The Essence of Catholic and Buddhist Though

[Marybeloved]

Sorry to come in like this in the middle of the thread (Have not read the entire thread or the other one). But I remember reading a Catholic account of Buddhist Spiritual experience based on the work of the great Catholic Philosopher Jacques Maritain. I didn’t read the work itself (Maritain) but a discussion of it in a Catholic-Eastern dialogue (innerexplorations). It basically was about the “knowing” of being as being- in a direct manner through the negation of conceptual thinking… or something like that.

The argument by those in the discussion was that while Metaphysics approaches this direct knowing of being as being, from one direction/approach, the Buddhists approach it from/in another, but that they ultimately are talking about the same thing (being). The implication seemed to be that Buddhist spiritual experience could be seen from our perspective as a natural contemplation. Contemplation from Catholic understanding is the direct, unmediated, non-conceptual experience of or knowledge of something or someone. Direct, unmediated, non-conceptual experential knowledge. They used Jacques Maritain’s work for this. They seemed to say that Buddhists know by natural contemplation or by direct, unmediated, non-conceptual experience, this being as being, or being in nature, that metaphysics knows in a different way.

They accounted for the difference in Buddhist teaching/philosophy with us, not only in their negation method of meditation but its prioritization in their philosophy over other manners of knowing, such that (from our perspective) they see being, To be without the essences. The existence of things, without the whatness of those things. That is, they see the fact of being (That we are) without the particulars (what we are) which is how they end up with the monist or pantheistic language/philosophy.

Don’t know if anyone has come across this thought before.

 

[Lodro]

Sorry to come in like this in the middle of the thread (Have not read the entire thread or the other one).

Welcome! Thank you for contributing so much knowledge and wisdom.

But I remember reading a Catholic account of Buddhist Spiritual experience based on the work of the great Catholic Philosopher Jacques Maritain. I didn’t read the work itself (Maritain) but a discussion of it in a Catholic-Eastern dialogue (innerexplorations). It basically was about the “knowing” of being as being- in a direct manner through the negation of conceptual thinking… or something like that.

Yes, and that is how in practice we (Vajrayana Buddhists and others) are taught to meditate/contemplate. That is, most of our practices – and all of the ultimate practices – involve a clearing away of our mental obscurations. Note that this does not happen in a normative way, like “thoughts are bad”, because that would only be a kind of aggression toward ourselves. Instead we appreciate the intelligence of our conceptual mind, and as soon as we simply notice a conceptualization, it is liberated on its own.

The argument by those in the discussion was that while Metaphysics approaches this direct knowing of being as being, from one direction/approach, the Buddhists approach it from/in another, but that they ultimately are talking about the same thing (being). The implication seemed to be that Buddhist spiritual experience could be seen from our perspective as a natural contemplation. Contemplation from Catholic understanding is the direct, unmediated, non-conceptual experience of or knowledge of something or someone. Direct, unmediated, non-conceptual experential knowledge. They used Jacques Maritain’s work for this. They seemed to say that Buddhists know by natural contemplation or by direct, unmediated, non-conceptual experience, this being as being, or being in nature, that metaphysics knows in a different way.

So is this saying that the view of Catholic contemplation is more aligned with knowledge/metaphysics, while Buddhist contemplation is more aligned with experience? I would agree with the latter, as study is simply a means to help us connect with the actual experience, but of course I can’t speak to the Catholic understanding.

They accounted for the difference in Buddhist teaching/philosophy with us, not only in their negation method of meditation but its prioritization in their philosophy over other manners of knowing, such that (from our perspective) they see being, To be without the essences. The existence of things, without the whatness of those things. That is, they see the fact of being (That we are) without the particulars (what we are) which is how they end up with the monist or pantheistic language/philosophy.

Don’t know if anyone has come across this thought before.

Yes, this is exactly the idea that keeps arising for me, and that I wanted to get across to others – but put more eloquently than I could have. I’m going to have to read that again later, because I think there is much subtly that could be missed.

The Buddhist view seems to be that as it is self-evident that we exist – regardless of what that means, there do seem to be appearances and awareness at least – , and it is self-evident that we suffer – and that experience seems to be universal – , the what and the how really aren’t so important.

