Well I am off to visit Milarepa’s caves. Got my backpack and won’t be back until I am enlightened…..naw, not really….just dreaming…. I always thought it would be so cool to visit those caves that Milarepa stayed in high in the Himalayas. Let’s step back a bit. Milarepa is one of the most remarkable figures among all the world religions. I am not going to go over the details of his incredible life here–that’s readily available. I was looking at photos of the caves and the area in which Milarepa practiced his intensive meditation and solitude. What an amazing place! The thing is that he apparently spent time in a bunch of different caves, but as far as I know these two are the only ones publicized/known–but I bet the local people there know exactly where he spent time but it’s not meant for outsiders to know. Anyway, what I am wanting to get to is nothing of this spiritual tourism thing but the meaning of this “cave” thing. So let us ponder this a bit.

For Abhishiktananda the word “cave” also had a deep significance. The cave has such a profound archetypal resonance as it implies much more than just a physical surrounding. It points to a deep interiority and also at the same time a kind of circle of limitation around one that is in fact one’s life.   The physical symbolism of the “cave” points to this enclosure which is in fact the enclosure of all that limits you–your life circumstance: physical limitations, psychological limitations, all the facticity of one’s predicament as given. So this symbolism of the “cave” then presents this inner/outer “map,” if you will, of precisely the demarcation of where one is to do one’s spiritual work. This is THE “place” where your spiritual work will unfold–or it will not happen if you simply dream of escape in some fashion or another (You know, those self-indulgent daydreams like “if only such and such were not the case,” or “if only I weren’t here but rather there,” or “if only I had this resource rather than this lack of resources,” and so on, and so on.) Yes, there is that person for whom the physical cave is precisely where they are to be(like Milarepa); but there is also the “cave” in which most of us discover ourselves to be but perhaps resist all along–even for “religious” reasons. That “cave” is in fact the inner meaning of the circumstances of our actual life–or as some would put it, it is “the cards we have been dealt.”

Let us consider the Christian equivalent language for all this: the cell. In the early monastic literature of the Desert Fathers, this term was one of the absolute keys in understanding what they were all about. Merton wrote a truly beautiful essay about this entitled, “The Cell”; and we will be following the path he laid out. He begins by relating one of the great Desert Father stories–I will add just a small editorial touch to it:

“A brother asked one of the Elders saying: What shall I do, Father, for I work none of the works of a monk but here I am in torpor eating and drinking and sleeping and in bad thoughts and in plenty of trouble, going from one struggle to another and from thoughts to thoughts. Then the old man said: Just you stay in your cell and cope with all this as best you can without being disturbed by it. I would like to think that the little you are able to do is nevertheless not unlike the great things that Abba Anthony [Milarepa] did on the mountain, and I believe that if you sit in your cell for the Name of God and if you continue to seek the knowledge of Him, you too will find yourself in the place of Abba Anthony.” [Milarepa]

So first of all this story is about life as lived in actual physical solitude and meant for the kind of person who is drawn into that “cave.” It is not going to be a “joyride” to say the least, certainly not until a certain awakening takes place. But the solitary one is also only an iconic figure pointing a way that both a person living in community or with a spouse has to journey on also. The solitary one is an explorer of sorts who shows us what the “cave” is all about, how the very limits of our life is a kind of “cell” in which we dwell and in which we may at times feel a revolt of nausea and wanting to flee from. So the next thing we learn from this story is that the spiritual path, the “gate of heaven,” is right there in front of our nose as it were, right in the circumstances of our life.

Merton’s comment on this story–as it pertains to the actual monastic solitary life:

“To ‘sit in the cell’ and to ‘learn from the cell’ evidently means first of all learning that one is not a monk. That is why the elder in this story did not take the admissions of the disciple too seriously. They showed him, in fact, that the disciple was beginning to learn, and that he was actually opening up to the fruitful lessons of solitude. But in the disciple’s own mind, this experience was so defeating and confusing that he could only interpret it in one way: as a sign that he was not called to this kind of life. In fact, in ANY VOCATION [my emphasis] at all, we must distinguish the grace of the call itself and the preliminary image of ourselves which we spontaneously and almost unconsciously assume to represent the truth of our calling. Sooner or later this image must be destroyed and give place to the concrete reality of the vocation as lived in the actual mysterious plan of God, which necessarily contains many elements we could never have foreseen . Thus ‘sitting in the cell’ means learning the fatuity and hollowness of this illusory image, which was nevertheless necessary from a human point of view and played a certain part in getting us into the desert.”

Another story from the Desert Fathers: “A disciple complained to his Abba: ‘My thoughts torment me saying you cannot fast or work, at least go and visit the sick for this also is love.’ The Elder replied, ‘Go on, eat, drink, sleep, only do not leave your cell. For the patient bearing of the cell sets the monk in his right place in the order of things.”

A truly remarkable story as Merton points out: “Afflicted with boredom and hardly knowing what to do with himself, the disciple represents to himself a more fruitful and familiar way of life, in which he appears to himself to ‘be someone’ and to have a fully recognizable and acceptable identity, a ‘place in the Church,’ but the Elder tells him that his place in the Church will never be found by following these ideas and images of a plausible identity. Rather it is found by traveling a way that is new and disconcerting because it has never been imagined by us before, or at least we have never conceived it as useful or even credible for a true Christian–a way in which we seem to lose our identity and become nothing. Patiently putting up with the incomprehensible unfulfillment of the lonely, confined, silent, obscure life of the cell, we gradually find our place, the spot where we belong as monks: that is of course solitude, the cell itself. This implies a kind of mysterious awakening to the fact that where we actually are is where we belong, namely in solitude, in the cell. Suddenly we see, ‘this is it.’”

And so it is also for every person. The cell, the cave, is the interior dynamic of the spiritual journey and also at the same time the locus of the essential spiritual work which we try to escape with all kinds of strategems and mental gyrations. The work at hand is always right there no matter what the condition of our life; every place is as good a starting point for the spiritual journey as any other. Even if our whole life is nothing but dung, dung serves us by enabling the ground to yield beautiful flowers and healthy vegetables. Recall the thief nailed to the Cross next to Jesus–only then in a sense does his spiritual life begin. And of course the profound and paradoxical thing is that we are to journey into this deep “loss” of identity (or better, a kind of image we have of ourselves), into a kind of extraordinary nothingness which we fear above all else. For the solitary one this is very clear; but even for everyone else this holds even as they may still have a plethora of credentials and identities that are simply part of social existence. They walk through all this without holding on to any one of them, and therefore they walk in peace, serenely. The example of Milarepa and the great Desert Fathers is there to help us keep focused on the work at hand.

But there is one more great point about this cave/cell thing–at least from a Christian point of view. Recall from the first story that the Elder says the disciple should “sit in the cell for the Name of God.” But this is like no other name because the Absolute Reality cannot be localized or delimited or defined. Let us listen to Merton on this point:

“The Name of God is the presence of God. The Name of God in the cell is God Himself as present to the monk and understood by the monk and understood by the monk as the whole meaning and goal of his vocation…. The Name of God is present in the cell as in the burning bush, in which Yahweh reveals Himself as He who is. Hence the solitude of the hermit is engulfed, so to speak, in the awareness of Qui Est [He Who Is]. This in fact becomes the true reality of the cell and of solitude, so that the monk who begins by invoking the Name of God to induce Him as it were to ‘come down’ to the cell in answer to prayer, gradually comes to realize that the ‘Name ‘ of God is in fact the heart of the cell, the soul of the solitary life, and that one has been called into solitude not just in order that the name may be invoked in a certain place, but rather one has been called to meet the Name which is present and waiting in one’s own place. It is as though the Name were waiting in the desert for me, and had been preparing this meeting from eternity and in this particular place, this solitude chosen for me. I am called not just to meditate on the Name of God but to encounter Him in that Name. Thus the Name becomes, as it were, a cell within a cell, an inner spiritual cell. When I am in the cell…I should recognize that I am ‘where the Name of God dwells’ and that living in the presence of this great Name I gradually become the one He wills me to be. Thus the life of the cell makes me at once a cell of the Name (which takes deeper and deeper root in my heart) and a dweller in the Name, as if the Name of God –God Himself–were my cell.”

But God is infinite reality, no boundaries. So in fact, whatever your “cell” or “cave” be, you are “sitting” in infinity and there are no bounds or boundaries there. A lot of neurotic states of minds, a lot of anxiety and fear, stems from this feeling that there are these “walls” around you, that you are being limited in some profound way; and of course death is the “biggest” such threat! The Tibetans are real good at analyzing and deconstructing this epiphenomenal experience and leading one into a breakthrough into infinite space whatever be the physical conditions of one’s life. So even if a wheelchair is your cell/cave (or a jail cell), you can dwell there within the Name in Infinite Space and you are much closer to Milarepa’s cave than you realize!

It is the Christian season of Lent when Christians are supposed to renew their spiritual life, monks included. This is not the weird stuff that pop religiosity focuses on; rather it involves an intensification and refocusing of one’s spiritual path. I can think of many “helping hands” for this work, but this Lent my favorite is this Chinese Zen monk from many centuries ago who went by the name of Stonehouse.

So Stonehouse is the name of a Chinese poet and Zen monk who lived in 13^th Century China. Unlike my favorite Chinese Zen-poet monk, Han-shan, Stonehouse is very little known even among the Chinese. Over the centuries his poems appear in a few anthologies, and he is mentioned by more than one literary figure as “someone special.” But it is somewhat of a miracle that so many of his poems have come down to us considering so little is known about him. He was born in 1272 and received the traditional Confucian education; he was headed to be an official of state. But when he was 20 he quit his studies and became a novice Zen monk. After 3 years he was ordained a monk and sought further instruction. In 1312, at the age of 40, he left established monastic life and became a hermit living in a mountainous wilderness.

Interestingly enough, unlike other Buddhist monks and Indian sadhus, Chinese Zen monks refused to beg for food but worked for their upkeep. Life was hard in the mountains, but Stonehouse lived there almost 20 years as a hermit when his reputation caught up with him and he was talked into becoming an abbot of a monastery temple. He did that for 7 years and then returned to his wilderness abode and the hermit life. He died at the age of 81.

Red Pine, who had done such a splendid job of translating Han-shan (and others), is the one who makes Stonehouse somewhat accessible to us. Not easy to do, but many thanks to him! Stonehouse does not appear at first glance as vibrant, as acute in his observations, and as “poetic” as Han-shan (I don’t know if that would be true in the original Chinese.) In fact at times he seems almost dull. But when you give him time his poetry begins to reveal an especially acute spiritual sensibility and a depth of heart that is hidden in the “ordinariness” of life. Let us listen to him a bit. (All translations are by Red Pine.)

“Don’t think a mountain home means you’re free                                                                                      

a day doesn’t pass without its cares

old ladies steal my bamboo shoots

boys lead oxen into the wheat

grubs and beetles destroy my greens

boars and squirrels devour the rice

things don’t always go my way

what can I do but turn to myself”

Comment: Stonehouse is nothing but down to earth–again and again he is that in his poetry. He is also at the same time very subtle. His list of problems in living in the mountains is simply a metaphor for all the aches and pains of life. “Being spiritual” will not necessarily mean that things go well for you; quite the contrary. The Gospel puts the same view in its own Semitic language and imagery. But regardless of what happens the road inward is always open, and in certain circumstances it is the only road available!

