EDITOR’S NOTE: As I mentioned on page 2, this article is far from the center of Christian practice. We recognize that some of our readers may find Chris’ practices controversial. Each of us is on a journey of deepening intimacy and abiding in Christ. Experience has taught us that discomfort and new ideas can challenge and deepen our faith. We pray this article does that for you. Feel free to skip it if you prefer to avoid discomfort or simply don't wish to have this type of faith challenge during this season of your walk.
This article offers an interspiritual perspective on spiritual formation from the edge of mission, in the crucible of a creative missional ministry called Awarezen. At the heart of Awarezen is the Order of Awarezen Mitras (OAM), a beloved community of disciples of the Way–Jesus Christ–who is immersed in a lifelong journey of spiritual and contemplative training derived from an interspiritual dialogue of wisdom traditions. Awarezen stems from my life history, training, and experience in all three major Buddhist traditions of Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana as well as Indic Tantra, over a period of almost fifty years. This horizon of Asian spirituality and wisdom is fused with my transformative faith encounter with Jesus Christ in 2014 which continues to evoke fresh insights and understandings into the nature, process, theology, and philosophy of spirituality and discipleship in Christ. I will discuss the theme of spiritual formation through the lens of Awarezen’s interspirituality under three main headings:
1.      Alternative missiological impulse and imagination that celebrates new possibilities in the work of the Holy Spirit
2.      Broad brushstrokes of what spiritual formation looks, sounds, and feels like at Awarezen;
3.      Preliminary reflections on a cosmotheandric Christic paradigm that undergirds the process and telos of Awarezen’s spiritual and contemplative discipleship.

Awarezen as Alternative Missiological Imaginary

As a missional ministry, perhaps one of its kind, Awarezen highlights an interspiritual approach to transformation in the life of a Buddhist contemplative who considers himself a “Christic”1 belonging to Jesus Christ. Here, a Christic is one who is immersed in a contemplative and mystical path with Christ at the heart and center. This concept of a Christic belonging to Jesus is unfamiliar to many and may challenge prevalent Western understandings of Christian discipleship. As an approach, it expresses what Duerksen (2022) calls an “alternative missiological imaginary”2—a construct that can potentially enlarge and de-center traditionally dominant understandings of Christ witness in mainline Christian settings. Such interspiritual experiments as the one elucidated here enflesh the dialogical spirit of Buddhist-Christian encounters with potential benefit for both parties.3
Critics might argue that such an approach is not truly “Christian” in that it seemingly negates the exclusivism of Jesus Christ as the one and only way, truth, and life that reaches to God the Father. But that is not so, in my view. For one can be inclusivist with regards to world spirituality and yet espouse an exclusive singularity of Jesus Christ in a dialogically hospitable way. As a case in point, Awarezen sees all authentic world spiritual traditions as imbued with, even possibly inspired by the Spirit of God in spiritually impacting ways though not necessarily contained within the confines of mainline Christian orthodoxy. Yet, even as these non-Christian traditions can lead followers to close proximity with God, they do not bring their followers necessarily into the perichoretic union and communion of love in the triune God. Only Jesus Christ as person and event provides the singular doorway for this. More precise and detailed elaboration of such Christic soteriology is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice to echo the salient words of Pope Francis in his recent apostolic visit to Singapore in September 2024, with the caveat that what the Pope is saying is not religious indifferentism but qualified religious inclusivism along the lines just mentioned:
 

“… every religion is a way to arrive at God … sort of like different languages in order to arrive at God but God is God for all and if God is God for all, then we’re all sons and daughters of God. But my God is more important than your God: is that true? There is only one God and each is a language so to speak in order to arrive at God.”4

Arriving at God is different from arriving into God. And languages are not necessarily identical in their efficacy and clarity to express who or what God is and how God works. But all languages may offer themselves as means of communicating the mystery beyond words, however imperfectly.

