“I do not wish you Christians to become Buddhists but to be as empty as Christ.”
Yamada Roshi
“When we enter the Sodo the first instruction we receive is ‘give up your life!’ It is easy to pronounce the words ‘give up your life,’ but to do so is a difficult matter. However, if we do not put an end once and for all to that which is called ‘self’ by cutting it off and throwing it away, we can never accomplish our practice. When we do, a strange world reveals itself to us, a world surpassing our reckoning, where he who cast away his self gainseverything and he who grasps for everything with his illusory concepts in the end loses everything, even himself.”
Isshu Miura Roshi
“May I become at all times, both now and forever: a protector for those without protection; a guide for those who have lost their way; a ship for those with oceans to cross; a bridge for those with rivers to cross; a sanctuary for those in danger; a lamp for those without light; a place of refuge for those who lack shelter; and a servant to all in need.”
Shantideva
Shantideva was a most remarkable Indian Buddhist monk in the 8th century. His importance in Buddhism can be gauged by this kind of comparison: suppose among Christian figures you could blend Francis, Thomas Aquinas, and John of the Cross into one figure, then you would have a Christian figure in the Christian tradition equivalent to Shantideva in the Buddhist tradition. He is held in the highest regard by the Dalai Lama, and he was one of Merton’s favorites.
Shantideva belonged to the Mahayana branch of Buddhism (of which Zen Buddhism is also a part )which emphatically held up the Bodhisattva ideal: “my enlightenment” is for the sake of all sentient beings. Compassion, or “karuna,” is the primary cause, the continuous path, and the ultimate expression of enlightenment. To be more precise, we might say “mahakaruna,” the great compassion—“ordinary compassion” is dualistic, maintaining a rigid distinction between “me” (the savior) and “them” (the victim). Also ordinary compassion Islimited in scope, focusing primarily on easy-to-sympathize-with beings. It acts as a natural, emotional human response to witnessed distress. It is subject to “compassion fatigue” because it relies heavily on personal emotional expenditure. It also is subject to unconscious undercurrents of deep egoism….Dostoyevsky’s Father Zosima said that for some people it was possible that they would accept crucifixion as long as there was a crowd there to approve and applaud the deed!
Mahakaruna, on the other hand, is universal, and operates like a cosmic law or an open, unshakeable state of awareness. It does not fluctuate based on whether the recipient is “good” or “bad,” grateful or hostile. It treats every single living being with the exact intensity that a mother feels for an only child. It transforms “the neighbor” from an object of charity into a part of one’s own spiritual identity. Truly karuna (mahakaruna is usually simply referred to as “karuna”) is the very nature of the no-self, the true self….once the ego-centered self is transcended there is no longer a barrier between the individual and the “other.” Real compassion, then, is not a moral sentiment or an emotion to be cultivated by the ego; instead, it is a spontaneous manifestation of the “True Self,” the selfless-Self, that arises only after the dualistic ego has been dissolved. And for Shantideva this was the whole point of what we would call contemplative or monastic solitude.
Now one might ask what parallels or analogs there might be, if any, in the Christian context. All one needs do is look at the New Testament….but with a certain sensitivity to the language being used. For example, the whole ethic of the Sermon on the Mount is only comprehensible from the standpoint of the selfless-Self….certainly not comprehensible, nor even imaginable as “real” within the purview of the ego-self. Just think of the kinds of approaches used in preaching or writing about this Gospel pericope….”it’s idealized language”…..”not realizable in this life but something to aim for”….”we will always fall short but God forgives us”…..”not real”….”for saints only” or “for losers”….etc. You need a wholly different vision, a radically different awareness to even begin to live in theterms of the self-less Self…. I think Shantidevawould have felt quite “at home” with the Sermon on the Mount.
At this point we need to inquire about this self-less Self: what is this all about within the Christian context? And here Merton and Kierkegaard will help us.
