Jay McDaniel
Why Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism?
 The spirit of Jesus is more than Christianity. It is about kindness,
faith, hope, and care for the vulnerable.
 The spirit of Jazz is more than Jazz. It is about delight in diversity,
openness to surprise, and the freedom to improvise.
 The spirit of Buddhism is more than Buddhism. It is about
recognizing the interconnectedness of all things, be present to the
world in a listening way, and being open to the sacrament of the
present moment.
 Together they invite an ecumenical spirituality.
Jesus, Jazz, Buddhism Spirituality
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Faith, Hope and Kindness
Service to Others
Delight in Diversity
Openness to Surprise
Awareness of Inter-Being
Capacity for Deep
Listening
 Sacrament of the Present
Moment
 Seeking to become a “Fat
Soul”
Website and Facebook Groups
Process Philosophy and the Culture of Possibility
www.worldwideprocess.org and www.processphilosophy.org
Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism: Process Thinking for a More Hospitable World
www.jesusjazzbuddhism,org
Process Philosophy for Everyone (Facebook Group):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/processphilosophyandthecultureofposs
ibility
Jesus, Jazz, & Buddhism (Facebook Group):
https://www.facebook.com/JesusJazzBuddhism
Process Philosophy
 Alfred North Whitehead
 Philosophy of Organism
 Rising Influence in
mainland China
 Complements the
Universe Story
 Offers strong
intellectual support for
Ecological Civilizations
and Ecumenical
Spirituality
The Process Tradition is Evolving
It is like a tree that is growing
over time.
 The roots are the
conceptual of Whitehead’s
philosophy.
 The trunk consists of key
ideas available to anybody.
 The branches are
applications for personal
and daily life and for the
well-being of the planet.
Three Dimensions to the
Whiteheadian Way Today
 Thinking an Alternative to
the idea that the world is
machine-like.
 Practicing an Alternative
To mechanism
 Being an Alternative to
mechanism
The Aims of Process Philosophy Today
 Personal: To help us
grow in the size of our
souls through
understanding, feeling,
and action.
 Social: To help us do the
great work, contributing
to the well-being of our
neighborhoods, villages,
communities, and world.
Getting Started on your own
Twenty Key Ideas
Articles in Accessible, Lyrical Language
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/what-doprocess-thinkers-believe.html
Replanting Yourself in Beauty:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/replanti
ng-yourself-in-beauty.html
Reading Process and Reality:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/whatis-process-thought.html
An Overview of Whitehead’s Philosophy:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/alfrednorth-whitehead-philosopher-for-themuddleheaded.html
Whitehead’s Idea of God:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/godalmighty-no-way.html
A Universe of Stories:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/awhole-universe-of-stories.html
The Numinosity of Rocks:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/numin
osity-of-rocks.html
Our Influence in the World:
http://www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org/ourongoing-influence-in-the-world.html
The Soul
 “Let me tell you a great secret of life—a soul is not a thing,
it is not something which stands untouched by the events of
your life. Your soul is the river of your life; it is the
cumulative flow of your experience. But what do we
experience? The world. Each other. So your soul is the
cumulative flow of all of your relationships with everything
and everyone around you. In a different image, we weave
ourselves out of the threads of our relationships with
everyone around us."
-- Robert Mesle, A Soul is Not a Thing: A Process Relational
Wedding
The Sizable Soul
 "By S-I-Z-E I mean the stature of your soul, the range
and depth of your love, your capacity for
relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into
your being and still maintain your integrity and
individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can
entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive
or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage
others to become freer in the development of their diversity
and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex
and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern
to provide conditions that enable others to increase in
stature.“ -- Bernard Loomer
 1. Capacity for Loving Relationships:
A fat soul enjoys range and depth in its
capacity for loving relationships, helping
others to become freer in their diversity
and uniqueness. It is open-hearted.
 4. Tolerance for Enriching
Tensions: A fat soul can live with
enriching tensions without being
overwhelmed. It does not flee from
constructive conflict.
2. Open-Mindedness: A fat soul can
understand a variety of outlooks on life
without feeling defensive and
insecure. It is open-minded.
5. Personal Integrity: A fat soul does
all this while maintaining a sense of
integrity. It sticks to its principles and
enjoys a sense of individual freedom.
3. Openness to Complexity: A fat soul
has the power to sustain complex
relationships and enriching tensions. It
does not lapse into either-or thinking
but is inclined toward both-and
thinking.
