A Buddhist critique of Catholic mysticism. Catholic rebuttal?

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“Your” focus on anything is an obstacle. Final deliverance cannot be expressed in language or thought. Conceptualizing it causes it to slip from your grasp. It is the realization that “you” are delivered; that “you” always have been delivered; then discarding everything about these and all other ideas, expressed in language or thought; and resting “there.” It is the ordinary and pure experience of the orange being eaten (note passive tense). This description itself is an obstacle. It would be gibberish.

The Christian mystic eats the orange, knowing that he exists (body, soul, and personal mind); that a loving God created him and the orange for just this purpose at precisely this time; that this ordinary snacking event has existed and will exist outside of time in God’s mind for eternity; and that God delights in the entire affair.

Then both the Buddhist and Christian mystics toss their orange peels in the trash and go about their day.
 
Any mystical experience is by definition subjective, unique in any particular instance to the person experiencing it. As such it is not meant to prove anything.

There is a difference in Catholic theology between meditation and contemplation. Meditation is to some extent self directed. Contemplation occurs when God takes over the meditation and the subject simply allows God to take control.

Personal private revelation, such as inner locution or external apparitions, are yet another matter, not particularly associated with meditation or contemplation.

I suppose that a Buddhist practices meditation, trying to empty himself of external sense distractions, in order to experience—nothingness. A Christian practices meditation in the same way, emptying himself of external distractions, in order to experience God.
 
Fun post! I have a thought for a kind of ‘rebuttal’ to the Buddhist author (Nyanaponika Thera)'s article that I don’t think I’ve seen yet on this thread, but it involves some theology I’m not totally clear on. If anybody could help me out, I’d be grateful!

The starting point is that if St. Thomas is right (and he usually is, it seems, according to the church!), then God’s essence is identical to His existence – and St. Thomas thinks that leads to the idea that God is Actus Purus: ‘pure act’, ‘pure actuality’, ‘existence itself’, and so on.

It strikes me that the Buddha, at least as described by Nyanaponika Thera, was criticizing belief in God as a being among other beings – that is, not our God, who if St. Thomas is right is existence itself or being itself, not a being among the created beings of the universe. I’ve even sometimes heard from theologians that God ‘is more verb than noun’.

All of that suggests, to me, two ‘rebuttals’ to the Thera’s claims in the article, but I’ll do them in two separate replies for length reasons!

First, belief in God as Actus Purus needn’t run afoul of the Buddhist emphasis on impermanence (or seemingly any other core Buddhist tenet!).
Here’s why I think that: union with Actus Purus – with pure actuality, with pure being, with God as ‘more verb than noun’ – sounds a lot like surrendering to impermanence and not clinging to anything. When we surrender to whatever God gives us, that is precisely like clinging to nothing. When we reject some of what God gives us, we put our preferences before God. So clinging and idol-worship (or a lack of faith generally) sound very similar. Thera almost certainly knew even less Thomistic theology than I do, but maybe if he knew it he’d have changed his tune!

Sorry for the long reply – this is my first time writing anything in the forum!
 
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Here’s my second thought at a rebuttal to the Buddhist article based on the Thomistic equation of God with existence itself (it’s seemingly in contrast to what most people on this thread have said, so I’m pretty curious what folks think):

This bit of Thomistic theology seems to suggest that mystical experiences can
amount to a kind of proof of God’s existence. (Setting aside the weirdness of wanting a proof for the existence of existence itself – isn’t it obvious? St. Thomas says, in the first article of the second question of the Summa, “this proposition, ‘God exists,’ of itself is self-evident, for the predicate is the same as the subject; because God is His own existence”.)
Here’s the difference I’m seeing between this and previous comments on the ‘proof’ question: it seems possible that some mystical experiences needn’t be taken as evidence of God’s existence (even by the mystic) but rather as demonstrating or showing or manifesting God’s existence directly, the way I might demonstrate, show, or manifest (and thus prove) the existence of a tangerine to a friend by putting it in front of her face. This is ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ rather than ‘propositional knowledge’.
The abstract point is that mystical experiences might constitute a union with God rather than providing us with evidence for or confidence in His existence – God could be in the mystical experience, not outside of it leaving it as a ‘hint’ or ‘trace’ of Himself.
The specific point is that if God is existence itself, then that general point shouldn’t surprise us at all. Mystical experiences could be experiences in which we are shown through Grace that existence itself, which we are experiencing implicitly all the time, is God Himself – and experience how good that is. And many mystical experiences do seem well-described as experiences of great, loving intimacy with and surrender to the pure existence (God) sustaining all creation in being.

Anyway, if all that is true, then Nyanaponika Thera would be wrong, I guess! But again, the Catholic (Thomistic) understanding of God is probably extremely different from Thera’s.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
 
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But because the mystical experiences give attributes/definition, give personhood to existence (God), such that this existence is known to possess a nature that exudes and fosters “loving intimacy” as you mentioned, I’m just not sure a Buddhist could take that concept seriously.
 
fhansen said:
But because the mystical experiences give attributes/definition, give personhood to existence (God), such that this existence is known to possess a nature that exudes and fosters “loving intimacy” as you mentioned, I’m just not sure a Buddhist could take that concept seriously.
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I am inclined to agree with you on this, fhansen, but then this may be the same hesitation that a Christian might have in accepting/grasping Thomistic theology (if “God-as-existence” truly reflects Thomism).

In my own limited reading, it seems St. Thomas freely jumps from more impersonal and abstract theology to more close and personal, which in effect adds to the abstraction and mystery. As a result, the faithful again have to turn to the Gospel to find someone, a singularity that we can more comprehend and relate to - another reason for incarnation.
 
Thanks for the reply, fhansen! Weirdly enough, there is quite a lot of talk of love, relationship, and intimacy in Buddhism in connection with non-clinging in the face of the impermanent, dependent arising of all things. There’s a zen story whose punchline is that the mind of enlightenment is the mind of intimacy, for instance; there’s also a tradition of talking about enlightenment as ‘face-to-face transmission’ between the deluded zen student and the all-pervading Buddha mind.

I can’t say that I totally understand it, but there is quite a bit of the personal in there. More striking, to me, is that in both the Christian and the Buddhist case, being intimate with what arises seems to actually reveal to the mystic the divinity – praise-worthiness, goodness, omnipresence, absolute benevolence, etc. – of existence itself.

But I’m much less sure of any of that than I am that Thera’s dismissal of theism is based on a wrong view of theism.
 
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