Sinners
In the chapter entitled “Forgiveness of Sins,” Romano Guardini reflects on the story of the healing of the paralytic (Mark 2:3-5) and asks “what must take place if forgiveness is to be experienced?”:
Man must admit the general profundity of sin, must overcome his attitude of superficiality and cowardice, and earnestly attempt to face sin in whatever form he may encounter it. He must not make it a mere matter of judgment or of will, but must feel, and deeply, for its core. He must not stubbornly insist upon the justice of a mere judge, but must consent and accept–with all his moral dignity, his freedom and responsibility–a Father’s love (and how many refuse precisely this!)…Instead he must learn the humility that seeks grace. This is the summons in Jesus’ first words: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:14-15). Before all else, men must learn that they are sinners; they must take stock of what they have become through sin, and de profundis call to God that they may be forgiven.
One of the things that I like about this passage is that Guardini grasps that sin is not primarily a failure to abide by an abstract moral norm, but is rather the betrayal of a relationship. It is one thing to lie. It is another, for example, to lie to one’s spouse about a matter of deep importance. It is in the latter act one begins to grasp the betrayal that lies at the heart of sin.
Guardini’s suggestion that we must “learn” that we are sinners seems deeply true to me. A person can have a “natural” sense of right and wrong–and even sense that these categories have a transcendent origin–without truly understanding the nature of sin. Perhaps one of the reasons the greatest saints were so conscious of themselves as great sinners is the closeness of their relationship with God. The closer one draws to the source of all life and love, the more one’s radical dependence on that source becomes clear, and the more that one’s failure to respond in kind becomes a painful truth that must be confronted with honesty.
Thank you for this post Peter. Reading it is a perfect way for me to end my reflections this evening.
If the 4 gospels had perished leaving only the stories of the healings of the leper and the paralytic at the start of Mark, we could learn all we need to know about Jesus from them. Healing the leper says a lot about God’s nondiscriminating and inclusive love for all his creatures, especially those whose self-confidence has been ruined by religious authorities pronouncing them unclean. The paralytic story resonates across all our moral experience. But Guardini’s rhetoric troubles me by a semi-Pelagian insistence on our work in coming to knowledge of our sinfulness which he sets up as a condition of God’s forgiveness. Rather God teaches us our sinfulness, and in doing so he is already healing it; the Law’s judgment and the Gospel’s liberating grace work in tandem. On the wider social level, prophetic insight into and denuncation of evil is attended by the message of forgiveness — reconciliation — though how that works out in practice is a notoriously difficult topic.
I admire Guardini’s book on Rilke, but I think he overdoes the critique of Rilke as not knowing true, personal, committed love, etc. Rilke’s thought comes into new perspective, I think, if one lights it up from a Buddhist angle.
Mr. Nixon, thanks for the post – it comes at an excellent time given our current societal, financial, and church dilemmas.
His point does a much better job of capturing Vatican II ecclesiology and an understanding that all sacraments are built on relationships e.g. Christ is the sacrament of the Triune God, the church is the sacrament of Christ, the sacraments (whether big S or small S) are expressions of grace building on our relational nature.
That is what I thought was missing from the earlier blog about the Conn priest who linked every homily back to the sacrament of penance. He seemed to take the sacrament in a brief historical period and emphasize what I felt where the wrong things. His approach did not resonante with me – but then any pastor who always comes back to a single issue rarely resonantes with me e.g. abortion.
Guardini’s insights also apply to the total church as sacrament and to each sacrament – we all live in the original condition (freedom and the presence of sin). Every sacrament builds on that nature and in that sense brings grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
“What must take place if forgiveness is to be experienced?”
The story of the healing of the paralytic suggests that community might be necessary if forgiveness is to be experienced. The paralytic man is only able to come to Jesus with the aid of his friends. The Gospel stories specifically tie Jesus’ forgiving the man’s sins to the faith of his friends. It is in our communities, both small and large, that we “learn” that we are sinners — and, perhaps, encounter a glimpse of God’s forgiveness in the experience of human forgiveness.
I want to thank Mr. Nixon and everybody else who has posted on this topic. It has all been very insightful.
Sin describes our relationship with others, with creation, and with ourselves. I believe that forgiveness is foundational to Christianity and to our relationships with each other. God has already forgiven us and accepting that forgiveness can be a very hard thing to do.
In scripture we read the story of the paralytic at the pool of Behsaida. All we really know about this paralytic is that he lay there helpless. It was Jesus who took the initiative and came across
to him to give him back his health. The paralytic’s entreaty was wordless and his need too great to be expressed. Perhaps this is where we all are these days.
Normally a change in attitude follows a change behavior and does not precede it. This means that feeding the poor and visiting the imprisoned leads to conversion.
I think we have to be cautious and not think that with a bit of effort, we can clear up
our blighted souls. Sin is not a weed in the garden of our soul that can be plucked. Sin is a blight on the whole field and none of us is entirely free from it. Sometimes being able to make a good choice is just plain luck because of the world’s established structures of sin.