Stonehouse again:

“My hut is at the top of Hsia Summit

few visitors brave the cliffs and ravines

lugging firewood to market I slip on the moss

hauling rice back up I drip with sweat

with no end to desire less is better

with limited time why be greedy

this old monk doesn’t mean to cause trouble

he just wants people to let go”

Comment: Here he sounds very much like that earlier remarkable hermit, Han-shan. Slight echoes of the Desert Fathers here also. There is a very nuanced dialectic of inner and outer here–solitude and company; slipping, struggle, endless desire and greed. The solution: simplify and see into your situation.

Stonehouse again:

“The streams are so clear and shallow I can see pebbles

my gableless hut is surrounded by vines

gibbons howl at night when the moon goes down

few visitors get past the moss by the cliffs

the bamboos in my yard bend with spring snow

the plum trees on the ridge are withered by frigid nights

the solitude of this path isn’t something new

but grinding a brick on a rock is a waste”

Comment: The last line of this remarkable piece refers to a famous story in Chinese Zen. A Zen master walking outside came upon a young monk meditating. The master asked him what he was doing; he said he was trying to become a Buddha. The master sat down and started grinding a brick on a rock. The young monk asked what he was doing. The master said that he was trying to make a mirror. The lesson hit home with the young monk. In this tradition meditation is not some external tool or technique to “get” something; neither is solitude another “means” to some spiritual end. Again, very much in keeping with the spirit of the Desert Fathers.

Stonehouse one more time:

“A white-haired Zen monk with a hut for my home

the wind has torn my robe into rags

down by the stream I rake leaves for my stove

after a frost I wrap a mat around my orange tree

ultimate reality isn’t created

ready-made koans aren’t worth a thought

all day I sit by my open window

looking at mountains without lowering the shade”

Comment: A lot here. But I just want to point out Stonehouse’s subtle critique of his contemporary monasticism. It is prevalent in a lot of his poems, and it shows his very sober assessment of the spiritual life. Being a monk at a comfy monastery/temple does not impress him; and most of all he is critical of formulaic spirituality. Rather deal with what life brings you–this is the real matter of the spiritual journey.

Stonehouse:

“My home in the cliffs is like a tomb

barren of even one worldly thought

although I eat food and wear clothes

it’s as if I were dead but not yet cremated.”

Comment: Again, echoes of the Desert Fathers.

Stonehouse:

“I saw through my worldly concerns of the past

I welcome old age and enjoy being free

rope shoes a bamboo staff the last month of spring

paper curtains plum blossoms and daybreak dreams

immortality and Buddhahood are merely fantasies

freedom from worry and care is my practice

last night what the pine wind roared

that was a language the deaf can’t hear.”

Comment: The “deaf” here are of course “worldly people”–which includes monks also. Thus, when he says that he “saw through my worldly concerns” that also includes his monastic life. And it is not only a decadent kind of monastic life that he is referring to, but also to what one Tibetan lama called “spiritual materialism”–this penchant for turning the spiritual journey and one’s spiritual identity into another kind of possession or a concept in the head. Again and again Stonehouse returns to what’s in front of his nose.

Stonehouse again:

“I was a Zen monk who didn’t know Zen

so I chose the woods for the years I had left

a robe made of patches over my body

a belt of bamboo around my waist

mountains and streams explain the Patriarch’s meaning

flower smiles and birdsongs reveal the hidden key

sometimes I sit on a flat-topped rock

late cloudless nights once a month”

Comment: Stonehouse tries to hide the depth of his realization–doesn’t do a good job of that! He drops hints and clues to those whose heart is ready.

Stonehouse again:

“There isn’t much time in this fleeting life

why spend it running in circles

when my kitchen is bare I go look for yams

when my robe needs a patch I consider lotus leaves

I’ve put down the elk tail and stopped giving sermons

my long-forgotten sutras are home to silverfish

I pity those who wear a monk’s robe

whose goals and attachments keep them busy”

Comment: So obvious. But just to point out: the elk tail and the sermons refer to his time as abbot.

Stonehouse one last time:

“From outside my round pointed-roof hut

who would guess at the space inside

all the worlds in the universe are there

with room to spare for a meditation cushion.”

Comment: Recall the Desert Fathers: “Stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” Happy Lent!

Cat Stevens.

Someone of my age would remember this rock singer from the ‘60s. But now he goes by this name, Yusuf Islam — he converted to Islam in 1977. A very remarkable fellow. With all the bad news associated with Islam and with all the negative feelings toward Islam on the part of so many both here and in Europe, it is a joy to read this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cat-stevens/alliance-of-virtue-islam_b_9101284.html

Yusuf Islam is of course right in pointing out that most of us are ignorant of the power, beauty and depth of Islam and that so many of its adherents have so much to contribute to the human family. I might add that for all practical purposes there are many Christians who are almost as ignorant about their own Christianity also. I would venture to say that there are even more distortions of Christianity than of Islam. But it is more subtle and more immersed in the fabric of our culture and so less obviously visible.

Trees.

Here is a wonderful story about trees. Yup, trees. I have never thought much about trees; I mean I am against deforestation and all that, but I never bothered to think about trees except in how they impact us. Apparently I have been missing out on a lot. This story just blew me away about the wonder of it all:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/german-forest-ranger-finds-that-trees-have-social-networks-too.html?_r=0

We walk, live, breathe, suffer, grow, rejoice, and die within a web of life that we are hardly aware of. This also makes me think of the Buddhist sense of the connectedness of all reality, much more deeper than the article’s “social network” metaphor; and also I recalled that Buddhist expression: “all sentient beings”–which I always thought was a bit too encompassing in its scope, but maybe not…. It’s also striking how in the mindset of the modern West, both secular and religious, there is so little conceptual ability to express this interconnectedness and inner connectedness of “all sentient beings.” Rather we seem doomed to think of ourselves and all reality as these individual entities with some external connection and relationality. Thus we are all wrapped up in “saving our souls” rather than in saving “all sentient beings.”

Then, another thought, reminding me of Tolkien’s famous work, The Lord of the Rings. As a young man Tolkien had witnessed both the growth of industrialization and the savagery of World War I. As just one aspect of all this, he saw also the deforestation and denuding of Europe, the magical forests of Europe destroyed either by war or by the greedy need of industrial power. So in this epic story we see at least one episode where the evil forces are destroyers of trees in order to make their weapons of war, and where the trees of the forest actually come to the aid of the good guys.

Chinese Zen Story.

Here is a Chinese Zen story I picked up from Red Pine. Love it. Lots in it if you pay attention:

“Tao-hsin was the Fourth Patriarch of Zen and his disciple Fa-yung was the founder of the Oxhead Zen lineage. Fa-yung was called lazy because he never stood up or bowed to greet visitors. One day while Tao-hsin was in Nan-ching, he saw birds flocking around a mountain to the south. When he went to investigate, he found Fa-yung meditating and the birds dropping flowers on him. But he also saw wolf tracks and tiger tracks and feigned fright at such a sight. Seeing this reaction, Fa-yung said, “There is still that in you?” Tao-hsin responded by drawing the character for ‘buddha’ in the dirt in front of Fa-yung. When Fa-yung expressed embarrassment, Tao-hsin said, “There is still that in you?” After this meeting, the birds and wild animals stopped visiting Fa-yung.”

This reminds one of several Desert Father stories–it takes a special eye to see true attainment, never mind the external features that attract the populace (or even animals!).

Signs of the Times.

I saw a recent news item about the Chicago Archdiocese. Since I grew up there I was curious what was going on in that city religion wise. I remember as a youngster that each parish used to have two or three or more priests. Apparently no more. The Archdiocese is planning to consolidate and even close many parishes. They are projecting that by 2030 there will be only 240 priests for 351 parishes. Amazing shrinkage! And what is the explanation for all this? I am sure that there is some “safe” institutional answers for this “lack of vocations,” but the whole re-imaging of the priesthood is probably not one of them. It’s not until they get away from this privileged “holy” sacred pedestal of the priesthood (JP II’s kind of approach) and see this person as a servant of the community and within the community that progress will be made. Actually it is the monk who is the holy person…..only kidding!

A Final Thought

I hardly ever see any TV, but last Sunday I happen to catch a bit of the Super Bowl. What a spectacle that has become. It rivals anything that the Roman Emperors used to throw up to lull the masses into docility–minus the obvious cruelty. It’s sad to see what America has become, though of course we never were the “city shining on a hill” that the early colonial propagandists made us out to be. But looking at this spectacle, the mega-hyped game and those commercials, it is a picture of a country sinking ever deeper into a pathological fantasy. Sad.

Let’s consider a number of seemingly disparate paths that religious seekers have taken. They will connect–or disconnect for that matter–at a level which I cannot put in words. But I think at the end you will get the idea. Not all roads lead to….. Some roads simply lead to…..more words…..and a mirage wrapped in an illusion encased in an intellectual riddle…. Then you become engaged in unraveling the riddle, perhaps earning yourself a bit of a reputation and maybe even some money.

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Stephen Batchelor. The man has earned quite a name for himself as a leading voice of this new movement of what is sometimes termed as secularized, rational Buddhism. These people see Buddhism as a resource for a “better,” “happier” life using a kind of technology of the mind as a tool for self-improvement. Batchelor spent quite some time both in a Tibetan Buddhist setting and in a Korean Zen setting but he dropped out of all that and pretty much rejects the “metaphysical and mystical” aspects (whatever they be) of Buddhism. He believes that the monastic element of Buddhism is unnecessary baggage, and what he promotes is a kind of attenuated mindfulness and secular meditation. He doesn’t believe that all the elaborations of Mahayana Buddhism have any place in the modern world. His aim is to get back to the “original teaching” of the Buddha–he rejects almost all developments in Buddhism outside some elements of the Pali Canon. This reminds me of the scholars trying to figure out the original words of Jesus. As an intellectual exercise that may be an interesting enterprise, but for spiritual and religious purposes it can be quite misleading. The implication is that there is this original teaching and all later development is an unnecessary and even erroneous accretion. The thing is that the heart of the original teaching can and does have a real development potential and over time the full meaning of what the founder said needs to be unpacked and developed. An acorn is an acorn and a tree is a tree, but the tree is truly a legitimate development from the acorn. Certainly a lot of extraneous things can get introduced over time and a religion needs some pruning on occasion and certainly a new kind of formulation has to be used at times, but it is a kind of intellectual arrogance and dogmatism that rejects the tradition of the religion. The problem here, however, is not intellectual–you are not going to argue your way to the truth with these people.

