Mysticism - Christian and Buddhist (2)

 Moving on - well at least I am - one distinction often made by some is that between the "Word" (Eternal Logos) as "Person" (Christian), and that of an "Impersonal Force" (Buddhism)

It is sometimes claimed that such a distinction will inevitable effect any "fruits of the spirit' that come to be - those fruits being (according to St Paul in the NT) "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

I see no such evidence and I would suggest that the question revolves around what it is to be a "person". A person, as opposed to an individual, or an ego that exists behind the eyes, looking out in fear, afraid to embrace the river of change.

Speaking personally (!) one small phrase of Thomas Merton's was for me a constant companion for many years, the phrase being "The contact of two liberties".

He used it in a letter to Aldous Huxley, when he (Merton) entered into dialogue over Huxley's advocating the use of drugs to induce "mystical" experience.

Merton went on to explain that as he understood it true mystical experience must needs have all that Huxley spoke of, plus something more which he could only describe as personal, in which God is known not as an object or as Him up there or "Him in everything" nor as "the All" but as I AM, or simply AM, and that such depends upon the liberty of that Person. Thus, the contact of two liberties.

As said, this question was part and parcel of my inner life for many years. Since resolved - seeing that all is relationship, inter-being and why reduce the relationship to just two? Possibly we all have to find our own answer.

Anyway, whatever, there are some fine words from the book "Understanding Buddhism" by the Catholic scholar Heinrich Dumoulin:-

Whether, on its deepest ground, being is personal or impersonal, is something that humans will never be able to plumb by their rational powers. Here we face a decision which one makes according to one's own tradition and upbringing, and still more according to one's faith and experience. The Christian sees ultimate reality revealed in the personal love of God as shown in Christ, the Buddhist in the silence of the Buddha. Yet they agree on two things: that the ultimate mystery is ineffable, and that it should be manifest to human beings. The inscription on a Chinese stone figure of the Buddha, dated 746, reads:-

"The Highest truth is without image.

If there were no image at all, however, there would be no way for truth to be manifested.

The highest principle is without words.

But if there were not words at all, how could principle possibly be revealed?"

So words there must needs be. As I see it, all Reality is revelation. Every word holds the potential to reveal truth. And we must watch our own tongue!

Jesus said:-

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself. '

These can be profound and deeply incarnational words. That to love each other IS to love God. Distinctions between "persons" and "impersonal forces" fall away in lived experience.

Well, I'll finish with some more words of St John of the Cross, often received well on Buddhist Forums.

To reach satisfaction in all
desire its possession in nothing.
To come to possess all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to the pleasure you have not
you must go by the way you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
to come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.
When you turn toward something
you cease to cast yourself upon the all.
For to go from all to the all
you must deny yourself of all in all.
And when you come to the possession of the all
you must possess it without wanting anything.
Because if you desire to have something in all
your treasure in God is not purely your all.

Mysticism - Christian and Buddhist

I have a bit of time so shall continue. Regarding the "dying to self" and living for God (this being the true fulfilment of ourselves as persons). Eckhart gave a fine sermon once, number 22 of his German Sermons, delivered in the vernacular of his day and intended for all. The biblical verse that inspired his words was the verse from the Gospels:- "Blessed are the poor in spirit" and his sermon spoke of "True Poverty".

His words are far too radical for some, as he speaks of true poverty being to have nothing, to know nothing, to desire nothing . Here is a longer excerpt:-

If it is the case that someone is free of all creatures.........if God finds a place to act in them, then we say: as long as this exists in someone, they have not yet reached the ultimate poverty. For God does not intend there to be a place in someone where He can act, but if there is to be true poverty of spirit, someone must be so free of God and all His works that if God wishes to act in the soul He must Himself be the place in which He can act, and this He is certainly willing to be. For if God finds us this poor, then God performs His own active work and we passively receive God in ourselves and God becomes the place of His work in us since God works in Himself. In this poverty, we attain again the eternal being which we once enjoyed, which is ours now and shall be for ever.

