Category Archives: Religion

BUDDHISM: The Diamond Thunderbolt

March 27, 2023 – 4:04 PM

Reference: Buddhism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

The Dalai Lama is a receiving station toward which the compassion principle of Buddhism in all its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate thence to the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to all sentient beings.

We have spoken of two yanas or paths in Buddhism, but we must now add a third. If Hinayana literally means the Little Way and Mahayana the Great Way, Vajrayana is the Diamond Way. 

Vajra was originally the thunderbolt of Indra, the Indian Thunder God who is often mentioned in the early, Pali Buddhist texts; but when Mahayana turned the Buddha into a cosmic figure, Indra’s thunderbolt was transformed into the Buddha’s diamond scepter. We see here a telling instance of Buddhism’s capacity to accommodate itself to local ideas while revaluing them by changing the spiritual center of gravity; for the diamond transforms the thunderbolt, symbol of nature’s power, into an emblem of spiritual supremacy, while retaining the connotations of power that the thunderbolt possessed. The diamond is the hardest stone—one hundred times harder than its closest rival—and at the same time the most transparent stone. This makes the Vajrayana the way of strength and lucidity—strength to realize the Buddha’s vision of luminous compassion.

There is another way in Buddhism—the way of strength and lucidity—called Vajrayana.

We just noted that the roots of the Vajrayana can be traced back to India, and it continues to survive in Japan as Shingon Buddhism; but it was the Tibetans who perfected this third Buddhist path. For Tibetan Buddhism is not just Buddhism with Tibet’s pre-Buddhist Bon deities incorporated. Nor is it enough to characterize it as Indian Buddhism in its eighth-and ninth century heyday, moved northward to be preserved against its collapse in India. To catch its distinctiveness we must see it as the third major Buddhist yana, while adding immediately that the essence of the Vajrayana is Tantra. Tibetan Buddhism, the Buddhism here under review, is at heart Tantric Buddhism. 

The essence of the Vajrayana is Tantra.

Buddhists have no monopoly on Tantra, which first showed itself in medieval Hinduism where the word had two Sanskrit roots. One of these is “extension.” In this meaning Tantra denotes texts, many of them esoteric and secret in nature, that were added to the Hindu corpus to extend its range. This gives us only the formal meaning of the word, however. For the content of those extended texts we should look to the second etymological meaning of Tantra, which derives from the weaving craft and denotes interpenetration. In weaving, the threads of warp and woof intertwine repeatedly. The Tantras are texts that focus on the interrelatedness of things. Hinduism pioneered such texts, but it was Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, that gave them pride of place. 

The Tantras are texts that focus on the interrelatedness of things.

The Tibetans say that their religion is nowise distinctive in its goal. What distinguishes their practice is that it enables one to reach nirvana in a single lifetime. This is a major claim. How do the Tibetans defend it? 

What distinguishes tantric buddhism is that it enables one to reach nirvana in a single lifetime.

They say that the speed-up is effected by utilizing all of the energies latent in the human make-up, those of the body emphatically included, and impressing them all into the service of the spiritual quest. 

It utilizes all of the energies latent in the human make-up for the spiritual quest. 

The energy that interests the West most is sex, so it is not surprising that Tantra’s reputation abroad has been built on its sacramental use of this drive. H. G. Wells once said that God and sex were the only two things that really interested him. If we can have both—not be forced to choose between them as in monasticism and celibacy—this is music to modern ears, so much so that in the popular Western mind Tantra and sex are almost equated. This is unfortunate. Not only does it obscure the larger world of Tantra; it distorts its sexual teachings by removing them from that world. 

Unfortunately, in the popular Western mind Tantra and sex are almost equated, for it obscure the larger world of Tantra.

Within that world Tantra’s teachings about sex are neither titillating nor bizarre: they are universal. Sex is so important—after all, it keeps life going—that it must be linked quite directly with God. It is the divine Eros of Hesiod, celebrated in Plato’s Phaedrus and in some way by every people. Even this, though, is too mild. Sex is the divine in its most available epiphany. But with this proviso: It is such when joined to love. When two people who are passionately, even madly—Plato’s divine madness—in love; when each wants most to receive what the other most wants to give;—at the moment of their mutual climax it is impossible to say whether the experience is more physical or spiritual, or whether they sense themselves as two or as one. The moment is ecstatic because at that moment they stand outside—ex, out; stasis, standing—themselves in the melded oneness of the Absolute. 

Tantra’s teachings about sex are neither titillating nor bizarre: they are universal. In Tantra’s sacramental use of this drive, correct understanding and discipline is essential.

Nothing thus far is uniquely Tantric; from the Hebrew Song of Songs to the explicit sexual symbolism in mystical marriages to Christ, the principles just mentioned turn up in all traditions. What distinguishes Tantra is the way it wholeheartedly espouses sex as a spiritual ally, working with it explicitly and intentionally. Beyond squeamishness and titillation, both, the Tantrics keep the physical and spiritual components of the love-sex splice in strict conjunction—through their art (which shows couples in coital embrace), in their fantasies (the ability to visualize should be actively cultivated), and in overt sexual engagement, for only one of the four Tibetan priestly orders is celibate. Beyond these generalizations it is not easy to go, so we shall leave the matter with a covering observation. Tantric sexual practice is pursued, not as a law-breaking revel, but under the cautious supervision of a guru, in the controlled context of a non-dualist outlook, and as the culminating festival of a long sequence of spiritual disciplines practiced through many lives. The spiritual emotion that is worked for is ecstatic, egoless, beatific bliss in the realization of transcendent identity. But it is not self-contained, for the ultimate goal of the practice is to descend from the non-dual experience better equipped to experience the multiplicity of the world without estrangement. 

What distinguishes Tantra is the way it wholeheartedly espouses sex as a spiritual ally, working with it explicitly and intentionally.

With Tantra’s sexual side thus addressed, we can move on to more general features of its practice. We have already seen that these are distinctive in the extent to which they are body-based, and the physical energies the Tantrics work with most regularly are the ones that are involved with speech, vision, and gestures. 

The physical energies the Tantrics work with most regularly are the ones that are involved with speech, vision, and gestures. 

To appreciate the difference in a religious practice that engages these faculties actively, it is useful to think back to the raja yoga of Hinduism and Zen in Buddhism. Both of these meditation programs set out to immobilize the body so that for practical purposes the mind might rise above it. A snapshot could capture the body in those practices, whereas with the Tibetans a motion picture camera would be needed, and one that is wired for sound. For, ritualistically engaged, the Tibetans’ bodies are always moving. The lamas prostrate themselves, weave stylized hand gestures, pronounce sacred syllables, and intone deep-throated chants. Audially and visually, something is always going on. 

For, ritualistically engaged, the Tibetans’ bodies are always moving. The lamas prostrate themselves, weave stylized hand gestures, pronounce sacred syllables, and intone deep-throated chants.

The rationale they invoke for engaging their bodies in their spiritual pursuits is straightforward. Sounds, sights, and motion can distract, they admit, but it does not follow that they must do so. It was the genius of the great pioneers of Tantra to discover upayas (skillful means) for channeling physical energies into currents that carry the spirit forward instead of derailing it. The most prominent of these currents relate to the sound, sight, and movement we have referred to, and the names for them all begin with the letter “m.” Mantras convert noise into sound and distracting chatter into holy formulas. Mudras choreograph hand gestures, turning them into pantomime and sacred dance. Mandalas treat the eyes to icons whose holy beauty draws the beholder in their direction. 

The rationale they invoke for engaging their bodies in their spiritual pursuits is straightforward. Sounds, sights, and motion can distract, they admit, but it does not follow that they must do so.

If we try to experience our way into the liturgy by which the Tibetans put these Tantric devices into practice, the scene that emerges is something like this. Seated in long, parallel rows; wearing headgear that ranges from crowns to wild shamanic hats; garbed in maroon robes, which they periodically smother in sumptuous vestments of silver, scarlet, and gold, gleaming metaphors for inner states of consciousness, the monks begin to chant. They begin in a deep, guttural, metric monotone, but as the mood deepens those monotones splay out into harmonics that sound like full-throated chords, though actually the monks are not singing in parts; harmony (a Western discovery) is unknown to them. By a vocal device found nowhere else in the world, they reshape their vocal cavities in ways that amplify overtones to the point where they can be heard as discrete tones in their own right. Meanwhile, their hands perform stylized gestures that kinesthetically augment the states of consciousness that are being accessed. 

Here we have a description of how the Tibetans put these Tantric devices into practice.

A final, decisive feature of this practice would be lost on observers because it is totally internal. Throughout the exercise the monks visualize the deities they are invoking—visualize them with such intensity (years of practice are required to master the technique) that, initially with closed eyes but eventually with eyes wide open, they are able to see the deities as if they were physically present. This goes a long way toward making them real, but in the meditation’s climax, the monks go further. They seek experientially to merge with the gods they have conjured, the better to appropriate their powers and their virtues. An extraordinary assemblage of artistic forms are orchestrated here, but not for art’s sake. They constitute a technology, designed to modulate the human spirit to the wavelengths of the tutelary deities that are invoked. 

Through their chanting and gestures they are able to visualize the deities they are invoking; and then they seek experientially to merge with the gods they have conjured.

To complete this profile of Tibetan Buddhism’s distinctiveness, we must add to this summary of its Tantric practice a unique institution. When in 1989 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, that institution jumped to worldwide attention. 

