To look at things is to really know
them, and it is possible only if we are free not only of our prejudices but
also from any other burden on our mind. We can only truly know if our spirit is
pure––that is, empty. Only emptiness–śūnyatā–makes
things transparent and provides the space–ākāśa–necessary
for freedom.
R. Panikkar
We had our last official sessions yesterday, and I think we
really hit pay dirt. In the morning I started off riffing on a longer version
of this above passage from Panikkar, him commenting on Mt 6 and Lk 12, ‘Look at the birds of the air, consider the
lilies of the field. Concerning the Word, the 2nd Person, the
Silence-manifesting. One of the gentlemen in the group sort of challenged me/us
for a second time on getting beyond concepts and staying near the experience.
Paul stepped in to my/our defense––that is what we are doing here on this
retreat, having a conversation about our practice. He then gave quite a long
excursus on the Zen approach. I did finally figure out his style, a combination
of Zen and Irish. He loves the spoken word, hence all the poetry, and then to
hold forth in kind of stream of consciousness way. He reminds me a bit of our
Fr. Daniel. This is not to criticize him or myself, but I do tend to have a
pretty logical, point-to-point argument to lay out. In this way I can say what
I want to say in 10 to 15 minutes, and then get beyond the words. The styles
actually complement each other.
Afterward we disagreed about something on our walk back to
our cabins. I mentioned something about devotion to Jesus, and Paul said he was
a little surprised; he would have thought I was devoted to Christ instead. And
I said, yes, I am devoted to the Christ but that includes the fact that the
person of Jesus and the gospels remain very important to me. He was perplexed
and I have to say a little disappointed by that. I carried that with me on my
afternoon hike with my sack lunch, wrestling with it. I was remembering William
Johnston writing something similar in his autobiography, that he did not want
to be considered a Zen master because his devotion was not to the Buddha but to
Jesus. This is where it gets a little too deep in the weeds perhaps, but this
is how I laid it out in the afternoon session, when I brought our disagreement
into the open in front of the group.
The historicity of both of these people, Jesus and the
Buddha––or should I say Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha––is important
to me. What really inspires me is that whatever happened in them happened to
real human beings. That’s what lets me know that, if Jesus is the
Word-Made-Flesh, we can receive from his
fullness, grace upon grace. This came up again when someone asked me what
it meant that Jesus was the Son of God. I answered using Paul’s definition in
Colossians: For in him the whole fullness
of deity dwells bodily, and he
adds immediately and you have come to
fullness in him. In some way I have a devotion to the Buddha too. If his
story is just another myth then there is no proof that the so-called Buddha Way
has any validity. But if some real person actually experiences enlightenment,
well then, I want what he has. Still my primary devotion is to Jesus––I want to
share in the divinity of Christ, participate in the divine nature, know myself
as a branch on the vine.
We also talked about “Christ consciousness,” and I was
able––very politically incorrectly––to admit that the term made me
uncomfortable. “What does that mean to you?” I kept asking. It feels like a
term that got made up recently to make Christianity be the same thing as
Buddhism or samadhi. It sounds good
but is it true? Was Jesus’ experience of being the Son of God the same as the
Siddhartha’s enlightenment? That’s a big assumption. The only reference I know
to “Christ consciousness” is in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: Let the same mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality
with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of
a slave. Paul and someone else suggested that Christ was more fundamental
than Jesus. I thought yes, perhaps, but only in our use of it. It really is the
Greek translation of the word and the concept of Messiah. I think there is
something even more fundamental, that is already universal, and that is what I
have been trying to get at––the Word, the Tao, the Silence manifesting. That is
when I think maybe one or two folks finally got what I was trying to say, and
maybe I too finally got what I was trying to say.
I’ll be interested to see what Richard has to say about
that, if we get that deep into it. (Not sure if the CDF or any other real theologians are reading, but please excuse all theological inaccuracies as poetry and speculation.)
I am packing up here, having had a wonderful stay, and I
think a mutual regard between me and the folks here. I have had so many great
conversations with the students here who are so eager to talk and will cast out
into the deep immediately. I feel so fortunate to be able to do that and be
that. Our oblate retreat at San Juan Bautista is next. It will be interesting
to kind of come out of sabbatical for a few days before I head east to Colorado
on Sunday and begin the sabbatical proper, be around monks and oblates and talk
about Hermitage stuff–– and download a week’s worth of emails!
May all beings be well!