Or, as St Paul said, as recorded in the NT, "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."

As said, this can seem far too radical for some, as though we are ceasing to exist, and yet the mystics would argue that it is actually the finding of the true self, the total fulfilment of the person made in the image of God.

This all relates to the anatta teaching of the Dharma. Not-self. Which is often misunderstood as "getting rid of the ego" or by Christians as the Buddha denying the existence of the soul. In fact it has nothing to do with either one or the other.

As D T Suzuki insists, nothing is being got rid of because it was not there in the first place! As he says:- we are empty from the beginning.

As found in St John's Gospel:-

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Again Merton, and many Christian mystics like him, speak of the need to go beyond the "I-Thou" relationship (though, he also says, "there is a definite place for it") and move towards a state where we release our grasp on a self that seeks a goal, and our ideas of just who it is that will "attain" such a goal.

"To cling too tenaciously to a 'self' and its own fulfilment would guarantee that there would be no fulfilment at all.................hence the paradox that as soon as there is someone there to have a transcendent experience, the experience is falsified and indeed becomes impossible."

(Merton, in "Zen and the Birds of Appetite")

Anyway, just to throw in a few more words concerning ego's and what not.....this from Joseph Bobrow....."I think it takes a distinctive, personal self to fully embody our essential no-self nature. And as one unravels, experiences, and realises the empty, multicentered nature of all beings and of consciousness itself, the particular, personal self and its unique qualities are potentiated, brought to life and fruition."

Within the Dharma there is much on this (and in fact D T Suzuki insists that the Dharma and zen are not mysticism at all. In fact, more a simple matter of fact way of being in the world)

Anyway, whatever, I must finish with my man of the moment () the zen master Dogen (13th century Japan) who spoke often of the "dropping of body and mind". One of his finest commentators is Hee-Jin Kim, who explained Dogen's sense in this way:-

To cast off the body-mind did not nullify historical and social existence so much as to put it into action so that it could be the self-creative and self-expressive embodiment of Buddha-nature. In being “cast off,” however, concrete human existence was fashioned in the mode of radical freedom—purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. Buddha-nature was not to be enfolded in, but was to unfold through, human activities and expressions. The meaning of existence was finally freed from and authenticated by its all-too-human conditions only if, and when, it lived co-eternally with ultimate meaninglessness.

For anyone looking deep into the abyss of ultimate nihilism, a mood that seems to be growing in the modern mind, then such understanding turns the abyss of nullity into the Kingdom of Heaven - here, now, in this world, not this world betrayed for some imagined "other" beyond the grave.

The Word as text and the Living Word

 

Once I just happened to be reading some sort of analysis of "Four Quartets" the poem by T S Eliot. There is a passage in the introduction that seemed to capture my own approach so well that I feel bound to quote it here.

The author is speaking of Eliot's use of various doctrines of various faiths.

......Eliot feels no compunction in alluding to the Bhagavad Gita in one section of the poem and Dante's Paradiso in the next. He neither asserts the rightness nor wrongness of one set of doctrines in relation to the other, nor does he try to reconcile them. Instead, he claims that prior to the differentiation of various religious paths, there is a universal substratum called Word (logos) of which religions are concretions. This logos is an object both of belief and disbelief. It is an object of belief in that, without prior belief in the logos, any subsequent religious belief is incoherent. It is an object of disbelief in that belief in it is empty, the positive content of actual belief is fully invested in religious doctrine.

There we are. My own Faith in the Word is mediated via Pure Land Buddhism and its teachings. Others can choose differently. And I truly find that the expression of the Word in other Faiths help my understanding of my own.

Just to add to this. To read of the lives, and to read the testimonies, the words, of others of various Faiths as they seek to give voice to their actual experience of "enlightenment", or the actuality of grace, to hear them express the selfsame thing but couched in varied words, supports and helps me see the reality that is often hidden from us in this world. As I have sought to say before, in Christian terms, the "work of Christ" goes far beyond our own experience or beliefs. And rather than fight such a thought, it should be cause to rejoice.

