Canonization has been in the news lately. The Catholic Church has proclaimed two of its recent popes as officially “saints.” To be given that status means at least three things: 1. This person can be prayed to as an “intercessor” for you with God. Like having a friend in the mayor’s office, or the governor’s office, or the White House! 2. This person can be held up as a role model for Christian life within the Catholic Church. 3. This person is certified by the Church as truly being “in heaven,” no question about that. Canonization is not supposed to be a kind of “lifetime achievement award,” like they give in certain enterprises for exceptional performance in a particular field over a lifetime. Canonization is rather supposed to involve heroic virtue, even martyrdom and certainly overcoming great obstacles in the name of the faith. Now in this latest canonization of the two popes there is more of this flavor of a lifetime achievement award, even a kind of ideological slant to this whole thing. One pope, John XXIII, is credited with waking the Church up from its Post-Tridentine slumber, while the other pope, John Paul II, is generally seen as one who put the brakes on a Church that seemed to conservatives changing too fast and too much. JP II, or now Saint John Paul II, is the icon of ecclesial steadfastness and doctrinal fixity and hierarchical privilege. In canonizing these two men the official church has “thrown a bone” to both sides of the church: the conservative and the liberal. But in my opinion this was a mistake.

Let me put it this way: I was born a Catholic, raised a Catholic, educated in Catholic schools, trained in theology in a Catholic seminary, immersed in Catholic monastic tradition, but I am in profound disagreement with this whole canonization thing, not just this latest manifestation. Actually if this process had any merit, the Church would be canonizing some of the people I listed in the title above, but I doubt if any of these will make it! (Actually there are several thousand in this strange “Investigative Stage”—some for a century or more with no results, while these two were canonized almost “immediately.”) No matter, but let me first go over some general ground about this canonization process and “official saints.” First of all, there is this whole thing of “intercessors”—and what does that mean? Think about it. Why do you need intercessors before God? That very notion seems to make the Reality of God far removed, so separate from you, so distant that you need this “bridge” to reach God. That is actually so wrong. There is no “distance” between you and God. There is nothing and no one more intimate to you than God. In fact, it could easily be said that any saint is more “distant” from you than the Reality of God. To focus on “intercessors” is to make the Reality of God somehow far in some way, whether it’s stated explicitly like that or not. Listen to Catholic prayers, go into a Catholic church, and you will witness this insistent evocation of “intercession.” Very odd really. I know, the Church will quote Tradition and Biblical texts to show the validity of turning to intercessors(actually in the scriptural language of the Semitic-Hellenic world “go-betweens” were always an essential part of social life so that even the reality of Jesus is presented as a kind of “intercession” for us with the Father—Abhishiktananda often pointed this out as something of a handicap when it came to presenting Christian experience to India), but I suspect all this rationalization is there because the truly mystical experience of the Reality of God is simply NOT emphasized or taught by the Church as an everyday experience of every man, woman and child in the world. This may seem like overstating the case, but having intercessors serves the institutional Church more than saying that everyone has immediate relationality to God without any separation. It serves the institution to have someone there between you and God. It is also framing both theology and spirituality, both the notion of God and the notion of Church within a kind of “monarchical” imagery. The “monarch” is so far “up” and “beyond” that you need these various mediators.

Let’s approach the above topic from another direction. Do you know why Islam spread like wildfire a thousand years ago and even today it is still the fastest growing religion? History books will tell you that a thousand years ago the Arabs were the best and fiercest warriors and Islam advanced on this wave of war. There is a certain truth to that but this doesn’t explain the extreme attraction of Islam in this world so structured on “go-betweens” and status. The fact is that Islam was so simple and so direct. It taught that there is no one and nothing between you and God, no matter who you are. There is no priest, no institution between you and God. This was and still is an extremely simple and attractive message, and when lived out authentically, very beautiful and profound. So the notion of “intercession” is downplayed in Islam and in Christian mysticism also simply because it is the immediate Presence of God which is what is sought.

Now there is an aspect of all this that requires more nuance. That is the notion of “praying for someone.” This makes it seem like you are some kind of intercessor, as if God needed some persuading to be benevolent to someone in need, etc. Even at its crudest level this is, I am afraid, all too common in both pop religiosity and also among priests and religious. How often I have heard the expression and the call “to storm heaven’s gates” with our prayers for this or that cause. Petitionary prayer does have a true validity and a real role in our lives, but not in this sense that God is “far off,” “far away,” “needing persuasion,” needing a kind of nudge to act on someone’s behalf, but rather petitionary prayer at its essence is simply our desire to participate in God’s Love for that person, in God’s Care for that situation. It allows us to participate in that Love in a very mysterious and intimate way.  Petitionary prayer is also simply another aspect of all prayer in that it is primarily for the benefit of the one praying in that it turns the mind and heart of that person toward the ever-present Reality of God.

Now the next thing to discuss is this thing of saints as “role models.” This is not nearly as problematic as this “intercessor” thing, but it does present some important issues to clarify. The notion of “role model,” the notion that we can learn from another person’s life is of course perfectly true. This is especially true in the pursuit of holiness, in the journey toward a real knowledge of God. A spiritual father or a guru plays this kind of role for some people. But here you have a living guidance given to meet a particular condition and situation of the person. Remember that holiness is always a very personal, very unique and individual manifestation. That’s why in fact no two saints seem alike! They always reflect the conditions of their time, their place, their situation. And that’s why it is either superficial or hazardous to “imitate” saints because how God is manifest in your life and being may not at all be what the case was for your favorite saint. Now one can draw a kind of inspiration from such a person and apply that to your own life, but as “role models,” well, that has a very limited applicability.

But there is another more troublesome side to this “role model” thing. So the Church presents her official saints as some kind of role models for the faithful. At first glance there seems to be an enormous variety of lifestyles and conditions and expressions of holiness. But that is not quite the case. Almost all of these “official saints” are either priests or religious. Lay people are almost totally absent! There are a few exceptions, but they are outnumbered a 100 to 1!   Is the Church saying that you cannot attain this kind of sanctity if you are a layperson? Interesting….exactly what are they saying? Furthermore, there is generally a certain ideological slant to the person chosen to be “certified” as a saint. It is almost never a person who has “rocked the church boat” as it were, or someone who has some “blemish” on their record. As if the “Good Thief” nailed to the cross next to Jesus or Peter in his utter betrayal could not be considered as candidates for sainthood in this kind of atmosphere. Or consider the great Desert Father, Abba Moses, who had been a robber and had committed murder as a young man but who became one of the holiest figures of primordial Christian monasticism.  But consider some of the names I have in the title: Thomas Merton for example. Why not hold him up as a true role model, not only for monks, but for everyone who seeks a contemplative life and deep prayer. But he may have “rocked the proverbial boat” a bit too much, not sticking to writing pious tracts like early in his monastic life. Later in his monastic life he began writing against the policies of the U.S. Government! Then again there is not a single theological error in his serious writings that pertain to Church Doctrine and he never flaunted disobedience to the Church, yet here we are, with no one caring to canonize him a saint. Could it also be because he had fathered a child in wedlock as a young man and later on in life he had fallen in love with a woman while living as a monk? Not quite a role model, eh? Some conservatives would say that he lacked “heroic virtue”—whatever they mean by that.

