Justluckie

Be Present

The French Benedictine monk, Henri le Saux, lived in India living the life of a sadhu but following a Christian path. He took the name Abhishiktananda. He wrote a short masterpiece on Christian prayer which demonstrates both the insights he gained from Indian spirituality and his profound Christian orthodoxy. Prayer is still in print nearly 50 years after it was written and is well worth reading slowly and repeatedly. One of the insights that caught my attention in that book is the description of all life as a communication of God's presence. Abhishiktananda writes about the way God is present to himself in the eternal trinity of love and the life of all that lives is an extension of this presence.

The work of prayer, then, is simply to become aware of this presence, which is always around us. Without it, there is no life. And the way one becomes aware is to be present to oneself. If all of life shares in that presence, then to be aware of it in ourselves is to be aware of it in all. To be present to oneself is to be mindful, attentive, silently waiting, gently detached from our preoccupation with objects and results. To be aware of the life that is as close to us as our every breath is to be aware of all life, of the origin of life, of Life itself.

So often, we are not even present to ourselves and, therefore, not at all present for others. Our mind is elsewhere, our attention is on the next thing or on a past thing that cannot be undone. Christian spiritual teachers from the Desert Fathers onwards have never underestimated the challenge and the hard work of maintaining the discipline of being present to ourselves. We can practice it quite simply by taking their advice to 'eat when we are hungry, drink when we are thirsty' - in other words, not be controlled by our appetites and unthinking reactions but do each simple thing with our full attention. If we are present to ourselves in these small ways, we develop the art of being present to others and present to life itself - it is all one.

The Hard Work of Doing Nothing

It seems that inner growth requires a letting-go rather than an accumulation, a subtraction rather than the addition of various things to our life. For example, suffering is made up of what we add to our pain - it is the commentary, the self-absorption, the anxiety that cause our suffering more than the pain itself so the way we learn to deal with suffering is through a letting go of all that we have added. Many of our internal problems are ill-served by our attempts to tackle them head-on. The more we worry away at our anxieities, the bigger they grow. Sometimes, the only way through a problem is to sit it out patiently and let go of our frantic attempts to understand and master a troubling thought or feeling.

Bonnie Thurston's excellent book on contempaltive prayer, For God Alone, stresses this aspect of passivity. Drawing on the biblical language of waiting on God, she talks of the vital place of passivity and of the difficulties we find in achieving it.

Our whole culture is profoundly resistent to the idea of passivity and waiting. Indeed, we tend to ascribe a certain moral inadequacy to passivity. Achievement is praised, action is demanded, technique is sought, intervention is the answer. We need to be in control if we are to get anywhere and those who are most in control gain most. Waiting is something we endure if we must, not something we embrace. I don't want to make a general principle of this, and it is clear that immediate action is absolutely right in many circumstances, but in the inner life, and in the matter of human maturing, the hard path of passivity is essential.

I call it a hard path because it is so counter-cultural. It takes a great deal of practice and attention to wait contentedly. Here are some wise words from Thomas Merton:

The problem here is that habit is strong and automatism speaks with the authority of a pseudo-conscience. One feels guilty in relaxing and resting in darkness. There is no rational basis for this guilt, once one realises that our 'reaching' into the darkness really implies a serious and energetic effort of faith, and that our persistence in arid prayer requires a great deal of courage and patience. [The Inner Experience p.91]

Our addiction to results causes us great problems in the inner life, because this work is the work of a lifetime (at least) and that work is the hard work of placing ourselves entirely in the mode of receiving a gift rather than attaining success. I guess it is no surprise, then, that all the great teachers of the spiritual life stress humility as its greatest virtue.

It was said about an old man that he endured seventy weeks of fasting, eating only once a week. He asked God about certain words in the Holy Scripture, but God did not answer him. Then he said to himself: Look, I have put in this much effort, but I haven't made any progress. So now I will go to see my brother, and ask him. And when he had gone out, closed the door and started off, an angel of the Lord  was sent to him and said: Seventy weeks of fasting have not brought you near to God. But now that you are humbled enough to go to your brother, I have been sent to you to reveal the meaning of the words. Then the angel explained the meaning that the old man was seeking, and went away. [Desert Wisdom trans. Yushi Nomura]

The Intuition of Love

William Johnston is perhaps best known for his writings about Christianity and Zen Buddhism, but he is perhaps less well known for an area of spiritual exploration about which he knew a lot more - the mysticism of the anonymous English mediaeval work, The Cloud of Unknowing. Not only was this the subject of Johnston's doctoral thesis which was later published with a preface by Thomas Merton, he also translated the work into contemporary English and it is a very readable translation. If you possess a copy of that excellent anthology of Christian mystical works by Bernard McGinn (Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism - real 'must-have'!) then you will see that he uses Johnston's translation for excerpts from The Cloud.