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Nanavira Thera. A very peculiar character. Also, a culture hero of sorts for the secularist Buddhists like Stephen Batchelor. He is British by birth(Harold Musson by name), well-educated, financially reasonably well-off. As a young man, after World War II, he is under stress from a profound dissatisfaction with his life and the culture around him. He and a friend give up everything, leave for Sri Lanka, and become Theravada Buddhist monks in a monastery. Not satisfied with what he finds he moves out to a hut in the jungle and lives as a hermit for the rest of his life. He does not have any teacher or guide and that may explain some of the problems he runs into. Like Batchelor, he rejects a lot of the development of Buddhism in the Mahayana tradition.   As one commentator put it: “Nanavira gives no credence to later manifestations of Buddhism, both Theravada and the entirety of Mahayana, only deeming the earliest suttas to be genuine, to reflect what the historical Buddha must have expressed.” His practice of mindfulness meditation is especially intense and from his writings we can see that he has seen something of the truth of Buddhism. Note this remark about him from his publisher: “For Nanavira his major breakthrough was, after many years of effort and practice, realising that, with the exception of the Buddha, we have all got this wrong. For the Buddha alone makes it clear that, contrary to what we think, there is actually no ‘I’ or ‘self’ present in our experience. As Nanavira points out, this is the unique insight of the Buddha which, if developed, will ultimately lead to ‘extinction’ or ‘enlightenment’.” You can see in this language something very profound but it needs quite a bit of explanation or elaboration as in the Mahayana School. Nanavira writes a book about all this and it is a very complex account including forays into Western existentialism and phenomenology, and modern logic and science. Nanavira claims to have achieved a kind of enlightenment which is in effect a liberation from desire in the sense that you see its essential nature and are not ruled by it. The Wikipedia entry says this about him: “ Ñāṇavīra Thera apparently attained sotapatti, or stream-entry, on 27 June 1959. The one who has “entered the stream” has ipso facto abandoned personality-view (sakkāya-ditthi), which is the self-view implicit in the experience of an ordinary worldling not free from ignorance, and understood the essential meaning of the Buddha’s teaching on the Four Noble Truths. Ñāṇavīra Thera’s writings after 1960 express this very kind of certainty: no more wandering in the dark, no more doubt or speculative guessing.” Now there’s some big problems in his position, and I don’t mean one verbal explanation versus another one. To argue with him would be useless because he would refer to his own experience. But enlightenment is not something that one HAS as an experience, but this is something that one is…..and you cannot bring that out as another object for someone to see. To talk about it that way is to miss the target by the width of the universe. What you do see in an enlightened person is the quality of life lived by such a person and then you can judge the level of enlightenment there.   So finally there is this great sadness (for me at least) about this enigmatic spiritual figure: he commits suicide. Explanations are given, but none of them add up for me. They say he is beset by physical ailments and almost uncontrollable urges to lust which is somehow connected to the ailments. The only way out is to leave the jungle and get modern medical treatment and probably never to return. But he fanatically “desires” to deepen his “breakthrough experience” and will not leave. But staying has become impossible also.  The only way out that he sees is suicide. Not good. Very, very sad.

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Recall the Zen goose. Remember, there’s this goose in this large bottle with the typical narrow neck. Now….how do you get the goose out without breaking the bottle…or…without harming the goose?

Follow the path that gets the goose out of the bottle….

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Silence and solitude.  There is the path of solitude and silence. But this silence is not merely the absence of words and this solitude is not merely the absence of other people. There is a depth here that few ever touch. Merton wrote about it …on occasion…but among his various writings there is nothing better than the Introduction to the Japanese publication of Thoughts In Solitude. It begins: “No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace that is ‘heard’ when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say where there is no hearer? There is then a deeper silence: the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.”

Simply living in an isolated manner is not this reality of solitude. Merton again: “…if you imagine the solitary as ‘one’ who has numerically isolated himself from ‘many others,’ who has gone out of the crowd to hang up his individual number on a rock in the desert, and there to receive messages denied to the many, you have a false and demonic solitude. This is solipsism, not solitude. It is the false unity of separateness, in which the individual marks himself off as his own number, affirms himself by saying, ‘count me out.’”

We live in a culture of many words, many explanations, many arguments. Agitation and perpetual movement is in the air; there is a name and a number for everything; and if we are not engaged in perpetual communication we seem to lose our existence. Whatever spiritual path we are on, it becomes infected with this dynamism of desperate self affirmation (recall Thoreau’s “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.”). Merton sums up what is at stake in Christianity:

“Christianity is a religion of the Word. The Word is Love. But we sometimes forget that the Word emerges first of all from silence. When there is no silence, then the One Word which God speaks is not truly heard as Love. Then only ‘words’ are heard. ‘Words’ are not love, for they are many and Love is One. Where there are many words, we lose consciousness of the fact that there is really only One Word. The One Word which God speaks is Himself. Speaking, he manifests Himself as infinite Love. His speaking and his hearing are One. So silent is His speech that, to our way of thinking, His speech is no speech. His hearing is no-hearing. Yet in His silence, in the abyss of His one Love, all words are spoken and all words are heard. Only in this silence of infinite Love do they have coherence and meaning.”

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Do you want to know what kind of life an enlightened being would live? One could consult the Sermon on the Mount for a bit of a glimpse into what that would mean. There are other glimpses. Consider this set of verses from, I believe, Shantideva, as found on the Dalai Lama’s website:

With a determination to achieve the highest aim
For the benefit of all sentient beings
Which surpasses even the wish-fulfilling gem,
May I hold them dear at all times.

Whenever I interact with someone,
May I view myself as the lowest amongst all,
And, from the very depths of my heart,
Respectfully hold others as superior.

In all my deeds may I probe into my mind,
And as soon as mental and emotional afflictions arise-
As they endanger myself and others-
May I strongly confront them and avert them.

When I see beings of unpleasant character
Oppressed by strong negativity and suffering,
May I hold them dear-for they are rare to find-
As if I have discovered a jewel treasure!

When others, out of jealousy
Treat me wrongly with abuse, slander, and scorn,
May I take upon myself the defeat
And offer to others the victory.

When someone whom I have helped,
Or in whom I have placed great hopes,
Mistreats me in extremely hurtful ways,
May I regard him still as my precious teacher.        

In brief, may I offer benefit and joy
To all my mothers, both directly and indirectly,
May I quietly take upon myself
All hurts and pains of my mothers.

May all this remain undefiled
By the stains of the eight mundane concerns;
And may I, recognizing all things as illusion,
Devoid of clinging, be released from bondage.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And we conclude with something totally wordless, an icon of that deep solitude and silence which surrounds all and is within all:

For Christmas I got this beautiful book, Road to Heaven, by Red Pine (Bill Porter). What a marvelous work, so refreshing and illuminating–it’s all about modern day hermits in China and the whole hermit tradition in China which has a very venerable and ancient lineage. While making my way through this book I became aware of several journalistic pieces on Chinese hermits. So I think it would be enjoyable to visit with these folks for a while. Sometime back I referred to this article in the British paper the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2875587/Chinas-mountain-hermits-seek-highway-heaven.html

The photos are fascinating. And the unintentionally ironic photos along the right side of the webpage containing the images of various pop icons of our time–what a combo!

Some items to note from this article: the surprising resurgence of the hermit life in China. During the heyday of the so-called Cultural Revolution in the late ‘60s this tradition was almost totally stamped out by the Communists. Now the official line is very different but still very ambiguous. The official attitude is one of tolerance. Actually the government has rebuilt some of the temples and shrines and wants monks there as caretakers. And it pretty much leaves the hermits alone in the mountains as long as they register with the authorities. It seems that all this is to attract tourist money. And to a certain extent they have a more “Chinese” attitude toward their own cultural heritage: preservation and respect. In any case, with the economy booming for the last 20 years, the paradoxical thing is that there has been quite a growth in people withdrawing from all that toward a hermit life.

Another piece on the Chinese hermits appears on this “official” Chinese website for tourists:

http://www.chinatouradvisors.com/blog/Zhongnan-Mountain-Hermits-1277.html?id=1277

The photos are absolutely precious. Not much new information here, but the photos are a good companion to Red Pine’s book because he talks about this very area of hermit resurgence, so you can picture what he is talking about.

Then there is this fascinating account in the Kyoto Journal:

http://www.kyotojournal.org/the-journal/conversations/alone-with-your-self-the-hermit-experience/

Basically this is an interview with Edward Burger who lived in China for a number of years and made a film about these hermits back in 2005–“Among White Clouds.” Here is an introductory quote by him: “The first time I walked into the Zhongnan Mountains I was 23 years old and I had only read Bill Porter’s book [Road to Heaven] and some thousand-year-old poems. I’d stared at the little woodcutters and zither-toting scholars in the landscape paintings at the Cleveland Art Museum. I had all these ideas about hermits. The thing that surprised me when I met Zhongnan hermits for the first time, was that most of them had very little to say about, and had very few thoughts about themselves as ‘hermits.’ I mean, they don’t care that they are ‘hermits’ and don’t do lots of things we think hermits do.”

Precisely! I am very skeptical about people who make a big deal about themselves as monks or hermits or like to wear that “badge” “very loudly.” The modern self-absorption infects religious seekers also! I always wonder about monks who are too wrapped up in their identity as monks.

The rest of this interview is an absolute must read for a real insight into this contemporary phenomenon. One thing that really struck me was how “underground” this urge was during the repression period. People lived as quiet Buddhists/Taoists, even getting married to maintain appearances. Then, when the ban was lifted, they immediately were ordained as monks and went their separate ways.

Now just a few words about Red Pine’s marvelous book. It’s an account of his journeys to China over several years, around 1990, when this phenomenon was just beginning. The book begins with a brief survey of the Chinese hermit tradition and history including its primordial roots in the shaman traditions of prehistoric China. Red Pine is fluent in Chinese, having studied it in school in the U.S. and then in Taiwan. There he spent some time in a Buddhist monastery and as a hermit for a short time. He knows the hermit tradition quite well from the classic texts, but he is eager to see what if any of this tradition is still alive in China. So he enters China in 1989 in search of real hermits. The traditional place for them is the Chungnan Mountains in Central China, and that’s where he goes to.

Here we need to point out one of the problems in reading this book for a Westerner not deeply steeped in Chinese materials: all the names are difficult to keep track of, and the spellings Red Pine uses are no longer used in current literature, but fortunately the differences are not often major…just annoying. Like the Chungnan Mountains are now the Zhuangnan Mountains…and the ancient capital of this area, Sian in Red Pine’s book, is now on all the maps as Xian. So you have to be alert, and good luck keeping track of all the personal names….!

So Red Pine and a friend begin in Beijing and are told by both some officials and some “official monks” that there are no more hermits up there in those mountains. But they still go there, and by persistence and with good luck and with the willingness to venture into some rugged territory, they meet one hermit after another. They all tell him things aren’t what they used to be but they are getting better now that the government has lifted the ban on religious practice and allows monks and hermits. (So this is about 1990 and now there appears to be thousands of hermits up in those mountains and elsewhere–for example, Han-shan’s old stomping grounds were not these mountains but ones close to the southern coast, just about 30 miles from the ocean, and that too has its own hermit history.)