The Dalai Lama is not accurately likened to the pope, for it is not his prerogative to define doctrine. Even more misleading is the designation God-King, for though temporal and spiritual authority do converge in him, neither of these powers define his essential function. That function is to incarnate on earth the celestial principle of which compassion or mercy is the defining feature. The Dalai Lama is the bodhisattva who in India was known as Avalokiteshvara, in China as the Goddess of Mercy Kwan Yin, and in Japan as Kannon. As Chenrezig (his Tibetan name) he has for the last several centuries incarnated himself for the empowerment and regeneration of the Tibetan tradition. Through his person—a single person who has thus far assumed fourteen successive incarnations—there flows an uninterrupted current of spiritual influence, characteristically compassionate in its flavor. Thus in relation to the world generally, and to Tibet in particular, the office of the Dalai Lama is chiefly neither one of administration nor of teaching but an “activity of presence” that is operative independently of anything he may, as an individual, choose to do or not do. The Dalai Lama is a receiving station toward which the compassion principle of Buddhism in all its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate thence to the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to all sentient beings. 

The Dalai Lama is a receiving station toward which the compassion principle of Buddhism in all its cosmic amplitude is continuously channeled, to radiate thence to the Tibetan people most directly, but by extension to all sentient beings.

Whether the Dalai Lama will reincarnate himself again after his present body is spent is uncertain, for at present the Chinese invaders are determined that there will be no distinct people for him to serve. If there are not, something important will have withdrawn from history. For as rain forests are to the earth’s atmosphere, someone has said, so are the Tibetan people to the human spirit in this time of its planetary ordeal.

For as rain forests are to the earth’s atmosphere, someone has said, so are the Tibetan people to the human spirit in this time of its planetary ordeal.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Buddhism | Comments (0)

BUDDHISM: The Secret of the Flower

March 26, 2023 – 10:41 AM

Reference: Buddhism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

Zen refuses to lock itself into a verbal casing; it is not founded on written words, and is outside the established teachings. Zen is not interested in theories about enlightenment; it wants the real thing. 

After Buddhism split into Theravada and Mahayana, Theravada continued as a fairly unified tradition, whereas Mahayana divided into a number of denominations or schools. The most popular of these, the Pure Land Sect, resembles the Pauline strand in Christianity in relying on faith—in its case faith in the “other power” of one of the Buddhas—to carry devotees to the Pure Land of the Western Paradise. In its popular reading this paradise bears many resemblances to the Christian heaven, though both admit of subtler interpretations in which paradise is regarded as an experiential state rather than a geographical place. Another important Mahayana school (Ti’en Tai in Chinese; Tendai in Japanese) introduced into Buddhism the Confucian predilections for learning and social harmony. It sought to find a place for all the Buddhist schools in a culminating treatise, The Lotus Sutra. We shall not go into these and smaller sects of Mahayana Buddhism; we shall reserve our space for, first, the Buddhism that Taoism profoundly influenced, namely Ch’an (Zen in Japanese), and second, the Buddhism that evolved in Tibet. The selection is partly determined by the fact that these are the branches of Buddhism that have attracted the most attention in the West, but there is the added advantage that they will take us to two quite different lands in which Buddhism has flourished. 

After Buddhism split into Theravada and Mahayana, Theravada continued as a fairly unified tradition, whereas Mahayana divided into a number of denominations or schools. 

Because the Communist takeover of China disrupted its religious life, we shall pursue the Ch’an/Zen sect in its Japanese guise. Like other Mahayanist sects, this one claims to trace its perspective back to Gautama himself. His teachings that found their way into the Pali Canon, it holds, were those the masses seized upon. His more perceptive followers heard in his message a higher, subtler teaching. The classic instance of this is reported in the Buddha’s Flower Sermon. Standing on a mountain with his disciples around him, the Buddha did not on this occasion resort to words. He simply held aloft a golden lotus. No one understood the meaning of this eloquent gesture save Mahakasyapa, whose quiet smile, indicating that he had gotten the point, caused the Buddha to designate him as his successor. The insight that prompted the smile was transmitted in India through twenty-eight patriarchs and carried to China in A.D. 520 by Bodhidharma. Spreading from there to Japan in the twelfth century, it contains the secret of Zen.

The Zen sect of Mahayana Buddhism claims to trace its perspective back to Buddha’s Flower Sermon. The Buddha did not on this occasion resort to words. He simply held aloft a golden lotus. 

Entering Zen is like stepping through Alice’s looking glass. One finds oneself in a topsy-turvy wonderland where everything seems quite mad—charmingly mad for the most part, but mad all the same. It is a world of bewildering dialogues, obscure conundrums, stunning paradoxes, flagrant contradictions, and abrupt non sequiturs, all carried off in the most urbane, cheerful, and innocent style imaginable. Here are some examples: 

A master, Gutei, whenever he was asked the meaning of Zen, lifted his index finger. That was all. Another kicked a ball. Still another slapped the inquirer. 

A novice who makes a respectful allusion to the Buddha is ordered to rinse his mouth out and never utter that dirty word again. 

Someone claiming to understand Buddhism writes the following stanza:

The body is the Bodhi-Tree;
The mind is like the mirror bright.
Take heed to keep it always clean,
And let no dust collect upon it.

He is at once corrected by an opposite quatrain, which becomes accepted as the true Zen position:

Bodhi (True Wisdom) is not a tree;
The mind is not a mirror shining.
As there is nothing from the first,
Why talk of wiping off the dust?

A monk approaches a master saying, “I have just come to this monastery. Would you kindly give me some instruction?” The master asks, “Have you eaten your breakfast yet?” “I have.” “Then go wash your bowls.” The inquirer acquired the understanding he was seeking through this exchange. 

A group of Zen masters, gathered for conversation, have a great time declaring that there is no such thing as Buddhism, or Enlightenment, or anything even remotely resembling nirvana. They set traps for one another, trying to trick someone into an assertion that might imply the contrary. Practiced as they are, they always artfully elude traps and pitfalls, whereupon the entire company bursts into glorious, room-shaking laughter.

What goes on here? Is it possible to make any sense out of what at first blush looks like Olympian horseplay, if not a direct put-on? Can they possibly be serious in this kind of spiritual doubletalk, or are they simply pulling our legs? 

The answer is that they are completely serious, though it is true that they are rarely solemn. And though we cannot hope to convey their perspective completely, it being of Zen’s essence that it cannot be impounded in words, we can give some hint as to what they are up to. 

Zen’s essence is that it cannot be impounded in words. It is simply a presentation of anomalies to be resolved.

Let us admit at the outset that even this is going to be difficult, for we shall have to use words to talk about a position that is acutely aware of their limitations. Words occupy an ambiguous place in life. They are indispensable to our humanity, for without them we would be but howling yahoos. But they can also deceive, or at least mislead, fabricating a virtual reality that fronts for the one that actually exists. A parent can be fooled into thinking it loves its child because it addresses the child in endearing terms. A nation can assume that the phrase “under God” in its Pledge of Allegiance shows that its citizens believe in God when all it really shows is that they believe in believing in God. With all their admitted uses, words have three limitations. At worst they construct an artificial world wherein our actual feelings are camouflaged and people are reduced to stereotypes. Second, even when their descriptions are reasonably accurate, descriptions are not the things described—menus are not the meal. Finally, as mystics emphasize, our highest experiences elude words almost entirely. 

Words have limitations in describing the reality. Zen’s anomalies serve to keep the attention focused while unrestrained mindfulness meditation occurs in the mind leading to realizations.

Every religion that has developed even a modicum of semantic sophistication recognizes to some extent the way words and reason fall short of reality when they do not actually distort it. However much the rationalist may begrudge the fact, paradox and the transrational are religion’s life blood, and that of art as well. Mystics in every faith report contacts with a world that startles and transforms them with its dazzling darkness. Zen stands squarely in this camp, its only uniqueness being that it makes breaking the language barrier its central concern. 

Zen makes breaking the language barrier its central concern. 

Only if we keep this fact in mind have we a chance of understanding this outlook, which in ways is the strangest expression of mature religion. It was the Buddha himself, according to Zen tradition, who first made the point by refusing (in the Flower Sermon we have already alluded to) to equate his experiential discovery with any verbal expression. Bodhidharma continued in this tradition by defining the treasure he was bringing to China as “a special transmission outside the scriptures.” This seems so out of keeping with religion as usually understood as to sound heretical. Think of Hinduism with its Vedas, Confucianism with its Classics, Judaism with its Torah, Christianity with its Bible, Islam with its Koran. All would happily define themselves as special transmissions through their scriptures. Zen, too, has its texts; they are intoned in its monasteries morning and evening. In addition to the Sutras, which it shares with other branches of Buddhism, it has its own texts: the Hekigan Roku, the Mumonkan, and others. But one glance at these distinctive texts will reveal how unlike other scriptures they are. Almost entirely they are given to pressing home the fact that Zen cannot be equated with any verbal formula whatsoever. Account after account will depict disciples interrogating their masters about Zen, only to receive a roared “Ho!” for answer. For the master sees that through such questions, seekers are trying to fill the lack in their lives with words and concepts instead of realizations. Indeed, students will be lucky if they get off with verbal rebuffs. Often a rain of blows will be the retort as the master, utterly uninterested in the disciples’ physical comfort, resorts to the most forceful way he can think of to pry the questioner out of his mental rut.