I believe all of us to a least some extent partake in the imagination that dominates our society and culture.
A short list of social structures of sin include: dishonesty, militarism, exploitation, over-
consumption, the wasting of energy, racism, sexism, anti-gay/lesbianism, environmental degradation, etc. etc.
A recurring theme in the monastic tradition is newness. About two years ago I heard a monk give a talk on the topic of “Engendering Christianity”. It was a grace to hear this reflection. His talk ended with a reminder that Jesus was affected by the world and was able to awaken the world by entering our hearts. He them quoted Maria Rilke.
“The new in us, what is yet to be
has entered our heart, penetrated
our inmost flesh and even there
it does not remain –it is already in the blood…
We cannot say who has entered,
maybe we will never know, but many
signs suggest that the future enters in
us in this way to transform itself within
us, long before it happens.”
It is off topic but Buddhism was mentioned. My first contact with Buddhism was a number of years ago. I attended a three day workshop sponsored by Buddhist and Benedictine monks. I can still remember the first question I asked a Buddhist practitioner. I asked this young man what Buddhism meant for him. His answer to me was “mindfulness”. That answer grabbed me and I have been interested in Buddhism since then. Practically speaking Buddhism has been a strategy for confronting reality directly yet in a way that negates confrontational patterns
of knowing. This has been a gift. It has given me the opportunity at times to simply witness life. This can lead to compassion. It has been an opportunity to develop more compassion as a strategy and as a goal. I am a beginner.
Given today’s scripture readings, we have the phrase: “Repent” – as others have said, the sacrament of penance in the early church and possibly from biblical roots pertained to the severing of a relatioship – something that I do not believe happens every day. Penance was linked to serious sin – requiring “metanoia” – the original Greek from which repent comes. But metanoia captures the complete relational context – it requires a “change in course” – a significant life changing event e.g. Paul on the road to Tarsus, the “couple” from Emmaus, etc.
Given this, the signs of the times are filled with severed relationships from world politics, to global poverty, global warming, to the financial collapse. We each of our own valued relationships. I wonder how a preacher could work the phrase “bailout” into today’s sacrament of penance – is there real penance, effort to make whole again, to HEAL the relationship. I often see the eucharist as a better frequent sign of recognizing our sinfulness and seeking the mercy of God while gathered around the community table.
Not that this tells the whole story, but once I went on a retreat at a Benedictine monastery and they had a mindfulness exercise one morning. At lunch the prioress asked me what we had done in the morning. I said “peeled an orange slowly.” She said, “Was this about mindfulness?” and she and the other nuns at the table were all laughing…
***
J. Peter, as I’m sure you are aware, St. John of the Cross is full of this idea:
Perhaps one of the reasons the greatest saints were so conscious of themselves as great sinners is the closeness of their relationship with God. The closer one draws to the source of all life and love, the more one’s radical dependence on that source becomes clear, and the more that one’s failure to respond in kind becomes a painful truth that must be confronted with honesty.
Increasing awareness of one’s imperfections is one of the things that makes advancing in prayer so painful. For John, it also causes a kind of optical illusion in which advancing seems to be failing. Probably the main job of the spiritual director, according to John, is to encourage perseverance in prayer, despite this perceived failure.
I need help with prayer and I guess there are others who do also. We get some from Sarah Coakley, Anglican priest and professor of divinity at Harvard, on Teresa of Ávila, (16th Century, Spanish saint and mystic.) and Romans 8:26 (“For we do not know how to pray…but
[the] Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”):
“No, we do not know how to pray; doubtless this is why Teresa of Ávila, remains so attractive and approachable a Christian witness. For so much of her first autobiographical work, ‘The Life’ – inspired, of course, by Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ but so delightfully different from them -is about the frank impossibility of prayer. Or rather, it is about our endless subterfuges to avoid it, to think of utterly convincing and really good reasons not to do it, to run away
as fast as our legs will carry us from that pressure of the Spirit of which Paul speaks, the source and goal of all of our longings. Perhaps better than any before or since, Teresa tells us – in glorious and homely detail – how not to be a saint before she shows us what it costs to be one.
“And that’s the joke; because, as Teresa herself became increasingly aware in the development of her prayer toward union, the running away that we all do never quite does the trick. The Spirit is always there, closer to us than we are to ourselves, closer than kissing,
constantly begging permission to pray in us. And so our excuses, our evasions, our dryness, or declaring prayer as impossible, are themselves ironic witness to the Spirit’s ever-effacing willingness to ‘come to our aid.’ It is not the fact that God is absent, but rather so uncontrollably present, that discomforts us. It reminds us of our weakness, of our lack of control, of the various traces of death we politely circumnavigate. As Teresa herself puts it in one of her ‘Spiritual Testimonies,’ hearing these words from God: ‘Don’t think, daughter, that union [only] lies in being very close to me. For those, too, who offend me are close, although they may not want to be.’