Some of these hermits are recent arrivals or only there for a few years; others have been living there for decades. There is this one famous quote from the book which makes you think of our Desert Fathers: “A Buddhist layman we met on the trail led us to a cave where an eighty-five-year-old monk had been living for the past fifty years. In the course of our conversation, the monk asked me who this Chairman Mao was whom I kept mentioning …. His practice was the name of the Buddha, Amitabha, Buddha of the Infinite. After so many mountains and so many hermits, we were finally feeling at home.”

Interesting that there are also many women hermits, by some estimates almost half the hermits are women! I once quoted one of these women hermits: “I won’t come down from this mountain until I know who I am.” Also interesting is that there is often a blending of Buddhism and Taoism (new spelling would be Daoism), though they also tend to their respective traditions. There is a whole controversy about the relationship of Chinese Buddhism to Taoism, but we won’t get into that here. Interesting also how universal the problems are in teaching monastic life to people today. Here is a Daoist master telling his story: “To find people who truly believe is the biggest problem we have. Taoism teaches us to reduce our desires and to lead quiet lives. People willing to reduce their desires or cultivate tranquility in this modern age are very few. This is the age of desire. Also, people learn much more slowly now. Their minds aren’t as simple. They’re too complicated.”

Here’s a lovely account of Red Pine meeting one of the women masters:

“One of the nuns at Lungwang Temple told us that Yuan-chao was living in an adobe hut on a small plateau that had been leveled off…. We followed the nun up the slope to Yuan-chao’s hut. She was sitting cross-legged on her k’ang, an adobe bed with a built-in oven….(!) As I walked in, she said, ‘You’re back. Good. Now we can talk. Last time I wasn’t sure. Now I know you’ve come back for the Dharma.’ I was glad I had made the effort to visit her again. She was eighty­-eight, but I’ve seldom talked with anyone as alert…. From my bag, I took out a sheet of calligraphy paper and asked if she would write down for me the essence of Buddhist practice. She put the paper aside, and I didn’t raise the subject again. Two months later, back in Taiwan, I received the sheet of paper in the mail with four words: goodwill, compassion, joy, detachment. Her calligraphy was as strong and clear as her mind.”

Red Pine tells us about Empty Cloud (love that name!), probably the most respected monk in modern Chinese history. He died in 1959 at the age of 120 during the period of repression. He lived in deep solitude in a very remote area of these mountains. But his reputation spread far and wide.

Then there’s this marvelous concluding account. Red Pine has returned to the big city of Xian and is visiting this obscure temple:

“The metal gate creaked. The front courtyard was deserted…. The temple buildings were old and in such sorry repair, I almost turned back. Past the inner courtyard, I went inside the main shrine hall. After lighting some incense and paying my respects, I noticed a small stone Buddha. The attendant told me it had been carved at the end of the fifth century. He also pointed out a T’ang dynasty painting of Kuan-yin. Incredible treasures for such a dilapidated temple. Just as I was leaving, several monks appeared at the door. When they asked me what I was doing, I told them I was visiting hermits. They laughed. One of them said, ‘Then you have come to the right place. We’re all hermits here.’ I couldn’t help but laugh too. The monk’s name was Ju-ch’eng. He was obviously the abbot, though he denied it–he said he was too dumb to be an abbot. Then he explained that Wolung Temple refused to have an official abbot. He said, ‘If we choose an abbot, he has to be approved by the government. We prefer to be left alone. That’s why we don’t fix up the temple. The government has offered us money to repair the buildings. But this is a Zen temple. We don’t need fancy buildings…. He told me there were fifty monks living at the temple. Two of them were in their eighties…. He said they got up every morning at three and didn’t go to sleep until shortly before midnight. They spent most of their waking hours on their meditation cushions. I asked Ju-ch’eng who their master had been, but I should have known the answer. He said, Empty Cloud. We talked for half an hour about Wolung Temple and about the Chungnan Mountains. The temple, he said, had four seventy-day meditation sessions every year. Then he started listing all the hermits he knew in the mountains. I knew all of them. I smiled and told him this was the first time I had met city hermits. He laughed, and so did I. And then I remembered the Chinese saying: ‘The small hermit lives on a mountain. The great hermit lives in a town.’ Having nothing left to say, I bowed and said good-bye.”

There is a spiritual teacher by the name of Lama Surya Das. I don’t know much about him except that he is an older Western spiritual seeker who has apparently achieved a certain mastery of meditation in one line of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He is connected to the Dalai Lama, and he also is very familiar with the Theravada meditation schools and the Zen of Japan. He has been a teacher of meditation for decades. Can’t vouch for him overall, but he does have sensible, incisive and wise things to say about meditation and its popularity in our culture. I saw an interview with him and here is one quote:

“ So many people seem to be moving narcissistically — conditioned by our culture, doubtless — into self-centered happiness-seeking and quietism, not to mention the use of mindfulness for mere effectiveness. True meditation generates wisdom and compassion, which may be very disquieting, at least in the short term.”

True, and it is amazing how easily any spiritual path can be absconded in a sense and used for purposes almost the opposite of what the path has as a goal. The “meditation movement” in our society is one of these phenomena. Meditation, abstracted from any religious or theological framework and devoid of real spiritual discipline, has become a kind of pop icon for “spirituality”–whatever that is. “Mindfulness” is a key term for a lot of these people, and it is a term that can be applied without any commitment to any religious way of life. Surya Das has some acerbic comments:

“Mindful divorce, mindful parenting, mindful TV. Why not mindful sniping, poaching, or mindful waiting to find the opportunity to take advantage of and exploit someone when there’s a chink in their armor?”

Mindfulness has become a tool for many New Agers and others to become more effective persons, whatever they are engaged in. I have also seen Buddhist meditation practice and Zen promoted as “practices” to enhance your capabilities as a businessperson, as a soldier, as a lover, as an artist, etc., etc. Whatever be the merits of such claims, the heart of the problem is that such an approach only reinforces the ego-identity and in fact inflates it even more so. Nothing like these expensive retreats where mostly it’s your ego that gets massaged–in addition to the rest of you!

Surya Das points to this problem, but he also is worried that only one kind of meditative practice is being pushed as “meditation,” which then discourages people who have a difficult time with this approach. Let’s have him explain this: “’Quiet your mind’ or ‘calm and clear your mind’ are instructions I hear way too much. Some teachers actually encourage people to try to stop thinking, when in fact meditative awareness means being mindful of thoughts and feelings, not simply trying to reduce, alter or white them out and achieve some kind of oblivion.”

It’s important to realize that even within one given religious tradition, like Buddhism, there can be some very real different approaches to the spiritual life and actual practices. It is no good to insist on one and the same approach for everyone. What Lama Surya Das teaches comes from one line of Tibetan Buddhism and it has a strong mental activity aspect to it (like visualizations). This is not everyone’s cup of tea, but then again neither is the silent Zen meditation; and to insist on one approach only is to frustrate a goodly number of spiritual seekers. Surya Das is wise in acknowledging that he is mainly trying to help people who have a hard time with the “silent” meditation approach.

And it is interesting that also within Christianity there is that same variety of approaches to the Divine Mystery. For some it is the words of Scripture pondered slowly and thoughtfully that lead one into the depths of an inner silence; for others it is the rosary; for many others it is a mantra of sorts, like the Jesus Prayer. Merton almost never wrote or spoke about his personal prayer life–except once in a letter to a Sufi friend in Pakistan. He spent a period of time both in the morning and in the evening doing what might be called meditation, but it definitely has this theological framework and very solidly rooted in the mystical tradition of Christianity. What is interesting here is how he explains it to his Sufi friend in terms that would connect to Sufi understanding and at the same time you sense hints here how he was benefitting from Zen and how he would later learn from the Tibetans. Let me quote him here:

“Now you ask about my method of meditation. Strictly speaking I have a very simple way of prayer. It is centered entirely on attention to the presence of God and to His will and His love. That is to say that it is centered on faith by which alone we can know the presence of God. One might say this gives my meditation the character described by the Prophet as ‘being before God as if you saw Him.’ Yet it does not mean imagining anything or conceiving a precise image of God, for to my mind this would be a kind of idolatry. On the contrary, it is a matter of adoring Him as invisible and infinitely beyond our comprehension, and realizing Him as all. My prayer tends very much to what you call fana. There is in my heart this great thirst to recognize totally the nothingness of all that is not God. My prayer is then a kind of praise rising up out of the center of Nothing and Silence. If I am still present ‘myself’ this I recognize as an obstacle about which I can do nothing unless He Himself removes the obstacle. If He wills He can then make the Nothingness into a total clarity. If He does not will, then the Nothingness seems to itself to be an object and remains an obstacle. Such is my ordinary way of prayer, or meditation. It is not ‘thinking about’ anything, but a direct seeking of the Face of the Invisible, which cannot be found unless we become lost in Him who is Invisible.”

What Merton is describing is in a sense pure simplicity, but a simplicity that hides some unspeakable depths that can give one a kind of spiritual vertigo! Many probably would actually prefer a more “complicated” approach to prayer/meditation because it then seems to give the ego something to do. At some point in the spiritual life the simplicity that Merton describes is best–but be assured that is not so easily done or everyone’s way.

What’s in a name? Think about all the possible things names do. They locate x, y, and z–I won’t call them persons or things because I want to include everything. In the social world we inhabit with our language and rationality everything and everyone has a name. Thus we can locate x, y, and z; define them; determine their status; examine them, even control them by use of their name. For some, perhaps for most, their whole reality is wrapped up in a package with a name on it.

If we can name it, we can sell it, play with it, manipulate it, make it into a weapon. Recall how Yahweh gave Adam and Eve the privilege and task of naming all the animals in the Garden of Eden. There is a legitimate place for names, but also naming is at the heart of control-the one who names the reality controls the reality.(For example, if we name a certain incident as “terrorism” then it seems to enable a warlike response; but if we named the same incident as a crime, well, then what we are limited to is some kind of police action.) Now in the case of persons, names mean even more. Most people live by and within a certain name: their national identity, their status, their self-worth, their position in the social order: wife, father, student, monk, priest, hermit, scientist, artist, etc. etc. We mistakenly believe that the name signifies our fundamental reality. This is so much a part of us that we never stop and reflect on this and question it in any way. Recall again the importance of names in the Bible and their consequences.

Now what if there is a whole other aspect of reality that is nameless, especially our personal reality. What if our deepest identity is actually without a name–and so “invisible” and incomprehensible to our rational minds. This kind of thing, this namelessness, seems to threaten our individuality which seems to depend so much on “being named,” and which seems so precious to us that we have this mirage that it is our very personhood that is at stake. But the intuition of namelessness is at the heart of the spiritual life, the contemplative life, the mystical life.   And everyone of us, no matter what kind of life we have lived, at death we experience this denuding of all names whatsoever. Instinctively there is this foreboding and fear because we seem to lose everything that we thought we were. The deterioration of the body seems to confirm this. I won’t go into how the various religious traditions address this issue, but within Christianity this whole thing can be summed up in one central phrase: “death and resurrection.” Unfortunately for too many Christians “resurrection” comes down to something crude like a continuation of our present identity and a kind of enhanced life. Pretty much like, “Hey, death is not real, it don’t happen; we just wake up and get our reward for believing,” or some such language of mythic rewards/ punishments. What is needed is a deeper reinterpretation of the notion of “resurrection” if we are to have a deeper Christian mysticism and contemplative life.