Or consider now the example of Dorothy Day. You would think that she would be a perfect candidate for this kind of status. She was a loyal daughter of the Church, totally dedicated to the poor, and a person of deep piety and revered by thousands. Alas, she also “rocked the boat” in our social order calling for an end to capitalism, the death sentence, and all our wars. She was friend and supporter of many dissidents and “problem people” like the Berrigan Brothers, and so many others who practiced civil disobedience. There was also the matter that she too had a pregnancy before marriage as a young woman, and I am not sure but I think she also had an abortion. About this latter thing she never hid that or excused it. She confessed and begged for God’s Mercy. And I think she was a truly holy person. Or consider Archbishop Romero. A man who came from a truly conservative background, even connected to Opus Dei, but who converted to a deep care for God’s poor ones in his native El Salvador. He spoke out against the death squads that roamed the countryside to silence anyone who spoke up for the poor. These were called “communists” and killed. Romero himself was shot dead while saying Mass. I would say that is a true martyrdom which would normally mean automatic raising to the status of “saint.” Indeed the Vatican formally opened the process of investigation for beatification and eventual canonization but it has been over 30 years since his death and still no result. How much “investigation” does it take? John Paul was dead less than 10 years and he is rushed into canonization. Interesting. You see I think there are political and ideological reasons for why someone gets this “saint” title—it is not always for a “saintly” life. And why someone else is denied this title who actually may merit it and is denied for the same political and ideological reasons. The canonization process has always been a mild mechanism of control and influence for the institutional church.

Or now consider the example of Robert de Nobili and Matteo Ricci, two Jesuits from centuries ago who pioneered a completely different Christian presence in India and China from what was the usual institutional thing. Remarkably enough, in that theological climate of the Post-Tridentine Church, these two men had the foresight, and the insight and the courage to recognize that Christianity had to be expressed in the cultural and intellectual terms of these cultures, not that of Europe. This was centuries before Abhishiktananda! De Nobili was a Jesuit who dressed as a sannyasi and learned both Sanskrit and Tamil. He shaved his head, except for a tuft, became a vegetarian and teetotaller, began wearing sandalwood paste on his forehead, donned saffron robes and clogs, and wore the three-string thread which he said represented the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity. As a “Teacher of Wisdom” he began his journey through a part of India preaching Christian thought in Vedic terms even as peers in the Church condemned him in the loudest terms. The pope did not condemn him but he was held in suspicion, and his way was shut down after his death to a large extent. Now of course it can be pointed out that he did possibly make some serious mistakes, like in addressing his Christian message only to the Brahmin caste. But the Jesuits then and for centuries had this idea that if you convert the upper classes first, they would transform society in a beneficial way for the poor. This was of course total bunk, but these people really believed in that. So it is not surprising that Indian Catholics today are not altogether enthusiastic about De Nobili because the young Indian theologians are strongly into liberation theology and take a different tack from De Nobili. But he is still someone you can learn from if you are going into another culture and want to “translate” Christianity into other terms. This would also hold true for Ricci. But strangely enough the process of beatification and canonization has been open for both men for centuries! You wonder if there will ever be a Saint Robert de Nobili. No need even to go into the case of Abhishiktananda!! I think that both he and Merton would be totally shocked and disapproving if you had suggested to them that one day they would be called “saints.” I think they would have laughed at such recognition by the official church.

Now to return to this recent canonization. It is very puzzling until you recognize its ideological slant. This does not seem to be the case for John XXIII, but it certainly looks that way for John Paul II. Otherwise it is hard to explain this action. The main problem is that John Paul II appears to be the main pope for “sweeping under the carpet” the child abuse cases when they began to really come out into the open in the 1980s and then exploded in the ‘90s. He had this extremely high theological notion of the institutional church and of the priesthood, so high that he would not tolerate any kind of dissent or of anyone speaking critically of these. He would not tolerate any theological explorations either. In part this was due to his young days in Poland where the Church was under constant attack by the Communist Regime. He never outgrew this. So his papacy was a real mixture of some truly positive and outstanding achievements and also at the same time some truly blind and shameful things. Among them was the infamous episode with the Legionaires of Christ. Their founder was a truly debauched priest who sexually molested both boys and girls and who lived extravagantly. But he was also a staunch “defender of the faith,” of the church, of the pope, and so he was highly favored in the Vatican and with John Paul II. So when reports of his debauched life began to come out into the open, this priest had plenty of defenders in the Vatican and even with JP II. The voices of his victims were not listened to; the voice of this sick man prevailed. There has been a lot written about this in recent years, but the Vatican of course (and Pope Francis) insists that JPII did not really know the real nature of this man. That’s very funny because the Vatican usually does such a thorough job of investigating its “targets.” There was a whole book written about this Legionnaires of Mary mess, but a nice short summary was presented by Maureen Dowd in an Op-ed piece in the New York Times—here is the link to that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/opinion/dowd-a-saint-he-aint.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

And if you want to get a more complete picture of how horrible this was, please Google “Frontline” “Secrets of the Vatican”—an investigative story on one of PBS’s premier programs. You can either watch the whole program or just read the script. It is an eye-opener!

So why was John Paul II canonized? The man had some very serious flaws and made some major mistakes that were not abstract ideas but caused suffering to many people. The Vatican will of course deny all this and never admit that JPII had any flaws. In fact official church myth never presents the saints in anything but “perfected” pictures. Yes, it may admit that the person had to have some “conversion dynamic” in his/her life but once that took hold they were practically “flawless.” This of course is not true for any so-called saint. Like I mentioned earlier, Peter had this very dark moment of betrayal (and Dante put such people in the very pit of hell—the very worst thing you could ever do is betray someone who depended on you). And then there was the Good Thief, certainly not a paragon of heroic virtue! I would be inclined to actually overlook the mistakes and flaws in JP II if in fact he had that moment of self-knowledge and admission that he HAD made terrible mistakes and begged for God’s forgiveness. And a person who “sins” can not only be forgiven but become an exemplar of real holiness—like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.   And because JPII’s mistakes were so public and so defined the lives of so many people, this admission needed to be public, not just in the confessional. It would have been so refreshing to see a pope admitting to mistakes. But alas it didn’t happen. And so inspite of the million people who came to Rome to “endorse” the canonization, I for one join with Maureen Dowd in saying, “A Saint, He Ain’t.”