Zen has its own texts, in addition to the sutras, which are almost entirely given to pressing home the fact that Zen cannot be equated with any verbal formula whatsoever. 

As we might expect, this unique stance toward scripture is duplicated in Zen’s attitude toward creeds. In contrast to most religions, which pivot around a creed of some sort, Zen refuses to lock itself into a verbal casing; it is “not founded on written words, and [is] outside the established teachings,” to return to Bodhidharma’s putting of the point. Signposts are not the destination, maps are not the terrain. Life is too rich and textured to be fitted into pigeonholes, let alone equated with them. No affirmation is more than a finger pointing to the moon. And, lest attention turn to the finger, Zen will point, only to withdraw its finger at once. Other faiths regard blasphemy and disrespect for God’s word as sins, but Zen masters may order their disciples to rip their scriptures to shreds and avoid words like Buddha or nirvana as if they were smut. They intend no disrespect. What they are doing is straining by every means they can think of to blast their novices out of solutions that are only verbal. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Zen is not interested in theories about enlightenment; it wants the real thing. So it shouts, and buffets, and reprimands, without ill-will entering in the slightest. All it wants to do is force the student to crash the wordbarrier. Minds must be sprung from their verbal bonds into a new mode of apprehending. 

Zen refuses to lock itself into a verbal casing; it is not founded on written words, and is outside the established teachings. Zen is not interested in theories about enlightenment; it wants the real thing. 

Every point can be overstated, so we should not infer from what has been said that Zen forgoes reason and words entirely. To be sure, it is no more impressed with the mind’s attempts to mirror ultimate reality than was Kierkegaard with Hegel’s metaphysics; no amount of polishing can enable a brick to reflect the sun. But it does not follow that reason is worthless. Obviously, it helps us make our way in the everyday world, a fact that leads Zennists in the main to be staunch advocates of education. But more. Working in special ways, reason can actually help awareness toward its goal. If the way that it is employed to do this seems at times like using a thorn to remove a thorn, we should add that reason can also play an interpretive role, serving as a bridge to join a newly discovered world to the world of common sense. For there is not a Zen problem whose answer, once discovered, does not make good sense within its own frame of reference; there is no experience that the masters are unwilling to try to describe or explain, given the proper circumstance. The point regarding Zen’s relation to reason is simply a double one. First, Zen logic and description make sense only from an experiential perspective radically different from the ordinary. Second, Zen masters are determined that their students attain the experience itself, not allow talk to take its place.

But it does not follow that reason is worthless. Working in special ways, reason can actually help awareness toward its goal. 

Nowhere is Zen’s determination on this latter point more evident than in the method it adopted for its own perpetuation. Whereas on the tricky matter of succession other religions turned to institutionalized mandates, papal succession, or creedal dicta, Zen trusted its future to a specific state of consciousness that was to be transmitted directly from one mind to another, like flame passed from candle to candle, or water poured from cup to cup. It is this “transmission of Buddha-mind to Buddha-mind” that constitutes the “special transmission” Bodhidharma cited as Zen’s essence. For a number of centuries this inward transmission was symbolized by the handing down of the Buddha’s robe and bowl from patriarch to patriarch, but in the Eighth Century the Sixth Patriarch in China concluded that even this simple gesture was a step toward confounding form with essence and ordered it discontinued. So here is a tradition that centers in a succession of teachers, each of whom has in principle inherited from his master a mindstate analogous to the one Gautama awakened in Mahakasyapa. Practice falls short of this principle, but the following figures suggest the steps that are taken to keep it in place. The master of the teacher under whom the author of this book studied estimated that he had given personal instruction to some nine hundred probationers. Of these, thirteen completed their Zen training, and four were given the inka—which is to say, they were confirmed as roshis (Zen masters) and authorized to teach.

It is this “transmission of Buddha-mind to Buddha-mind” that constitutes the “special transmission” Bodhidharma cited as Zen’s essence. 

And what is the training by which aspirants are brought toward the Buddha-mind that has been thus preserved? We can approach it by way of three key terms: zazen, koan, and sanzen. 

Zazen literally means “seated meditation.” The bulk of Zen training takes place in a large meditation hall. Visitors to these are struck by the seemingly endless hours the monks devote to sitting silently on two long, raised platforms that extend the length of the hall on either side, their faces toward the center (or to the walls, depending on which of the two main lineages of Zen the monastery is attached to). Their position is the lotus posture, adopted from India. Their eyes are half closed as their gaze falls unfocused on the tawny straw mats they are sitting on. 

Zazen literally means “seated meditation.” The bulk of Zen training takes place in a large meditation hall. 

Thus they sit, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, seeking to waken the Buddha-mind so they may later relate it to their daily lives. The most intriguing feature of the process is the use they make of one of the strangest devices for spiritual training anywhere to be encountered—the koan. 

In a general way koan means problem, but the problems Zen devises are fantastic. At first glance they look like nothing so much as a cross between a riddle and a shaggy dog story. For example:

A master, Wu Tsu, says, “Let me take an illustration from a fable. A cow passes by a window. Its head, horns, and the four legs all pass by. Why did not the tail pass by?” 

Or again: What was the appearance of your face before your ancestors were born? 

Another: We are all familiar with the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping? (If you protest that one hand can’t clap, you go to the foot of the class.) 

One more: Li-ku, a high-ranking officer in the Tang dynasty, asked a famous Ch’an master: “A long time ago a man kept a goose in a bottle. It grew larger and larger until it could not get out of the bottle any more. He did not want to break the bottle, nor did he wish to harm the goose. How would you get it out? 

The master was silent for a few moments, then shouted, “O Officer!” 
“Yes.” 
“It’s out!”

In a general way koan means problem, but the problems Zen devises are fantastic. Anyway, Zen is a direct practice of how to resolve anomalies. You let the answer form itself from deep inside you.

Our impulse is to dismiss these puzzles as absurd, but the Zen practitioner is not permitted to do this. He or she is ordered to direct the full force of the mind upon them, sometimes locking logic with them, sometimes dropping them into the mind’s deep interior to wait till an acceptable answer erupts, a project that on a single koan may take as long as a doctoral dissertation. 

During this time the mind is intently at work, but it is working in a very special way. We in the West rely on reason so fully that we must remind ourselves that in Zen we are dealing with a perspective that is convinced that reason is limited and must be supplemented by another mode of knowing. 

Beyond reason is letting the answer to deep questions simply bubble up.

For Zen, if reason is not a ball and chain, anchoring mind to earth, it is at least a ladder too short to reach to truth’s full heights. It must, therefore, be surpassed, and it is just this surpassing that koans are designed to assist. If they look scandalous to reason, we must remember that Zen is not trying to placate the mundane mind. It intends the opposite: to upset the mind—unbalance it and eventually provoke revolt against the canons that imprison it. But this puts the matter too mildly. By forcing reason to wrestle with what from its normal point of view is flat absurdity; by compelling it to conjoin things that are ordinarily incompatible, Zen tries to drive the mind to a state of agitation wherein it hurls itself against its logical cage with the desperation of a cornered rat. By paradox and non sequitur Zen provokes, excites, exasperates, and eventually exhausts the mind until it sees that thinking is never more than thinking about, or feeling more than feeling for. Then, having gotten the rational mind where it wants it—reduced to an impasse—it counts on a flash of sudden insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and firsthand life.

Light breaks on secret lots….
Where logics die
The secret grows through the eye.

Zen is not trying to placate the mundane mind. It intends the opposite: to upset the mind—unbalance it and eventually provoke revolt against the canons that imprison it. 

Before we dismiss this strange method as completely foreign, it is well to remember that Kierkegaard regarded meditation on the paradox of the Incarnation—the logical absurdity of the Infinite becoming finite, God becoming man—as the most rewarding of all Christian exercises. The koan appears illogical because reason proceeds within structured perimeters. Outside those perimeters the koan is not inconsistent; it has its own logic, a “Riemannian” logic we might say. Once the mental barrier has been broken, it becomes intelligible. Like an alarm clock, it is set to awaken the mind from its dream of rationality. A higher lucidity is at hand. 

There is a higher lucidity than rationality.

Struggling with his koan, the Zen monk is not alone. Books will not avail, and koans that are being worked on are not discussed with fellow monks, for this could only produce secondhand answers. Twice a day, though, on average, the monk confronts the master in private “consultation concerning meditation”—sanzen in Rinzai and dokusan in the Soto sect. These meetings are invariably brief. The trainee states the koan in question and follows it with his or her answer to date. The role of the master is then threefold. In the happy event that the answer is correct, he validates it, but this is his least important role, for a right answer usually comes with a force that is self-validating. A greater service is rendered in rejecting inadequate answers, for nothing so helps the student to put these permanently to one side as the master’s categorical rejection of them. This aspect of sanzen is fittingly described in the ninth-century Rules of Hyakujo as affording “the opportunity for the teacher to make a close personal examination of the student, to arouse him from his immaturity, to beat down his false conceptions and to rid him of his prejudices, just as the smelter removes the lead and quicksilver from the gold in the smelting-pot, and as the jade-cutter, in polishing the jade, discards every possible flaw.” The master’s other service is, like that of any exacting examiner, to keep the student energized and determined during the long years the training requires.

A right answer usually comes with a force that is self-validating. 