Now we need to really step back and take a look at this “namelessness” as an aspect of the Absolute Reality (which we usually name as “God”). Indeed, even to say this is to slip into the naming process. Now we are going to stay strictly within the Christian tradition, and here all these names are very important, not to be slighted, not optional/superficial designations– they carry a claim of ultimacy, finality, and absolute value: Trinity, Father, Logos, Jesus Christ, etc., etc. Given all this and given what I previously said about the importance of names in the Bible overall, it would seem that namelessness is not part of the Christian view of the Absolute Reality and even of the reality of the human person. Truly, when looking over the centuries and even to today, the primacy of the “named” in Christian theology and piety is upheld by many deep and pious theologians, monks, holy people, spiritual seekers, etc. You could say that at the heart of all their seeking is Augustine’s famous cry: “My God, who are You, and who am I?” It’s as if that call is a seeking of that one name that would encompass both of these poles of ultimate identity–not a bad intuition but mistaken–when in fact that call is really a first intuition into the namelessness of both you and the Divine Reality in your ultimate oneness. For those of us in the other camp, where namelessness has primacy, that deepest identity is beyond all names–yes, even the name of Jesus. In fact it is only in the perspective of advaita perhaps that these two identity questions become one, but this is something that we cannot name– there is only an awakening to it. And there is a long tradition, all the way from the Bible to Abhishiktananda, that, without losing the significance of the “named,” sees the “nameless” as primary and ultimate. Let’s take a brief survey.

The Old Testament.

Recall that fascinating account in the Book of Genesis where Jacob wrestles with this mysterious stranger(32: 23-30). Then they have this exchange: “So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’”

So first we have here the named–the man called Jacob even gets a new name, Israel(like the person who enters monastic life!); and this is to indicate a deeper level of identity because he has been “touched” by God. Names are important here but also their fluidity is apparent, and the possibility of ultimate namelessness is hinted at. Now when it comes to the Divine Reality, it simply rejects the naming process. And this prepares us then for the ultimate such encounter with Moses and his calling to liberate the People of Israel from the bondage of Egypt(Exodus 3). Recall that, first of all, the Divine Reality does identify itself with human names: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,…” Human names that we give to the Divine Reality are important, and for us they are needed and helpful as long as we are in history and as social beings with language and rationality. But Moses pushes toward the Divine identity, not satisfied with historical/social relations: “But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM Who I AM.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ ‘This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.’”

This is a very important pericope, a central one for the development of Christian mysticism. So the Divine Reality allows for the naming process–it has its place as long as we are in history and in our social location engaging in relationships, including worship, prayer, service, etc. But at the very bottom of it all, or to put it better, at the heart of it all, the Divine Reality says NO, there is no name that can enter here, no name that is adequate to name me. So Moses meets the namelessness of God, and what is interesting is that this pericope is composed about the same time that the rishis of the Upanishads have this same intuition in their own language.

Now the whole Old Testament has numerous such pointers toward this namelessness, though obviously in a less intense way than here most of the time. The whole Book of Job can be read that way as one such pointer as it makes the case for the inscrutability of the Divine Reality. And of course the comparable namelessness of the human person is barely hinted at in all these texts, though that is present as well if you have the eyes to see it–thus the Upanishads are a bit ahead of these texts. It is not until we get to the New Testament that we truly meet the mystery of the human person embedded in the Mystery of the Divine Reality.

The New Testament.

Here the central name of Jesus is of utmost importance, and most Christians seem to think that this is all there is. Ok, the “named” does take on a heightened importance here, and there is a whole proliferation of names that seem to draw the boundaries of Christianity itself: the Logos, the Christ, Messiah, the Son of God, Father, Spirit, Love, etc. And then there are a whole bunch of secondary names like king of the Jews, Bread of Life, the Light of the world, the Good Shepherd, etc. It would seem that the “named” has the highest priority in Christianity; in fact to point to the nameless aspect of the Divine Reality looks almost “unchristian.” But perhaps things are not that simple. In another light perhaps the very person of Jesus points precisely to the truly nameless reality of that Ultimate Mystery which he does call “Abba”–and this name is used to indicate intimacy, his real oneness with this Unspeakable Reality–as Abhishiktananda was fond of pointing out, this was the Semitic attempt to articulate Advaita.

Jesus has a kind of dialectics of names: on the one hand he rejects the naming process from the devil in the Temptation in the Desert pericope; on the other hand, he invites Peter to name him–“Who do men say I am?” As I said earlier, this parallels and echoes the Genesis account where humans are invited to name their reality; here they are invited to name a manifestation of the Divine Reality. Note, this is a manifestation…and the naming process is fitting and necessary in the world of manifestation. (By the way, one can ask if the Divine Reality has other valid manifestations, does it not imply other valid names? Or is it all subsumed under this name as traditional theology holds?) But there is also a whole aspect of the Divine Reality that is unmanifest: “No one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him,” etc. So, three things: 1. There is an unmanifest aspect of the Divine Reality; 2. Which Jesus calls “Abba” to indicate a mode of intimacy (perhaps advaita); 3. Which relationship he then “reveals” to us as our very own in our very humanity–not the essence of the Unmanifest, but that relationship of intimacy which has far reaching consequences. And this in itself becomes most manifest in that life as drawn out on the Sermon on the Mount (and one could say then literally lived out by the Desert Fathers!–without any theological language and the most minimal scriptural reference).

In the Gospel of John, which is replete with names, Jesus finally declares his advaita relationship with the Unmanifest, Nameless Divine Reality — “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Indeed. Here Jesus is connected to the Divine Reality as encountered by Moses in the Burning Bush—the Mystery of the Divine Reality, Nameless and beyond all conceptualizations and all schemes. In a sense here we are with Lao Tzu: The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

Finally, when Jesus is on the cross, we again meet this dialectic of names. The soldier names Jesus as son of God; there is the deeply ironic sign, “king of the Jews.” But the crucified one is the ultimate symbol of the ultimate loss of all names. And the crucifix is this symbol within every Catholic church of that ultimate namelessness at the heart of the human-divine reality–that’s why I prefer so much more the crucifix rather than the bare cross which is more common in Protestant churches. The Resurrection, then, must be interpreted as being catapulted as it were beyond all names, not just a recovery of all names, which would be equivalent to resurrection as a kind of resuscitation, life continuing on simply in an enhanced mode. So Easter Sunday now joins with Good Friday as that one feast and one anamnesis of Jesus Christ and of who we are in that one namelessness.

The Christian Mystical Tradition

Here we will briefly consider two voices from this tradition: Pseudo-Dionysius and Eckhart. One of the most important figures in Christian mysticism at its origins is Pseudo-Dionysius, about whom I had written earlier. PD, as I will refer to him, wrote several works, one of which was called On the Divine Names. This is a subtle and sophisticated reflection on the “named” aspect of the Divine Reality and the nameless. He enshrines within the Christian mystical tradition the fundamental importance of the nameless with regard to the Divine Reality. A few quotes: (translated by Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem)

“ Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this supra-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no other being is. Cause of all existence, and therefore itself transcending existence…. Now as I have already said, we must not dare to apply words or conceptions to this hidden transcendent God. We can use only what Scripture has disclosed. In the scriptures the Deity has benevolently taught us that understanding and direct contemplation of itself is inaccessible to beings, since it actually surpasses being. Many scripture writers will tell you that the divinity is not only invisible and incomprehensible, but also ‘unsearchable and inscrutable,’ since there is not a trace for anyone who would reach through into the hidden depths of this infinity.”

PD again:

“It might be more accurate to say that we cannot know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach of mind or of reason. But we know him from the arrangement of everything, because everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain images and semblances of his divine paradigms. We therefore approach that which is beyond all as far as our capacities allow us and we pass by way of the denial and the transcendence of all things and by way of the cause of all things. God is therefore known in all things and as distinct from all things. He is known through knowledge and through unknowing. Of him there is conception, reason, understanding, touch, perception, opinion, imagination, name, and many other things. On the other hand he cannot be understood, words cannot contain him, and no name can lay hold of him. He is not one of the things that are and he cannot be known in any of them. He is all things in all things and he is no thing among things…. This is the sort of language we must use about God, for he is praised from all things according to their proportion to him as their Cause. But again, the most divine knowledge of God, that which comes through unknowing, is achieved in a union far beyond mind, when mind turns away from all things, even from itself, and when it is made one with the dazzling rays, being then and there enlightened by the inscrutable depth of Wisdom.”

So here perhaps we meet a hint of the awakening of advaita within the Christian perspective. And of course it is necessarily connected with the deepest awakening to the namelessness of the Divine Reality, being plunged into the depths of the Mystery of God and the human person.

And one last quote from PD:

“And the fact that the transcendent Godhead is one and triune must not be understood in any of our own typical senses. No. There is the transcendent unity of God and the fruitfulness of God, and as we prepare to sing this truth we use the names Trinity and Unity for that which is in fact beyond every name, calling it the transcendent being above every being. But no unity or trinity, no number or oneness, no fruitfulness, indeed, nothing that is or is known can proclaim that hiddenness beyond every mind and reason of the transcendent Godhead which transcends every being. There is no name for it nor expression. We cannot follow it into its inaccessible dwelling place so far above us….”

And now for some quotes from the Late Medieval period as the apophatic, mystical tradition unfolds. This time we will quote Louis Dupre as he comments on Eckhart:

“What I find at the deepest level of myself is nameless, so nameless, says Eckhart, that God Himself in entering that depth loses His own name. ‘Back in the Womb from which I came I had no god and merely was, myself.’ ‘Womb’ is capitalized here and ‘god’ is not capitalized. The Godhead is before it is named: Being as such has no names. Even the creature in its essence must remain nameless in the pure core of its divine Being. Here I do not will or desire anything beyond what I am…. In my uncreated Being I rest, untrammeled even by God. In its ultimate identity Being is what it is or, as Adonai said to Moses, the One Who is. Only in my creaturely existence does ‘God’ confront me. ‘God’ is the name that man invents after a long religious history. First he conceives of the gods, then of God. But that pure Being, Eckhart’s Godhead, remains beyond what we so confidently name ‘God.’ ‘God’ belongs to the order of manifestation. And so do all his revealed names, even the most sacred, revealed names of the Divine Persons. For Eckhart the Godhead precedes the divine hypostases of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Being surpasses all divine names. “

“To reach that primeval poverty, my poverty, which for Eckhart is also God’s poverty, is the goal of the mystical journey. To attain it, the soul must abandon not only its possessions and its self-will, but also its creaturely identity and even its ‘God.’ In his most radical sermon, ‘Blessed Are the Poor,’ Eckhart admonishes, ‘If one wants to be truly poor, he must be as free from his creature will as when he had not been born.’ We must become totally detached from that individual existence to which we are so attached. We know that this little self is insignificant, but we think we better hold on to it anyway, since without it, we may have nothing left. That is precisely the self we should surrender, according to Eckhart, if we are to partake of the wealth of God’s own poverty.”