Merton emphasizes that our true self is grounded in the Divine Reality…that’s why Augustine can say that “God is closer to me than I am to my own self.” That robust “I” of “me, myself and I” is a kind of construct, a fabrication, yes, one can even say it’s “illusory”…. Merton and other spiritual writers call it a “false self.” it’s fragile…we have to really work hard to maintain it, to build it up…a heavy burden…recall Jesus’s words about this “burden” and his own very light burden…. And it isfundamentally dualistic….it is grasping at anything and everything to shore up its existence….it can at any time and most certainly eventually will “return to dust.” But the true self is of a different order….with Paul we then know “…it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son ofGod.” Our true self is rooted in Christ who is One with God. We are no longer spectators of our spiritual life, measuring, analyzing, constructing a spiritual Tower of Babel, taking consolation in the objectification of our “spirituality.” Rather, the True Self, the selfless-Self, is a radical awakening to the Divine Reality, the ground and foundation of all our reality… God and “I,” the no-self, becomingone experience. But to find the “True Self” in Christ, one must undergo a total kenosis (the word comes directly from the Greek verb kenóō, which means “to empty out” or “make nothing”). Merton argued that the Christian call to “lose one’s life” for Christ is analogous to the Zen goal of realizing theno-self. He believed that both traditions require the negation of the “false self” in some manner (the ego-centered identity) to reveal the “true self” or “Buddha nature”. In any case, here we are going to turn to Kierkegaard for some help.
The Divine Reality, which is an all-encompassing compassion and infinite mercy, is manifest in two modes: creation and kenosis (self-emptying). To borrow Kierkegaard’s term, God is present to us in both modes but God is present “incognito,” a totalincognito. In a later posting we will need to ponderthe creation part; here we will dwell on kenosis. Kierkegaard argues that the Incarnation is an absolute “incognito” where divinity is completely hidden behind the form of a suffering servant. For him what’s important is that there is this profound paradox in the Christ-event: Jesus performs miracles and claims to be one with the Father, yet he is a poor man who eventually dies a criminal’s death. This contradiction makes a direct communication or inference impossible; one cannot simply look at Jesus and “see” God throughrational and empirical evidence. For Kierkegaard there is this “divine disguise,” and he argues that God chose to appear in “the most profound incognito”—as a lowly, suffering human being—to prevent that direct recognition. This means Christ cannot be proven to be God through historical analysis or “profane reason”. His humanity serves as a concealment that protects human freedom, ensuring that faith is a choice rather than a forced conclusion.
This is all good and I think mostly true, nuancing his language a bit, but I also think that there is much, much more in this divine incognito than merely a “disguise,” a kind of “tool” that God uses. The unfathomable, incomprehensible kenosis that is manifest in the divine incognito is not just a “gesture” on the part of God, a “cloak” he puts on;but what we have in this incognito is a “peek” into the Divine Character, a beholding of Who God IS(“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” John 14:8)….an absolute and infinite Self-Emptying in infinite Mercy, Compassion, and Love. This Self-Emptying Love was the origins of creation, and it is again manifest when Jesus utters those words on the cross: “It is finished (complete).” The Gospel of John which has those words is deliberately structured as a “new creation” account, and this line echoes the line from Genesis: “and God rested on the seventh day”….in other words he was finished. And recall that in Genesis God creates human beings on the fifth day….Friday….and in the Gospel of John on Good Friday Jesus is standing in front of Pilate when Pilate proclaims, “Behold the man!”….This is the Revelation of who you really are in Christ….You come from Love….Your true being is Love….You live in Love, that is your true self.
Now let us turn to Paul’s Letter to the Phillipians:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
There are a number of modern translations that really go wrong here…translating that first line as “Let your attitude be the same as Christ’s” or some such variant….and therefore missing something of ultimate significance.
We are not called to just have the same mindset or a“kenotic discipleship,” a kind of imitation of Christ, as profound as that could be; rather even more profoundly we are called to this radical awakening(“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus), an awakening to the real character of our true self (the no-self, which was made “in the image” of the Self-Emptying God), to an awakening of our real identity in Christ, which is manifest then in kenosis. There are many other passages in Paul and in the Gospels that point to this same reality.