That explains why the confusion comes up when people ask questions like “well, who made the universe then?” Through logic, we think that it wouldn’t have had a beginning or an end, and we don’t see a creator as such but the real answer is “it probably doesn’t make much difference and we have more pressing concerns”.

But if I went back to original theme of my posts, I think I might reverse the logic. I’d say that because we started with a system of enquiry centred around the discovery of noself or emptiness, we are less interested in “what” we are (because that is empty of inherent existence anyway!) and more concerned with the mere fact of being. That’s what makes the Third Turning so interesting. Because at that point in the intellectual/spiritual development of the teachings, we are getting to the point where we’re saying “well, the fact of being indicates that everything is full (of appearances), and the fact of being indicates that everything is empty (or substantial existence, say)”. But even there, we’re seeing that more from the perspective of trying to find the best way to express and encounter ineffability rather than as an attempt to discover the absolute truth about it. Because absolute truth isn’t knowable in the cognitive sense of that word.

I hope that makes some sense.

 

[mysefer]

Thanks Vouthon for sharing.

Member at Jewish Books

 

[Lodro]

All of the above discussion of Buddha Nature and so on was simply so that I could share the following with my Brother Vouthon and others:

"if we would become one with the brightness of the Sun, we must follow love, and go out of ourselves into the Wayless, and then the Sun will draw us with our blinded eyes into Its own brightness, in which we shall possess unity with God… This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself and feels himself to be that same Light by which he sees and nothing else. .

While I yet stood in my first cause I had no God and I was my own; I willed nothing and wanted nothing, for I was conditionless being, the knower of myself in divine truth. Then I wanted myself and nothing else. What I willed I was and what I was I willed. I was free from God and all things. But when I escaped from my free will to take on my created nature, then I acquired a God, for before creatures came into existence, God was not God. …If also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being and superessential Nothingness. I say that God is neither a being nor intelligent and He doesn’t ‘know’ either this or that. God is free of everything and therefore He is everything. I pray God to make me free of God, for [His] unconditioned Being is above God and all distinctions…God dwells in the nothing-at-all that was prior to nothing, in the hidden Godhead of pure knowledge whereof no man durst speak…The One is a negation of negations…"
– Meister Eckhart

"Once the assembly of men and women
who inhabit the surface of the earth
saw this appearance, each would say:
‘Before a long time passes, may I too
become like this Lord of Gods!’
Prayers like these they would utter
and to achieve this feat would adopt
genuine virtue and remain within it.

‘This is just appearance!’ There would not be
any such understanding. Still their virtuous deeds
would lead them to be reborn in a divine existence
after they departed from the surface of the earth.
These appearances are totally free from ideation
and do not involve the slightest movement at all.
There is nothing of this kind, and yet nevertheless
they are accompanied by great benefit on the earth.

…

‘This is the appearance of my own mind.’
Wordly beings do not have such insight.
Yet, their seeing of this visible kaya
will become meaningful for these beings.
Relying on gradually beholding this form,
all those who follow the [Great] Vehicle
will see their genuine inner dharmakaya
by means of the eye of primordial wisdom.

…

As the sun shining its own light
simultaneously and without thought
makes lotus flowers open their petals
and brings ripening to other crops,
so the sun of the Tathagata manifests,
shedding its rays of the sacred Dhrama
on the lotus-like beings to be trained
without harboring any thought or idea.

By the dharmakaya and the visible kayas
the sun of omniscience rises in the sky,
which is the very heart of enlightenment,
to shed light beams of wisdom on beings.

In all disciples, as in water vessels,
simultaneously the sun of the Sugata
is mirrored in countless reflections
owing to the purity of these beings

…

When a buddha goes to the city [of the disciples], people without eyes becomes sighted.
Being freed from all meaningless things they see the meaningful and experience [happiness]
When blinded by delusion they fall into existence’s sea and are wrapped in the darkness of views,
the light of the buddha sun illumines their vision and they see the very point they never saw before."

–BUDDHA NATURE

 

[Vouthon]

My dear brother Lodro

Thank you so much for all of your infinetly wise, knowledgeable and educative posts!

I find myself like a child in a candie shop - there is so much to take in

That is a marvellous quote on Buddha Nature.