One of the keys to understanding Johnston's approach to Christian mystical theology comes direct from The Cloud, and that is the place of love as the motivating aspect of the Christian in prayer. More than that, the author of The Cloud says that, although God is unknowable to human knowledge, he is fully knowable to human love. This is a bold and essential distinction which is vital in contemporary understandings of the role of human cognition and human consciousness in religious faith, but I'll say more on that in a moment. The Cloud is exceptionally positive when it comes to the possibility of the human person reaching out towards God and finding communion with God. The author is not at all naive about the difficulties of the spiritual life, but is comfortingly encouraging about what is needed for the human person to reach out towards God:

Do not neglect this contempaltive work. Try also to appreciate its wonderful effects in your own spirit. When it is genuine, it is simply a spontaneous desire springing suddenly toward God like a spark from fire. It is amazing how many loving desires arise from the spirit of a person who is accustomed to this work. And yet, perhaps only one of these will be completely free from attachment to some created thing. Or again, no sooner has a man turned toward God in love when through human frailty he finds himself distracted by the remembrance of some created thing or some daily care. But no matter. No harm is done; for such a person quickly returns to deep recollection.

I find this to be immensely encouraging. What is needed is not a superhuman achievement of contemplative perfection, but one simple spark of love. Distractions are not a problem - they will come, but they are only temporary things. All we must do in prayer is to attend to each present moment, for that is where God is to be found. If we lose one moment through distraction, another will come along as a gift and an opportunity to let that spark arise.

So back to the question of knowledge and God. I had a conversation with someone recently who is not religious but is very intrigued about religion. She said that she could not accept any religion because she needs proof. I tried to push on her on what she needed proof of, but this issue was a solid barrier for her. What we need above all in our current culture is a recovery of our trust in our intuitive faculties, especially those we already know and use in our capacity to love. If we feel the slightest spark of love arising in us which is directed not towards something in the order of observable things (what the author of The Cloud refers to above as created things) but towards life itself, or towards whatever it is that trascends us, then might we be close to that spark we Christians call faith? I think so. I guess that the problem for most of us is that we do not trust this spark, but quickly want to bring it back to some created thing, something 'solid'. If we trust ourselves simply to let it fly, we have begun to live the life of faith.

 

Contemplative Psalms

Christian scripture does not 'teach' about contemplative prayer in any straighforward discursive way, but there are insights and images that stand out as jewels of wisdom that lead us into silence and into the mystery that is God. One of the most sustained passages of scritpure that offers a picture of the soul's longing for God is the Song of Songs. There are also nuggets of contemplative wisdom in the Psalms and I wanted to share a few randomly today. There may be more to come at some other time. The version used is that found in the Psalter of the Scottish Episcopal Church's office book.

I still my soul and make it quiet,
like a child upon its mother's breast;
my soul is quieted within me.

This little verse from Psalm 131, which begins with a renunciation of pride, speaks to me of collected stillness, of deep trust and selfless abandon. It is an image not just of contentment, but of belonging and peace. Conetmplative prayer is the prayer of the soul's original quietness.

You speak in my heart and say 'Seek my face.'
Your face, Lord, will I seek.

Psalm 27 begins by describing God as light and salvation. It then goes on to describe the sole focus of desire as seeking the 'fair beauty of the Lord'. The search for divine beauty, of the true heart of all that is, is the sole occupation of the contemplative. This beauty is not an abstract concept but a 'face' - the contemplative's gaze is that of a lover. Of course, God's face does not have a 'form' or features but there is a pofound sense in which the Christian looks upon the compassionate face of Christ and sees there the glory of God: 'For it is the God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness' who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' (2 Cor 4:6) The face we seek in contemplation is the face of Christ. In that face, we meet the unseeable face of God.

As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters,
and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
until he show us his mercy.