 

 

Recently we touched on Buddhism in general and on Tibetan Buddhism in particular. Now it would be good to focus a bit on Zen Buddhism. We won’t waste any time on the numerous problems Zen has in modern Japan and in its American version. The story is too long, too complicated, and too depressing—I have already mentioned that in other postings. Suffice it to say the problems are big and numerous. Nor am I going to try to relateZen to Christianity. Much ink has been spilled on this topic in recent decades, both in Japan and in the U.S. and even in Europe. Some of it is interesting and deserves further exploration; some of it is best left alone.

At first glance Zen looks like the easiest form of Buddhism to approach for a Westerner, but in actuality it may very well be the most difficult. It appears so different from the complex elaborations and practices of Tibetan Buddhism! But even within Zen there are such serious differences between the Soto School and the Rinzai(the Southern School in China) that a member of one school can doubt the validity of the other. A person can get truly confused! What is the essence of Buddhism? What is Zen all about?

Zen appears to shun philosophical elaborations, metaphysical speculations, and systematic thought. However, a ton has been written about Zen in many languages and in different ages. So here too one has to tread carefully—some of this stuff is very insightful and helpful; some of it is misleading, missing the point of Zen, or just plain excess baggage on a difficult journey. Aristotle said that to truly understand something you need to thoroughly examine it at its origin. So consider the following account:
Sakyamuni Buddha was once lecturing to a large group, so the story goes, gathered on Lin-shan (Spirit Mountain). After his lecture he picked up a flower and held it before his audience without speaking a word. Quite mystified the whole group remained silent, pondering as to what the Buddha wished to convey by this gesture. Only the monk Kasyapa broke into an understanding smile. The Buddha was pleased…..

Such is the account of the beginning of Zen, and whether this is mythic or historical does not matter. As John Wu put it, “It is fitting that Zen should have begun with a flower and a smile.” In India Buddhism developed a complex and elaborate spiritual culture. When this whole thing traveled into Tibet, the Tibetans absorbed it totally even enhanced it and transformed it into their own kind of Buddhism. However, when this complex traveled into China something different happened. Both the Chinese character and the inner dynamic of Taoism pared this whole complex down to “a direct pointing at the Mind.” All that was left was a great Silence, the hermit way of life(usually), and an enigmatic and intense focus and vision that one had to uncover for oneself. It was brusque and to the point—every practice was held suspect as an evasion, even meditation even as it was of course practiced (and much later became the key signature of Zen). Consider the following from Nan Yueh(about 700), who succeeded the greatHui Neng in the transmission of the teachings of the Southern School, the forerunner of Rinzai:

“Do you want to be master of zazen, or do you intend to attainBuddhahood! If your intention is to study Zen itself, you must know that Zen does not consist in sitting or lying. Do you want to attain Buddhahood by the cross-legged sitting posture? But the Buddha has no specific form…. Trying to attain Buddhahood by merely sitting cross-legged in meditation is nothing other than murdering the Buddha. As long as you remain attached to such a sitting posture you will never be able to reach the Mind.”

Centuries later Dogen, a great Japanese Zen master, saw things a bit differently and opened the door to a new way—he is considered the real founder of Soto Zen:

“Zazen consists solely in sitting in tranquility. It is not a means by which to seek something. Sitting itself is enlightenment. If, as ordinary people think, practice were different from enlightenment, the two would become conscious of one another (i.e., one would become conscious of enlightenment while engaged in zazen, and one would remain conscious of the process of self-discipline afterone has attained the state of enlightenment). Such an enlightenment contaminated by this kind of consciousness is not a genuine enlightenment.”

Dogen saw in the practice of sitting in meditation the very actualization of the Buddha-nature itself, that is, the intrinsically undifferentiated oneness of Being itself. For Dogen zazen is not an artificially devised technique for achieving enlightenment. In fact the highest principle of Zen established by Dogen is that enlightenment and practice are exactly one and the same thing. A person is enlightened by sitting in meditation whether he be aware of it or not. (From Toshihiko Izutsu)

Whichever way you go the goal is always the same: enlightenment, seeing into one’s Mind, one’s original Nature, the No-self, the True Man of No Rank, etc., etc. Lots of different terms for the same reality, which is a radically new kind of awareness. As Zen sees it (and Buddhism as a whole), the ego self is a constricted box with a seeming inside and outside. The phenomenal ego self, your ordinary rational consciousness, bifurcates the world into self and the other, into “me” and “you,” into subject and object. Our ordinary rational consciousness is always a “consciousness-of” something. Whatever we turn to and become aware of, that becomes an “object” to our “I.” This works quite well in building civilization and developing science, etc. However, this leaves us alienated from our own deep self, the real person that we are—perhaps this is the real meaning of what Christianity calls “The Fall.” The moment we turn our rational consciousness toward our self we turn it into an object, and that simply puts it “out there.” It recedes from our grasp continually as long as it an object to my rational consciousness. Your real self, your true personhood is not, can not be an object, so to your rational consciousness it will seem like it is not there, thus the term, No-self. As Toshihiko Izutsuexplains it, reasoning or thinking in whatever form it may appear, always involves the “I” becoming conscious of something….consciousness-of. The thinking ego and the object of thinking are separated from one another; they stand against one another. This consciousness-of is dualism. But what Zen is concerned with above everything else is the actualization of consciousness pure and simple, not consciousness-of. Though similar in verbal form, consciousness-pure-and-simple and consciousness-of are worlds apart. For the former is absolute metaphysical Awareness without the thinking subject and without the object thought of. It is not our awareness of the external world. Rather, it is the whole world of Being becoming aware of itself in us and through us. And it is to this metaphysical Awareness of Being that Bodhidharma refers with the word Mind or Self-nature and Rinzai with his peculiar expression—the True Man of No Rank.

Incidentally, in religion, especially in Christianity, we do the same with that Reality we call God. It inevitably becomes an object over against my “I.” As long as this Reality is the goal of this rational consciousness, it will always be trapped in an irreducible dualism. So Zen is a way into a “wholly other” awareness in religion also and given the right conditions it could liberate the Christian mind from its own constricted box.

When the walls of this ego-self, this constricted box, are knocked down, a new kind of awareness emerges. In Rinzai Zen (the Southern School in China) the walls of this box are kicked down(the rational mind is totally turned upside down by the koanmethod and by a peculiarly intense interaction with a master); in Soto Zen, as it developed from Dogen in Japan, the walls kind of dissolve as you sit in meditation, keeping the rational mind empty. When this happens our self-understanding is transformed radically, but it is an experience akin to “death,” so radical it is and such an upheaval in awareness. An awakening that requires a kind of death of the ego is familiar to those aware of Christianmysticism.