“To acknowledge then that our not wanting the Spirit is the backside of our deepest desire to hand over to it, a token of our very closeness to God, precisely the paradox of which Paul speaks. It is also the wellspring of Teresa’s long account of her gradual ceding of control to the same Spirit. The human impossibility of prayer becomes the space of divine power.”
“Practically speaking Buddhism has been a strategy for confronting reality directly yet in a way that negates confrontational patterns
of knowing. This has been a gift. It has given me the opportunity at times to simply witness life. This can lead to compassion. :
Michael M. –
Yes, mindfulness meditation can make us acutely aware of what is happening in the now. Though I can’t say I became an adept, I have found that after having practiced it for awhile that it became not habitual, but that mindset did sort of kick in automatically sometimes when I was confronted with a moral decision. What I find particularly valuable it that it makes me aware of motives operating in the moral situation that had been subliminal before. Sometime the motives are good, sometimes bad, but usually I find a lot of different motives propelling me one way or another. And it isn’t just a matter of being aware of motives more clearly, it is often a matter of simply seeing the complexity of a situation.
This is very useful in doing an on-the-spot examination of conscience: am I doing this for this reason or that? out of love or out of pride? am I ignoring or repressing factors? what is really going on here? Sometimes it makes me ashamed of myself, but sometimes it gives me the courage to do what I really do think is right with more confidence.
We have a lot to learn from the Buddhists. But I think we must be on guard not to accept the sort of Buddhism which rejects the fact of good and evil. That’s a special temptation for Americans, I think, with our “I’m OK, you’re OK”, “Don’t be judgmental” mentality. We’re not always OK.
Joseph:
Thanks, You gave expression to an off putting intuition from reading passages like these.
“But Guardini’s rhetoric troubles me by a semi-Pelagian insistence on our work in coming to knowledge of our sinfulness which he sets up as a condition of God’s forgiveness. Rather God teaches us our sinfulness, and in doing so he is already healing it; the Law’s judgment and the Gospel’s liberating grace work in tandem. On the wider social level, prophetic insight into and denuncation of evil is attended by the message of forgiveness — reconciliation — though how that works out in practice is a notoriously difficult topic.”
I like the notion that grace (life) is the more operative element in terms of coming to awareness of “sinfullness”. I am not even sure I like that term. I struggle with that notion in the Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius and a lot of Catholic piety and the fall/redemption theology supporting it.
I do favour the Eckhartian ‘bubbling up’ idea of God’s giving birth to the Word in the ground of our consciousness (soul). “Sin” is that which blocks that birthing from occurring. I suppose the reason that reconciliation and forgiveness (not to mention repentatnce) are so rare to find in practice is because grace is in fact capable of being resisted. But no without some difficulty. Maybe the difficulty is not so much turning away from sin as it is surrendering to grace.
Dear Ann,
I agree with what you have written about mindfulness. I also believe in the fact of good and evil. I think we also need to be cautious and not turn Christianity into primarily an ethical system. I have been interested in the Christian monastic tradition since I read Thomas Merton’s book “The Silent Life”. Among other things the Christian monastic tradition emphasizes meditation and ceaseless prayer and the renunciation of destructive thoughts. Buddhism has a great deal to teach Christians about meditation and ceaseless prayer and the renunciation of destructive thoughts.
Faith in the Christian tradition is not faith in a some state beyond change. Faith is faith in change. It is an ongoing witness to reality’s abundance and prodigality. Religion can be a turn to the other or it can be a turn to the self or some of both. The work of the Spirit takes places when the self is being surrendered. Theologian David Tracy tell us this can be accomplished through spiritual exercises, “Spiritual exercises lead, by way of detachment, to an attentiveness to the giftedness of life; and suffering cries out in lament, awe and sometimes terror, as expressed in the psalms and in the Book of Job.”
An email acquaintance whose is Catholic sent the following email a couple of days ago to some people who are interested in Christianity and Buddhism.
“Yes there is tons of this going on. Lots of Catholic (and many are Jesuits) and
Buddhist interaction and co-praxis. Robert Kennedy has written a couple of
books on the topic Zen Gifts to Christians and Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit.
There is also William Johnston who lives in Japan and has pointed to the
interaction of buddhism and Christianity. John Keenan wrote a scholarly
theology book on The Meaning of Christ: A Mahayana Theology (using mahayana
buddhist categories to talk about Christ) and has used those categories to
interpret the bible as well. He has a book on Mark’s Gospel and the book of
James using those categories. There are quite a few other books on my shelf –
that bring the two together. Zen Catholicism by a Christian monk written in the
70′s I think. Zen and the Kingdom of Heaven. Living Zen, Loving God. Zen and
the Bible. The Zen Teachings of Jesus. When Love meets Wisdom — which brings
Theravada tradition together with Christianity. Tons of it out there.
And because it is on topic, I have started a group that is slowly growing that
brings together Christian and Buddhist discussion. It is a contemplative
Christian center that engages in interaction with Buddhism and inter-religious
learning. My personal blog has been converted to the web presence of the place.