6. Individuality: A fat soul does not
lose its agency or self-creativity. It
celebrates diversity and delights in
uniqueness, and it enjoys unique agency
itself.
Everything has Soul
 Everything has some kind of inner aliveness, some
capacity for feeling and responding to its past actual
world.
 All things seek some kind of satisfying relation with
their world, some kind of happiness, some kind of
beauty.
 Eros for beauty is everywhere.
 Patricia Adams Farmer: Replanting Yourself in Beauty
The Universe is a Creative Advance
Into Novelty
 There is creativity at
every level.
 The future of the
universe, like the future
of an individual soul, is
not predetermined.
Whitehead’s Cosmology
The universe is a creative advance into novelty. This creativity is the ultimate reality. The
Soul of the universe – God – is a self-actualization of this creativity and so are we.
The universe does not have an absolute beginning. It unfolds in a beginingless and endless
series of cosmic epochs. The universe story tells the story of one of them
There is no such thing as dead matter. The universe is made of events, not things. The
“building blocks” of the universe are not solid, nugget-like blocks at all, but rather
momentary pulsations of energy which, in human and other forms of sentient life, are
occasions of experience.
Every act of experience in the universe has subjectivity of its own, conscious or unconscious.
It is a process of feeling the past actual world and adding something new, of concrescence.
In concrescence the many of the universe are present in the one of the immediate
experience, and in responding to the many that are becoming one, something new is added
to the ongoing history of the universe. The subjective immediacy of the experience perishes
and it become an ongoing influence in the world.
A Moment of Experience
God as the Soul of the Universe
The Different Sides of God
God as Mind of universe,
aware of pure potentials
which may or may not be
actualized in universe:
(Primordial nature)
God as Guiding Presence of
universe, luring the universe
through fresh possibilities
relative to the situation at
hand (indwelling Lure)
God as Heart of universe,
feeling the feelings of all
experiencing subjects,
sharing in their experiences
(Consequent nature)
God as composed of
universe, because the many
of the universe are forever
helping making God (Divine
multiplicity).
The Social Vision of Process
Thinkers
 All living being have intrinsic value
(value for themselves) as well as
value for others. This means that we
 World loyalty. It is important to live
with a desire for the well being of all
life, and at the same time to
 The world is a community of
communities of communities,
human and ecological. We live
 Transition communities. The great
work today lies in helping build
should live with respect and care for
the community of life.
within a republic of stories (Arlene
Goldbard)
 Just peacemaking. It is important to
act in ways that are non-violent and
that promote the well-being all. All
have dignity.
recognize our special
responsibilities to kindred humans,
especially the vulnerable.
local communities that are creative,
compassionate, participatory,
ecologically wise, and spiritually
satisfying, with no one left behind.
Process and Justice
 A Multi-Polar World: the
Political Implications of
Process thinking:
 www.jesusjazzbuddhism.
org/a-multi-polar-worldpolitical-implications-ofrelational-power.html
 Economic Justice ,
Poverty, and Process
Thinking
 www.jesusjazzbuddhism.
org/economic-justiceand-processphilosophy.html
Famous
Naomi Shihab Nye
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to
the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one
who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is
pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is
famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything
spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
First Lesson
Philip Booth
Lie back, daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A deadman’s float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.
The Gap in the Cedar
Roy Scheele
I saw this much from the window:
the branch spring lightened into place
with a lithe shudder of snow.
Whatever bird had been there,
chickadee or sparrow,
had so vanished into air,
resilient, beyond recall,
it had to be taken on faith
to be taken at all. In the moment it took the tree
to recover that trembling
something went wide in me—
there was a rush of wings,
the air beaten dim with snow,
and then I saw through the swirling.
Red Brocade Pillow
Naomi Shihab Nye
The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he's come from,
where he's headed.
That way, he'll have strength enough
to answer.
Or, by then you'll be such good friends
you don't care.
Let's go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That's the armor everyone put on
at the end of the century
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Scraps of Light
Deborah Gordon Cooper
I see the way the chickadees
take turns at the feeder.
I watch a neighbor take
her husband’s hand.
I see the way the sun will find
the only interruption
in dark clouds,
to toss this amber light
across the pines.
I see a row of cars
stop on the road,
until the orange cat
has safely crossed,
then take off slowly, should
she change her mind.
I watch the way my brother
lifts out mother from
the wheelchair to the car,
the shawl he lays
across her lap.
I save up every scrap
of light,
because I know that it will take
each tiny consolation
every day
to mend the world.