New Possibilities in Spiritual Formation

My faith encounter with Jesus Christ occurred during a six-month sabbatical meditation retreat in the solitary confines of my home, where I have always had a small meditation room from a young age. At that time, I had been a Buddhist practitioner, scholar, lecturer, and meditation teacher for decades with my Buddhist history dating back to early childhood. With a strong monastic inclination since my teenage years, I plunged deeply into Buddhist meditative and philosophical training under the guidance of well-respected and highly qualified Buddhist masters across the major Buddhist traditions. The dramatic and seismic encounter of faith with the Lord was thus profoundly unsettling, identity-shattering, career-ending, communally-devastating, but unexpectedly transformative and utterly liberating all at the same time. Over the course of intense soul- searching and spiritual integration in the years that followed my “conversion” (for want of a better word), I felt led to continue the meditative practice in which I had been trained and to integrate my entire life experience and spirituality into my walk with Christ, growing in and into the fullness of Christ both now and into the future.
Traversing numerous highs and lows in the process, I was eventually led to create a path and program of spiritual formation that seamlessly integrates myriad elements of authentic Buddhist and Tantric meditative practices and perspectives into a practical experiential path that I call the Great Christic Consummation. The Great Christic Consummation forms the heart and kernel of Awarezen as well as sits as the core training program for members and oblates of the Order of Awarezen Mitras (OAM). Its focus and center is Christ and its many “spokes” of the “wheel” of spiritual formation comprise contemplative methods and processes that include ethical discipline, guarding the sense-doors, mindfulness and clear discernment, deep ontological inquiry, cultivation of serene stillness and clear insight, nurturing spiritually wholesome attitudes and emotions like loving-kindness and compassion, creative visualization and mantra resonance for reconfiguring one’s sense of identity and self-image, devotional praxis of adoration and surrender, and subtle dimensions of nondual open awareness—all couched within the overarching vision of Christ as origin, ground, and destination.5
All program offerings at Awarezen are free of charge and operate on the economy of gifts rather than the market. Recipients of the contemplative gifts offered by Awarezen can make freewill offerings to support the ministry as they wish. On a more basic and introductory level, there are six modules of meditation lessons made freely available to all on YouTube. There are seven lessons in each module, and each module articulates into the next beginning with handling stress to encountering and being transformed by grace. Seekers and interested parties can avail themselves of these modules in their own journeys of spiritual exploration. For those wishing to go deeper, Awarezen has three main forums for participation: first, a meditation group for people of Buddhist and other Asian spirituality backgrounds; second, a Christic meditation training program for those of Christian backgrounds but open to seekers of any faith; and third, a secular mindfulness group for those without religious affiliation. Timely discourse on and correlations to union with God in and through the cosmotheandric Christ are employed as ways of reframing doctrinal concepts and illuminating contemplative practice in these forums.

Cosmotheandric Christic Paradigm

An interspiritual approach to contemplative dialogue can potentially yield fresh ways of viewing the relationship between God, cosmos, and humanity. This is because such dialogue can stimulate reflexive critique of our hidden metaphysical assumptions that underpin our theology. For example, is it absolutely necessary and logically inevitable for Greek substantialist metaphysics to be wedded to Christian theology? Must Christian theism be conceived in ontologically dualistic and separative fashion, which is a standalone creator irrevocably divorced from his creation in substance and existence? Must classical monotheism be the only way of conceiving the relationship between God, cosmos, and humanity? Or are there other possibilities?
Awarezen’s alternative missiological imaginary evokes critical questioning and reflexive rethinking of the cosmological and theological paradigm undergirding its spiritual formation process. Such questioning is open and reflexive, willing to explore and embrace non-traditional views of theism informed by world philosophical epistemes. In this case, Buddhist philosophy and Tantric cosmology contribute salient ideas and lenses with which to re-view concepts of the triune God, the Christ incarnation, cross and resurrection, and ongoing ministry, and even the eschatology of Christ’s return and parousia. I call this integral non-substantialist and processual vision of God, cosmos, and humanity that bears deep resonance for contemplative praxis the cosmotheandric Christic paradigm.6 I will not delve into details of this paradigm except to say this: it pays heed to traditional dogmatic orthodoxy but is not indelibly constrained by it, particularly its metaphysics.
Suffice to say that through a cosmotheandric Christic paradigm and contemplative praxis, a robust systematic process of spiritual formation finds nascent expression within the context of a community of practice. This process and context together enable disciples of Christ to embark upon a journey of profound spiritual and theological inquiry, where “union with God in authentic [loving] community”7 characterized by togetherness and commitment to one another’s wholeness, growth, and freedom is prioritized and where contemplative practice conferring deep experiential insight is crucial as a potent means of sanctifying grace. The final goal or telos of this endeavor is evolving and maturing into the fullness of Christ for one and all. Towards this universal calling we walk together as fellow pilgrims and contemplatives in mission here, together, now: a mission made sustainable through deeply iterative theological reflection that inspires and energizes.