I am hoping that this summer we will have more content but right now while I am
in school it is hard for me to spend time on it. Though the group does meet
once a week. The site is as follows: http://www.stillpointe.blogspot.com.
If you are interested, more and more is being written on multiple religious
belonging (practicing and identifying with multiple religions at the same time).
A lot of it is very scholarly and academic but there are more discussions of it.
If you are not turned off by a bit of elevated reading — I also suggest you
read Faith Among Faiths by James Fredericks and Buddhists and Christians:
Through Comparative Theology to Solidarity by James Fredericks. He introduces
the discipline I study — comparative theology — but also gives insight into
how religion is changing because of interaction between faiths.
Just some info.
Wishing you deepest well-being, happiness and joy.K…”
1. Michael Miller’s posts about Catholics being interested in Buddhism are very interesting. I think there was a small but not insignificant number of post-Vatican European and American Catholics during the 1960s and 1970s that found traditional Catholic methods of prayer outdated. They either actively sought other ways, or by chance came across Eastern methods of meditation. Thomas Merton was among better-known people, but there were many more.
Of course, one can’t divorce this trend from broader cultural trends. Pop culture saw the Beatles head to India. Many mainline Protestants and non-religious were seeking Buddhist and other non-Western techniques.
2. On Guardini, hoping you don’t mind a repost of mine from another thread.. One of my favorite quotations in the whole world comes from Guardini. (I think it’s in his book _The Virtues_.) It begins by asking, “What is greatness?” then gives a wonderfully lofty yet powerful definition. One reason I love is that there is nothing particularly religious about it. Yet I think it is something that many believers, agnostics, and atheists would agree on.
What is “greatness”?… It is a manner of thinking and of meeting the world. It mean the strictness of man’s demands upon himself. And the willingness to stand for what is important. A breath of vision and boldness of decision; a depth of involvement, originality, and creative power.
Michael M. –
Good luck with your Buddhist-Christian talks. But I fear, given the lack of common religious ground (no God, no good and evil in Buddhism) you won’t get very far beyond learning some valuable psychological practices that lead to self-understanding,
The one thing that gives me hope is that some Buddhist enlightenment experiences might be experiences of God as sheer, absolute, infinite Facticity, as the Being of Parmenies — the IT IS. But that doesn’t lead to religion in any Western sense of the term. No love there. Neither does it contribute to a sense of sin, much les reconciliation.
(I tried to reach your blog, but the address didn’t work.)
There is plenty of good and evil in Buddhism — the practice of morality is the first step, and the further steps (meditation and wisdom) are attended by exercise in ever higher virtues (with a notable emphasis on compassion).
As to God, H von Glasenapp pointed out that the elements of the sense of God are not absent in Buddhism but are dispersed in different locations. I am having trouble responding to a paper now by a Korean theologian who finds full-blooded theism in the Lotus Sutra.
I wonder if Catholics are as zealous about prayer and about Buddhist spirituality as they were forty years ago?
There is perhaps more awareness of Buddhism in an ecumenical sense, as of other religions generally. Indeed this is becoming de rigueur. On my weblog I posted a review of John Keenan’s latest book, which offers a measured, elegant, and persuasive statement about how Christians should position themselves in ‘a world of many faiths.’ Such a positioning is no longer the luxury of armchair speculators, but has become as intrinsic to Catholic identity as the Ecumenical Movement has been. It is part of the ‘foreign policy’ of the Church The last major statement of policy here is Dominus Iesus (2000), a text more notable for signaling the dangers of religious pluralism than for giving any concrete affirmative path for dealing with the other religious traditions. Vatican II’s document Nostra Aetate breathes a different spirit, which one will percolating through Keenan’s pages as well.
Keenan on Dealing with Religious Pluarlism
http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/
Fr. O’Leary –
Indeed, the Buddhists do emphasize compassion and often put us Christians to shame. However, I think their appreciation of compassion is one of their inconsistencies — for them there is ultimately no good and no evil, yet compassion is the great virtue. If interest in Buddhism is waning in the West perhaps part of the explanation is that Buddhism is very inconsistent (not something Westerners tolerate easily) and because thier ultimate is not the God of Love that so many Westerners have been seeking.
But Buddhist Enlightenment obviously has its great appeal. It is obviously an ecstatic state, and that in itself is greatly appealing. However I dont’ think that an ecstatic experience is necessarily a religious one, nor does it always lead to virtue. I’m thinking at the moment of two Western Buddhists whose private lives were certainly less than admirable, not to mention the nuns of Port Royale.
This notion that the most extraordinary ecstasy is not necessarily due to a meeting with God is the position of R. C. Zaehner, the scholar of mysticism whom I find most persuasive about these matters. He was himself not entirely consistent in his theorizing, but all in all I think he needs to be much better known. Some accuse him of being anti-ecumenical. But I think he’s right — not all “mystical” experience is essentially religious, and the young especially need to learn that.