And to what does this zazen, koan training, and sanzen lead? The first important breakthrough is an intuitive experience called kensho or satori. Though its preparation may take years, the experience itself comes in a flash, exploding like a silent rocket deep within the subject and throwing everything into a new perspective. Fearful of being seduced by words, Zennists waste little breath in describing satoris, but occasionally accounts appear.

Ztt! I entered. I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I saw people coming toward me, but all were the same man. All were myself. I had never known this world before. I had believed that I was created, but now I must change my opinion: I was never created; I was the cosmos. No individual existed.

This explanation is beautiful.

From this and similar descriptions we can infer that satori is Zen’s version of the mystical experience, which, wherever it appears, brings joy, at-one-ment, and a sense of reality that defies ordinary language. But whereas the tendency is to relate such experiences to the zenith of the religious quest, Zen places them close to the point of departure. In a very real sense Zen training begins with satori. For one thing, there must be further satoris as the trainee learns to move with greater freedom in this realm. But the important point is that Zen, drawing half its inspiration from the practical, common-sense, this-worldly orientation of the Chinese to balance the mystical other-worldly half it derived from India, refuses to permit the human spirit to withdraw—shall we say retreat?—into the mystical state completely. Once we achieve satori, we must

get out of the sticky morass in which we have been floundering, and return to the unfettered freedom of the open fields. Some people may say: “If I have [achieved satori] that is enough. Why should I go further?” The old masters lashed out at such persons, calling them “earthworms living in the slime of self-accredited enlightenment.”

A Satori is not the end-all of enlightenment. There are many satoris ahead.

The genius of Zen lies in the fact that it neither leaves the world in the less-than-ideal state in which it finds it, nor withdraws from the world in aloofness or indifference. Zen’s object is to infuse the temporal with the eternal—to widen the doors of perception so that the wonder of the satori experience can flood the everyday world.

Zen’s object is to infuse the temporal with the eternal.

“What,” asks the student, “is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?” The master answers, “The cypress tree standing in the garden.” Being’s amazingness must be directly realized, and satori is its first discernment. But until—through recognizing the interpenetration and convertibility of all phenomena—its wonder spreads to objects as common as the tree in your backyard and you can perform your daily duties with the understanding that each is equally a manifestation of the infinite, Zen’s business has not been completed. 

But until you can perform your daily duties with the understanding that each is equally a manifestation of the infinite, Zen’s business has not been completed. 

With the possible exception of the Buddha himself, in no one is that business ever completely finished. Yet by extrapolating hints in the Zen corpus we can form some idea of what the condition of “the man who has nothing further to do” would be like. 

First, it is a condition in which life seems distinctly good. Asked what Zen training leads to, a Western student who had been practicing for seven years in Kyoto answered, “No paranormal experiences that I can detect. But you wake up in the morning and the world seems so beautiful you can hardly stand it.” 

There is a continuing sense of world’s beauty and life’s goodness.

Along with this sense of life’s goodness there comes, secondly, an objective outlook on one’s relation to others; their welfare impresses one as being as important as one’s own. Looking at a dollar bill, one’s gaze may be possessive; looking at a sunset, it cannot be. Zen attainment is like looking at the sunset. Requiring (as it does) awareness to the full, issues like “whose awareness?” or “awareness of what?” do not arise. Dualisms dissolve. As they do there comes over one a feeling of gratitude to the past and responsibility to things present and future. 

Zen attainment is like looking at the sunset. Requiring (as it does) awareness to the full, issues like “whose awareness?” or “awareness of what?” do not arise. 

Third, the life of Zen (as we have sought to emphasize) does not draw one away from the world; it returns one to the world—the world robed in new light. We are not called to worldly indifference, as if life’s object were to spring soul from body as piston from syringe. The call is to discover the satisfaction of full awareness even in its bodily setting. “What is the most miraculous of all miracles?” “That I sit quietly by myself.” Simply to see things as they are, as they truly are in themselves, is life enough. It is true that Zen values unity, but it is a unity that is simultaneously empty (because it erases lines that divide) and full (because it replaces those lines with ones that connect). Stated in the form of a Zen algorithm, “All is one, one is none, none is all.” Zen wears the air of divine ordinariness: “Have you eaten? Then wash your bowls.” If you cannot find the meaning of life in an act as simple as that of doing the dishes, you will not find it anywhere.

My daily activities are not different,
Only I am naturally in harmony with them.
Taking nothing, renouncing nothing,
In every circumstance no hindrance, no conflict…
Drawing water, carrying firewood,
This is supernatural power, this the marvelous activity.

The life of Zen does not draw one away from the world; it returns one to the world—the world robed in new light. 

With this perception of the infinite in the finite there comes, finally, an attitude of generalized agreeableness. “Yesterday was fair, today it is raining”; the experiencer has passed beyond the opposites of preference and rejection. As both pulls are needed to keep the relative world turning, each is welcomed in its proper turn. 

There is a poem by Seng Ts’an on “Trust in the Heart,” that stands as the purest expression of this ideal of total acceptance.

The perfect way knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preferences;
Only when freed from hate and love
Does it reveal itself fully and without disguise;
A tenth of an inch’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart.
If you wish to see it before your own eyes
Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.
To set up what you like against what you dislike—
That is the disease of the mind.
The Way is perfect like unto vast space,
With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous.
It is due to making choices
That its Suchness is lost sight of.
The One is none other than the All, the All none other than the One.
Take your stand on this, and the rest will follow of its own accord;
I have spoken, but in vain, for what can words tell
Of things that have no yesterday, tomorrow, or today?

Even truth and falsity look different. “Do not seek after truth. Merely cease to hold opinions.” 

Fifth, as the dichotomies between self and other, finite and infinite, acceptance and rejection are transcended, even the dichotomy between life and death disappears.

When this realization is completely achieved, never again can one feel that one’s individual death brings an end to life. One has lived from an endless past and will live into an endless future. At this very moment one partakes of Eternal Life—blissful, luminous, pure. 

The dichotomies between self and other, finite and infinite, acceptance and rejection are transcended. Even the dichotomy between life and death disappears.

As we leave Zen to its future we may note that its influence on the cultural life of Japan has been enormous. Though its greatest influence has been on pervasive life attitudes, four ingredients of Japanese culture carry its imprint indelibly. In sumie or black ink landscape painting, Zen monks, living their simple lives close to the earth, have rivaled the skill and depth of feeling of their Chinese masters. In landscape gardening Zen temples surpassed their Chinese counterparts and raised the art to unrivaled perfection. Flower arrangement began in floral offerings to the Buddha, but developed into an art that until recently was a part of the training of every refined Japanese girl. Finally, there is the celebrated tea ceremony, in which an austere but beautiful setting, a few fine pieces of old pottery, a slow, graceful ritual, and a spirit of utter tranquility combine to epitomize the harmony, respect, clarity, and calm that characterize Zen at its best.

There is the celebrated tea ceremony, in which an austere but beautiful setting, a few fine pieces of old pottery, a slow, graceful ritual, and a spirit of utter tranquility combine to epitomize the harmony, respect, clarity, and calm that characterize Zen at its best.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Buddhism | Comments (0)

BUDDHISM: Big Raft and Little

March 25, 2023 – 3:45 PM

Reference: Buddhism

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

In Theravada Buddhism the prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi), from which flow automatically the compassion for others. From the Mahayana perspective compassion must be given priority over wisdom from the beginning.

Thus far we have been looking at Buddhism as it appears from its earliest records. We turn now to Buddhist history and the record it provides of the variations that can enter a tradition as it seeks to minister to the needs of masses of people and multiple personality types. 

When we approach Buddhist history with this interest, what strikes us immediately is that it splits. Religions invariably split. In the West the twelve Hebrew tribes split into Israel and Judah. Christendom split into the Eastern and Western churches, the Western church split into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and Protestantism splinters. The same happens in Buddhism. The Buddha dies, and before the century is out the seeds of schism have been sown. One approach to the question of why Buddhism split would be through analyzing the events, personalities, and environments the religion became implicated with in its early centuries. We can cut through all that, however, by saying, simply, that Buddhism divided over the questions that have always divided people. 

Buddhism split just like most religions have split as they seeks to minister to the needs of masses of people and multiple personality types. 

How many such questions are there? How many questions will divide almost every assemblage of people whether in India, New York, or Madrid? Three come to mind. 

First, there is the question of whether people are independent or interdependent. Some people are most aware of their individuality; for them, their freedom and initiative is more important than their bondings. The obvious corollary is that they see people as making their own ways through life; what each achieves will be largely of his or her own doing. “I was born in the slums, my father was an alcoholic, all of my siblings went to the dogs—don’t talk to me about heredity or environment. I got to where I am by myself!” This is one attitude. On the other side of the fence are those for whom life’s inter-connectedness prevails. To them the separateness of people seems tenuous; they see themselves as supported and vectored by social fields that are as strong as those of physics. Human bodies are of course separate, but on a deeper level we are joined like icebergs in a common floe. “Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” 

There is the question of whether people are independent or interdependent, which will divide almost every assemblage of people. There is that strong feeling of individuality that contributes to it.

A second question concerns the relation in which human beings stand, not this time to their fellows, but to the universe. Is the universe friendly—helpful on the whole toward creatures? Or is it indifferent, if not hostile? Opinions differ. On bookstore shelves we find volumes with titles like Man Stands Alone, and next to them Man Does not Stand Alone and Man Is Not Alone. Some people see history as a thoroughly human project in which humanity raises itself by its own bootstraps or progress doesn’t happen. For others it is powered by “a higher power that makes for good.” 