The contemplative gaze is one of humility and attentive waiting. This image from Psalm 123 is not about a fearful cowering before a capricious master, but a humble patience that seeks only mercy. Mercy for the Christian does not mean judicial acquittal but God's tender, loving presence. In Greek, it is the same word used to describe that most intimate icon of the Mother of God with Christ, and this is the state of intimacy we seek in contemplative prayer:

Those who go through a desolate valley will find it a place of springs.

This verse from a lovely pilgrim Psalm (84) speaks of the ultimate refreshment one finds in the journey into God, even when that journey seems desolate. The contemplative will find periods of barrenness and dryness, but the gift of faith is to see even these as 'places of springs', even if they do not seem such at the time.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence? (Ps 139)

In contemplation, one finds that the 'journey' is not, in fact, one that requires us to go anywhere. It is a growing sense of the divine presence within. We do not really 'seek' God in the way one looks for something that is elsewhere. The journey is one of growing awareness.

More to be desired are they than gold,
more than much fine gold,
sweeter far than honey,
than honey in the comb.

In Psalm 19, these words speak of the 'statutes' and 'judgements' of the Lord, much in the way that the long meditation of Psalm 119 does. How can one talk of such dry, legal-sounding concepts in such a warm, loving way? I think it is best to think of the 'law of the Lord' as 'God's way'. Not at all a list of directives but a path of life, an orientation. I think it is mistaken to oppose 'law' and 'gospel' because they are both terms that refer above all to the path of life. This is a path that takes us to the heart of life - the heart of God. It is a way that is no way, a path that needs no steps. All it requires is a continual turning towards the light, a constant reorienting towards the Source of all being. To engage in contemplative prayer is to set one's heart on such a journey of reorientation motivated by desire and love.

 

So Long, Ivy Wu Gallery

I made a brief visit to the National Museum of Scotland yesterday to do a little research for an article for our Cathedral magazine and was saddened to see the closure of my favourite space in that gallery - the 'Looking East' gallery, formerly known as the Lady Ivy Wu Gallery. This is to make way for a new configuration of gallery spaces and I hope the treasures from that former space all find their ways to good homes in the new layout. It will be sad, however, not to see them all together with their lovely presentation of East Asian history, religion and culture. If the museum is looking for a home for its Japanese tea house, I'll happily find space for it!

The reason I was looking there was to track down as many representations of the Buddha as I could find in the gallery. The one I was most interested in is a sitting figure of the Buddha Amida which lives in the main hall of the gallery on the ground floor. It is Japanese and dates from the 18th century.

On the top floor, there is another representation of the same Buddha, also Japanese and of similar age, in a slightly simpler form and with a halo.

 

There are also many representations of the Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, including a magnificent stone carving from 4th century CE India which shows striking similarities to European classical sculpture.

The Buddha Amida, or Amitabha, is particularly venerated in the Pure Land school of Buddhism and especially in Japan. He is known for his compassion and his vow to save all mortals, irrespective of their status, allowing their rebirth in the pure and happy land. He is characteristically shown in this meditation posture with the accompanying meditation mudra (hand gesture). There is a deep stillness about this image and it represents the intimate connection between stillness, meditation and compassion. The one who is truly recollected in meditation has an open heart towards others. This practice is not at all a matter of introspection, but of love.

For the Christian viewing these images, it is very tempting to make comparisons with the iconography of the saints. Images of saints can serve both as a focus for prayer and a depiction of virtue and many images from the Christian tradition possess a similar stillness to the Buddha Amida, and this is perhaps seen most clearly in Orthodox iconography. The drama of the baroque in the West stands as an interesting contrast.

And an encounter with images like these invites us to consider other differences. I wonder how possible it is for a Western Christian to appreciate the full depth of spirituality present in such a statue. Even if we have an acquaintance with the subtleties of iconography and a knowledge of Buddhist doctrine, can we ever truly have the same spiritual engagement with an image that is not part of our own tradition? I imagine that its very difficult to know whether or not we are having the same experience as a Japanese Buddhist when we stand before the Buddha Amida and I am sure that to do so in a museum is a very different matter from doing so in a temple.

Nonetheless, I do find myself moved by this image. Even before I had any background knowledge of its origins, I found something of stillness, something of compassion there.