I will be replying to you in full tommorrow, on many of your manifold and deep thoughts on this thread (it is rather late in my neck of the woods).

God Bless!

 

[Vouthon]

Read this brother Lodro by Eugene Thacker on “Wayless Abyss: Mysticism, Mediation, and Divine Nothingness”:

In his mystical writings, the Flemish mystic John Ruusbroec outlines a mystical itinerary that passes through several phases: an active life, in which union with the divine is achieved via an intermediary; an interior life, in which union with the divine is achieved without intermediary; and a contemplative life, where divine unity paradoxically exists “without distinction or difference.” In discussing this final stage of mystical practice, Ruusbroec refers to a form of contemplation “above reason and without reason,” which he describes in the following way:

…a fruitive tendency which pierces through every condition and all being, and through which they [mystics] immerse themselves in a wayless abyss of fathomless beatitude, where the Trinity of the Divine Persons possess Their Nature in the essential Unity…this beatitude is so onefold and so wayless that in it every essential gazing, tendency, and creaturely distinction cease and pass away. [1]

Ruusbroec continues in this vein, emphasizing the characteristics of mystical indistinction and indifference, noting that in the final, contemplative stage, the mystics “fall from themselves into a solitude and an ignorance which are fathomless; there all light is turned to darkness; there the three Persons give place to the Essential Unity, and abide without distinction…” [2]

[2] Such a union, in which the divine exists indistinctly with the human, would seem to entail the negation of the basic philosophical relation between subject and object that conditions the very possibility of any experience, mystical or otherwise: “To comprehend and understand God as he is in himself, above and beyond all likenesses, is to be God with God, without intermediary or any element of otherness which could constitute an obstacle or impediment.” [3] To reach this state of contemplation, one must lose oneself “in a state devoid of particular form or measure, a state of darkness in which all contemplatives blissfully lose their way and are never again able to find themselves in a creaturely way.” [4] Ruusbroec seems to sense the paradox inherent in such a situation – “to contemplate God with God without intermediary.” [5] For Ruusbroec, the mediation that is the condition of mysticism also has as its goal the negation of all mediation – a strange mediation “without intermediary.

…

Following in the apophatic tradition, Ruusbroec frequently describes this mystical mediation in negative terms: the mystical subject goes out of itself “into a state of darkness devoid of particular form,” [8] it enters a “state of essential bareness…a fathomless abyss of simplicity,” [9] goes into “inaccessible height and unfathomable depth…a dark stillness and a wild desert,” [10] and meets the “wild darkness of the Godhead.” [11] All distinctions fade away, all differences are emptied of their content, and, in a moment of divine self-abnegation, the mystical subject enters “that dark stillness in which all lovers lose their way.” [12]

A central feature of Ruusbroec’s mystical vocabulary is the combination of a strange non-space of indistinction (the abyss, the fathomless, the depth, and other quasi-spatial tropes) with an assertion of orientation or direction (a way that is “wayless,” an itinerary that leads to self-negation). This combination is best encapsulated in Ruusbroec’s phrase “the wayless abyss.” In this “wayless abyss,” where divine beatitude is also divine darkness, “all uplighted spirits are melted and noughted"

…

the wayless abyss is not simply this sense of being-lost (whether of the existential or apophatic type), but it is expressed by Ruusbroec as being a wayless abyss or fathomless depth. It is as if Ruusbroec not only wanted to convey the sense of wandering and being lost, but that this waylessness paradoxically orients itself or “leads” to a negative region, a region without attributes or properties, an “empty” region without substance

Here’s a link to the full article: postmedievalcrowdreview.wordpress.com/papers/thacker/

 

[Vouthon]

A little more from Ruysbroeck:

“…The God-seeing man who has forsaken self and all things, and does not feel himself drawn away because he no longer possesses anything as his own, but stands empty of all, he can always enter, naked and unencumbered with images, into the inmost part of his spirit. There he finds revealed an Eternal Light, and in this light, he feels the eternal demand of the Divine Unity; and he feels himself to be an eternal fire of love…This simple Unity of God none can feel or possess save he who maintains himself in the immeasurable radiance, and in the love which is above reason and wayless…This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved…”

He’s a fascinating although very “deep” writer, thinker and mystic of the Catholic Church.