A second question concerns the relation in which human beings stand, not this time to their fellows, but to the universe.

A third dividing question is: What is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart? A popular parlor game used to revolve around the question, “If you had to choose, would you rather be loved or respected?” It is the same point with a different twist. Classicists rank thoughts above feelings; romantics do the opposite. The first seek wisdom; the second, if they had to choose, prefer compassion. The distinction probably also relates to William James’s contrast between the tough-minded and the tender-minded. 

A third dividing question is: What is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart?

Here are three questions that have probably divided people as long as they have been human and continue to divide them today. They divided the early Buddhists. One group took as its motto the Buddha’s valedictory, “Be lamps unto yourselves; work out your salvation with diligence.” Whatever progress those in this group make will be the fruit of wisdom—insight into the cause of suffering as gained through meditation. The other group held that compassion is the more important feature of enlightenment, arguing that to seek enlightenment by oneself and for oneself is a contradiction in terms. For them, human beings are more social than individual, and love is the greatest thing in the world. 

One Buddhist group focused on the insight into the cause of suffering as gained through meditation. The other group held that compassion is the more important feature of enlightenment.

Other differences gathered around these fundamental ones. The first group insisted that Buddhism was a full-time job; those who made nirvana their central object would have to give up the world and become monks. The second group, perhaps because it did not rest all its hopes on self-effort, was less demanding. It held that its outlook was as relevant for the layperson as for the professional; that in its own way it was as applicable in the world as in the monastery. This difference left its imprint on the names of the two outlooks. Both called themselves yanas, rafts or ferries, for both claimed to carry people across life’s sea to the shores of enlightenment. The second group, however, pointing to its doctrine of cosmic help (grace) and its ampler regard for laypeople, claimed to be “Buddhism for the people” and thereby the larger of the two vehicles. Accordingly it preempted the name Mahayana, the Big Raft, maha meaning “great,” as in Mahatma (the Great Souled) Gandhi. As this name caught on, the other group came to be known, by default, as Hinayana, or the Little Raft. 

The second group, pointing to its doctrine of cosmic help (grace) and its ampler regard for laypeople, claimed to be Mahayana (Big Raft). As this name caught on, the other group came to be known, by default, as Hinayana, or the Little Raft.

Not exactly pleased with this invidious designation, the Hinayanists have preferred to call their Buddhism Theravada, the Way ofthe Elders. In doing so they regained the initiative by claiming to represent original Buddhism, the Buddhism taught by Gautama himself. The claim is justified if we confine ourselves to the explicit teachings of the Buddha as they are recorded in the earliest texts, the Pali Canon, for on the whole those texts do support the Theravada position. But this fact has not discouraged the Mahayanists from their counterclaim that it is they who represent the true line of succession. For, they argue, the Buddha taught more eloquently and profoundly by his life and example than by the words the Pali Canon records. The decisive fact about his life is that he did not remain in nirvana after his enlightenment but returned to devote his life to others. Because he did not belabor this fact, Theravadins (attending too narrowly to his initial spoken words, the Mahayanists contend) overlook the importance of his “great renunciation,” and this causes them to read his mission too narrowly.

Not exactly pleased with this invidious designation, the Hinayanists have preferred to call their Buddhism Theravada, the Way of the Elders. In doing so they regained the initiative by claiming to represent original Buddhism, the Buddhism taught by Gautama himself.

We can leave to the two schools their dispute over apostolic succession; our concern is not to judge but to understand the positions they embody. The differences that have come out thus far may be summarized by the following pairs of contrasts, if we keep in mind that they are not absolute but denote differences in emphasis. 

Our concern is not to judge but to understand the positions they embody. 

1. For Theravada Buddhism progress is up to the individual; it depends on his or her understanding and resolute application of the will. For Mahayanists the fate of the individual is linked to that of all life, and they are ultimately undivided. Two lines from John Whittier’s “The Meeting” summarize the latter outlook:

He findeth not who seeks his own
The soul is lost that’s saved alone.

Theravada Buddhism focuses on individual effort; whereas, for Mahayana Buddhism the fate of the individual is linked to that of all life.

2. Theravada holds that humanity is on its own in the universe. No gods exist to help us over the humps, so self-reliance is our only recourse.

By ourselves is evil done,
By ourselves we pain endure,
By ourselves we cease from wrong,
By ourselves become we pure.
No one saves us but ourselves,
No one can and no one may;
We ourselves must tread the Path:
Buddhas only show the way.

For Mahayana, in contrast, grace is a fact. We can be at peace because a boundless power draws—or if you prefer, propels—everything to its appointed goal. In the words of a famous Mahayana text, “There is a Buddha in every grain of sand.”

Theravada holds that humanity is on its own in the universe. For Mahayana, in contrast, grace is a fact.

3. In Theravada Buddhism the prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi), meaning profound insight into the nature of reality, the causes of anxiety and suffering, and the absence of a separate core of selfhood. From these realizations flow automatically the Four Noble Virtues: loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and joy in the happiness and wellbeing of others. From the Mahayana perspective karuna (compassion) cannot be counted on to be an automatic fruit. From the beginning compassion must be given priority over wisdom. Meditation yields a personal power that can be destructive if a person has not deliberately cultivated compassionate concern for others as the motive for arduous discipline. “A guard I would be to them who have no protection,” runs a typical Mahayana invocation; “a guide to the voyager, a ship, a well, a spring, a bridge for the seeker of the other shore.” The theme has been beautifully elaborated by Shantideva, a poet-saint who has been called the Thomas à Kempis of Buddhism:

May I be a balm to the sick, their healer and servitor until sickness come never again;
May I quench with rains of food and drink the anguish of hunger and thirst;
May I be in the famine of the age’s end their drink and meat;
May I become an unfailing store for the poor, and serve them with manifold things for their need.
My own being and my pleasures, all my righteousness in the past, present and future, I surrender indifferently,
That all creatures may win through to their end.

In Theravada Buddhism the prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi), from which flow automatically the compassion for others. From the Mahayana perspective compassion must be given priority over wisdom from the beginning.

4. The sangha (Buddhist monastic order) is at the heart of Theravada Buddhism. Monasteries (and to a lesser extent nunneries) are the spiritual dynamos in lands where it predominates, reminding everyone of a higher truth behind visible reality. Monks and nuns—only partially isolated from society because they are dependent on local people to put into their begging bowls their one daily meal—are accorded great respect. This veneration is extended to people who assume monastic vows for limited periods (a not uncommon practice) in order to practice mindfulness meditation intensively. In Burma “taking the robe” for a three-month monastic retreat has virtually marked the passage into male adulthood. Mahayana Buddhism, on the contrary, is primarily a religion for laypeople. Even its priests usually marry, and they are expected to make service to the laity their primary concern. 

The sangha (Buddhist monastic order) is at the heart of Theravada Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism, on the contrary, is primarily a religion for laypeople.

5. It follows from these differences that the ideal type as projected by the two schools will differ appreciably. For the Theravadins the ideal was the Arhat, the perfected disciple who, wandering like the lone rhinoceros, strikes out alone for nirvana and, with prodigious concentration, proceeds unswervingly toward that goal. The Mahayana ideal, on the contrary, was the boddhisattva, “one whose essence (sattva) is perfected wisdom (bodhi)”—a being who, having reached the brink of nirvana, voluntarily renounces that prize and returns to the world to make nirvana available to others. The boddhisattva deliberately sentences himself—or herself: the best loved of all boddhisattvas is the Goddess of Mercy, Kwan Yin, in China—to agelong servitude in order that others, drawing vicariously on the merit thus accumulated, may enter nirvana first. 

The difference between the two types is illustrated in the story of four men who, journeying across an immense desert, come upon a compound surrounded with high walls. One of the four determines to find out what is inside. He scales the wall, and on reaching the top gives a whoop of delight and jumps over. The second and third do likewise. When the fourth man gets to the top of the wall, he sees below him an enchanted garden with sparkling streams, pleasant groves, and luscious fruit. Though longing to jump over, he resists the temptation. Remembering other wayfarers who are trudging the burning deserts, he climbs back down and devotes himself to directing them to the oasis. The first three men were Arhats; the last was a boddhisattva, one who vows not to desert this world “until the grass itself be enlightened”. 

For the Theravadins the ideal is the Arhat, the perfected disciple. The Mahayana ideal, on the contrary, is the boddhisattva, who, having reached the brink of nirvana, voluntarily renounces that prize and returns to the world to make nirvana available to others. 

6. This difference in ideal naturally floods back to color the two schools’ estimates of the Buddha himself. For one he was essentially a saint, for the other a savior. Theravadins revere him as a supreme sage, who through his own efforts awakened to the truth and became an incomparable teacher who laid out a path for them to follow. A man among men, his very humanness is the basis for the Theravadins’ faith that they, too, have the potential for enlightenment. But the Buddha’s direct personal influence ceased with his paranirvana (entrance into nirvana at death). He knows nothing more of this world of becoming and is at perfect peace. The reverence felt by the Mahayanists could not be satisfied with this humanness—extraordinary, to be sure, but human nonetheless. For them the Buddha was a world savior who continues to draw all creatures toward him “by the rays of his jewel hands.” The bound, the shackled, the suffering on every plane of existence, galaxy beyond galaxy, worlds beyond worlds, all are drawn toward liberation by the glorious “gift rays” of the Lord.