“Inevitably we will become discouraged about our efforts to comply with the requirement of absolute poverty. More seriously, we may feel that we have disappointed God. But for Eckhart the soul that still worries about the quality of its relationship with God has not become truly poor. Indeed, it must give up all ambition to acquire any knowledge of God…. As long as we are still concerned about finding a place for God in ourselves, we are not truly poor. God must create His own place in me. Indeed, Eckhart insists, eventually we must free ourselves of the ‘God’ we know, for that is still a private possession.”

“That ultimate poverty is also the true humility. Too often we confuse humility with false modesty. We secretly hope that if we accuse ourselves of imperfection, God may contradict us, assuring us that we are not all that bad. But God will not contradict us, for the imperfection is real and goes to the core of our existence. That existence itself needs conversion. [Here Dupre is echoing the sentiments of many Sufi mystics, like Rabia]….   The meaning of this humility and this poverty is not simply that of being a means to an end. It is not motivated, as many think, by the idea that by giving up ambition and possession now I shall be compensated for it later. Rather than being a means, poverty is a method of giving way to God. Since to be united with God is simply to be devoid of oneself, poverty and humility are the goal! For Eckhart God means absolute emptiness and poverty.”

“In poverty and humility I abandon all that I have and even let go of what I am, in order to reach the uncreated core of my being–God’s own creating act. God himself dwells in the absolute poverty that knows no possession, not even that of a name. As we move more deeply into that divine poverty, we shall be less and less inclined to place labels on God or His creatures…. Only through Gelassenheit do we reach the point of nowhere in the midst of all movement, the nothingness at the heart of all being. We cannot even actively seek it. For if we know what we are seeking, we shall never find it. As Thomas Merton wrote: ‘Don’t try too hard. Don’t be too much concerned about your own perfection and progress from day to day. Once you become aware of yourself as seeker, you become a possessor. You’re lost. But if you are content to be lost, you will be found without knowing it, precisely because you are lost. For you are at the last nowhere, which is where God is.’”

A few comments:

• Dupre is a lay Catholic philosophy teacher, and his talk was given at the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani. You can talk like this to monks, but I wonder how this kind of language would have gone over with the average lay Catholic audience? The Church teaches a watered-down spirituality mostly, where it emphasizes morality, virtuous living, praying to Jesus as if he were some entity “out there,” engaging with the “saints” for intercession with God, etc., etc. In very little of this do we hear or feel Augustine’s anguished cry: “My God who are you, and who am I?”

• We find here the real meaning of the religious values of poverty and humility. They are both symbolic and initiatory into the nameless depths of our being in the Divine Mystery. Not the kind of external exercises that Merton once termed “making faces in the mirror.” Namelessness is the ultimate poverty and the ultimate humility and it is something in which you and the Divine Reality share as one.
• So here we see a hint of an awakening to Advaita within the Christian context. We plunge into the abyss (as Abhishiktananda puts it) of our inner depths, losing all our names as we enter there (no wonder it is a scary place for so many); and there in the ultimate poverty of our utter namelessness–so well symbolized by the bodily poverty of the sannyasi–and the infant Jesus!!–we awaken to a pure and unspeakable awareness in which even the Divine Reality has lost its names and we dwell now not “as two” in the world of names, and not “as one” as if that were another name; but…here Eckhart’s language is best: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”

• Recall the Rinzai Zen Master with his demanding and challenging koans. When you come in for your interview you better come up with an “answer” that shows you have seen into the koan…or you will get whacked with a paddle! So in a sense every Christian should be made to answer: Who are you? Show me! If you come up with some name, whack!! No, you must not give a name; a name does not answer a koan; it’s only another word. And THEN: Who is this God of yours? Show me!! If you give him a name, WHACK!! Ouch!!!

Fear

During the Depression Era President Roosevelt famously reassured the American people with words like this: “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” I don’t know about that, but today’s leaders, pundits, commentators and the general populace–both here and in Europe– seems to have some very focused fears. It all can be summed up in one word: terrorism. A recent New York Times poll showed that the American people have responded with a pervasive fear, that infects how we think and see the world, and more so than at any other time since 9/11. Several important points to consider here, especially if we are to have any spiritual clarity about what is going on.

*The real focus of this fear is what is usually termed as “extreme Islam”–whatever that is–though often even the word “extreme” is simply dropped. People forget that people of Islamic faith are present in Congress, have fought and died for the U.S. in the Armed Forces, and are actually the ones fighting ISIS on the ground in Syria and Iraq. And ISIS is something that we, the U.S., created inadvertently by our arrogant and blind policies in the Middle East.

*Recently there was a gathering of people investing in the defense industry. Lots of money there. And all the top dogs from the major companies were there, like Lockheed and so many others. One of the spokespersons was recorded; in his speech to the gathering he pointed out how the investment outlook looked really great for these companies considering the instability in the Middle East. Nicely put–translation: the more fighting, the more money we can make. War is still very, very profitable for certain people. And believe me, here in the U.S. “terrorism” and homeland security are an incredible cash cow also for a lot of folks. There’s a lot of money to be made in all this. With that in mind we should not be surprised that “fear” is actually promoted, subtly but truly, and of course with certain people it is not even subtle.

*But what is more troubling, if that be possible, is that this focus on terrorism and this pervasive fear generated in the mass media and the public mind, blinds us to what is really going on and what we are becoming. With this kind of fear as motivational energy we begin to tolerate and accept all kinds of horrible things, like the drone attacks, like the bombing of the hospital, like torture, like government surveillance, etc., etc. But even beyond that, what is most troubling is that all this distracts us from seeing what we are becoming as a nation, as a people, as a civilization. Consider: there were 355 mass killings in the United States this year(the killing of 4 or more people)–and the year is not yet over as I write this. Only a handful of these were done by very sick people who claimed the Islamic faith. This country is saturated in killings, in guns, in death. Perhaps it is time to start fearing something else. Here is a brilliant piece of writing by William Rivers Pitt putting this in sharp focus:

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33958-the-butcher-s-repast

I wish this had been written by one of my Catholic bishops; I would have been more hopeful then. Why is it that they just put out these dull church documents and show no prophetic leadership and never, never seem to address the heart. Why don’t the bishops condemn the NRA and this whole gun culture? Is there any spiritual maturity in our land….anywhere? Our leaders want to bomb and kill our way out of the problems facing us; is there another way? The Dalai Lama said that we need to talk to ISIS. I think he is naïve as all heck, but that’s a lot saner than bombing and killing.

And finally, reading what Pitt wrote, do you really think we are entering some new golden age of awareness, of consciousness, where spiritual possibilities will flower? And do you think all this vaunted electronic connectivity is bringing all of us together? I have my doubts.

 Nepal

In a season of a lot of bad and sad news a little-noted story of something positive: first woman elected as President of Nepal.  Ok, she was not elected by popular vote but by the parliament, but that is still something.  I was always intrigued by Nepal.  A truly beautiful, even awesome place–I mean how can it not be so when you have the Himalayas and all the religious history like one of Milarepa’s caves on the border of Tibet and Nepal.  I have often dreamed of becoming an expatriate monk there.  A very monastic environment.  Mostly Buddhist, but also with some Hinduism, especially with pilgrims from India going up the foothills of the Himalayas.  Also very, very few Christians–making it especially attractive!!  Yes, I am a “total Christian” but there is something about being in that intense religious environment rather than in the pseudo-Christianity of a lot of our society.

 Sheldon Wolin

One of the truly great political thinkers of our time just died having lived to a good old age.  He was always someone to listen to as he understood our social situation extremely well. In fact as a Jewish secular political philosopher he articulated a vision of society closer to the values of Catholic social teaching than many Catholics did, especially the conservative ones.  Also, he was very sensitive to the dangers we are facing now. Here is a short piece by Chris Hedges explaining his importance:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/sheldon_wolin_and_inverted_totalitarianism_20151101

 Death

Speaking of death, when you get my age you start seeing so many of your contemporaries start to die off.  It cannot but nudge you to think of your own death as it approaches.  This is not a morose thought but something quite healthy, normal and indeed quite necessary.  The passing of someone need not make us sad; the realization of our own death should not make us fearful.  I can see missing someone dear and close who passes away; I can see a place for authentic mourning; but really if you think about it death is THE greatest adventure of our existence and the most troubling.  Now of course I am not referring to someone who dies in some horrible accident or due to some awful disease or still young or gunned down in violence; no, I am referring to those of us who live to a nice old age and the time is coming to “go.”  Simple as that.  Yes, there is also the fact that a lot of death is accompanied by pain, drugs, total physical disability, etc.  Yet apart from the extreme situations, I think there is an inner and interior confrontation that all this that you called reality is slipping away from your grasp, and you are “invited” to let it all go. But there is another very, very strong dynamic rooted in the body’s built-in will to live; you find yourself “fighting for life” simply because that is a dynamic built into you, but then comes a moment when you “give up,” yield to something Greater, etc.   Really all our renunciations in life, the little ones and the big ones, are merely a symbolic enactment of this moment.  Yet what an incredible moment that must be, when all our ideas, our images, our everything just dissolves into the Presence of Absolute Reality.  In death we lose every name(every title, every designation, positive or negative, etc)that we clung to in life, and I think this is the real underlying scary thing about death for many–who are we when we lose EVERYTHING?  (This is what makes sannyasa the perfect sacrament of this ultimate moment.) This seems so frightening that we then make up all kinds of mythic language about “receiving our reward” and we have these mythic pictures of some place called “heaven,” and sometimes that gets very crude.  But we lose all our names, the ones we cherish and the ones we think really identify us.  We lose “who we think we are,” and we enter into our true Reality.  (This is, I think, the real meaning of the Christian Mystery of the Resurrection.)  We shall reflect on this some more in the next posting.

 A very sad Church.

Recently with the release of a new movie we are once more reminded how bad the child abuse scandal was in the Catholic Church.  The movie is Spotlight, and it is a portrayal how several Boston newspaper people exposed the machinations of the Boston Archdiocese in trying to conceal and protect priest pedophiles. It is a reminder of how bad that situation was.  Cardinal Law fled to Rome, to the Vatican, and was given a cushy position there to protect him–this was done under the office of Pope John Paul (now canonized as a saint!) and Pope Benedict.  Even today I don’t think most Catholics realize how bad that situation was, so the movie is important.  And the official Church, including Pope Francis, have not in my opinion responded adequately to all this.  I mean apologies to the victims is practically an insult.  And it is amazing how the Church only begins to compensate the victims when forced by a court.  

Then, just when you thought the worst was over, there was this story just a few days ago:

http://www.startribune.com/accused-monk-at-st-john-s-abbey-reports-more-than-200-sexual-encounters/353241311/

This is an incredible story that again the Church was forced by a court order to reveal.  This time it was St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, one of the largest Benedictine monasteries in the U.S.  This nightmarish account is beyond any comment.  Suffice it to say that I don’t believe this kind of thing is a “surface problem” as so many Catholics believe; no, I think it strikes at the very roots of what the Church claims it is….