Let me quote from Toshihiko Izutsu concerning the nature of the problem:

“Suppose someone asks me ‘Who are you?’ or ‘What are you?’ To this question I can give an almost infinite number of answers. I can say, for example, ‘I am Japanese,’ I am a student,’ etc. Or I can say ‘I am so-and–so,’ giving my name. None of these answers, however, presents the whole of myself in its absolute ‘suchness.’ And no matter how many times I may repeat the formula ‘I am X,’ changing each time the semantic referent of the X, I shall never be able to present directly and immediately the ‘whole human being’ that I am. All that is presented by this formula is nothing but a partial and relative aspect of my existence, an objectified qualification of the ‘whole human being.’ Instead of presenting the pure subjectivity that I am as a ‘whole human being,’ the formula presents myself only as a relative object. But what Zen is exclusively concerned with is precisely the ‘whole human being.’ And herewith begins the real Zen problem concerning the ego consciousness. Zen may be said to take its start by putting a huge question mark to the word ‘I’ as it appears as the subject-term of all sentences of the type, ‘I am X’ or ‘I do X.’ Oneenters into the world of Zen only when one realizes that his own I has turned into an existential question mark. . . . In the authentic tradition of Zen Buddhism in China it was customary for a master to ask a newcomer to his monastery questions in order to probe the spiritual depth of the person. The standard question, the most commonly used for this purpose, was: ‘Who are you?’ This simple, innocent-looking question was in reality one which the Zen disciples were most afraid of. . . . the question is of such grave importance because it demands of us that we reveal immediately and on the spot the reality of the I underlying the common usage of the first person pronoun, that is, the ‘whole man’ in its absolute subjectivity.”

And of course a fake answer or an imitation of some enlightened master will not work. Muso, a Japanese master of the 14th century had this to say: “To me many men of inferior capacity come and ask various questions about the spirit of Buddhism. To these people I usually put the question: ‘Who is the one who is actually asking me such a question about the spirit of Buddhism?’ To this there are some who answer: ‘I am so-and-so,’ or ‘I am such-and-such.’ There are some who answer: ‘Why is it necessary at all to ask such a question? It is too obvious.’ There are some who answer not by words but by gestures meant to symbolize the famous dictum: ‘My own Mind, that is the Buddha.’ There are others who answer by repeating or imitating like a parrot the sayings of ancient masters…. All these people will never be able to attain enlightenment.”

Now consider another way of representing the dynamic of Zen. Imagine a circle. The circle has a center point. The circle also has a circumference, a boundary line. If the radius is large, the circle will be seen as large; if the radius is small, the circle shrinks to a small size. In either case there is a boundary and an “inside” and an “outside.” Ok, this is obviously an image of the self as we experience it in our phenomenal everyday existence. Some people have a very constricted sense of self—their own well-being is all that matters. Others have a very expansive sense of self—their sense of empathy may be enormous (“I feel your pain”—sorry, I couldn’t resist that fake political platitude). But Zen is NOT in that—no matter how expansive that circle gets. Zen is about the “erasure” of that circumference altogether. I choose the word “erasure” because that boundary line of selfhood is realized as totally insubstantial, a kind of unreality—but it does seem like a “solid wall” to us. Awakening, englightenment, satori, whatever you want to call it, is the realization that your personhood is this mysterious center of awareness with no boundary. It is pure awareness that includes all—there is no more duality.

Now just a few words about some misconceptions—especially perpetrated by Westerners who tend to be critics of Buddhism, usually from a Christian perspective.
1.Zen (and Buddhism) is thoroughly negative in its grasp of human life. FALSE.
2.Zen denies the value of the person, the individual, the self. ABSOLUTELY FALSE.
3.Zen calls for a suppression of feelings and emotions, a numbing of consciousness. HORRENDOUSLY FALSE.
4.Zen makes one passive and insensitive. FALSE beyond belief.
5.It is impossible for a Christian to go deep into Zen. Utterly FALSE, but I will go into this in another posting.
But one of the most important misconceptions about Zen (and Buddhism) is one that afflicts both the critics of Zen and some of its adherents: that this new state of awareness yields a wholly different “I” from my previous “I.” You will probably say, “Just wait a minute! You just said all this stuff about radical transformation and now you’re saying it’s going to be the same old me!” Let me explain. There’s that famous saying in Zen: Before enlightenment mountains are only mountains….duringenlightenment mountains are no longer mountains….after enlightenment mountains are mountains. So your everyday “I” is still there, not replaced by some magical, second “I,” not replaced by a new persona, etc. As the Zen people put it, when you are hungry you eat, then you wash your bowl, and when you are tired you sleep, and so on. This is Zen. The incredible thing is that this radical awareness is right there in the ground of our everyday life, not somewhere else, not produced by some magical/spiritual trick, etc. Enlightenment is always there right at our fingertips, right in front of our nose. It is the treasure buried in the field of our ordinary self. Thus Zen makes shortshrift of “visions,” “ecstasies,” paranormal phenomena, etc. Recall the ultimate Buddhist equation: samsara=nirvana. It is within our ordinary everyday experience that we discover this radical awareness.

Let us conclude with a few important Zen stories. These stories are mostly from the Southern School (Rinzai Zen) where the intensity of the master-disciple encounter is paramount, rather than meditation. They reveal the essence of Zen in an indescribable way!

Master Pai Chang brought out a water-bottle, put it on the floor, and asked a question: “If you are not to call it a water-bottle, what would you call it?” The head monk of the monastery answered by saying: “It cannot possibly be called a piece of wood!”
Thereupon the Master turned to Wei Shan (who took care of the food supply of the monks—a lowly position) and asked him to give his answer.
On the spot, Wei Shan tipped over the water-bottle with his foot. The Master laughed and remarked: “The head monk has been beaten by this monk.”
(Comment: When you affirm or negate, you are still in the world of dualism and objectification.)

A monk once went to Gensha and wanted to learn where the entrance to the path of truth was. Gensha asked him , “Do you hear the murmuring of the brook?” “Yes, I hear it,” answered the monk. “There is the entrance,” instructed the master.

When a monk asked Hui-Neng(perhaps the greatest of the great Zen Masters—in the remarkable Tang period in China) for instruction, he answered, “Show me your original face before you were born.”…. Hui-Neng said: “Think not of good, think not of evil, but see what at the moment your original features are, which you had before coming into existence.”
(Comment: Zen is the awareness of the Nothingness out of which your own self and all else emerges and dissolves into moment by moment. What is left is this beautiful luminous awareness….butthis is saying too much already!)

“I come here to seek the truth of Buddhism,” a young disciple asked a master. “Why do you seek such a thing here?” answered the master. “Why do you wander about neglecting your own precious treasure at home? I have nothing to give you, and what truth of Buddhism do you desire to find in my monastery? There is nothing, absolutely nothing.”

LiK’u, a high government official of the Tang period, asked Nan-chuan: “A long time ago a man kept a goose in a bottle. It grew larger and larger until it could not get out of the bottle any more; he did not want to break the bottle, nor did he wish to hurt the goose: how would you get it out?” The master called out, “O Officer!”—to which LiK’u at once responded, “Yes!” “There, it is out!”