Theravadins revere Buddha as a supreme sage, who through his own efforts awakened to the truth and became an incomparable teacher. For Mahayanists the Buddha was a world savior who continues to draw all creatures toward him “by the rays of his jewel hands.”

These differences are the central ones, but several others may be mentioned to piece out the picture. Whereas the Theravadins followed their founder in considering speculation a useless diversion, Mahayana spawned elaborate cosmologies replete with many-leveled heavens and hells. The only kind of prayer the Theravadins countenanced was meditation and invocations to deepen faith and loving-kindness, whereas the Mahayanists added supplication, petition, and calling on the name of the Buddha for spiritual strength. Finally, whereas Theravada remained conservative to the point of an almost fundamentalistic adherence to the early Pali texts, Mahayana was liberal in almost every respect. It accepted later texts as equally authoritative, was less strict in interpreting disciplinary rules, and had a higher opinion of the spiritual possibilities of women and the laity in general. 

Whereas the Theravadins followed their founder in considering speculation a useless diversion, Mahayana spawned elaborate cosmologies replete with many-leveled heavens and hells. 

Thus, in the end, the wheel comes full circle. The religion that began as a revolt against rites, speculation, grace, and the supernatural, ends with all of them back in full force and its founder (who was an atheist as far as a personal God was concerned) transformed into such a God himself. We can schematize the differences that divide the two great branches of Buddhism as follows, if we bear in mind that the differences are not absolute:

Which one wins? Inwardly, there is no measure (or better, no such thing as winning); but outwardly (in terms of numbers), the answer is Mahayana. Part of the reason may lie in the fact that it converted one of the greatest kings the world has known. In the history of ancient royalty the figure of Asoka (c. 272–232 B.C.) stands out like a Himalayan peak, clear and resplendent against a sunlit sky. If we are not all Buddhists—Mahayana Buddhists—today it was not Asoka’s fault. Not content to board the Big Raft himself and commend it to his subjects—his Buddhist wheel of the law waves on India’s flag today—he strove to extend it over three continents. Finding Buddhism an Indian sect, he left it a world religion. 

In my opinion, one should become an Arhat and then take on the mantle of Bodhisattva. Buddha was both. 

It would be going too far, however, to suppose that a single historical personage made Buddhism cosmopolitan, and the different ways Asia heard the Buddha’s message and took it to heart provides a final touchstone for distinguishing Theravada from Mahayana. The differences that have occupied us thus far have been doctrinal, but there is an important socio-political difference between them as well.

There is a socio-political difference beyond the doctrinal difference.

Theravada sought to incarnate a feature of the Buddha’s teachings that has not thus far been mentioned: his vision of an entiresociety—a civilization if you will—that was founded like a tripod on monarchy, the monastic community (sangha), and the laity, each with responsibilities to the other two and meriting services from them in return. South Asian countries that remain to this day Theravadin—Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia—took this political side of the Buddha’s message seriously, and remnants of his model are discernible in those lands right down to today. China’s interest in Buddhism (which she transmitted to the other lands that were to become Mahayanist: Korea, Japan, and Tibet) bypassed its social dimensions, which included education as well as politics. In East Asian lands Buddhism appears as something of a graft. Buddhist missionaries persuaded the Chinese that they possessed psychological and metaphysical profundities the Chinese sages had not sounded, but Confucius had thought a lot about the social order, and the Chinese were not about to be lectured to on that subject by aliens. So China discounted the political proposals of the Buddha and took from his corpus its psycho-spiritual components with their cosmic overtones. The world still awaits a history of Buddhism that tells the story of the Theravada/Mahayana divide in terms of the way in which (for geographical and historical reasons) Theravada remained faithful to its founder’s vision of a Buddhist civilization, whereas Mahayana becomes Buddhism trimmed to its religious core: a module that could be grafted onto civilizations whose social foundations were securely in place. 

Theravada remained faithful to its founder’s vision of a Buddhist civilization, whereas Mahayana becomes Buddhism trimmed to its religious core: a module that could be grafted onto civilizations whose social foundations were securely in place. 

The doctrinal differences between Theravada and Mahayana appear to have softened as the centuries have gone by. Following World War II two young Germans who were disillusioned with Europe went to Sri Lanka to dedicate their lives to the Buddha’s peaceable way. Both became Theravada monks. One, his name changed to Nyanaponika Thera, continued on that path; but the other, while on a sightseeing trip to north India, met some Tibetans and switched to their tradition, becoming known in the West as Lama Govinda. Toward the close of Nyanaponika’s life a visitor asked him about the different Buddhisms the two friends had espoused. With great serenity and sweetness the aging Theravadin replied: “My friend cited the Bodhisattva Vow as the reason for his switch to Mahayana, but I could not see the force of his argument. For if one were to transcend self-centeredness completely, as the Arhat seeks to do, what would be left but compassion?”

Being an Arhat is the foundation of Bodhisattva.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Buddhism | Comments (0)

CHRISTIANITY: Protestantism

March 24, 2023 – 5:34 PM

Reference: Christianity

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

Divine cannot be equated with anything finite. One cannot absolutize dogmas, the Sacraments, the Church, the Bible, or personal religious experience. But as long as they point beyond themselves to God, they can be invaluable. 

The causes that led to the break between Roman Catholicism and what came to be known as Protestant Christianity are complex and still in dispute. Political economy, nationalism, Renaissance individualism, and a rising concern over ecclesiastical abuses all played their part. They do not, however, camouflage the fact that the basic cause was religious, a difference in Christian perspective between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. As we are concerned here with ideas rather than history, we shall say no more about the causes of the Protestant Reformation. Instead, we shall be content to treat the sixteenth century—Luther, Calvin, the Ninety-five Theses, the Diet of Worms, King Henry VIII, the Peace of Augsburg—as a vast tunnel. The Western Church entered that tunnel whole; it emerged from it in two sections. More accurately, it emerged in several sections, for Protestantism is not so much a Church as a movement of Churches.

Protestantism is not so much a Church as a movement of Churches.

The deepest differences in Protestantism today are not denominational; they are emphases that cut across denominations and often combine in the same person: fundamentalist, conservative evangelical, mainline, charismatic, and social activist. In this brief overview we shall not go into these differences, which tend to be of recent origin. Instead, without repeating the bulk of its faith and practice, which it shares with Catholicism and Orthodoxy—Protestantism is more Christian than Protestant—we shall proceed to its two great enduring themes with which we must here be content. They are (1) justification by faith and (2) the Protestant Principle.

Protestantism is more Christian than Protestant—its two great enduring themes are (1) justification by faith and (2) the Protestant Principle.

Faith. Faith, in the Protestant conception, is not simply a matter of belief, an acceptance of knowledge held with certainty yet not on evidence. It is a response of the entire self; in Emil Brunner’s phrase, “a totality-act of the whole personality.” As such it does include a movement of the mind in assent—specifically, a conviction of God’s limitless, omnipresent creative power—but this is not its all. To be truly faith it must include as well a movement of the affections in love and trust, and a movement of the will in desire to be an instrument of God’s redeeming love. When Protestantism says that human beings are justified—that is, restored to right relationship with the ground of their being, and with their associates—by faith, it is saying that such restoration requires a movement of the total self, in mind, will, and affections, all three. It is a mark of the strength of the ecumenical movement in our time that Roman Catholic theologians now increasingly understand faith in the same way.

Faith, in the Protestant conception, is not simply a matter of belief, it is a response of the entire self. It requires a movement of the total self, in mind, will, and affections, all three. 

Thus defined, faith is a personal phenomenon. “Right beliefs” or “sound doctrine” can be accepted secondhand and largely by rote, but service and love cannot. Faith is the response by which God, heretofore a postulate of philosophers or theologians, becomes God for me, my God. This is the meaning of Luther’s statement that “Everyone must do his own believing as he will have to do his own dying.” 

Faith is a personal phenomenon—“Everyone must do his own believing as he will have to do his own dying.” 

To feel the force of the Protestant emphasis on faith as response of the entire self, we need to see it as a passionate repudiation of religious perfunctoriness. Luther’s protest against indulgences, which were thought to help reduce their purchasers’ time in purgatory, is only a symbol of this wider protest, which extended in a number of directions. No number of religious observances, no record of good deeds, no roster of doctrines believed could guarantee that an individual would reach his or her desired state. Such things were not irrelevant to the Christian life; but unless they helped to transform the believer’s heart (his or her attitudes and response to life), they were inadequate. This is the meaning of the Protestant rallying cry, “Justification by faith alone.” It does not mean that the Creeds or the Sacraments are unimportant. It means that unless these are accompanied by the experience of God’s love and a returning love for God, they are insufficient. Similarly with good works. The Protestant position does not imply that good works are unimportant. It means that fully understood, they are correlatives of faith rather than its preludes. If one really does have faith, good works will flow from it naturally, whereas the reverse cannot be assumed; that is, good works do not necessarily lead to faith. To a large extent both Paul and Luther had been driven to their emphasis on faith precisely because a respectable string of good works, doggedly performed, had not succeeded in transforming their hearts.

To feel the force of the Protestant emphasis on faith as response of the entire self, we need to see it as a passionate repudiation of religious perfunctoriness.

