I am re-reading Panikkar’s Blessed Simplicity, this time in the Italian translation (Beato Semplicità) for various obvious reasons. My translation of this paragraph that I keep returning to:
Monks are fascinated with ultimate reality.
Their life is turned toward it as the only thing that really matters. But this ultimate reality has a door and all our efforts and our energies are concentrated on entering through it. To hold the four noble truths always before our eyes, to constantly remember the frailty of things, to meditate on death every blessed day, to see every event of our life from the perspective of death, not to be touched by anything of that which passes, or does not have immediate incidence on the ultimate end of life or anything to do with the entrance that leads to that goal, to conserve serenity and composure in front of the calamities of the world and the social insurrections because they do not belong to the ultimate level, to be free and ready to confront ultimate reality––these and other similar teachings are familiar among monks. (161)
And yet, what I take to be the major theme of the book is that whereas “traditional monasticism tends toward simplicity through simplification,” contemporary monasticism (he is writing in 1980) “seeks simplicity through integration.” The danger of the former is reductionism, and the of the latter is an “eclectic juxtaposition.” And if “the temptation of the first is pessimism, that of the second is optimism.”
So many polarities dancing around in my soul in my soul, having to do with this new role with DIMMID, the new phase in my own (monastic) life, the re-engagement with spiritual seekers in my ministry. I can only list them; I can’t make them dance together yet. They will (need to) find their own synthesis.
· Panikkar’s book and thesis are still so strongly appealing to the “new monastics.” And to me especially his notion of integration is very attractive, almost Tantric. I definitely during the Santa Cruz phase of my religious life thought of myself as one of those new monastics, only to get coaxed back into to an administrative institutional role that required of me a conservative approach to find the common ground. And now I find myself here, looking ahead to an itinerant life again, this time with not only the sanctioning of the monastic order, but a mandate to do it, and already invitations coming in with regularlity.
· And here I sit in this Coronese Camaldolese cloister, where the monks live a life as equivalent to a Carthusian one, strict cloister, very ordered solitude, steeped in traditional liturgy, near total separation from “the world.” (No women retreat guests are even allowed.) There is an intimidating validity to this life, and I know its dangers both for healthy human growth (it takes a lot of maturity to live healthy solitude) and for, as the late Francis Kline might remind us, a healthy ecclesiology. I was also speaking this weekend about Bede Griffiths’ and also William Johnston’s critique of the old ascetical model, which Bede thought had passed its usefulness and Johnston said was not only unhealthy but went against the spirit of the Gospel.
· My daily reading from the Bhagavad Gita today, remembering Bede’s leaning on the Gita’s implied criticism of, or at least warning about, the Upanishadic-sannyasa way: “Only the ignorant speak of sānkhya (renunciation of actions) and karm yog (work in devotion) as different. Those who are truly learned say that by applying ourselves to any one of these paths, we can achieve the results of both.” (BG V:4). Gandhi’s warning too that the so-called way of the renunciate is fraught with traps to fall into hypocrisy.
· And yet, this immense appreciation and love for the solitary life, which may be for me, as I always assess about Thomas Merton, as much a basking in independence, the luxury of being able to order my own time. That has certainly been the glory of this sabbatical time, particularly the long days at the Jesuits or with Bob and Ellen in Hillsborough, days that easily filled with exercise, meditation, prayer and lectio, but also overflowed with music and writing and preparations for ministry.
I had occasion again last weekend with the oblates in Olsztyn to talk about the love of God poured in and then pouring out like a stream of life-giving water (Rom 5 and Jn 7), my favorite bookends.