Tokusan was a great scholar of the Diamond Sutra. Learning that there was such a thing as Zen, ignoring all the written scriptures and directly laying hands on one’s inner self, he went to Ryutan to be instructed in the teaching. One day Tokusan was sitting outside trying to look into the mystery of Zen. Ryutan said, “Why don’t you come in?” Replied Tokusan, “It is pitch dark.” A candle was lighted and held out to Tokusan. When he was at the point of taking it, Ryutan suddenly blew out the light, whereupon the mind of Tokusan was opened.

Pai-chang went out one day attending his master Ma-tsu, when they saw a flock of wild geese flying. Ma-tsu asked: “What are they?” “They are wild geese, sir.” “Where are they flying?” “They have flown away.” Ma-tsu abruptly taking hold of Pai-chang’s nose gave it a twist. Overcome with pain, Pai-chang cried out, “Oh! Oh!” Said Ma-tsu: “You say they have flown away, but all the same they have been here from the very start.”

When Chu-hung of the Ming dynasty was writing a book on the ten laudable deeds of a monk, one of those self-assertive fellows came to him, saying: “What is the use of writing such a book when in Zen there is not even the atom of a thing to be called laudable or not-laudable?” Chu-hung answered, “The five aggregates are entangling, and the four elements grow rampant, and how can you say there are no evils?” The monk still insisted, “The four elements are ultimately all empty and the five aggregates have no reality whatever.” Chu-hung, giving him a slap in the face, said, “So many are mere learned ones, you are not the real thing yet; give me another answer.” But the monk made no answer and started to go away filled with angry feelings. “There,” said the master smilingly, “why don’t you wipe the dirt off your own face?”
(Comment: This angry monk reminds me of many modern practitioners of Zen who are quick to talk “Zen talk,” but are not quite able to “walk the walk”!)

This very important anecdote is related by Toshihiko Izutsu:
“The hero of the story is Chu Chih, a famous Zen master of the ninth century. This master, whenever and whatever he was asked about Zen, used to stick up one finger. Raising one finger without saying anything was his invariable answer to any question whatsoever he was asked concerning Zen. ‘What is the supreme and absolute Truth?’—answer: the silent raising of one finger. ‘What is the essence of Buddhism?’—answer: again the selfsame silent raising of one finger. Now Master Chu Chih had a young disciple, a boy apprentice, who followed the Master, serving him at home and out of doors. Having observed his Master’s pattern of behavior this boy himself began to raise one finger whenever people asked him questions about Zen in the absence of the Master. At first, the Master did not notice it, and everything went well for some time. But the fatal moment came at at last. The Master came to hear about what the boy had been doing behind his back. One day, the Master hid a knife in the sleeve, summoned the boy to his presence, and said, ‘I hear that you have understood the essence of Buddhism. Is it true?’ The boy replied ‘Yes, it is.’ Thereupon the Master asked, ‘What is the Buddha?’ The boy in answer stuck up one finger. Master Chu Chih suddenly took hold of the boy and cut off with the knife the finger which the boy had just raised. As the boy was running out of the room screaming with pain, the Master called to him. The boy turned round. At that very moment, quick as lightning came the Master’s question: ‘What is the Buddha?’ Almost by conditioned reflex, the boy held up his hand to raise his finger. There was no finger there. The boy on the spot attained enlightenment.”
(Comment: Suffice it to say there is too much packed into this story for a short comment!)

And in conclusion:

A monk once asked Master Chao Chou: “Who is Chao Chou?” Chao Chou replied: “East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, North Gate!”
Toshihiko Izutsu: “Chao Chou is completely open. All the gates of the City are open, and nothing is concealed. Chao Chou stands right in the middle of the City, i.e., the middle of the Universe. One can come to see him from any and every direction. The Gates that have been artificially established to separate the ‘interior’ from the ‘exterior’ are now wide-open. There is no ‘interior.’ There is no ‘exterior.’ There is just Chao Chou, and he is all-transparent.”
(Comment: Sounds like one of the great Desert Fathrers, and a marvelous description of a person who has God-realization.)

It is a bit strange that as I approach 100 blog postings my mind turns to Milarepa and the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. I say “strange” because this is the one tradition I have generally shyedaway from, know least about, and it least attracts me. But I do greatly admire and respect what I do know of this tradition, and it is very clear that there is much to be learned from it. In any case, suddenly I found myself inspired to reflect on Tibetan Buddhism as I am nearing that “magical” 100. At one point in my life, when I was spiritually lost, the story of Milarepa helped me get back on the Way. So the next two postings will be in this area of the religious journey.

Now the figure of Milarepa (11th Century) is the most widely known and most beloved figure among Tibetan Buddhists, and he has come to represent an iconic ideal for almost all spiritual seekers. His popularity in the West was enhanced by a classic English translation(also one in French) of a classic biography in Tibetan from the 16th Century. For those who are interested in this tradition the details of his life are rather well-known and need no repeating here. For those not so familiar with his story, they can easily get an account even on the internet. The story itself is fascinating, but its meaning and significance are not so easy to grasp. There is a fascinating account of the biographical tradition concerning Milarepa by Fr. Francis Tiso, Liberation in One Lifetime. It is not an easy read because it is a technical and scholarly treatment of the various biographies of Milarepa. But it show some of the nuances needed to read such a “holy man’s biography.”

There are various barriers to understanding and appreciatingTibetan Buddhism (and Buddhism itself). First of all there is the seemingly strange and esoteric language of Tibetan Buddhism. Secondly, even in this age there are rampant caricatures on both sides—Christian and Buddhist—of each other. This makes it hard for understanding to develop. Christians have a long history of misrepresenting what Buddhism teaches and conventional Christian piety simply has not a clue about what to make of any of it. Buddhists, on the other hand, still have a tendency to take that conventional piety or even something more simple and banal and call it the essence of what Christianity teaches. In other words, there is a certain tendency to set up a “Christian straw-man” and then demolish it by showing how shallow it is. Very few Buddhists are aware of what Christian mysticism really says. Finally, a more subtle problem is the sometime idealization on both sides. Buddhism, the Christian Church(especially Catholicism), Tibetan Buddhism, even Tibet, all these have their “idealizers.” And this also hinders true understanding. Both sides have things they should be ashamed of, and it would be best to admit that at the start.

Everything said above applies also to our understanding and appreciation of Milarepa. The fact that he exemplifies the most profound and intense commitment to a spiritual path does not mean that we abandon a sober eye. From the Foreward to Fr. Tiso’sbook by Roberto Vitali: “…Mid la(Milarepa) represents the greatness of self-imposed marginality taking preeminence over the pomp of self-celebrated authoritarianism. Despite the major role played by monastic life, marginality and seclusion never died out in Tibet: they have remained a vibrant undercurrent which is still resilient despite the many modern changes. It may seem strange to mention marginality when Milarepa is the most celebrated Tibetan of all times. Because one needs to brush aside the stereotypes built over his life that led to his transformation into a symbol and reintegrate a fuller perspective, Tiso’s work shows Mid la under a different light from the idyllic picture painted by his biographergTsang smyon Heruka.”