Years ago, back about 1977 or so, as a young monk I was sent to St. John’s to a monastic conference of sorts.  I remember how the place felt creepy to me, but I thought that was simply some problem of perception that I had.  Looks like maybe my intuitions were on target!  Frankly I hope all the victims sue that abbey out of existence.

 Back into the Light: Some favorite sayings of Abhishiktananda.

“The solitary in the Church is the minister of the Silence of God.”

“For at the profoundest depth of the inwardness, there no longer exists a within or without but only the uncircumscribable ocean of the unique Mystery, radiant in all with its particular and infinite light.”

“Shantivanam…henceforth interests me so little.  Arunachala has caught me.  I have understood  silence…  Now sannyasa is no longer a thought, a concept, but an inborn summons, a basic need, the only state that suits the depths  into which I have entered, that reveals it, realizes it.”

 Bose

Recently a friend sent me this short piece on this unique monastic community:

http://parabola.org/2015/10/28/signore-parabola-visits-the-monastero-di-bose-in-the-foothills-of-the-italian-alps-by-roger-lipsey/

Very interesting read.  I had mentioned Bose when I wrote about the New Monasticism, and it is a good example of something authentically new and real and rooted in the tradition.  It’s not exactly my favorite “flavor” of monasticism, that being more eremitical in character, but from what I see they are doing a good job.  I have heard some criticism of them from sources I consider responsible, but you know that is inevitable in any venture–some aspect of it is bound to not suit somebody.

 Paris Attacks

What can you say about these horrible events?  There is more than one level of tragedy and evil here.  Yes, the needless loss of these lives in such a horrible way is truly tragic, but there is a deeper and larger evil at hand and that is the consequence of these attacks throughout Europe and the U.S.  Think of the consequence for the Syrian refugees.  Hate-mongers, Islamaphobes, and so many right-wingers have resorted to fan the flames of irrational fear in France, in Europe, in the U.S.  So many voices calling to close our hearts and our borders to these refugees; and even to turn against the Muslims already living among us for years.  The insanity and the widespread prevalence of these views is very discouraging.  Just think: these refugees are fleeing precisely the murderous rage of ISIS and other deadly chaotic situations.  If we really close our doors to these refugees, we will be doing exactly what ISIS wants–creating a new recruiting ground for them among the rejected and alienated.  It is truly ironic that all this is happening as the Christmas season is beginning.  Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus were refugees fleeing the murderous rage of Herod!

And then there’s this whole attitude of denigrating Islam by a lot of Westerners.  Do they have that one wrong!!!  These folks should take a long look at the mirror to see who are the real pros at killing people.  Here is a short piece to illustrate the problem:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/no_muslims_are_not_more_violent_than_people_of_other_religions_20151115

And a very discouraging but accurate analysis by Chris Hedges:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/states_of_terror_20151122

One last point:  Around Christmas time back in 1890 at a place in South Dakota called Wounded Knee a contingent of U.S. soldiers gunned down, a small tribal encampment of about 300 men, women and children of the Lakota tribe.  It was a slaughter, a massacre, truly a war-crime, yet a number of these soldiers got medals for their efforts.  More people were slaughtered by official U.S. forces at Wounded Knee than by ISIS at Paris.  I wouldn’t let any Americans into my country; can’t trust these folks.

The word “advaita” is a little Sanskrit word that means “not two.”  Very simple, very little words, right?  Well, not exactly.  These words point to the most profound, most mystery-laden, most mystical of all realities.  They refer, of course, to our own identity in relationship to the Ultimate Absolute Reality which we call God.  In English terms these words are often termed “non duality.”  A perfectly good term, which I don’t particularly care for (but it’s very popular)  because I think it is just a bit abstract, a very typical Western move to translate something that sounds very concrete, “not two,” into a more abstract-sounding notion or concept, “non duality.”

“Advaita” comes, of course, from India, from one branch of Hinduism.  It does not represent all of Indian religious consciousness; there is a large segment of Hinduism that is quite dualist.  So Advaita does not necessarily represent the “majority opinion” even in Hinduism. It does however have an ancient pedigree going all the way back to the Upanishads.  And it does have some very profound proponents, like Shankara.   Dualism means that the Divine Reality and your personal reality are two separate and distinct realities.   God is the Ultimate Other.  Advaita says, no, they are one Reality.  BUT in what way can they be said to be one? What is this “oneness” all about?  Those are very big questions and no answers on the level of concepts or notions are apparent. This presents all kinds of problems even within Hinduism, and then when we get to Christianity we find what seem like insurmountable obstacles in order to affirm a kind of Christian Advaita.  Let’s take a look at some of these problems and some of the possibilities.

The first thing is that we need to emphatically assert that no conceptual analysis of Advaita will ever reveal its reality.  No amount of metaphysics, philosophy, or theology will ever unfold this reality to your heart.  Learned folk are often enticed to dwell within their clever words, or else even mistake their interesting analyses for the very reality that they are talking about.  In some cases a good analysis can be truly helpful in sorting out what is true and what is ersatz and getting a handle on some aspect of the spiritual life. (Of course there are numerous books out there about Advaita that are totally bogus and written solely to make money for their authors, but about these we are not speaking.)  But with Advaita nothing, not even the most profound reflections and the deepest presentations, nothing can touch it, either positive or negative–all words, notions, concepts merely circle around this reality and perhaps in a way that can be helpful in getting a sense for it, but it will mostly be through a kind of symbolic and mythic language that barely recognizes itself as symbolic.  With Advaita only deep mystical experience can guarantee any kind of grasp of it–and even to put it that way is misleading. There is simply an awakening to it and then you no longer know it in terms of any words.  And if one awakens to this reality then no demonstration of its “incompatibility” with Christianity will be able to stand–and this is key.   Or as Abhishiktananda put it, all vanishes in a Consuming Fire.

Our goal here is not to reflect on Advaita in any general way or within its proper Hindu context but to ponder the possibilities of Advaita within the Christian mystical tradition. (My favorite guide in all this, Abhishiktananda, has of course gone the furthest in all this, but there is always more to address.)  And just to “open the door” a bit more we will consider two seemingly major problems, but closely related, that are most obvious but keep needing to be dealt with.  The first one can be called the “problem of pantheism” or “monism.”  This kind of problem arises when we depend too much on an intellectual/philosophical analysis of Advaita.  And it is also the kind of problem that is alarming to both Christian theologians and spiritual seekers alike.  Both begin to see this mirage of pantheism/monism.   After all Advaita does mean “not two,” and the inference then is that what we have is “one,” a oneness of the Ultimate Reality and me in my “I-ness” (or perhaps for some in my consciousness). So for Christian thinkers (in the negative) and for certain Hindu thinkers (in the positive) this oneness equates to something like “I am God,” or “God is me.” (By the way, my dear and favorite al-Hallaj, that most holy of holy men, did not fall into this mistake when he famously said while crucified “I am the Truth”–here meaning that he at that point was a totally transparent manifestation of the Divine Reality.)  So this is a crude way of putting it, but there are lots of representatives of Hinduism who would put it in some such way and there are many Christian thinkers and church people who believe that’s what Advaita leads to.  Both camps are wrong. Yes, “not two” does point to a kind of oneness, but this “oneness” is beyond conceptualization and properly speaking Advaita would be best expressed in another phrase: “not two, not one.” 

 Pantheism (or in another context “monism”) is really an intellectual abstraction, a mind game that the mind plays when it cannot affirm duality.  Duality after all is the very structure through which the mind perceives the world–everything is in a subject-object relationship seemingly including even the Divine Reality.  But that of course is seen as false as soon as we grow out of a superficial piety into a deeper sense of the Divine Reality, so in the negation of the dualism it reverts to another conceptualization: pantheism: everything is God.  Now certain Hindu figures and certain Hindu-oriented Westerners try to get around this dilemma in another form of rational trickery: the appeal to consciousness.  Basically the Divine Reality and your “I” are reduced to one transpersonal consciousness.  A lot of consciousness language by these folks!  But it all amounts still to pantheism, though in a more subtle form.  (And here we are not being critical of a legitimate use of the word “consciousness” as in Abhishiktananda’s “awakening” to Advaita.)

Can’t speak for the Hindus on this, but from the standpoint of Christianity this leaves a lot to be desired as a solution.  Christianity upholds the irreducible value of personhood–what Merton called Christian Personalism.   But this is not the modern focus on individuality and the self; it is more what Merton called the True Self, the person you are in God, not the creation of swirling images and illusions of selfhood within the social construct of our reality; the faces you make in the mirror of the world.  Furthermore, your true self, the true subject before every encounter, and the deep down reality of self that only God knows is not and cannot be the object of your apprehension or comprehension.  And why is this?  Well,  what if the Divine Reality is really the Subject within the subject of every subject-object encounter.  As Augustine put it, God is closer to me than I am to my own self.  Or as Paul hints at that:  I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.  So to borrow and adapt from the Sufis, and as I have quoted this borrowed Sufi vision often in this blog, then upon realization, then we can say it is the Risen Christ who walks with my feet, it is the Risen Christ who sees with my eyes, it is the Risen Christ who hears with my ears, it is the Risen Christ who touches the world with my hands, etc. Or as Eckhart put it: the eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. When that superficial “I” is effaced (again a Sufi way of speaking), that “I” that is a psychological and social construct is dissolved in a new vision–  we no longer have “two” realities; but yet it is not one in the abstract sense of one substance, monism.  This Advaita is way beyond any such formulations and the mind cannot grasp it.   All it can utter truly is: “not two, not one.” Neti, Neti, not this, not that.

But we have not gotten out of our dilemma or solved anything about the possibility of Advaita in Christianity.  We have merely hinted at one way of looking at this seemingly impossible possibility.  There is one deep-down problem which probably illustrates best the hurdle facing us–at least in conceptual terms.  As an introduction to all this let me begin with a couple of quotes.  The first one is from Monchanin, co-founder of Shantivanam with Abhishiktananda, deeply learned in Christian thought and deeply interested in Indian spirituality and monastic expression with Abhishiktananda but who later has a falling out with him precisely over such issues as we are pondering.  Here is Monchanin writing to a friend and criticizing Abhishiktananda:

“It seems to me more and more doubtful that one could recover the essence of Christianity beyond advaita (Shankara’s non-duality).  Advaita, like yoga, and more so than it, is an abyss.  He who immerses himself in it with a feeling that he has lost his balance (vertigo) cannot know what he will find at the bottom.  I fear that it may be himself rather than the living Trinitarian God.”

And here is a quote from Abhishiktananda that illustrates at least in part the problem we face if we want to uphold BOTH traditional Christianity and Advaita:

“Truly speaking, there is no such thing as advaitic prayer.  Advaita is the central teaching of the Upanishads, and no prayer remains possible for him who has realized the truth of the Upanishads.  The equivalent of what is called in monotheistic religions the ‘experience of God’ has here nothing to do with any notion of God whatsoever, for the duality which makes it possible for man to think of himself as standing in front of God has disappeared in the burning encounter with the Real, sat.”