Interfaith dialogue is frowned upon by some, their opinion I assume being that if one has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then why enter into dialogue with another "truth" which must therefore be lie? However, for those interested, the Buddhist concept of "sunyata" (or "emptiness" ) is seen to be in correspondence with the mysticism of those in the Christian Tradition such as Eckhart and Jacob Bohme, in as much as their understanding of God is that as the "ineffable" or the "groundless". The tragedy is, that to mention "mystic" to some is to suggest the bending of spoons and suchlike, if not Ouija Boards and worse! Rather than to see it and realise that it is a rich source of Christian revelation of the Divine, by those who have sought the experience that belief can often only point towards.

One interesting dialogue took place between the Christian Theologian John Hick and the zen Buddhist Masao Abe. In this dialogue, Hick acknowledged that even within the monotheistic faiths the experience of God differed; the Jewish experience, the Christian experience of the Heavenly Father, the Muslim experience of Allah. And these themselves differed even more radically with the Buddhist and Hindu forms of religious experience. And yet each of these great spiritual traditions seems to be more or less equally effective as a context of the salvific transformation of human beings from self-centeredness to a re-centering in some manifestation of the ultimate. That they apparently produce essentially the same human transformation - though taking varying concrete forms within different cultures - suggests that through these traditions the same ultimate transforming reality is affecting us. Each giving rise to the fruits of the spirit that St Paul spoke of:-

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

This is because - as is suggested by John Hick - our human experience is always culturally conditioned. Or, as an ancient Hindu text says:-

"Thou art formless; thy only form is our knowledge of Thee"

The spirit blows where it will

The firm ground of emptiness

 Monday is a tiring day. Apart from a short time in McDonalds it is mainly all go from 7am to 7pm. Responsibilties for others, younger and older. At 74 things take their toll. Today, a bit more time. A coffee and a burger with fries in McDonalds before heading for Oxfam for 4 hours on the till. Which is not work at all, but time to listen to music, read and chat with the occasional customer!

I've explained all this before, but repetition can help things morph into new combinations. Whatever, when young I always had the yearning to travel. Born in the UK, it was the exotic that lured me and appealed to my sense of adventure. Deserts, palm trees, pagodas. Eventually I did travel, three years in Australia then an overland trip home, taking in Nepal and Myanmar (Burma)

All very exotic at times. But arriving back home, one day I found myself on the local rail station platform, built above my home town. It was one of those dull, rainy days and I looked out over the skyline. "I'm really back home now" I thought with a touch of despondency. But then it struck me - not some great vision, the earth did not tremble - to actually see what was "exotic" or what was not. What was normalcy, and what was alien and strange?

An oak tree or a palm tree? A cow or a camel? A church spire or a pagoda? Desert or grass? I won't labour the point - the actual point is to see this in our bones. That our own normalcy, bred into us and accepted as the "norm" has a great degree of relativity. To truly see this is to come alive, perhaps to gain the new eyes that Proust once spoke of:-

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Then we can in fact become as "strange" to ourselves as any stranger, any "other" we meet. And seek communion with. As one Buddhist wag once said, we can find ourselves standing upon the firm ground of emptiness. Or as said by the Christian mystic St John of the Cross:-

If we wish to be sure of the ground that we walk on then we should close our eyes and walk in the dark.

Which comes close to true Faith, or is true Faith. Which is vastly different to "belief". Faith can unite us, beliefs will always divide us.

Much the same happened in my own exploration of our World's Faith Traditions. A Eurocentric Christianity was the norm. The given. The foundation. Beyond it was the exotic. The Bible was the "Word" of the "true" God and all other books laying claim to be revelation of the divine was some sort of exotic trick, beyond the norm, the given. The heathen who "bow down to wood and stone" as the old Christian hymn goes!