Once more we need to draw here on the analogy of the child in its home, an analogy that speaks so directly to one aspect of human religiousness that we have cited it several times already. After the child’s physical needs have been met, or rather while they are being met, the child needs above all to feel the enveloping love and acceptance of its parents. Paul, Luther, and Protestants in general say something comparable for human beings throughout their lifespans. Since from first to last they are vulnerable before the powers that confront them, their lifelong need is to know that their basic environment, the ground of being from which they have derived and to which they will return, is for them rather than against them. If they can come to know this to the extent of really feeling it, they are released from the basic anxiety that causes them to try to elbow their way to security. This is why, just as the loved child is the cooperative child, the man or woman in whom God’s love has awakened the answering response of faith is the one who can truly love other people. The key is inward. Given faith in God’s goodness, everything of importance follows. In its absence, nothing can take its place.

Since from first to last human beings are vulnerable before the powers that confront them, their lifelong need is to know that their basic environment, the ground of being from which they have derived and to which they will return, is for them rather than against them.

The Protestant Principle. The other controlling perspective in Protestantism has come to be called the Protestant Principle. Stated philosophically, it warns against absolutizing the relative. Stated theologically, it warns against idolatry. 

The Protestant Principle warns against absolutizing the relative.

The point is this. Human allegiance belongs to God—this all religions (with allowance for terminology) will affirm. God, however, is beyond nature and history. God is not removed from these, but the divine cannot be equated with either or any of their parts, for while the world is finite, God is infinite. With these truths all the great religions in principle agree. They are, however, very hard truths to keep in mind; so hard that people continually let them slip and proceed to equate God with something they can see or touch or at least conceptualize more precisely than the infinite. Early on they equated God with statues, until prophets—the first “protestants” or protesters on this score—rose up to denounce their transpositions, dubbing their pitiful substitutes idols, or “little pieces of form.” Later, people stopped deifying wood and stone, but this did not mean that idolatry ended. While the secular world proceeded to absolutize the state, or the self, or human intellect, Christians fell to absolutizing dogmas, the Sacraments, the Church, the Bible, or personal religious experience. To think that Protestantism devalues these or doubts that God is involved in them is to misjudge it seriously. It does, however, insist that none of them is God. All, being involved in history, contain something of the human; and since the human is always imperfect, these instruments are to some degree imperfect as well. As long as they point beyond themselves to God, they can be invaluable. But let any of them claim absolute or unreserved allegiance—which is to say claim to be God—and it becomes diabolical. For this, according to tradition, is what the devil is: the highest angel who, not content to be second, was determined to be first. 

Divine cannot be equated with anything finite. One cannot absolutize dogmas, the Sacraments, the Church, the Bible, or personal religious experience. But as long as they point beyond themselves to God, they can be invaluable. 

In the name of the sovereign God, who transcends all the limitations and distortions of finite existence, therefore, every human claim to absolute truth or finality must be rejected. Some examples will indicate what this principle means in practice. Protestants cannot accept the dogma of papal infallibility because this would involve removing from criticism forever opinions that, having been channeled through human minds, can never (in the Protestant view) wholly escape the risk of limitation and partial error. Creeds and pronouncement can be believed; they can be believed fully and wholeheartedly. But to place them beyond the cleansing crossfire of challenge and criticism is to absolutize something finite—to elevate “a little piece of form” to the position that should be reserved for God alone. 

Every human claim to absolute truth or finality must be rejected, such as, the dogma of papal infallibility.

Instances of what Protestants consider idolatry are not confined to other sects or religions. Protestants admit that the tendency to absolutize the relative is universal; it occurs among them as much as it does anywhere, bringing the need for continual self-criticism and reformation to the door of Protestantism itself. The chief Protestant idolatry has been Bibliolatry. Protestants do believe that God speaks to people through the Bible as in no other way. But to elevate it as a book to a point above criticism, to insist that every word and letter was dictated directly by God and so can contain no historical, scientific, or other inaccuracies, is again to forget that in entering the world, God’s word must speak through human minds. Another common instance of idolatry within Protestantism has been the deification of private religious experience. Its insistence that faith must be a living experience has often led its constituents to assume that any vital experience must be the working of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps so, but again the experience is never pure Spirit. The Spirit must assume the contours of the human vessel, which means again that the whole is never uncompounded. 

In entering the world, God’s word must speak through human minds that are not perfect. This applies to words recorded in the Bible as well.

By rejecting all such absolutes, Protestantism tries to keep faith with the first Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The injunction contains a negative, and for many the word Protestant too carries a predominantly negative ring. Is not a Protestant a person who protests against something? We have seen that this is certainly true; Protestants who are truly such protest without ceasing the usurpation of God’s place by anything less than God. But the Protestant Principle can just as well be put positively, which is how it should be put if its full import is to be appropriated. It protests against idolatry because it testifies for (protestant = one who testifies for) God’s sovereignty in human life. 

By rejecting all such absolutes, Protestantism tries to keep faith with the first Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” 

But how is God to enter human life? To insist that God cannot be equated with anything in this tangible, visible world leaves people at sea in God’s ocean. God doubtless surrounds us; but to gain access to human awareness, divinity needs to be condensed and focused. 

But, to gain access to human awareness, divinity needs to be condensed and focused. 

This is where, for Protestants, the Bible figures. In its account of God working through Israel, through Christ, and through the early Church, we find the clearest picture of God’s great goodness, and how human beings may find new life in fellowship with the divine. In this sense the Bible is, for Protestants, ultimate. But note with care the sense in which this is so. It is ultimate in the sense that when human beings read this record of God’s grace with true openness and longing for God, God stands at the supreme intersection between the divine and the human. There, more than anywhere else in the world of time and space, people have the prospect of catching, not with their minds alone but with their whole beings, the truth about God and the relation in which God stands to their lives. No derivative interpretation by councils, peoples, or theologians can replace or equal this. The Word of God must speak to each individual soul directly. It is this that accounts for the Protestant emphasis on the Bible as the living word of God. 

The Word of God must speak to each individual soul directly. It is this that accounts for the Protestant emphasis on the Bible as the living word of God. 

Is not this concept of Christianity freighted with danger? The Protestant readily admits that it is. First, there is the danger of misconstruing God’s word. If, as the Protestant Principle insists, all things human are imperfect, does it not follow that each individual’s vision of God must at least be limited and possibly quite erroneous? It does. Protestantism not only admits this; it insists on it. But as the fact happens to be true, how much better to recognize it and open the door to the corrections of the Holy Spirit working through other minds than to saddle Christendom with what is in fact limited truth masquerading as finality. As Jesus himself says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:12). One very important reason for restricting final loyalty to the transcendent God is to keep the future open. 

All things human are imperfect; therefore, it does follow that each individual’s vision of God must at least be limited and possibly quite erroneous.

The other danger is that Christians will derive different truths from the Bible. The nine hundred-odd denominations of Protestantism in the United States alone prove not only that this danger exists, but that it could conceivably slope toward complete individualism. Protestantism admits this, but adds three points. 

First, Protestant diversity is not as great as its hundreds of denominations, most of them more adequately termed sects, suggest. Most of these are of negligible size. Actually, 85 percent of all Protestants belong to twelve denominations. Considering the freedom of belief Protestantism affirms in principle, the wonder lies not in its diversity but in the extent to which Protestants have managed to stay together.

Second, Protestant divisions reflect differing national origins in Europe or differing social groupings in the United States more than they do differing theologies. 

The third point, however, is the most important. Who is to say that diversity is bad? People differ, and historical circumstances, too, can occasion life-affecting differences that must be taken seriously: “New occasions teach new duties.” Protestants believe that life and history are too fluid to allow God’s redeeming Word to be enclosed in a single form, whether it be doctrinal or institutional. They are concerned about the brokenness of Christ’s “body” and take steps to mend differences that are no longer meaningful; this is the so-called ecumenical movement, which is vigorous. But they do not believe that people should cuddle up to one another just to keep warm. Comforts of togetherness should not lead to structures that will restrict the dynamic character of God’s continuing revelation. “The Spirit bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:8). 

Diversity is not bad. Comforts of togetherness should not lead to structures that will restrict the dynamic character of God’s continuing revelation.

Protestants acknowledge, then, that their perspective is fraught with dangers—the danger of uncertainty as individuals wrestle inwardly (and at times in what seems like a frightening aloneness) to try to determine whether they have heard God’s will correctly; the danger of schism as Christians find themselves apprehending God’s will diversely. But they accept these dangers because, risk for risk, they prefer their precarious freedom to the security of doctrines or institutions that, even while looking toward God, remain fallible. It is their faith that, in the end, prevents these burdens from discouraging them. Asked where he would stand if the Church excommunicated him, Luther is said to have replied, “Under the sky.”

Protestants prefer their precarious freedom to the security of doctrines or institutions that, even while looking toward God, remain fallible. Asked where he would stand if the Church excommunicated him, Luther is said to have replied, “Under the sky.”

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By vinaire | Comments (0)

CHRISTIANITY: Eastern Orthodoxy

March 24, 2023 – 4:44 AM

Reference: Christianity

[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]

The Eastern Church has no pope. Instead, it holds that God’s truth is disclosed through “the conscience of the Church,” using this phrase to refer to the consensus of Christians generally through ecclesiastical councils. 