And so there was this real anguish that Abhishiktananda wrestled with for over a decade and which really never subsided, due to the “twin loyalties” he now found pulling at him: the new-found and profoundly unexplainable experience of advaita, and his traditional Christian experience of prayer, of sacraments, of theology.  The irreconcilability of these two cannot be overstated–it is a serious problem.  Bede Griffiths, who followed Abhishiktananda at Shantivanam, thought that Abhishiktananda had gone perhaps “too far” in this direction and proposed a kind of modified non-duality, a kind of qualified advaita for Christians.  I am not so sure about this; I feel he is playing some games with some words in order to salvage some aspects of advaita and still maintain a Christian theology and a Christology that is recognizable in terms of Christian tradition.  Personally, I am more with Abhishiktananda and want my advaita straight, no dilutions!  But let us face the problem head on.

There are basically two very different paths, two different visions, two radically different views of that most profound fundamental experience of the Absolute Divine Reality, the Infinite Mystery.  A number of theological and spiritual writers have commented on this situation, but here I will follow mostly the work of an Indian Jesuit, Sebastian Painadath.  I will quote extensively from one of his essays: “The Spiritual Encounter of East and West.”  To be sure, Abhishiktananda knew about this kind of analysis and wrote of it himself–you can find an example of this line of thinking in his collection The Eyes of Light, an essay called, “The Experience of God in the Religions of the Far East,” written in 1973, toward the end of his life.  In any case, we will follow Fr. Painadath first just to have a different voice on this issue.  He begins by basically labeling these two different approaches as “the interpersonal approach” and the “the transpersonal approach” (by using this term I suspect Fr. Painadath is trying to save that western emphasis on the person and not lose it).  He begins with laying out a map of the interpersonal approach:

“In the interpersonal approach the Divine is experienced as a personal God.  As a result an interpersonal relationship between the human person and God evolves; this is a relationship in the pattern of I-Thou.  God, who is I, encounters the human thou in love; the human person, who thus becomes aware of his/her subjectivity, responds to the divine Thou in surrender.  Encounter with the divine Thou is expressed through personalistic symbols like father, mother, lord, king, friend, and bridegroom.  The primary medium of communication between I and thou is the word: when one speaks the other listens.  There is a constant dialectic between revelation and response, between  the demanding word and obedient surrender.  Disobedience to God’s Word and Will is sin.

“The I-Thou relationship between the human person and God finds articulation in doings: God enters the lives of human persons through events which are considered to be salvific events.  Human persons respond to God’s demands through acts of “doing God’s Will.”  Thus the relationship between the human person and God gives rise to a spirituality with ethical overtones and a dominant sin-consciousness.  Justice becomes the central concern of religious existence.  Interpersonal relationship with God creates human communities with a keen spiritual sensitivity to interpersonal human relationships.  Religion thus inevitably promotes social responsibility and creates salvific communities.  Believers feel themselves bound together in a spiritual community in and through which they experience the demanding and saving presence of God.  In the community a history-consciousness evolves, because of the salvific doings of God in the world.  History thus becomes salvation history.  This communitarian and historical understanding of the salvation process is the consequence of an interpersonal relationship between human persons and God.  God’s revelation is understood to be taking place in history and through the community.”

So….you begin to see the ramifications and consequences of this line of thought and this path toward the Divine Reality.  It is of course very much characteristic of the Christian path. And you can see that this is tailor made for a dualistic spirituality.  I mean it is really hard to see it as anything else, though I think some Christian mystics in their experience pushed into the arena of advaita without even being aware of it in those terms.  Folks like the Flemish mystics go way beyond any I-Thou piety of traditional Chrisitianity.

  Abhishiktananda has a slightly different take on this path, and he also lays out its dualistic tendencies but in a more mystical sense;  so let us listen to a small part of his account:

“There is the specifically religious approach called prophetic, also called ‘monotheistic’:  Man lays himself bare before Another, of an All-Other, so completely other that this other defies any definition of otherness that man can ever devise.  The presence of this Other is shattering, it is pure ‘Transcendence.’  He is Yahweh of the Bible, the Allah of the Koran.  I depend totally on him.  It is He who created me, he alone who maintains me in being.  I depend on him totally…he alone can bridge this abyss which my sin has placed between Him and me.  The dependence is total and the distance between us is infinite.  It is on the base of such an experience of God that the revelation received by Abraham is founded, the base of the entire Old Testament.  Only divine love can bridge this distance between man and God……..  At the time of the Gospels, however…there was no longer to be a simple external covenant, a Law…the word of God transmitted through intermediaries.  The Word of Yahweh, who created the world, who spoke through the prophets, itself becomes flesh, man, a member of the chosen people.  This infinite distance, this yawning chasm that stood between man and God is now bridged.  God sends to earth His own Son,…uniting the mystery of God and the mystery of man, at one and the same time, in his theandric nature…….  The whole biblical and Christian tradition of the experience of God leans upon this intuition of the God-Other; of a God who must needs bridge the abyss between Him and us and who,…calls us to Him, permits us to become His own children in His only begotten Son, who invites us to a union with Him in a similar fashion, and thus to participate in the mystery of his intimate life that the Spirit bequeathes to us in his very interiority.”

So here we have a very clear exposition of what you might call the “two-ness” of traditional Christian theology and spirituality, which expresses an authentic experience of the Divine Reality—but is it the only “way”?  No, there is still another path, also expressing an authentic experience of the Divine Reality, and here we will turn again to Fr. Painadath:

“In the transpersonal approach the Divine is experienced as absolute mystery.  No personalistic symbol can truly express the ineffable mystery of the Divine.  Hence the seeker goes beyond all names and forms in search of the God-beyond-God. {Important to note: Fr. Painadath is echoing Eckhart here}  Transpersonal symbols–like ground of being, depth of existence, ineffable silence,…and the ultimate Self of all–may surface in the course of this inner pursuit.  The medium in which one awakens to this awareness of the Mystery is contemplative silence.  In silence one enters into the deeper levels of consciousness and even into the experience of oneness with the Ground of being.  Transparency to the divine reality is the basic dynamic of this apophatic spirituality.  Opaqueness to the Divine Light is sin; it is ignorance: not realizing what one truly is….  Here spirituality assumes cosmic dimension.  When the divine Light within shines forth, one ‘sees the Divine in all things and all things in the Divine.’  This gnosis (jnana) recreates the life of the human individual.  Such an outlook on reality has mystical underpinnings.  A holistic vision of reality is the fruit of enlightenment.  Integration and harmony with all beings becomes the central concern of religious existence.  Alienation of the individual from the totality of reality is considered to be the cause of all suffering; it is the possessive attitude of the mind that causes this alienation.  Spirituality, therefore, means progressive liberation from egoism and insertion into the totality of reality….  Hermitages, spirituality centers, monasteries, and ashrams attract those who seek spiritual integration.”

So it is fairly clear that this approach to the Divine is much more amenable to the experience of Advaita, but it is also clear that this approach is not central in traditional Christianity but rather marginal if not totally absent in many instances.  Now let us listen to Abhishiktananda’s even more radical presentation of this approach and now within the experience of advaita:

“Over against this experience of God-Other, there is the experience that does not even allow for the possibility of recognizing this Other, either by name or by a distinguishing feature.  So crushing was this experience that it brings about the feeling of an emptiness in being.  Here one can recall the words of the Bible: ‘God is a consuming fire, none can behold him and live.’  And here it is not first and foremost a question of the life of the flesh.  What has been consumed by the flame and what has disappeared, as it were, is its thought, its selfhood, its consciousness of being, the ‘I’ that man thinks and pronounces throughout the day.  It is no longer a question of merely saying: ‘Thou art all, my God, I am but naught.’  For as long as this naught, this presumed nothingness still says that he is nothing he still considers himself something by virtue of this very utterance.  No, here there is place for naught else but silence.  Not, however, the silence of someone who would have ceased to speak.  Rather it is pure and absolute silence, as a matter of fact, there is no longer a person to speak…. In this experience man is no longer able to project anyone or anything opposite to himself, or to place in any part of the Real another pole to which he would conform himself and call God.  Having arrived, in effect, at the center of his inmost self, man is seized by the mystery that thenceforth it is beyond his power to pronounce either a Thou or an I.  The mystery has so engulfed him in the depths of his selfhood that it is as though he has vanished from his own sight.”

So…..Abhishiktananda has taken us to the furthest edge of what words can do here, and we are more than ever left with Monchanin’s question:  do we perhaps at the end of this journey meet only our own self and not the Living Triune God?  And what of these two very distinctive paths or approaches within Christianity?  This is an important question because it is only in the second approach that we find the fullest possibility of Advaita.  To repeat myself, no conceptual analysis, philosophical or theological, can solve these problems.  To be sure, a certain kind of integration of the two approaches is needed if one is to follow the path of Christian mysticism and contemplation, and this is what Fr. Painadath proposes:

“These two approaches to the experience of the Divine are not mutually exclusive paths of spirituality; rather, they are the two poles that are dialectically related in the evolution of an integrated spirituality.  The dialectics between the transpersonal and the interpersonal, silence and word, wisdom and love, being and doing, transparency and surrender, contemplation and devotion, harmony and justice is the constitutive dynamics of a liberating spirituality.  In the concrete cultural evolution of spiritual experience in a particular religion, one dimension may eventually dominate the other.  In general, the religions of Semitic origin tend to uphold an interpersonal relationship between the human person/community and God, while the religions of Indian origin move towards a transpersonal experience of the Divine.  Though mystical streams have always been present in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the dominant powers of theology and authority hold them in check for fear of disruption in the community of believers.  Devotional forms of surrender to the divine Lord and prophetic movements of protest are found in Hinduism and Buddhism; but they have been subordinated to an overarching world view that is evidently cosmic and mystical.  A creative dialogue between these spiritual hemispheres would promote the integration of these dynamic elements of spirituality.”

I like what Fr. Painadath says and I basically agree with him, but I think he is being a bit too sanguine about the possibilities of these two approaches “living together.”  We shall see.  It was very difficult for Abhishiktananda, and we see him toward the end of his life abandoning a lot of traditional theology for a radical reinterpretation of the very foundations of Christianity–if Advaita is to be considered within the Christian sphere.  Maybe that is what is called for, but until some of his other unpublished papers are published we won’t be able to say how far he was willing to go down this road.

One last thing.  It surely seems that the Advaita perspective is badly needed within the Christian perspective if we are to make any sense of the writings and sayings of the many Christian mystics. And I think many ordinary people practicing ordinary piety sometimes slip into this experience and of course they are not able to name it.   But beyond that, a Christian who feels truly at home in Advaita, a true Christian Advaitin will also have the highest respect for and truly engage in all the symbols, devotions, rites and rituals of his community.  It will be an exceptionally rare Advaitin who is called beyond all these into a world of awareness that we cannot describe.  Most of us live in time and history and within a certain loka and a community of faith and these are a part of the Divine Manifestation in our lives.  So the little old lady praying the rosary (like my grandmother)who begins with the ordinary piety of I-Thou but who then becomes immersed  in a Great Silence that becomes One with her and in which she loses her self, well, perhaps this is a good exemplar of what Fr. Painadath is pointing to.