This kind of statement points in several different directions, but what is important is that it indicates certain kind of tensions within the Tibetan tradition that are not unfamiliar to western spiritual seekers. One of these is between the fully, formally monastic seekers and the non-monastic seekers. Milarepa was never a monk in the formal sense, yet he is the epitome of spiritual seeking. His teacher Marpa was a married layman. It is almost a cliché among westerners that Tibet is a “monastic culture”—largely true and yet there is this other vein that does not fit smoothly into the picture about these intense “non-monastic” hermit types like Milarepa or family men like Marpa. The official hagiography tries to smooth it all out but it still cannot but help show the inner tensions between the “monastics” and “non-monastics”. Interestingly enough this raises the whole question of the value of such questions as: “who is a monk?” This bedeviled our Desert Fathers, and today’s official Catholic ecclesial tradition draws sharp boundaries around thesekind of identities—thereby undermining the spiritual energy needed for Ultimate Realization, if you will, in favor rather of being a member of this or that group.

Now for another quote, this time from Fr. Tiso:
“It is at the very heart of this time of distraction and transition that we encounter the life and work of the great ‘Mad Yogin of g Tsang,” g Tsang smyon Heruka. He was one of a number of tantric practitioners at the turn of the sixteenth century who had acquired the reputation of being smyon pa, ‘mad’ saints. Their madness consisted in unconventional behavior that set them apart from the monks and even from the married tantrics…in their hill town gompas and townhouse bahals. These yogins practiced with great freedom in the lonely and terrifying places beyond the margins of society. Their hermitages were caves, cemeteries, forests, remote parts of the mountains, all places reputed to be infested with dangerous categories of beings…. they were as strange in appearance as they were provocative in word and deed. In reality, they were anything but mad, since they attained and were recognized for a high degree of holiness . They also produced a considerable body of liturgical and hagiographical literature. The Mad Yogin was perhaps the prince of smyon pa authors. His immortal Life of Milarepa is a masterpiece not only of Tibetan, but also of world literature.”

Tibet in the late fifteenth century was characterized by a large number of problems, both political and religious. Attempts at reform were in the air but the resistance of the old monasteries was strong. There were several reform movements but the “mad yogis” were the spearhead of one reform movement and the life ofMilarepa was an important instrument in their efforts. Here is Fr.Tiso again:

“The reform movements in the religious sphere were inseparable from violent feudal warfare that characterized the period. The social disarray inspired a search for new models of religious reform. The impressive group of ‘mad yogins’ represented to many Tibetans what was most essential and authentic in Tibetan Buddhism: a return to the values, practices, and hallowed life-styles associated with the early Indian mahasiddhas and their first Tibetan disciples…. Only a movement imbued with the religious credibility of real holiness could hope to re-conquer the heart of Tibet. The Mad Yogins’ ‘allergy’ to celibate monasticism seemed poised for a counter attack on the dGelugs reform program.”

The chief symbol of this movement was Milarepa who had never been a monk, who founded no monastery, was more like a poet and a saint who quickly became a legend.

As mentioned before, the basic trajectory of Milarepa’s life should not be unfamiliar to anyone from almost any tradition. Milarepa as a young man starts out badly, very badly. Lobsang P. Lhalungpa, the great translator of Milarepa’s Life, tells us this: “The moral consequences of his crimes dawn on Milarepa with heart-splitting agony and a consuming fear of the karmic consequences he must face…. For Milarepa it represents his first awakening to the sense of a deeper order in life a call from another level. This call to what in the text is termed ‘religion’ appears together with a shock of recognition. All along one has been obeying the wrong voice, and this is seen and felt. The second phase of Milarepa’s life begins.”

And here we come to a very important point in spiritual seeking: Milarepa’s desire for “personal salvation” from the consequences of his evil deeds does not come up to the highest levels of Buddhist realization and his teacher Marpa saw that Milarepa was fully capable of that, perhaps “in one lifetime, in one body.” Again, from Lhalungpa: “Milarepa’s drastic renunciation is in sharp contrast with the inward renunciation Lama Marpa had chosen. To both Marpa and Mila as to all Buddhists the sensory pleasures and cares of samsara are no doubt devoid of true benefit. In the case of those who are powerfully self-centered, renunciation of a normal external life may be like a shock treatment, a drastic means toward breaking loose from the grip of self-clinging and thereby leading on to higher awareness, new insights and ultimately into the reality behind appearances. Life and the seeking of the Dharma, whether through renunciation…or through any other means, are incompatible, so long as a personal liberation is desired. Even asceticism, as such, is utterly hollow and liable to be taken for a means to a personal goal. Milarepa’s renunciation aimed at gaining personal liberation and did not come up to the true spirit of Dharma until his inbred motive had been completely changed into the highest aspirations for emancipation on a universal scale according to the way of Boddhisattva… Marpa guided Mila’s journey of destiny along the course marked out by his karma…. Marpa was absolutely clear in his mind that this big-hearted little man whose mind was completely shamed and shattered could not gain the desired transformation by any normal training. Thus, as the condition for receiving the Dharma, Mila was required to fulfill a series of bitterly demanding and dispiriting tasks…. Milarepa struggles under the ordeals out of a need for himself. The son, whose mother declared ‘he has no willpower,’ proves himself to be a disciple of extraordinary patience and tenacity. It is only when he is brought to the brink of suicide that the ordeals are hastily ended… When the ordeals are over, his ‘great sins have been erased’ and his personal need has been mysteriously transformed and is felt now ‘for all sentient beings.’”

So Milarepa’s life becomes first of all a paradigm and an icon of spiritual seeking, but then it also becomes very useful for the propagation of various reform moments within Tibetan Buddhism.

Again, Fr. Tiso:

“The Mad Yogin made use of a great variety of written and oral sources to create a biography that reads like a novel. The impact of this work on the cultural life of Tibet has been comparable to an epic drama. It sets up the life of the homeless yogin as the highest ideal for those who seek to attain Buddhahood ‘in one body, in one lifetime.’ It elevates the mad yogin to the rank of a universal archetype or exemplar for the serious practitioner, and demotes the figure of the scholar monk from its position of primacy.”

Whatever one wants to say of the spiritual culture of Tibet before the Chinese brutalized Tibet, whatever one makes of the various “reform movements” within that tradition, it is important not to varnish the facts of that tradition or of any tradition. Tibet is a “mixed reality”; Tibetan Buddhism, especially as it came West and into the U.S. is definitely a “mixed reality.” But the figure ofMilarepa is an icon for all of us in whatever tradition we happen to be as long as we are true spiritual seekers. It stands as a beacon whether we are monks or lay people or whatever, beckoning us like the mantra from the Heart Sutra:

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, svaha!

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awake, wow!