Buddhism claims to encounter reality itself — and some say that this means tuning in to divine reality too — the reality does not take the form and figure of God as we have discerned it in the biblical monotheism — but that does not mean it is a less worthy apprehension of divine reality.
Compassion aiming at releasing all sentient beings from suffering and from illusion is of the essence of Buddhism, not an inconsistent add-on. See L. Vievard on this; I reviewed him here: http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/09/emptiness_and_c.html
Fr Heinrich Dumoulin SJ always regretted he had not stressed compassion when consulted about the text on Buddhism in Nostra Aetate.
“There is ultimately no good and no evil” — I think this statement is based on a misunderstanding of the emptiness-language of Madhyamaka Buddhism. It is directed against false reifications and discriminations. Do good and avoid evil is the bedrock of Buddhist morality. Buddhism is at least as critical of religious and ecstatic experience as Catholicism, indeed more so, since it began as a reform movement within Indian religion, where mysticism etc. was far more developed than in our parent religion.
I do not think interest in Buddhism per se is waning, but I do feel — or suppose — that we have lost zeal for meditation.
One of the goals of modern liturgical reformers is the restoration of the liturgy as the privileged place of meditation. This need not be isolating. What if a whole congregation, for example, was meditating on the deeply Christological Entrance Antiphon of yesterday’s Mass:
When he calls to me, I will answer. I will reacue him and give him honor. Long life and contentment will be his.
***
Ann, I was wondering if you’ve read de Lubac’s studies of Buddhism. I’m guessing you would enjoy them
I lead a little meditation group at Sophia University in Tokyo. Every Saturday afternoon we sit around the Blessed Sacrament, some in the lotus position, others on chairs. I myself, alas, no longer sit in the lotus but have to use a chair. We sit in silence for an hour before celebrating the Eucharist. Then we indulge in a party, drinking green tea and talking about anything from politics to religion.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10403
I doubt that the Sunday liturgy is best treated as the “priviliged place of meditation.” It is better left as the communal celebration of the Eucharist. Meditation is best placed in a smaller, more intimate setting … a place of one being probably ideal.
The idea that the “old mass” was a place of meditation in most parishes is laughable. Most people were NOT meditating.
Jimmy Mac, I’m not entirely sure how you would arrive at this information: “most people were NOT meditating.”
I’m more interested, though, in why you think it would be better if folks did not meditate at Mass,
Fr. O’Leary –
If you think we need to be relieved of illusion and to avoide desire, doesn’t that imply that there are some bad things — things we need to avoid?
My concern here with inconsistency is not a matter of logical error, it is a matter of how they describe what is and what isn’t. Too often they accept that what is, is simultaneously what isn’t. It isn’t politically correct to say such things, but there it is.
I would also emphasize about the Buddhists that there is a great deal of variation of belief among them. However, requiring compassion for all sentient things is one of their core beliefs, and needless to say a most admirable one.
Ann O.
The Modernist theologian, George Tyrrell, writing in 1910 (admittedly before a lot of inter-religious dialogue occurred, had this to say of Buddhism.
“Had the Buddha looked within as well as without he might have divined a power that could transmute the all pervading waters of human tribulation into the wine of gladness; but in his contemplation he sat aloof as one who witnesses a play in which he has no part; as having no sense of his solidarity with the world which he condemned”
That might be harsh but there is an element of justifiable criticism as well. Buddhism, as well as some forms of Christian meditation do run the risk of quietism. Pace, Marx, they often seem to be a sort of upper middle class opiate, with middle and lower classes actually receiving REAL ipiates in the form of SSRI’s and all manner of anti-anxieties.
That said, I am personally congenial to contemplative Hesychastic and Eckhartian styled prayer. I don’t think they aim to empy the mind so much as still the mind.
Still, our culture is becoming one in which many people feel out of control and powerless. It seems to me that contemplation and meditation should lead to the transformation of society and a concentration on justice.
I am not sure what the solution is but the Christian tradition, with its world affirming and constructive focus has something very important to contribute.
I think the call this day is to transformation and a certain reflective activism.
Kathy –
Thanks for the de Lubac recommendation. It’s hard to tell from Amazon’s listings just what are de Lubac’s books on mysticism as such. There is one specifically on Buddhism and another on the Eucharist that might be relevant. Would you recommend one over the other? Or does anybody else have any recommendations?
Thanks.
Ann, I was particularly thinking of this article in the theological journal Communio:
Henri de Lubac, “Buddhist charity and Christian charity,” Communio 15 (1988): 497-510.
It’s about the place of charity or mercy in one strain of Buddhism. Mercy is one of the steps along the path; it isn’t the center of everything, as it is in Christianity.
George D –
Zaehner maintains that certain drugs can cause the sorts of mystical experiences that occur naturally in some people. They are usually called “nature mysticism”. These experiences can also be caused by physical and mental practices such as are typical in the Eastern traditions. The question is: are these induced experiences genuinely religious? Are they meetings with God?
