Punctum Saliens

I tried to talk about this idea in previous posts here and here. In my recent “coincidental” book purchase of Thomas Merton’s The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters on Religious Experience and Social Concerns (yes, another quote from Merton!) he talks about the same idea in a letter to D.T. Suzuki:

The essentially Christian element in all this is the fact that it is centered in Christ. But what does that mean? Does it mean conformity to a social and conventional image of Christ? Then we become involved and alienated in another projection: a Christ who is not Christ but the symbol of a certain sector of society, a certain group, a certain class, a certain culture . . . Fatal. The Christ we seek is within us, in our inmost self, is our inmost self, and yet infinitely transcends ourselves. We have to be “found in Him” and yet be perfectly ourselves and free from the domination of any image of Him other than Himself. You see, that is the trouble with the Christian world. It is not dominated by Christ (which would be perfect freedom), it is enslaved by images and ideas of Christ that are creations and projections of men and stand in the way of God’s freedom. But Christ Himself is in us as unknown and unseen. We follow Him, we find Him (it is like the cow-catching pictures) and then He must vanish and we must go along without Him at our side. Why? Because He is even closer that that. He is ourself.

I think there’s too much emphasis on God being “out there.” We as poor sinners cannot reach way up high to touch God except through Jesus Christ. But even after we’ve done that, God is still “out there” and we are still “down here” and Christ is still “some where” acting as mediator. There’s no identification with God or Christ. Sure, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us but no one really knows what that means today. “Christ … is within is, in our inmost self, is our inmost self.” I think the difficulty with this concept is that it changes the way we must look at others. As Jesus said, “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Now, if “the least of these” is Christ, then we are in a world of trouble.

Merton goes even further than I did in my posts. He goes beyond the identification. He goes to the total consummation. After we identify with Christ, we then consume him (“This is my body …?”) and he becomes part of us. But even more than part of us. He is integrated into us so completely that we can’t tell where we end and he starts. We’ve become one — the symbolism of marriage — so that there are no longer two but only one.

The goal of every Christian is to able to recognize that integration — in ourselves and in others. The goal is to not see me and you but to see GmOeD and GyOoDu and to recognize the three-sided equality of you-me-God. If we all did that, we would not go to war. We would not let people starve. We would not pollute our bodies or the environment. Obeying God’s law would be first-nature because it would be our law. We would be totally, completely, 100% free to do whatever we wanted because our wants would be perfect wants — the wants of God. God’s will would, surely, be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We were in LA a few weeks ago visiting my wife’s brother. While there, I happened to notice two people reading books by or about Thomas Merton. All I saw was the name on the cover. For some reason, I jotted down the name and thought about looking him up. After we got back to KC, I was browsing one of the local bookstores and on my way out I happened to notice a Thomas Merton book on display — The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters on Religious Experience and Social Concerns. Well, without a second thought I bought it. And it was the best $7 I’ve spent in a long time. As you may have noticed, I’m quoting Merton quite a lot in the blog. I’ve read his letters to D.T. Suzuki which are wonderful.

So, it just goes to show you how important it is to be aware. My finding this book was a total “coincidence” … or was it?

I ran across Mark Burgess’ blog today and found this excellent post. Here are some excerpts:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (King James Bible, John Chapter 14, Verse 6)

This particular verse is the mainstay of the fundamentalist evangelical movement. It basically says that all you have to do is believe in Christ, establish a personal relationship with him, and accept his as your savior, and you’re saved.

This conveniently allows you to go through life ignoring everything else that Jesus taught regarding the importance of loving others.

. . .

-And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13, Verse 13)

The Greek word “agape” is usually translated as “love” in newer translations of the Bible, whereas the King James version translates it as “charity”. Translating agape as love means that you can “love” your neighbor without doing anything… whereas “charity” clearly communicates the imperative of action.

Some excellent, well articulated thoughts, Mark. Thank you.

“It seems that the most advanced scientific approaches to reality (for instance in physics) seem to exclude the rigid and dogmatic approach to the world and here eventually there may be a meeting with the highest spiritual notions. This remains perhaps for the future. But in the meantime, the struggle to establish a fixed concept of the divine essence that will state clearly “what he is” seems to me to be misleading. It is true that such statements can be made in their place, but they do not really solve anything because our experience of God tells us that he is but not what he is. We tend to experience him as one whom we do not know.”

