What does the cross symbolize?

[Alexander]

The cross is a symbol that is everywhere. It has many levels of meaning. But, we never unpack them. What does the cross symbolize?

1. The First Noble Truth, Life is Suffering.

We are all accustomed to seeing the cross. But, because it is so common, we do not see it as the image of torture and misery that it is.

Imagine that you live a comfortable, sheltered life. That you are materially successful, or well off. What can your relationship with the cross be?

Taken honestly, the cross can only be a reminder of the discomfort of the world. It shows that the ultimate truth to this world is unhappiness: that everything is fleeting, temporary, and vain; that everything ends in pain, in death, in mortality.

2. The means of spiritual development: self-simplification, renunciation, pain.

The way of escaping the world is through, strangely, embracing all the things which are contrary to us. By simplifying ourselves, and by renouncing our personal will and selfishness, we can perhaps make ourselves into something that is not perishable.

3. Immortality.

How can a man become immortal? This is the greatest question of human life. To me it is strange that we, as mortal men, have an image ubiquitously in front of us that expresses the formula for man becoming immortal. But, we do not realize it.

I would argue that, through absolute negation (the dark night of the soul), can come absolute affirmation. As Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas:

"If the flesh came into existence because of the spirit, it is a marvel. But if the spirit came into existence because of the body, it is a marvel of marvels. But as for me, I wonder at this, how this great wealth made its home in this poverty."

[Jhanananda]

The cross is a symbol that is everywhere. It has many levels of meaning. But, we never unpack them. What does the cross symbolize?

1. The First Noble Truth, Life is Suffering.

We are all accustomed to seeing the cross. But, because it is so common, we do not see it as the image of torture and misery that it is.

Imagine that you live a comfortable, sheltered life. That you are materially successful, or well off. What can your relationship with the cross be?

Taken honestly, the cross can only a reminder of the discomfort of the world. It shows that the ultimate truth to this world is unhappiness: that everything is fleeting, temporary, and vain; that everything ends in pain, in death, in mortality.

This seems reasonable to me.  It clerarly shows a link to the Noble Eightfold Path, but even as Christianity has worked to cover up the influences of Asian philosophy upon its early sources, this still works within a purely Christian context, which Jesus was surely not working from.

2. The means of spiritual development: self-simplification, renunciation, pain.

The way of escaping the world is through, strangely, embracing all the things which are contrary to us. By simplifying ourselves, and by renouncing our personal will and selfishness, we can perhaps make ourselves into something that is not perishable.

This also works, as the earliest Christians were instructed to give everything away, and live communally, and some Christian institutions still support monks, nuns and mendicants; however, it is another clear link to Buddhist origins.

3. Immortality.

How can a man become immortal? This is the greatest question of human life. To me it is strange that we, as mortal men, have an image ubiquitously in front of us that expresses the formula for man becoming immortal. But, we do not realize it.

I would argue that, through absolute negation (the dark night of the soul), can come absolute affirmation. As Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas:

"If the flesh came into existence because of the spirit, it is a marvel. But if the spirit came into existence because of the body, it is a marvel of marvels. But as for me, I wonder at this, how this great wealth made its home in this poverty."

The concept of immortality in early Christian literature is clear; and it is clearly a spiritual one.  In Buddhism there is the concept of amatta, which is translated as the "deathless."  It could just as easily be translated as immortality, and Buddhists take it as a spiritual immortality; even though, they are quick to deny a belief in a god, or the existence of a soul.  Nonetheless, I believe that the Christian immortality has its origins in the amatta (deathless) of Buddhism.

[Alexander]

The Hill of Crosses in Lithuania https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0nX9PGRW64

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, Alexander, for posting the interesting video of a Christian devotional practice in Lithuania.  As a archaeologist I suspect that the hill might cover an archaeology site, that might just pre-date Christianity, as many old Christian shrines sit on top of an ancient pre-Christian religious center.

This hill reminds me of 2 hills that are in northern New Mexico.  They are separated by about 50 miles, and their is an ancient path that connects them, which runs directly north/south.  At both ends of the road are hills, about the size of the hill in Lithuania.  The southern most hill is on top of the northern mesa of Chaco Canyon.  The northern most hill looks over a place called "the bad lands" because nothing grows there.  These 2 hills are composed of pottery sherds.  It was surely some ritual practice that surrounded a particular pottery tradition, not unlike the significance of the Christian iconography of the cross; however, we may never know what the significance was of the pots, because Chaco Canyon was abandoned about 1,000 years ago.

[Michel]

I had not come across this great discussion until today. The cross symbolizes the suffering of all beings, not just Jesus. When you look at it this way, then the whole Christian religion makes a great deal more sense. Does your friend, Father Roger, see it this way, Alexander?

[Alexander]

I think he would agree with our view on what the cross represents. Although he would probably explain it differently, since he isn't a student of eastern religions like we are.