Zaehner makes this claim on the basis of the testimony of mystics who have had genuinely religious mystical experiences plus one or more profane kinds of mystical experience. They, says Zaehner, tell us not to mistake the religious kind for the profane type. And Zaehner includes all Buddhist experiences in the profane type.
But is Zaehner correct in thinking that *all* mystical experiences in which attention is focused outwar have no noetic value? I’m doubt that he’s right. Consider that his great expertise was not in. Neither does he consider many Protestant mystics, and, in fact, there don’t seem to have *been* many Protestant mystics. (This fact is understandable when one considers the Protestant condemnation of all things monkish.) But it does seems to me that there have been some Protestants who have had experienced God-as-immanent-in-the world, for example, Jonathan Edwards, and I strongly suspect that they might have some things in common with some of the Buddhists.
The problem then becomes how to distinguish the theistic nature mystics from those mystics whose experiences are a result chemical imbalances in the brain, some of which can be caused by drugs..
Complexity, complexity.
“We do after all possess a vague empirical concept of Christian
mysticism : the religious experiences of the Saints, all that they
experienced of closeness to God, of higher impulses, of visions,
inspirations, of the consciousness of being under the special and
personal guidance of the Holy Spirit, of ecstasies, etc., all this is
comprised in our understanding of the word mysticism, without our
having to stop and ask what exactly it is that is of ultimate
importance in all this, and in what more precisely this proper
element consists.”
~ Karl Rahner, S.J.
“The difficulty in defining with precision just what it is we are
reflecting on when we meditate on *mysticism* has more causes than
one. The several reasons become evident the more closely we consider
our theme. We cannot touch on the nature of mysticism without coming
upon our concept of the human person and the experience of self. As
curious as it may appear to common sense, it has not proved possible
to arrive at a concept of the human person that satisfies all. If you
wonder at this and wish to verify this statement, ask any ten people
you encounter randomly a question taken from the Psalms: *A Quid est
homo*?, (What is man?) And follow up this question by another: What
specifically constitutes the human as such? This issue has taken on
fresh significance in recent decades due to the extraordinary
advances in the sciences concerned with the structure and functioning
of the human body, the brain and the senses in particular.
~ John Eudes Bamberger, OCSO
Ann Olivier, of course delusion, attachment and aversion are bad and not good, in fact they are the Three Poisons.
A lot of the contradictions you find in Buddhism are due to missing the prevalence of the Two Truths thinking that allows one to say a thing exists conventionally but not ultimately. Nagarjuna and Candrakirti are brilliant, confusing, but not inconsistent on this.
Of course there is a great variety in Buddhism with many controversies — just as there is in Christianity. There is also a great coherence, due to certain pillars that all Buddhists come back to — the Four Noble Truths, the values of Wisdom and Compassion, etc.
One might concoct a Buddhism that is just a matter of cooking up mystic states by a profane methodology. But for the many millions of real life Buddhists, Buddhism is a religion, much in the sense that Christianity is a religion. The personal dimension of Buddhism as expressed in its buddhas and bodhisattvas, including the super-popular Kuan-yin (Kannon), is not a surface adornment, it lodges at the heart of Buddhist Wisdom. The austere utterances of the Heart Sutra are communicated by personal figures to an audience of personal hearers, and this communicational context is essential to all Buddhist doctrine. See my piece on ‘Knowing the Heart Sutra by Heart’ in Richard Kearney’s magnificent volume “The Inter-religious Imagination” published as vol. 12.1-3 of Religion & the Arts and soon to be published as a separate work by Brill.
“Had the Buddha looked within as well as without he might have divined a power that could transmute the all pervading waters of human tribulation into the wine of gladness; but in his contemplation he sat aloof as one who witnesses a play in which he has no part; as having no sense of his solidarity with the world which he condemned”
Sorry, George Tyrrell, but this is all wrong. Buddhas and Kings were closely connected, for both were transforming the world, one spiritually and the other politically. Let us remember that sociologists routinely describe the message of Jesus as one of turning one’s back on the world — which is all wrong too.
“It’s about the place of charity or mercy in one strain of Buddhism. Mercy is one of the steps along the path; it isn’t the center of everything, as it is in Christianity.”
In early Buddhism mercy (karuna) is a step toward the equanimity of wisdom, perhaps, but in Mahayana Buddhism it is of equal status and huge efforts are made to ensure that the quest for wisdom is never divorced from the practice of compassion. Wisdom without compassion is empty, compassion without wisdom blind, one might say. The very motive of the Buddha’s teaching career is compassion.
de Lubac’s “Amida” is an astonishing piece of research into Pure Land Buddhism, but in the end he seems to say, “wow, well I’m glad to have spent so much time studying this fiction, because it enables me to appreciate the real thing all the more!”
Did de Lubac meet any real Pure Land Buddhists (such as the majority of Japanese Buddhists)? Does his book (I cannot remember) deal with the higher philosophical aspect of Pure Land teaching — in Tanluan and Shinran — wherein the personal Amida Buddha is a presence of the ultimate Dharma-body as a “skillful means”; so that faith in Amida is not just a blind devotionalism but an initiation into the same Buddhist wisdom as in the other forms of Buddhism.