Once again I had my moment of insight when I read "The Vision of Dhamma" by Nyanaponika Thera. A series of essays which I found to be quite profound, written by a guy who had been born Sigmund Feniger, European, and therefore knew how to write for Westerners. The reading was life-changing, once again because it shifted the firm ground of a Christian "truth", accepted as an obvious norm, onto less firm ground. The Dharma, a Buddhist cosmology, could well be as true, if not truer.

But the real point is not to argue for one or the other, but more to take away from under our feet the certainties we inherit purely by having been born here in this place rather than over there, in that place. It can bring vertigo, but also it can give the first taste of freedom. The truth that sets us free. Which to me is pure Faith, trust in Reality. Not a "belief" to cling to, to "justify" myself. It is Reality itself that justifies us, a Living Truth that is ever new, that blows where it will.

Then we can be like the Japanese zen master Dogen who had his very own life questions, who sought answers in China, and who did eventually find his very own path, time and place, back home in Japan. Which is never anyone elses answer, but is unique to ourselves.

Therefore, if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality (genjōkōan). When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality (genjōkōan). This path, this place, is neither big nor small, neither self nor others. It has not existed before this moment nor has it come into existence now. Therefore the reality of all things is thus.

(Dogen, words from "Genjokoan")

More on the stranger

 More on the "stranger", again from Thomas Merton.

It is my belief that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in the part of humanity that is most remote from our own” and “God speaks, and God is to be heard, not only on Sinai, not only in my own heart, by in the voice of the stranger

A Proverb from the Bible (18:13) says that "those who answer a thing before they hear it, it is a shame and a folly unto them".

Who is not guilty of such shame and folly? Each day we "answer" strangers by projecting ourselves upon them, only hearing their words through the mesh of our own settled opinions and beliefs. Waiting for them to shut up so that we can put in our own 2cents worth. People talking at each other, not with each other.

Merton also said:-

And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. it is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.

That may be so, yet to truly listen is a first step, and to seek to use our own words to heal and bless.

There is a Jewish story of a guy who goes to see his rabbi concerning his marriage problems. The rabbi told him to go home and truly listen to all that his wife said to him. He came back later and said that things had not improved much. "Well" said the rabbi, "now go home and listen to everything she doesn't say."

Honouring the stranger

 Do you see others as someone to convert? Or as a complete stranger? As a fellow human being? As someone who is lost if they do not see things as you do?

How?

Thomas Merton:-

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

the beginning of love

No matter who, the stranger should be honoured.

Which is quite profound. But you can take it or leave it and pass on contented.

I've always loved the story of the Buddha, descending into the deepest of hells, carrying a lamp. By the light of the lamp those in hell, before thinking themselves alone in the darkness, exclaim:- "Ah! There are others here besides myself!"

Maybe something we all need to learn. Truly see, truly know before we can become a true human being. There are others here besides ourselves.

How do you see the world?

As the Titanic and your religion as a lifeboat? Do you live for the "life to come"? Is your faith a betrayal of this world for some imagined "other"?

How much do you really, truly know about any faith/religion but you own? Are you happy to be ignorant? Do you think your God rewards it?

I've long thought that such books as the Bible were much like a Rorschach test. We tend to see ourselves. Therefore, as many are simply full of some particular theology of salvation, they see that. The cement of themselves begins to set. Congeals. But sadly, truth and Reality is ever new, a constant advance into novelty.

Now, I think all Reality is much the same. What we see is what we get. We are as we understand, as the 13th century zen master Dogen said.

Dogen also wrote:-

On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moments gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way

For Dogen, as Kosho Uchiyama Roshi has explained, "the Way is not simply one direction from starting point to goal; rather, the Way is like a circle. We arouse the enlightened mind moment by moment, we practice moment by moment, we become fully aware moment by moment, and we are in nirvana moment by moment. And we continue to do it ceaselessly. Our practice is perfect in each moment and yet we have a direction toward Buddha."

That's it.