A Change of Heart

How do we change our minds about important things? What is the journey we undertake when we find a change of heart over significant existential issues? Of course, there are occasions when we find that our viewpoint has been changed over something relatively superficial – I could even be persuaded to like Mozart under certain circumstances – but when it comes to matters that relate to our self-understanding or to our sense of what is right, what is it that allows us to shift our ground?

Put another way, how do we grow in our outlook on the world and in our sense of self? In the life of faith, the process of change is rarely a matter of simple, steady progress. The reason for this is that the change we need in order to deepen in faith is not a matter of increasing comprehension, but of getting to a point where comprehension runs out. Our growth towards God, towards maturity happens when we let our ego get out of the way, when we reach a place of utter simplicity through a self-forgetting, self-emptying openness. When we let go of our desire to control all things through our powers of reason, we reach a point where be begin to inhabit the world in the way we were created to - in love. This is when we receive life as a gift rather than grab it as a prize. Sometimes this place is only reached by experiencing 'breakthroughs' that can be painful. We might find that our reliance on external things is weakened to the point that we feel insecure or uncertain. Letting go of our natural desire to achieve and succeed can be very difficult indeed. And letting go of our concepts of God can leave us feeling at sea. But the way of being that takes the place of these things can be of unimaginable goodness. Thomas Merton described a 'delicate taste of interior manna' that the contemplative may find once she or he has let go of introspective, self-absorbed anxiety. I change when 'I' get out of the way.

At the level of debate and controversy, when we are considering matters that are about a kind of conversion of outlook rather than mere winning of arguments, this example from the life of faith suggests to me that the true changing of hearts happens by letting go of expectations, simplistic outcomes or controlling anxieties. In other words, the heart only changes when it is open. This openness is a species of emptiness which is also a fullness – empty of power but full of possibility, devoid of ego but fully 'self'. This deep kind of change happens when attention shifts from 'objects' to 'subjects', from outcomes to persons. The royal road to such conversion is silence - listening, attention, wakefulness, simplicity. This is not a matter of persuasion but conversion, not a matter of power but of self-giving.

Attentiveness

For those who practice forms of meditation and contemplative prayer, there is always a question lurking in the background for those whose prayer is directed towards God and those whose practice is centred on the cultivation of mindfulness. The question is whether the theist and the non-theist are 'doing the same thing' when they meditate. Bonnie Thurston, in her excellent primer on prayer, 'For God Alone', describes prayer as 'the attentiveness to God's presence that restores God's original image in and intention for us'. It seems clear that Christian prayer is directed towards God. Indeed, it is nothing less than the complete reorientation of our lives towards God, the Giver of life. Prayer is not so much an activity as a disposition - a disposition of love towards the One who is love.

Many Christians value very highly the simple, human practices of mindfulness and meditation that derive, in part, from Buddhist practice. These practices are very similar to ancient Christian traditions such as the 'prayer of the heart' in Orthodox tradition and to the practices advocated in the Cloud of Unknowing. They are often described as preparatory to prayer or, if done with a 'naked intent reaching out towards God', can lead to Christian contemplation. For a long time in Christian mystical theology, there has been a distinction made between acquired and infused contemplation - the former being a 'natural' practice that we can undertake through a simple spiritual discipline, the latter being a gift from God of loving union. But I am not sure how helpful all of these distinctions are. We are, after all, talking about a deep mystery that has the character of a relationship rather than a programme. And for the one whose attentiveness is directed Godward, all is grace, all is gift.

I think a few things are relatively clear to me: Buddhist meditation is that undertaken by those who identify with Buddhist life and teaching, and who live in the spirit of Shakyamuni, the Buddha; Christian meditation is that undertaken by those who identify with Christian life and teaching, who live in the Spirit of Jesus. The understanding of what is going on for these two groups will differ to some extent, but the practice will look very similar. For example, the Buddhist meditator will often describe a deep sense of gratitude that comes from the practice of meditation, as will the Christian though the latter will describe that gratitude in terms of divine gift.

