Opinion: Walt Whitman, American buddha

To the editor: Cheers to Anthony T. Kronman’s celebration of Walt Whitman’s reverence for the “endless diversity of individuals.” Let me add only that Kronman’s Buddhist friends will also join the party. (“Does America have a religion? For the answer, look to Walt Whitman,” Opinion, Dec. 22)

Contrary to his statement that Whitman’s reverence has no counterpart in Eastern philosophies, let me remind him of two of Buddhism’s most highly respected teachings. Both the Lotus and Nirvana sutras teach of the eternal Buddha-nature in all life: the True, or Greater, Self, which resonates with Whitman’s idea that “every individual is ‘divine.’” The Lotus Sutra, in particular, is a call to not only bring forth this supreme self within ourselves but to find it in everyone else, friends and foes alike.

Kronman’s hope for a “common spiritual ideal” can only be bolstered when one includes the non-Abrahamic faiths, of which Whitman was certainly well aware. After all Whitman is regarded by many as the “American Buddha.”

David McNeill, Winnetka

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To the editor: It’s one thing to admire Whitman and his contribution to American individualism, but altogether another to claim in our day that “the world itself is eternal.” Forget heresy — this as a denial of science.

Earth, we now know, will end in an expanding cosmic “burn out.” It actually makes more sense today to imagine God (the eternal creator) as outside time and space than it did a century ago. Faith, coupled with reason, might not be such a bad idea after all.

Western intellectuals have occasionally tried to reinvent paganism ever since they found out how bleak materialism is without authentic relationship to God. But instead of trying to fabricate a pseudo-spirituality, maybe we should try “magnifying” the creator again who thought up diversity in the first place, a cool way to make all that exists.

Lynn Aldrich, Glendale

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To the editor: Kronman’s intriguing essay suggests that near-universal faith in the divinity of each human affords sufficient common theological ground for mainstream religions and nonbelievers alike to bond under the banner of “born-again pantheism.” Fine.

But Kronman concludes with the claim that “despite our proud commitment to the separation of church and state, we are one nation under God after all.”

As for the notion of “God,” some beliefs assign anthropomorphic qualities to the supreme deity, and others don’t. Some assign male or female gender, and others don’t. Some attribute to “God” a continued readiness to hear and act on prayers; others accept his or her or its indifference to humanity’s daily travails.

Yet with all these theological differences, when pious politicians publicly beseech the aid of “God,” they invariably are referring to the deity long preferred by Christians.

In our increasingly diverse society, then, separation of church and state remains ever more crucial. We are not one nation under the same “God.”

David Schaffer, Santa Monica

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