Here I will just focus on one Greek word: agape. A most remarkable word, always translated into English as “love,” which is ok but a really impoverished word that is overused in our culture (“I loved that movie”) and in many ways trivialized.In the New Testament, agape is distinct from other Greek words for love—such as philia(friendship/affection) or eros (romantic love…also a possessive ego-centered self-cherishing, “what’s in it for me” affection). Agape represents a totally selfless, unmerited, sacrificial, and unconditional goodwill that is rooted in choice and action rather than fluctuating emotions (recall Shantideva and mahakaruna).
Now when the author of the First Letter of Johntries to declare Who God Is, he writes “God is love,” and he uses the Greek word agape (ἀγάπη). This declaration appears twice in the same chapter of that Letter:
1 John 4:8: “…ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν” (God is love).
1 John 4:16: “…ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν, καὶ ὁ μένωνἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ ἐν τῷ θεῷ μένει…” (God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God…).
By stating “God is agape,” the text communicates that selfless love is not just something God does, but is the foundational essence of who He is. And sowho we are, that is, our true self, the no-self. To awaken to our true self is to awaken to our grounding in the Divine Reality, to our “oneness.”
Agape also appears about 75 times in Paul’s Letters; his most famous exploration of the concept is 1 Corinthians 13….the word there translated as “love” or “charity” throughout this passage is agape….again truly diluting in modern English the full significance of that passage. Along with John, Paul argues that the very essence of God, the very nature of God is agape; and this has enormous implications for us in our daily human lives. I will illustrate this with just one example: In Ephesians 5:25, Paul commands husbands to “love [agapao] your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” anchoring marriage in selfless sacrifice. Whatever else you might say in criticism of Paul not living up to modern standards of social relations, he sees that the man who is committed to be a “husband” is at the same time committed to awaken to his true self, a selfless self who pours himself out in seeking the well-being of his wife….reminding us once more of Shantideva’swords…..
In conclusion we will leave the New Testament world and turn to Francis of Assisi. Just my opinion, but I think that Francis recognized the “incognito” of God both in creation and in kenosismore than any other figure in the history of Christianity. And there was no other who so clearly manifested his own grounding in the Divine Reality, his self-less self in absolute transparency and in total openness to the Divine Presence however it may come. This is somewhat akin to the important Buddhist notion of “emptiness” which brings a vision of the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of all things, what Thich Nhat Hanh called “interbeing,” and Francis, more poetically, “Brother Sun,…Sister Moon…Brother Wind…Sister Water……,” a cosmic family filled with the Divine Life.
But there is more. Merton:
“The remarkable thing about St. Francis is that in his sacrifice of everything he had also sacrificed all the “vocations” in a limited sense of the word. After having been edified for centuries by all the various branches of the Franciscan religious family, we are surprised to think that St. Francis started out on the roads of Umbria without the slightest idea that he had a ‘Franciscan vocation.’ And in fact he did not. He had thrown all vocations to the winds together with his clothes and other possessions. He did not think of himself as an apostle, but as a tramp. He certainly did not look upon himself as a monk: if he had wanted to be a monk, he would have found plenty of monasteries to enter. He evidently did not go around conscious of the fact that he was a “contemplative.” Nor was he worried by comparisons between the active and contemplative lives. Yet he led both at the same time, and with the highest perfection. No good work was alien to him–no work of mercy, whether corporal or spiritual, that did not have a place in his beautiful life! His freedom embraced everything.”
Shantideva……..
This reminds me of the Gospel passage where Jesus calls Peter and Andrew, and the Gospel of Matthew tells us, “At once they left their nets and followed him.” Here, Peter and Andrew anticipate Francis: For where were they going? With whom were they going? They didn’t know. In dropping their nets, they were dropping the symbol of their livelihood, the totem of their identity. In dropping their nets, they were dropping a version of themselves conceived on the terms of the ego-self world. And so they began with this “tap on the shoulder” on their path to discover their real identity in Christ.