 In a sense interreligious dialogue is nothing new.  People from various traditions have been talking to each other for many centuries and borrowing ideas and practices from each other to enrich and expand each tradition.  It has been said that St. John of the Cross borrowed some ideas from the Sufis, and the Sufis imported some practices and methods from the early Christian monks.  Hindus and Buddhists seem to have reached the ancient Hellenistic world and had exchanges with the Neoplatonist thinkers and mystics in the West. Also, Buddhism borrowed stuff from the native shamanic religion of  Tibet, and so on, and so on.  However, in the 20^th Century, interreligious dialogue takes on a new intensity and scope, and there is a felt need to engage “the other” as never before.  We might attribute that to the simple recognition that we all better get along if we are to have a truly liveable planet.  This might be called an “ethical dialogue”–we discover we need to talk to one another and to cooperate on many levels if we are to ward off the dehumanization of our lives by war, violence,  famine, technological and economic manipulation, and finally global warming.  It is the recognition that truly “No man is an island.” 

 

But much more than that has also been unfolding in interreligious dialogue.  Perhaps for the first time there is a felt need on the part of many people in various traditions to encounter and engage “the other” precisely as “other.”  No longer, it is felt, that we can stay within the “fortress” of our own tradition, aloof from “the other.”  Nor is “the other” to be seen as a threat or an entity to be swallowed up or conquered.  No, that very “otherness” is to be respected and maintained and held in a kind of positive tension.  “Difference” is now seen as a gift which needs unpacking and unfolding until we discover its real Truth.  To borrow a term from Eastern Christian iconography, the “difference” between me and you is now to be seen as “the space of the heart.”  It is in this space, which is “our difference” that we sense the discovery of our One Heart.

 

 

Those of us who are members of the Christian West need a deep moment of profound repentance before we can truly engage in this kind of dialogue.  We have not dealt well with “otherness” or “difference.”  When Christian Europeans discovered the New World and encountered “the otherness” of the native peoples, they debated whether these people were to be considered as human beings.  Then they enslaved them or exploited them if not totally exterminating them.  Ultimately this shows a profound fear of “otherness” and a deep-seated arrogance at the heart of Western Civilization that most Westerners even today do not recognize.  It comes covered over with a thick veneer of benevolence dished out from a seeming position of a superiority engendered by all our marvelous gadgetry. It will take profound humility to even recognize this arrogance.  Now whatever problems other traditions carry that might impede this dialogue, their adherents must assess that themselves.

 

 

Interreligious dialogue has taken place on several levels.  On one level people from different traditions have come together to share and exchange views on matters of life experience, on matters of practices and methods, on solutions to practical problems, etc.  This is very good and it fosters friendships and collaborations that are very helpful.  But there is a level that is also very difficult: that of teachings, doctrine, claims made, historical statements, etc.  Here we run up against some interesting problems.  Again we will address the issues only from the Christian side.  Those from other traditions have to address these issues in their own way.

 

 

First of all we will just skip the problem of fundamentalism–it fears dialogue; it wants no part of dialogue.  Now institutional official Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism have fostered dialogue, but it seems so often that a “conversion dynamic” is at work deep down in these well-intentioned encounters.  What happens is that the “otherness” of “the other” is seen as only a kind of preparation for “our message,” and in a friendly way “the other”, given enough time and effort, can be transformed into a mirror image of ourselves. The actual theological position is of course more complicated and more multifaceted, but the gist of it is still a kind of reduction of the “otherness” to a surface reality. Strangely enough a similar problem lies at the other end of the dialogue spectrum.  Here also “the otherness” of “the other” is a surface reality, but in this case we can easily skip “that otherness” because it is merely in words or language, and then we move to a premature proclamation of oneness.  No transformation is needed because we are already one no matter how different and contradictory the teachings may seem.  Here also many are well-intentioned, but in attributing “difference” to mere word play or in the mere inadequacy of any tradition to “grasp the whole,” they miss the point:  “difference” is neither a superficial reality, nor a negative reality, but a gift with which and within which  we should abide together in love and freedom.

 

There probably is a need to mention some lived examples of the above.  Very well known is Thomas Merton.  Much, much less well known is Rabbi Ariel Bension.  He was a Sephardic Jew born in Jerusalem, and he was one of the first Sephardi to study in a modern European university.  He wrote a book that is also not well-known: The Zohar in Mulim and Christian Spain.  Rabbi Bension had intimate knowledge of both Kabbalah and Sufism.  During the last phase of his life he was a rabbi in Manastir, a Sephardic and Sufi center in the Balkans, where Jews frequented the Sufi assemblies of their Albanian and Turkish Muslim neighbors–that is before the Nazis and the Serbs massacred both.  Rabbi Bension died in 1932.

 

 

Somewhere Jesus in the Gospels says: “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  This is a radical statement as it stands in its naked simplicity–not very comforting to the spirit of our times, nor of any times actually.  But let us broaden this saying even a bit more in the context of what we are discussing.  Each of our traditions is loaded with riches–we are rich in rituals, practices, teachings and doctrines.  Paradoxically enough these may become a real obstacle to our entering “the kingdom of God.”  Here let us listen again to the Sufi Bayazid Bastami: “The thickest veils between man and God are the wise man’s wisdom, the worshipper’s worship and the devotion of the devout.”  In a sense we have to pass “through the eye of the needle”–this is what it means to encounter “the other” (and of course from the theist perspective the Ultimate Other is God!).  As Jesus says, for man this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.  And that means giving ourselves to the process and letting it carry us to a place we never foresaw.  Now that does NOT mean jettisoning doctrines, teachings, etc. when they become inconvenient for what we think is unity.  But it does mean that we begin to feel that we need each other; that we need “the other” precisely as other; that what “the other” brings to the table begins to open up new dimensions of understanding of our own tradition.  This is only the first step.  We take it.  Then we see where the next step will be. We learn to live with “the otherness” of “the other”; we dwell with the “mystery of the difference” even as we open our hearts to “the other.”  Perhaps we will have some hard questions for “the other”; perhaps he/she will have some hard questions for us.  This is where we must not be impatient We may even discover that our own tradition is actually a mystery that needs to be rediscovered by us!  We may find a very big question lying at the very center of our heart, a question about our own identity(cf. Abhishiktananda).   Let us listen to the great German poet Rilke who was writing to a young beginning poet, but whose words are very applicable to our situation:

 

 “I would like to beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lao Tzu:

Thus it is said:

The path into the light seems dark,

the path forward seems to go back,

the direct path seems long,

true power seems weak,

true purity seems tarnished,

true steadfastness seems changeable,

true clarity seems obscure,

the greatest art seems unsophisticated,

the greatest love seems indifferent,

the greatest wisdom seems childish.

The Tao is nowhere to be found.

Yet it nourishes and completes all things.”

 

 

 

 

T. S. Eliot in the Four Quartets:

(summing up the whole program of St. John of the Cross)

“In order to arrive at what you do not know,

You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

In order to possess what you do not possess,

You must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not,

You must go through the way in which you are not.