Evagrius Ponticus (345-399CE) is considered the first theologian of mystical theology in the Christian tradition. He is a is and has been an interesting figure for Buddhist-Christian dialogue because his form of meditation bears a resemblance to some Buddhist meditation.
Like the Buddha, Evagrius insists on a basic moral foundation and he then goes on to discuss contemplative prayer.
The life of Christian monks (gender inclusive) includes the renunciation of destructive thoughts that can lead to destructive behavior. The traditional thoughts Christian monks work on or try to let go of are: food, sex, things, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory and pride. The
spirituality of the desert hermits and monks of Egypt was transmitted by Evagrius Ponticus and then to the West through John Cassian (360-435 CE). Traditionally desert spirituality includes the renunciation of these eight (8) thoughts.
Evagrius tells us, “Strive to render your mind deaf and dumb at the time of prayer and then you will be able to pray.” Evagrius advised Christians at prayer to clear their mind of all thoughts, paying no attention to thoughts and concerns and to come to a state of
stillness (“apatheia”) in meditation. It involves an intense struggle as the ego resists.
In this monastic model “apatheia (stillness) and self giving love are emphasized. It
is similar and different than the Buddhist path of morality, meditation, and wisdom/compassion.
I am hoping to say a few words about the subject of “thoughts” about “things.” The desert monks tell us that a preoccupation with things is learned and can be unlearned. This desert tradition also teaches us that avarice is learned and can be unlearned. It is very important to remember that the monks are talking about “thoughts” per se. It is not about being good. It is about being peaceful with oneself, others and creation.
Thoughts beget thoughts or more precisely beget narratives and stories. We create stories in our head that are caused by a preoccupation with things. The focus of these narratives in our mind is to grasp even more and more. Unchecked these thoughts along with
our desires continue to grow unrelentingly. It is good to know that these stories our mind creates will afflict us. We need to pause and audit ourselves often to see if we have become preoccupied by thoughts about things.
Examples of THINGS are “things,” “what if my health deteriorates,” “I need to work harder and harder to get more money,” “a job,” etc. Health and work and money are good things, however the desert monks tell us a mental preoccupation with them can lead to burdens like
lying, anger, despair, compulsion, wasted time, worry, anxiety, etc.
The desert tradition tells us that a person who lives preoccupied with things does not live in the present but is usually living in the past or in the future. Usually the things we are preoccupied by don’t even exist or existed only in the past. It is a life of fantasy and day-dreaming.
The desert monks believed that many things are good. We have many things for their use, enjoyment, appreciation. Learning detachment from things unburdens us. It takes time. Nobody includinmonks walk this journey perfectly or understand it the same way. It
is hoped that our ambition will be removed and be replaced with resolve. This is a journey of passages with no clear before and after
point for most of us.
Cassian specifically mentions “work” as a way to renounce thoughts about things. An ordinary life with ordinary work and ordinary prayer helps us to acquire a peaceful mind. Taking care of a family and respecting and taking care of what we have been given teaches
renunciation of thoughts about things.
Forgiveness is foundational because it gives the process the freedom to get on with things again and again.
A very good book on this entire subject was written by a Benedictine by the name of
Mary Margaret Funk, OSB. The title of her book is “Thoughts Matter: The Practice of the Spiritual Life”. His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote the forward to Sister Funk’s latest book “Humility Matters.” Funk has been very involved for many years with Buddhist/Christian dialogue.
http://www.monasticdialog.com/bulletins.php
Most interesting Michael. LIke the Church entering a pre-Constantinian phase, I wonder if we are witnessing a return to the pre-monastic desert father (and mother) tradition. I like to conceive of the desert as a space of consciousness. Monasticism is, arguably, an institutionalized form of the desert experience.
At any rate good sources of reflection in this Lenten season.
Joseph:
“Let us remember that sociologists routinely describe the message of Jesus as one of turning one’s back on the world — which is all wrong too.”
I am not necessarily disagreeing but it does depend on how one interprets “the world”. Jesus did self consciously turn away from political forms of messianism current in the Jewish understanding of his day. He explicitly rejected the proposition that the Divine appears in the history of the political movement of Israel (cf. the temptation in the desert, and my kingdom is not of this world).
Like the Buddha he sought to teach and proclaim.
“Buddhas and Kings were closely connected, for both were transforming the world, one spiritually and the other politically.”
I am not sure that the two can be bifurcated. Mohammed, for example, experienced revelation as a unifying human and political force. In the Semitic tradition (excluding Jesus’s movement which might have been influenced by the Essenes) the distinction between the spiritual and political isn’t quite so clear.
Similarly liberation theology ties poltical struggle to the content of revelation.
It always seems to me that justice is tacked on as an after effect of contemplation. I think it is difficult to link apatheia, for example, to the struggle for justice.