Thomas Merton, in a letter to Martin Lings
from The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters on Religious Experience and Social Concerns

(Note: this was penned in 1964)

“Don’t think. Feel. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

That was Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. He was echoing the well-known Zen analogy that all instruction (doctrine?) is like a finger pointing at the moon. It should not be confused with the moon itself.

Jesus, the man — the human side of Jesus — did a lot of pointing in his day. But a lot of people back then and after him and today are too busy staring at his finger to see what he was pointing to. They see him pointing at his literal life, his literal work, his literal death, his literal resurrection. But those are all the finger!

The moon was Jesus’ other side — his non-human side. The side that is identified with God. The perfect, immortal, numinous side that is in us all — and has been in us all from the very beginning.

Jesus said, “I am the way,” but that “I” was not Jesus, son of Joseph, prophet, leader, healer, etc. When I say, “I love you,” to my wife and daughter, that “I” has absolutely nothing to do with what I am or what I do or what I look like. That “I” is the “I” that is my real essence. It’s the unseen part of me that, if I were to die right now, would remain and still love as much as it does now.

The next part of Lee’s quote is even better. “… or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” If you stare at the finger, you miss the heavenly glory. Now, just imagine what you are missing by staring too hard at the external, literal Jesus! If Jesus is pointing us to God, to glory, and we only look at him and do not follow his pointing to see God, we are missing out on a lot!

As proof of this, compare the writings of any mystical Christian to any dogmatic, literalist, fundamentalist Christian. There is a world of difference. The mystic sees things so far above and beyond and below. They are following the pointing finger of Jesus and truly seeing God.

To go even further, pointing is far from an exact science. When you point, you often have to qualify with words what you are pointing at or the other person misses the point, so to speak. I think there are Christians who do follow Jesus’ finger and look at the “moon.” But some of them then become fixated on “the moon” and become dogmatic that it was “the moon” Jesus pointed to.

Someone else comes along and, looking up to follow Jesus’ pointing finger, sees a star. But looking more intently, they begin to make out the breathtaking Crab Nebula. Another looks up and initially sees a few tiny stars but, looking more intently, sees the Pleiades. They are both taking in the wonders of God and the glories of the heavens when the “moon Christian” starts berating them for missing the whole point and being heretics and idolaters because clearly Jesus was pointing at the moon and at only the moon.

I’ve said this before on this blog: I think that a literalistic view of Jesus as The Way robs you of the true glories and wonders that are available to you. Putting Jesus and God “out there,” perhaps touchable but distinct from yourself, is to miss your Self. Jesus was not pointing to God by holding his arm in the air. He was pointing to God by pointing at himself — his essence of which we all are a part. He was pointing inside at the God inside us all. He was pointing inside you.

I think it only natural that each of us thinks our own “way to God” is the best. I doubt anyone would travel a path which they felt inferior to another one available to them. But we fall into hubris when we begin thinking that “our way” is categorically the best or only way to God. Thomas Merton put it this way in a letter to Philip Griggs:

You ask about the relative nearness to God of a fervent Sadhu and a superficial Christian. The Church’s teaching on nearness to God is that he who loves God better, knows Him better, and is more perfectly obedient to His will, is closer to Him than others who may love, know and obey Him less well. Since it is to me perfectly obvious that a Sadhu might well know God better and love Him better than a lukewarm Christian, I see no problem whatever about declaring that such a one is closer to Him and is even, by that fact, closer to Christ. The distinction lies in the fact that Catholics believe that the Church does possess a clearer and more perfect exoteric doctrine and sacramental system which “objectively” ought to be more secure and reliable a means for men to come to God and save their souls. Obviously this cannot be argued and scientifically proved, I simply state it as part of our belief in the Church. But the fact remains that God is not bound to confine His gifts to the framework of these external means, and in the end we are sanctified not merely by the instrumentality of doctrines and sacraments but by the Holy Spirit. And I repeat my conviction as a Catholic that the Holy Spirit may perfectly well be more active in the heart of a Hindu monk than in my own. I am prepared to recognize this in anyone I meet who seems to be genuinely holy and I am quite often struck by what seem to me to be signs of such holiness in people who have nothing to do with the Catholic Church.

from The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters on Religious Experience and Social
emphasis mine

The “tricky” part is seeing the genuine holiness in others. It takes an openness on our part that is difficult to achieve. Especially when we are so caught up in external things — names, affiliations, titles, creeds, dogma.

