they only doff their hats for God.
There's another old practice of refusing to swear on the Bible before telling the truth, as that would imply that they weren't telling the truth before they were sworn in.
I find the inclusion of Zen in this article is interesting, as you won't find the word "Holy" or "God", used, and "Spirit" is only used twice, once to comment on how he felt pressured to receive a message from it. The original purpose of Quaker silent worship was to remove the church-imposed barrier between man and God (the "Holy Spirit") so that anyone could be a mouthpiece for the wishes and desires of the Spirit. Modern American Quakers, especially the ones who write in Friends Journal, tend to be pretty secular.
At the same time, a koan is a paradoxical question or story used in Zen Buddhism to break logical thinking and provoke a deeper understanding beyond words and concepts.
Even though both are separated by an immense span of time and distance, the story of Job functions surprisingly well like a koan because it presents an apparently impossible paradox: if God is just, why do bad things happen to a good person?
This question has no logical answer, and when God finally speaks to Job, He doesn't explain the suffering but instead shows Job the overwhelming mystery of creation. Job's response isn't intellectual understanding but a transformative experience.
Just like a koan, Job's story seeks to break through logical thinking to produce spiritual enlightenment.
Another contrast is quaker worship is done in a community looking inward towards the center of the room, Zen meditation when done in a temple is done looking at the wall. for me this is a contrast between the quaker "society of friends" and zen can be done in isolation
Quakers for me have a special place in my heart.
I'm a bit sad that in California there are very few Quaker communities when compared to Buddhist or Zen communities. The quaker communities that do exist seem to be hanging on from the counterculture movement several decades ago.
I've attended a Quaker community for the past couple of years and sadly it is dying out. Almost all of the members are past 60 y/o and almost zero young adult members or younger members attend.
I think the Quaker philosophy is powerful and unfortunately i believe it has lead to its downfall. The lack of creed and resistance to structure makes it hard for new members to feel comfortable and make it easy to be more casual about your membership. this leads to people just dropping out.
also the structure of quaker practices can seem offputting for people from more conventional religious backgrounds. For example christmas "celebrations" are done entirely in silence from the moment you enter to when you leave. this is a staggering contrast to almost every other celebration. (also in contrast to most of christianity a lot of quakers dont believe jesus was "holy" but rather an ordinary man who was more in touch with the "light", underscoring the intensity of their egalitarian beliefs)
I think Quaker has a branding problem. People think of quaker oats or amish. (amish have nothing to do with quakers). Zen is more trendy and "mystical". If quakerism was "rebranded" a lot more people would be attracted to it.
My heart yearns for more Quaker communities. Its so sad to see them die out.
The Quakers, like many minorities, face other people who know next to nothing about them claiming them as mascots. Quaker Oats are called that not because of a special Quaker fondness for oats or a cultural association between Quakers and oats but because General Mills thought the image would be good for their brand. If they were selling socks or buckets, they would have slapped that Mona Lisa-esque visage on those products. I have heard there was a particular Quaker mill owner whose likeness they used. I'm sure his quaint, 18th or 19th century attire, and the presence of Amish in Pennsylvania, are why people think there's some connection between the two religions. (Also, both are peace churches, but Baha'i and Jains are also pacifists and people don't confuse them with Quakers.)
In Pennsylvania there's a business of some sort called "Quaker Steak and Lube". The Quakers I know -- and I grew up among them in a large, well-connected Quaker family -- have no salient connection to either steak or lube. It's just that back in the mists of time Quakers founded the state which others now thoroughly control and some businessman in Pennsylvania thought it would be funny to slap their name, initially invented as a slur against them, onto his business.
So Quakers have two branding problems: people don't know their brand and they do know other peoples' brands that pretend to have some association to them.
About Quakers withering away, I do see a lot of agèd Quakers. The group that meets near my house is pretty old. But there are still Young Friends groups that are thriving, Quaker summer camps (full of non-Quakers), and such. Quakers probably are fading away, as most non-rightwing religions are, but I don't think they're a special case. At least they still believe in procreation, unlike the Shakers.
Did I misunderstand something, what's your better informed take?
If you're in the US or Canada and interested in experiencing silent worship, Friends General Conference maintains a directory of meetings here: https://www.fgcquaker.org/find-a-meeting/
I find it interesting that the author felt pressure to be moved to speak. In the eight years I attended a Quaker school and attended thousands of meetings for worship, I never felt that vibe. Whenever there was any discussion about the expectations of behavior in a meeting (such discussion usually being done offline, i.e. not during the actual meeting), it was always quite clear that not only was speaking completely voluntary, but also you were free to say whatever moved you, as long as it was suitable for the entire group; there was no need to be "spiritually profound," whatever that means.
Granted, the daily meetings I attended were for the student and faculty (the vast majority of whom were not Quaker). But on the few occasions we got to attend the "real" meeting for worship on Sunday (held in the school's meeting house), I found it to have exactly the same tenor, only with fewer kids (and about 40 minutes longer).