It would be disrespectful to say that the Buddhist is really praying to God without knowing it and it would be equally disrespectful to say that the non-religious pratitioner of meditation is doing the same. But Buddhist and Christian alike might say to the non-religious meditator that they might find their practice enriched if they were to locate it within the context of a particular religious tradition and community. At the same time, the non-religious meditator might offer some very reasonable challenges to the religious practitioner who has got hung up on finer points of doctrine at the expense of simply being human. All three groups have much to learn from each other and I suspect that this happens best when we recognise the differences in what we are doing as much as the common features of our practice and outlook. None of this, however, should prevent us from meditating together. Indeed, I would hope that this is a place where people of differing religious outlooks can do something together and share their experiences respectfully and creatively.

A Dearer Darkness

I recently rediscovered my copy of a 1951 translation of St John of the Cross's poems. Roy Campbell renders John's Spanish into accessible and poetic English which captures the erotic and subtle aspects of these dense and lively works. This poem is the basis of John's later work, the Ascent of Mount Carmel. It sets out a number of characteristic aspects of John's spirituality, which are also the classic themes of Christian mystical tradition: the darkness that speaks of a setting aside of our relilance on sensory knowledge; the ascent that tells of our Godward orientation; the union of the lover and the beloved; the focus on letting go rather than strenuous effort. The poem also shows us more specific features of John's spirituality, such as the use of  the language of 'wounding' to express the intensity and painful opening up that can be the experience of one who seeks God.

There is always a tension involved in expressing such ineffable truths in language, especially when the mystic constantly warns us of the danger of over-confidence in our ability to express such things at all. However, poetry's facility for open-ended and allusive expression can lead us into silence - the language does not close off our reaching out towards God but opens up a new space.

Upon a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
(O venture of delight!)
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed.

In safety, in disguise,
In darkness up the secret stair I crept,
(O happy enterprise)
Concealed from other eyes
When all my house at length in silence slept.

Upon that lucky night
In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,
I went without discerning
And with no other light
Except for that which in my heart was burning.

It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.

Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning's pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.

Within my flowering breast
Which only for himself entire I save
He sank into his rest
And all my gifts I gave
Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.

Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded, and
Suspended every sense with its caresses.

Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endeavour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.

A Song For Nobody

I'm preparing for our parish retreat looking at Thomas Merton's contemplative approach to nature. Here's one of the poems I'll be using, which I'll let speak for itself.

A Song For Nobody

A yellow flower
(Light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.

A golden spirit
(Light and emptiness)
Sings without a word
By itself.

Let no one touch this gentle sun
In whose dark eye
Someone is awake.

(No light, no gold, no name, no color
And no thought:
O, wide awake!)

A golden heaven
Sings by itself
A song to nobody.

 

Obscure and Ironic - another take on spirituality

One of Thomas Merton's most powerful and idiosyncratic books, Raids on the Unspeakable, offers an approach to 'spirituality' that challenges some of its complacent modern manifestations. It is a collection of reflections in different genres and the original edition separates each reflection by one of Merton's brush and ink 'calligraphies'. For some reason, the UK version from Burns and Oates left these remarkable marks out... In the prologue, addressed to the book itself, Merton advocates an awareness, a set of insights that are 'obscure and ironic' rather than a set of answers. He is suspicious of offering a programme to solve everything (or anything!) and offers instead a possibility of 'wakefulness'.

Among the reflections is a piece called Atlas and the Fatman which juxtaposes the illusory and controlling persona of modernity's destructiveness with the silent, creative goodness of Atlas, who brings forth life with his gently sounding bell and oceanic light. It is an emotionally charged piece of writing in a mythological mode that exposes the calculating Fatman with his systems and calls for a life-giving awareness of Atlas whose justice and freedom is seen in nameless nature: 'Every plant that stands in the light of the sun is a saint and an outlaw.' One particularly demanding passage describes the 'logical' outworking of Fatman's hubris in the gas chambers.

This writing offers an approach to spirituality that pungent, troubling, prophetic and poetic. It is by no means devoid of hope, but that hope is not easily won or cheaply bought. I might dare to contrast this with some contemporary approaches to spirituality that seem perilously close to Marx's warnings about opiates - a quick chill-out on a soft mat that patches us up for long enough to resume our place in consumption's mechanism. In a nice little twist, we can even package the spirituality as a 'lifestyle product' thus freeing us from the inconvenience of having to set aside our consumption even for a moment.

Atlas and the Fatman is a cautionary tale that reminds us that spirituality without justice is a dangerous thing. Awakened spirituality with justice has a power that resonates with the very power of creation itself. Atlas, come to our aid!