The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life

341 Pages·2003·1.12 MB·English

by  Huston Smith

W AY
THE
T H I N G S
A R E

W AY
THE
T H I N G S
A R E
conversations
with
H U STO N S M I T H
on the
spiritual life
EDITED AND WITH A PREFACE
BY PHIL COUSINEAU
University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2003 by the Regents of the University of
California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Smith, Huston.
The way things are : conversations with
Huston Smith on the spiritual life / edited and
with a preface by Phil Cousineau.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and
index.
ISBN 0-520-90156-8
1. Smith, Huston—Interviews.
2. Religion historians—United States—
Interviews. 3. Religion. 4. Spiritual life.
5. Religion and science I. Cousineau, Phil.
II. Title.
bl43.s64a5 2003
200’.92—dc21 2003000592
Manufactured in the United States of America
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of ansi/niso
z39.48–1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).
1
What is true is real,
but nothing more.
—su ch’e
Lead us from the unreal to the Real,
lead us from darkness to Light,
lead us from death to immortal life.
Peace, peace, peace.
—An ancient Hindu chant
The elders told us that this is the road of life
that we’re walking down. We’re supposed to be
holding up one another, supporting each other,
having our arm underneath our brother’s arms
while walking down the road of life.
—reuben snake,Winnebago medicine man

CONTENTS
Preface ix
The Way Things Are for Huston Smith
No Wasted Journey: A Theological Autobiography 1
Introduction by Huston Smith
PART ONE the heart of religion
1. The Way Things Are 17
An interview with Timothy Beneke
2. The Primordial Tradition 37
An interview with John Loudon
3. Winnowing the Wisdom Traditions 59
An interview with Mark Kenaston
4. This Is It 75
An interview with Richard Marranca
5. The Soul of the Community 83
An interview with Philip and Bridgett Novak
6. Encountering God 95
An essay by Huston Smith
PART TWO the struggle between science and religion
7. The Place of Science 103
An interview with Steve Reuys
8. The Limits of the Scientific Worldview 111
An interview with Jeffrey Mishlove
9. Science as the Oracle of Our Age 121
An interview with Michael Toms
10. Science, Faith, and Infinity 134
An interview with Tracy Knauss and
the Reverend Jack Young
11. Toward a Partnership between Science and Religion 143
An interview with April Thompson
12. The Battle for the Human Mind 149
An interview with Richard Gazdayka
13. The New Paradigm 153
An interview with Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney
14. Countering Scientism 163
An essay by Marsha Newman
15. The Striking Parallels 173
An interview with Phil Cousineau
PART THREE from plato’s cave to the enchanted garden
16. The Sacred Dimensions of Everyday Life 191
An interview with Jeffrey Kane
17. Demystifying Spiritual Practice 207
An essay by Huston Smith, with commentary by
Sarah Ban Breathnach
18. The Varieties of Religious Exploration 212
An interview with Jeffrey Mishlove
19. Cleansing the Doors of Perception 222
An interview with Richard Scheinin
20. Fathoming Psychedelic Mysticism 228
An interview with Timothy White
21. The Wisdom of Faith 243
An interview with Bill Moyers
22. Why Religion Matters Now More Than Ever 257
An interview with Phil Cousineau
References 281
Acknowledgments 285
Index 287
PREFACE
The Way Things Are for Huston Smith
In the summer of 1984, Huston Smith, the eminent historian of religion,
arrived at the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, and like
many a scholar before him, took a tour of the main library. The bounti-
ful collection of books was a tantalizing sight, but as he followed the
arrows and read the labels at the end of each shelf, such as History, Liter-
ature, and Chemistry, it occurred to him that something vital was miss-
ing.
“Where is the arrow that points to Importance?” he asked himself.
“Where is the arrow toward Wisdom?”
In one form or another Huston Smith has been posing that question
to himself—and the world—all his life. Where can we find what is ulti-
mately meaningful? How can we discover what is truly worth knowing?
For Smith, the poet T.S. Eliot described the dilemma more precisely
than anyone else in our time when he asked in his poem “The Rock,”
“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/Where is the knowl-
edge we have lost in information?” The modern debate about learning
what matters most has ancient roots. When the Ptolemies founded the
Library of Alexandria in the third century b.c.e., their dream was no less
than to collect a copy of everything ever written. Eventually, the library
accumulated an estimated five hundred thousand scrolls and manu-
scripts, but the library’s motto, etched in the stone lintel above the
ix