The Eastern Orthodox Church, which today has somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million communicants, broke officially with the Roman Catholic Church in 1054, each charging the other with responsibility for the break. Eastern Orthodoxy includes the Churches of Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Sinai. While each of these Churches is self-governing, they are in varying degrees in communion with one another, and their members think of themselves as belonging primarily to the Eastern Church and only secondarily to their particular divisions within it. 

There is no overall governing authority over the Eastern Orthodox Church. They are a group of self-governing churches.

In most ways the Eastern Orthodox Church stands close to the Roman Catholic, for during more than half their histories they constituted a single body. It honors the same seven Sacraments and interprets them in fundamental respects exactly as does the Roman Church. On the teaching authority there is some difference, but even here the premise is the same. Left to private interpretation the Christian faith would disintegrate into conflicting claims and a mass of uncertainties. It is the Church’s responsibility to insure against this, and God enables it to do so; the Holy Spirit preserves its official statements against error. This much is shared with Rome. The differences are two. One of these has to do with extent. The Eastern Church considers the issues on which unanimity is needed to be fewer than does the Roman Church. In principle only issues that are mentioned in scripture can qualify, which is to say that the Church can interpret doctrines but it cannot initiate them. In practice the Church has exercised her prerogative as interpreter only seven times, in the Seven Ecumenical Councils, all of which were held before 787. This means that the Eastern Church assumes that though the articles a Christian must believe are decisive, their number is relatively few. Strictly speaking, all the decisions that the Ecumenical Councils reached are embedded in the creeds themselves; beyond these there is no need for dogmatic pronouncements on such matters as purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, or the bodily assumption of Mary, the last of which Orthodoxy introduced in practice but without proclaiming as dogma. Catholics regard these dogmas positively, as the development of doctrine, whereas the Orthodox consider them “innovations.” Generalizing this difference, we can say that the Latin Church stresses the development of Christian doctrine, whereas the Greek Church stresses its continuity, contending that there has been no need for the Church to exercise its teaching authority outside the Ecumenical Councils. What is referred to as “the magisterium of the academy” enters into this difference, for nothing like the great university centers of Bologna and Paris characterize the Eastern experience. When we reach for an image to epitomize Roman Catholicism, we think of the Middle Ages. Its counterpart for Eastern Orthodoxy is the Church Fathers. 

In most ways the Eastern Orthodox Church stands close to the Roman Catholic Church. The differences are two. The Eastern Church assumes that though the articles a Christian must believe are decisive, their number is relatively few. The Latin Church stresses the development of Christian doctrine, whereas the Greek Church stresses its continuity. 

The other way in which the Eastern Church’s understanding of its role as teaching authority differs from the Western pertains to the means by which its dogmas are reached. The Roman Church, as we have seen, holds that in the final analysis they come through the pope; it is the decisions that he announces that the Holy Spirit preserves from error. The Eastern Church has no pope—if we want to epitomize the difference between the two Churches, it is this. Instead, it holds that God’s truth is disclosed through “the conscience of the Church,” using this phrase to refer to the consensus of Christians generally. This consensus needs, of course, to be focused, which is what ecclesiastical councils are for. When the bishops of the entire Church are assembled in Ecumenical Council, their collective judgment establishes God’s truth in unchangeable monuments. It would be correct to say that the Holy Spirit preserves their decisions from error, but it would be truer to the spirit of the Eastern Church to say that the Holy Spirit preserves Christian minds as a whole from lapsing into error, for the bishops’ decisions are assumed to do no more than focus the thought of the latter. 

The Eastern Church has no pope. Instead, it holds that God’s truth is disclosed through “the conscience of the Church,” using this phrase to refer to the consensus of Christians generally through ecclesiastical councils. 

This brings us to one of the special emphases of the Eastern Church. Because in many ways it stands midway between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, it is more difficult to put one’s finger on features within it that are clearly distinctive; but if we were to select two (as we did in our sketch of Roman Catholicism), one of these would be its exceptionally corporate view of the Church. 

Common to all Christians is the view of the Church as the mystical body of Christ. Just as the parts of the body are joined in common well-being or malaise, so too are the lives of Christians interrelated. All Christians accept the doctrine that they are “members of one another”; but while matters of degree are notoriously difficult to determine, it could be argued that the Eastern Church has taken this notion more seriously than either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism. Each Christian is working out his or her salvation in conjunction with the rest of the Church, not individually to save a separate soul. The Russian branch of Orthodoxy has a saying to this effect: “One can be damned alone, but saved only with others.” And Orthodoxy goes further. It takes seriously Saint Paul’s theme of the entire universe as “groaning and in travail” as it awaits redemption. Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history. The welfare of everything in creation is affected to some degree by what each individual contributes to or detracts from it. 

The Russian branch of Orthodoxy has a saying to this effect: “One can be damned alone, but saved only with others.” Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church; it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history. 

Though the most important consequence of this strong corporate feeling is the spiritual one just stated—the downplaying of that “holy selfishness” that puts its own personal salvation before everything else—the concept comes out in two other quite practical ways. One of these has already been noted. In identifying the Church’s teaching authority with Christian conscience as a whole—“the conscience of the people is the conscience of the Church”—Orthodoxy maintains that the Holy Spirit’s truth enters the world diffused through the minds of Christians generally. Individual Christians, laity as well as clergy, are cells in “the mind of Christ,” which functions through them collectively. 

Orthodoxy maintains that the Holy Spirit’s truth enters the world diffused through the minds of Christians generally. Individual Christians, laity as well as clergy, are cells in “the mind of Christ,” which functions through them collectively. 

The other side of this point concerns administration. Whereas the administration of the Roman Church is avowedly hierarchical, the Eastern Church grounds more of its decisions in the laity. Congregations, for example, have more say in the selection of their clergy. The Roman Church may argue that this confuses the offices of laity with clergy; but the strong corporate feeling of the Eastern Church has led her to believe, again, that divine guidance, even when it reaches down to touch practical issues of Church administration, is more generally diffused among Christians than Rome allows. The clergy has its uninfringeable domain, the administration of the Sacraments; but outside that domain the line that separates clergy from the laity is thin. Priests need not be celibate. Even the titular head of the Eastern Church, the Patriarch of Constantinople, is no more than “first among equals,” and the laity is known as the “royal priesthood.” 

Whereas the administration of the Roman Church is avowedly hierarchical, the Eastern Church grounds more of its decisions in the laity. Priests need not be celibate.

In presenting the religions of Asia, it was suggested that union has counted for more there, and individuality less, than in the West; Hinduism sets the pace, with merger with the Absolute as its presiding goal. If this is roughly correct it helps to explain why it is the easternmost branch of Christianity that has most emphasized the corporate nature of the Church, both the ecclesiastical equality of its members (as against Catholicism), and their solidarity (as against Protestantism). It is also possible that residing, as it does, on the outskirts of Europe, it may have acquired less of a modern, Western overlay, and in consequence stands somewhat closer to early Christianity. We shall not explore that possibility, however, but proceed to the second distinctive emphasis its geography may have fostered, its mysticism, which resonates in ways with that of Asia. 

The easternmost branch of Christianity has most emphasized the corporate nature of the Church, both the ecclesiastical equality of its members (as against Catholicism), and their solidarity (as against Protestantism). 

Like all the religions we have considered, Christianity believes reality to be composed of two realms, the natural and the supernatural. Following death, human life is fully translated into the supernatural domain. Even in the present world, however, it is not insulated from it. For one thing the Sacraments, as we have seen, are channels whereby supernatural grace is made available to people in their current state. 

Like other religions, Christianity believes reality to be composed of two realms, the natural and the supernatural. 

This much virtually all Christianity teaches. The differences come when we ask to what extent it should be a part of the Christian program to try to partake of supernatural life while here on earth. Roman Catholicism holds that the Trinity dwells in every Christian soul, but its presence is not normally felt. By a life of prayer and penance it is possible to dispose oneself for a special gift by which the Trinity discloses its presence and the seeker is lifted to a state of mystical ecstasy. But as human beings have no right to such states, the states being wholly in the nature of free gifts of grace, the Roman Church neither urges nor discourages their cultivation. The Eastern Church encourages the mystical life more actively. From very early times, when the deserts near Antioch and Alexandria were filled with hermits seeking illumination, the mystical enterprise has occupied a more prominent place in its life. As the supernatural world intersects and impregnates the world of sense throughout, it should be a part of Christian life in general to develop the capacity to experience directly the glories of God’s presence.

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air,
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars,
The drift of pinions, would we harken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;
Turn but a stone, and start a wing:
‘Tis ye, ‘tis your estranged faces
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

(Francis Thompson, “The Kingdom of God”)

The Eastern Church encourages the mystical life more actively. By a life of prayer and penance it is possible to dispose oneself for a special gift by which the Trinity discloses its presence and the seeker is lifted to a state of mystical ecstasy. 

Mysticism is a practical program even for the laity. The aim of every life should be union with God—actual deification, by Grace, to the point of sharing the Divine Life; theosis is the Greek word for the doctrine that this sharing is possible. As our destiny is to enter creatively into the life of the Trinity, the love that circulates incessantly among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, movement toward this goal should be a part of every Christian life. For only as we advance toward increasing participation in the Trinity are we able to love God with our whole heart and soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. The mystical graces are open to everyone, and it is incumbent for each to make of one’s life a pilgrimage toward glory.

The aim of every life should be union with God—actual deification, by Grace, to the point of sharing the Divine Life; theosis is the Greek word for the doctrine that this sharing is possible. 

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