And what you do not know is the only thing you know.

And what you own is what you do not own.

And where you are is where you are not.”

 

 

Abu Said, “Sufism is glory in wretchedness and riches in poverty and lordship in servitude and satiety in hunger and clothedness in nakedness and freedom in slavery and life in death and sweetness in bitterness…”

 

 

No matter what tradition you are following, if you are on the monk’s way, you will be familiar with the language above–it is the language of paradox and contradiction, and it is the only way that one can really speak of the deeper realities.  Now there are at least two critical mistakes to avoid when encountering such statements.  One mistake might be called “fundamentalist”; that is, one takes such statements in a kind of simplistic, literalist sense; one uses them as formulas or recipes in a spiritual cookbook.  The other mistake might be called a “liberal fallacy”–one takes such language as mere wordplay, or logical nonsense, or as a kind of manipulation of language which amounts to saying nothing.  But what is striking is that no matter what tradition you are following some form of this paradoxical language will be there.  No matter how that tradition uses that paradoxical language, it inevitably points to the “ungraspable” nature of the ultimate reality that the tradition is trying to open up for you–that is, it is ungraspable by the rational mind and the ego self.  Because the Ultimate Reality is not another thing in a world of things, the ego self experiences it as nothingness–there is “no thing” there to grasp, to possess, to manipulate, etc.  Yet this Ultimate Reality fills all, sustains all, is manifest by all, and finally it pertains to your deepest identity.

 

 

In Christianity we find many of its mystics and spiritual writers resorting to such paradoxical language as sampled above in the T.S. Eliot quote.  St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing are just a few of the more illustrious examples.  But what is important is that we find paradox right at the heart and origins of Christianity–in the Gospels and the New Testament.  There we learn that to be “first” one must seek out the last place; that to be “first” one must be the servant of all; that to save your life means you will lose it, and to lose one’s life means to save it; that to be the “greatest” one should be the “least”; that wealth is real impoverishment; that real blessedness can look and feel “real bad”; etc. The average Christian seems numb to the provocative nature of this language–in a sense it has been “dumb downed” to a general “feel good” message. Such language now takes its place among the other cliches and platitudes of pop culture–like Be Yourself…etc….

 

Now perhaps the most powerful of all paradoxes in all the world religions is not in the realm of language but in the realm of symbol: the cross, or in the Catholic tradition, the crucifix.  Here we may note in passing that there are different theological interpretations given to the cross vs. the crucifix.  Suffice it to say that the crucifix is more dramatic and concrete–the image of a man nailed to slabs of wood, dying a horrible death.  The cross can seem a bit more abstract and open to more abstract “readings.”  Before we go any further, it needs to be acknowledged that this symbol has been coopted for absolutely terrible uses.  Afterall the Crusaders carried the cross while committing slaughter of Moslems, Jews and even other Christians.  The Grand Inquisitor carried out his duty of leading people to torture and execution under this sign.  The Conquistadors did their dirty deeds while accompanied by priests carrying this sign.  Right in our own time in Serbia, right in the shadow of churches bearing this sign, Christians(so-called) massacred their Moslem neighbors.  Nevertheless these horrific distortions and betrayals, the cross, or the crucifix, carries the unconcealment of a Mystery that only the language of paradox can approach.

 

When one enters a Catholic church anywhere in the world, what strikes one is the centrality of the crucifix.  It is unmistakeable and unambiguous that whatever this reality speaks of is at the center of that community of worship.  And whatever be the different theological interpretations given to this symbol, it does point to the importance of this one man’s concrete, historical death by execution.  And Christian theology, whatever its various interpretations of this symbol, would always agree that the historical moment this symbol encapsulates is a most profound manifestation of the nature of the Ultimate Reality, which we call God.

 

 

Right from the beginning in the New Testament there are different theological readings of the significance of this man’s horrible death by execution.  But perhaps the most fundamental one and most important one brings us to the heart of the paradox that this moment signifies: God is totally present in the “most ungodly” place and situation.  Everything else flows from this fact–including the Christian Mystery of the Resurrection.  God is within this “nightmare and hell”–not outside as some external agent.  In the place and situation that seems most abandoned by God, in the darkness in which there seems not a trace of divine light or any kind of light, in the moment in which there is not a speck of happiness or hope, right there is the fullness of God present.

 

 

Louis Dupres has reflected most deeply and eloquently on this fact.  He has reminded us of that old American slave hymn, “Were you there when they crucified my lord?”  The slave sang this with his/her lips and knew in his/her heart that truly they WERE there because they ARE there–HE is truly being crucified in them, in their misery and wretchedness.  He is THERE where they are.  But Dupres does not stop with this observation–he brings it home to all of us.  Let us listen to him:

 

“Christian piety has always sought an intimate presence to Jesus’ Passion rather than a mere commemoration of the past….  To be with Him in the present of His agony and rejection when no triumph was in sight, that is to be where he really was.  But to be present to His hour means more than to be present there in feeling.  It means entering into the dark reality of my own suffering, lonelines and failure.  Only in the brokenness and pain of life am I with Him where he continues to live His agony….  Does it ever go beyond the pain of thin-skinned selfishness, the disappointment of vulgar ambitions, the frustration of unpurified desires, and the loneliness of self-inflicted isolation?  How dare I call what possesses so little dignity “suffering”?  Whenever I lift my eyes to the crucified Savior it is mostly to move away from my private misery, certainly not to move into it.

“Nevertheless, Christian piety teaches that very suffering of mine, however despicable and even sinful in its origins, is Jesus’s agony in me.  Comparing my pain with Jesus’s Passion may seem blasphemous.  But all suffering began with a curse.  His as well as mine.  Whether pain has its roots in private weakness and failure, or whether it is inflicted by an entire universe of weakness and failure, the effect remains the same.  To him who suffers, suffering means always failure.  Jesus’s words on the cross–My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?–do not express the attitude of one who is performing a clearly understood, effective sacrifice….

“Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?”  Was I there in my suffering?  For that is where He is being crucified–in me, not in Jerusalem….  In this world there can be no grace but through redemptive suffering.  To encounter God’s agonizing grace I must walk into the bleak desert of my private pain and humiliation.  Perhaps I shall be able to accomplish no more than silently to accept my inability to accept.  But not more is expected: to confront my bitterness, rebellion, greed, jealousy, rage, impatience is to encounter Jesus’ agony in my own.  I must find Jesus’ agony also in those private worlds of suffering around me, which I am so reluctant to explore and so unable to comprehend.  Here also I am invited to accept, without understanding, Jesus’ agony in the uncouth, the uncivilized, the unlovable.  On Good Friday failure itself has become redemptive.  That Jesus fails in me is the joyous mystery of the union between God and me.”

 

Amen.

 

Here paradox has seemingly reached its limits within the Christian tradition.  But Meister Eckhart will take us further–another time.