For those of you who have not heard of Thomas Merton, the following is the introduction on wikipedia:

Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in the American state of Kentucky, Merton was an acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer, poet, author and social activist. Merton wrote over 60 books, scores of essays and reviews, and is the ongoing subject of many biographies. Merton was also a proponent of interreligious dialogue, engaging in spiritual dialogues with such icons as the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh and D.T. Suzuki. His career was suddenly cut short at a relatively young age due to an accident when he was electrocuted stepping out of his bath.

I’ve just found some of his letters to D.T. Suzuki in the book from which I quote above and based on comments in those, I’ve ordered six books and will be ordering two more (from “local” bookstores via abebooks.com and from a real local bookstore here in KC). They are truly fantastic letters with so many wonderful ideas about Christianity. I highly recommend them to everyone.

I just read an interesting post over at the Confessing Evangelical about the Bible being “exactly as God wanted it to be.” I’m not sure what it all means. My first impression is that it’s all semantics — don’t call errors errors but use another, more euphemistic term. But I also feel that there’s more to it than I’m appreciating at the moment. I hope to be able to comment on it after it’s stewed on my back burner for a while.

I’ve been reading more reactions to Tom’s book burning and I’m amazed at the range of response. Well, I’m not really amazed. I mean, come on. I’ve been around for a few decades and have seen a lot of responses to a lot of things. People get their tighty whities all up in a bunch at just about anything and everything. So, no, I’m not amazed.

But, really, folks. These are books for God’s sake! Not people. Not animals. Not flags. Not effigies of you-know-who. Books. Some people are outraged that Tom’s burning the books instead of quietly throwing them in a large landfill. Is there really a difference? Whether they are being burned or dumped or left sitting to rot and mildew the end result is the same, right? No one is reading the damn books!

Now, I know there’s all this stigma to “book burning” and some people even have pictures on their blogs of a large bonfire of burning books with people all around doing the “sieg heil.” That’s not happening in ol’ K.C., folks. Just because someone once burned a book as a form of censorship should not forever more taint the burning of books as censorship. That is not Tom’s motive.

And Tom’s even giving every one a chance to save the books from the ashes. Just buy the damn things! Give them a good home. Dust them off once in a while. Open their tender little pages and READ THEM!

So, some people are getting all outraged at someone else burning books and are morally and ethically offended but don’t DO anything to stop it. Send me a check and I’ll go rescue the books. Rent a damn truck and go pick them up. Organize a donation somewhere — I’ll even help you lug them around. But do something instead of pissing and moaning about what someone else is doing when you can remedy the situation.

Do a Google search on “prospero kansas city book burning” and read about our local book burning. The first page contains links to NBC, Fox News, Amazon, and a bunch of blogs. I’m all with Tom on this one. As he says, “not reading a book is as good as burning it.”

I went down to Prospero’s today and picked up 10 books for 10 bucks. There was a lot of crap in the pile and I’m not sorry to see a lot of it go. I definitely do not think that just because a book was written makes it worthy of reading. But I’m not going to be the Book Nazi. If you want to read crap, go ahead and buy that crap and read it.

If a book is just going to sit on a shelf in a storage room or warehouse collecting dust and becoming worm food, then you might as well burn it. At least you can toast some marshmallows and sing a few campfire songs while you’re doing it.

Hey, anyone know where we can get a book of old campfire songs???

I think things. I write things. I take too long to write good and put it aside. Then I find that someone else has said what I want to say. And said it more eloquently than I am capable of (hopefully that will change). So, why not let those who have already spoken speak for me?

So, here’s another quote from Thomas Merton’s letter to Amiya Chakravarty in The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters on Religious Experience and Social Concerns:

It is not easy to try to say what I now I cannot say. I do really have the feeling that you have all understood and shared quite perfectly. That you have seen something that I see to be most precious — and most available too. The reality that is present to us and in us: call it Being, call it Atman, call it Pneuma … or Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen which cannot be learned any more than breathing), we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations.

I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happiness, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it …

Aside from Merton’s appreciation for religious and spiritual thought other than his own, what strikes me about this passage is the last sentence. How many of us truly recognize each other? We meet someone and immediately we judge them based on name, appearance, the way they stand, how they talk, what their “affiliations” are. We never are just with them in the “metaphysical space of silence and happiness.” We don’t truly recognize them; we think we see them or know them but all we see are the exterior things. We don’t see how “full of paradise” they are. Hell, we don’t even see how “full of paradise” we are. We just don’t know. And the rate some of us are going — we never will.