Francis was also a master spiritual teacher. Maybe the most amazing example of this can be found in a writing called the “Little Flowers of St. Francis.” This work was written over a hundred years after Francis’ death; it is a collection of popular legends, miracles, and anecdotes about his life and his early companions. I want here to emphasize one story: “Perfect Joy.” Never mind whether it is “historical” or not, read it as a kind of parable of what Francis’ whole life was teaching. Like a true Zen master he deconstructs the ways the ego-self disguises itself in good and praiseworthy efforts, and he invites us into the kenosis of Christ in which we will finally know who we are in Christ and this and only this is “perfect joy.” So here is the story:
On a cold winter’s day, Saint Francis walked with Brother Leo from Perugia to the Porziuncola. Because of their poverty, they suffered much in the cold. At one point, Saint Francis said to Brother Leo: “If God desired that the Friars Minor should serve as a great example of holiness to all people in all lands, please write down that this would not be perfect joy.” At some point later in their journey, Saint Francis said to Brother Leo: “If the Friars Minor could make the lame walk; if we could straighten the crooked; if we could chase away demons; if we could give sight to the blind and speech to the dumb; and even if we could raise the dead after four days, please write down and note carefully that this would not be perfect joy.”
Soon after, Saint Francis said to Brother Leo: “If the Friars Minor could speak every language; if they knew everything about science; if they could explain all the scriptures; if they could predict the future and reveal the secrets of every soul, please write down and note carefully that this would not be perfect joy.” After a few more steps, Saint Francis cried: “Brother Leo, little one of God! If the Friars Minor could sing like angels; if they could explain the movements of the stars; if they knew everything about all animals, birds, fish, plants, stones, trees, and all men, please write down and note carefully that this would not be perfect joy.” Finally, Saint Francis cried again: “Brother Leo, if the Friars Minor could preach and thus convert every person to faith in Christ, please write down and note carefully that even this is not perfect joy.”
When this manner of discourse lasted for several miles, Brother Leo, who had been thinking about these sayings, asked: “Father Francis, I pray that you will teach me about perfect joy.” Saint Francis answered: “If we arrive at the Porziuncola and if we are drenched with rain and trembling with cold, covered in mud and exhausted from hunger; and if we knock on the convent gate; and if we are not recognized by the porter; and if he tells us that we are impostors who seek to deceive the world and steal from the poor; and if he refuses to open the gate; and if he leaves us outside, exposed to the rain and snow, suffering from cold and hunger; then if we embrace the injustice, cruelty, and contempt with patience, without complaining; and if we believe in faith, love, and humility that the porter knew us but was told by God to reject us, then, my dear Brother Leo, please write down and note carefully that this also is perfect joy!”
Saint Francis then said: “Brother Leo, if we knock again and if the porter drives us away with curses and blows; and if he accuses us of robbery and other crimes; and if we embrace this with patience without complaining; and if we believe in faith, love, and humility that the porter knew us but was told by God to reject us again, then, my dear Brother Leo, please write down and note carefully that this is finally perfect joy!” Saint Francis said once more: “If urged by cold and hunger, we knock again; if we call again to the porter; if we plead to him with many tears to open the gate and to give us shelter out of love for God; and if he returns more angry than ever; and if he calls us annoying rascals and beats us with a knotted stick; and if he throws us to the ground, rolls us in the snow, and beats us again with the knotted stick; and if we bear these injuries with patience without complaining; and if we think upon the sufferings of our Blessed Crucified Lord, then, most beloved Brother Leo, please write down and note carefully that this, finally, is perfect joy!”
Finally, Saint Francis said: “Brother Leo, please listen to me. Above all gifts of the Holy Spirit, that Christ Jesus gives to his friends is the grace to overcome oneself, to accept willingly, out of love for Him, all contempt, all discomfort, all injury, and all suffering. In this and all other gifts, we ourselves should not boast because all things are gifts from God.”
Amen!