NOtwithstanding some of his more disquieting thoughts, I think Nietzsche, by and large, was able to draw on a forgotten element of mysticism.
The poet Christian Wiman has a disease that might kill him next month or in ten years. Here are some wise words that he wrote.
“I was brought up with the poisonous notion that you had to renounce love of the earth in order to receive the love of God. My experience has been just the opposite: a love of the earth and existence so overflowing that it implied, or included, or even absolutely demanded, God. Love did not deliver me from the earth, but into it. And by some miracle I do not find that this experience is crushed or even lessened by the knowledge that, in all likelihood, I will be leaving the earth sooner than I had thought. Quite the contrary, I find life thriving in me, and not in an aestheticizing Death-is-the-mother-of-beauty sort of way either, for what extreme grief has given me is the very thing it seemed at first to obliterate: a sense of life beyond the moment, a sense of hope. This is not simply hope for my own life, though I do have that. It is not a hope for heaven or any sort of explainable afterlife, unless by those things one means simply the ghost of wholeness that our inborn sense of brokenness creates and sustains, some ultimate love that our truest temporal ones goad us toward. This I do believe in, and by this I live, in what the apostle Paul called ‘hope toward God’.”
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not
easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in
evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian render apatheia by the more biblical
term, “purity of heart.” Cassian further identifies purity as the love
described in Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. For Cassian, purity of heart
is the immediate goal of monastic life, with the ultimate end being the
kingdom of God.
Fr. O’Leary –
Thanks for the lesson about the Pure Land Buddhists. They are very very appealing, what little I know of them. I recently got a book of Japanese death poems (traditional poems written by Japanese just before their deaths) ,including some by Pure Land Buddhists. Amida, in at least some of them appears to be a personal God. It seems to me their outlook is very, very different from the others at least when they approach death. Or so it seems in the translations, but I’m not sure the translations are very good.
I think I’ll skip the de Lubac. I just can’t believe that the Lord would lead so many good people astray.
Michael –
The Centering Prayer practice promoted by some American Trappists is based on the practices of the desert fathers and mothers. It’s a simplification that some Trappists in New England developed for their young monks, whom they thought were not interested enough in contemplative prayer (!). The young monks weren’t impressed, but the lay people who went to the monastery for retreats liked it very, very much, and now the practice is being spread world-wide. Simplicity itself.
All it is is the intention to accept the presence and action of God within us. No words, no images. No content of any sort. Only a “sacred prayer” repeated when distractions arrive, which unfortunately is almost constant for most of us. One doesn’t even actively “brush away” distractions as do the Buddhists. Rather one ignores them and returns to accepting God’s presence and action. You could call the state a sort of emptyness, but it really isn’t. Anyone who is interested might try Fr. Thomas Keating’s works. He’s a great teacher and talks with Buddhists.
Oops — that should have been “sacred word”, not “sacred prayer”.
Michael:
I like Cassian and Ponticus tying apatheia to the Biblical notion of purity of heart and I like the poet. I think he is on target and expresses the incarnational aspect of Christian mysticsm (affirmation of the body) that is so absent in Eastern and neo-Plationic mysticism.
I appreciate Buddhism for its psychodynamic perpsectives,however I do think Christian mysticism (and this is likely m yown bias) has the POTENTIAL to express a fuller range of engagement and world affirming impulse. The quotes you provide clearly demonstrate that and I think that is a wise and prudent direction. Benedict quotes Nietzsche who accuses Christianity of poisoning eros just before it is about to flourish. It is a penetrating insight and certainly one to reflect on in our technological age of “ex-carnation”. but your quotes to provide an important corrective.
I also highly recommend Thomas Keating. I have been to a couple of his retreats. I went to one about two months ago here in San Francisco. The following link will give more information about Keating and the movement he started. The West gained access to the eastern monastic tradition of monologistic prayer through John Cassian. The tradition of monologistic prayer is apparent on the author of the Cloud of Unknowing and on the development of the rosary. Keating learned his method from the Cloud of Unknowing.
A form of prayer that is perhaps becoming popular in the West that has been popular in the East for centuries is the classic Jesus Prayer. The following link is to short essay on this prayer.
http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/site/PageServer
http://megfunk.com/entry.php?id=32
Fr O’Leary,
Thanks for your review of Ludovic Viévard’s book and for your thoughts on emptiness and compassion. The following quote from your review is helpful to me.
“Emptiness, it appears, is not a new ontological complexion that can be applied to God in place of older substantialist conceptions. Rather it is a discipline of speech, suspending the language that affirms a massive, substantial divine being, and equally suspending the language that denies the reality of the divine. The entire exercise of ‘emptying’ our language about God is a provisional one, preparing one for an insight into the thusness of the divine that will not need this language of emptiness any more. It reveals the impossibility of grasping God, and it is in this very impossibility that the nature of God is intuited. All the divine attributes, and the identification of God as Creator, would be subject to the same suspension of language. The same apophatic attitude can be applied to our language about the existence of the soul after death…”
http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/09/emptiness_and_c.html