Punctum Saliens

About 6 or 7 years ago, I was driving a rental car with one of those “new fangled” GPS navigation systems. I typed in my destination and was off, dutifully following the turns dictated by the system. Near my destination, however, I made a wrong turn and the system said, “Please return to the highlighted route.” Well, I tried and tried and tried but it kept repeating, “Please return to the highlighted route. Please return to the highlighted route.” I don’t remember exactly what happened but it may have involved a power button and a large piece of folded paper with strange markings on it.

Flash forward to last week in my wife’s new car with a GPS navigation system. Again, I made a turn not on the calculated route but this time the system said, “Recalculating route … Go straight about 2 miles and turn …” Ahhh, so much better!

I’m reading Echoing Silence by Thomas Merton and, in one of his letters to Mark Van Doren, Merton says:

I can no longer see the ultimate meaning of a man’s life in terms of either “being a poet”or “being a contemplative” or even in a certain sense in “being a saint”(although that is the only thing to be). It must be something much more immediate than that. I—and every other person in the world—must say: “I have my own special, peculiar destiny which no one else ever has had or ever will have. There exists for me a particular goal, a fulfillment which must be all my own—nobody else’s—& it does not really identify that destiny to put it under some category—’poet,’ ‘monk,’ ‘hermit.’ Because my own individual destiny is a meeting, an encounter with God that He has destined for me alone. His glory in me will be to receive from me something He can never receive from anyone else—because if is a gift of His to me which he has never given to anyone else & never will. My whole life is only that—to establish that particular constant with God which is the one He has planned for my eternity!”

Many people say, along with Merton, that God has a purpose for our lives. That Merton goes further to say God receives something unique from each one of us is wonderfully non-mainstream. But in regard to this purpose for my life, I’m wondering which GPS system God is like. Is he sitting up in heaven watching me live my life and noticing all my wrong turns and yelling down at me at the top of his lungs “Turn left now. Now! Oh, you missed it, again! Please return to the highlighted route, you dumb ass.” Or is he patiently recalculating my route with each wrong turn I make?

And is he changing my destination along the way? Suppose my purpose was to enter seminary and become the next Billy Graham. Obviously I’ve missed that turn a long way back. Does my life still have a purpose? Perhaps plan B, C, or D has been invoked? Of course, God could have accounted for all my missed turns and planned my route accordingly. But wouldn’t that make my life’s purpose my plan instead of God’s plan? And are plans B, et al., secondary in importance and glory?

Perhaps my purpose is a simple one: give someone a cup of cold water or a meal; visit a sick friend; or give someone in need some clothing. I wonder if Billy Graham’s purpose was not to be the speaker that he was—perhaps that was incidental to his real purpose of feeding one hungry woman or giving a moment’s counsel to one confused man. And when I fulfill my purpose, what then?

Too many questions, I guess. Perhaps I’ll just know when I make a correct turn. Or perhaps I’ll fulfill my purpose and be none the wiser. I guess the only thing to do is to be open to and mindful of life and the world around me. If I go through life preoccupied with my self and my work and my finances and my commitments and me me me me, then I’m surely going to miss a lot of turns and a lot of opportunities. If I’m not mindful of other than me then I’ll never even see that thirsty woman over there let alone give her a drink of water.

Ok, that’s the answer I’ve been looking for but the new question of the day is “How?????”

Been thinking lately about how in the hell I’m going to make any spiritual progress when I have very little time to be “spiritual.” You know, “Deadlines and commitments. What to leave in? What to leave out?” My 17 month old daughter is definitely a “leave in” and that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for other stuff. (But I love it!)

Then I found the following in The Gateless Gate by Koun Yamada:

The poem that expresses the Hinayana point of view is:

Since the whole cottage has been built by assembling brushwood,
If we took it to pieces,
Nothing would remain but the field, as before.

The one which expresses the Mahayana point of view is:

Since the cottage has been built by assembling brushwood,
There is nothing but the field,
Even without taking it to pieces.

Now, what does the field mean? Again, it is nothing but the empty-infinite, our essential nature, and what does the brushwood represent? It is the objective world, which includes our body and mental activities — concepts, ideas, thinking, feeling, and so on. When we get rid of this objective world, there remains only standing up, sitting down, going to bed, walking and running, eating a meal when you are hungry, crying when sad, working when you need money. There are no concepts or ideas whatsoever attached to these. When you sit down, there is no philosophy attached. Our life in this world is made up of such actions. Is there anything more? No! And from the standpoint of sitting down or taking a walk, there is no difference at all between Buddhas and us.

And this reminded me of I Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

“Whatever you do.” That means every single second of every single day. That’s more than saying grace before I eat — it’s eating my hamburger for the glory of God. It’s brushing my teeth for the glory of God. It’s driving to the grocery store for the glory of God. It’s doing all the mundane, mindless, mediocre, menial things for the glory of God. Because that’s what life really is. Life is what happens between the couple of high points you may experience.

So, the question has now become shorter but no less simple: “How?”

Getting back to an old post of mine, let’s assume:

1. The Bible is exactly as God wanted it to be
2. God is omniscient
3. God had/has perfect foreknowledge

What does this mean?

I think it’s an obvious fact that there are many, many different interpretations of the Bible. Whether you think any particular interpretation is right or wrong does not change the fact that it exists and someone believes it. But God, in his perfect foreknowledge and omniscience must have known that each interpretation that exists would exist. God knew that we’d be confused. And yet the Bible is exactly as he wanted it to be. Now, I’m not talking about a few fringe ideas that go against an overwhelming consensus. If you’re reading, say, The Scarlett Letter in every high school (which still reads this book) I would guess that there would be a lot of agreement on meaning and interpretation with, perhaps, a few radical ideas. Not so with the Bible!

God may be just but he doesn’t seem quite fair. He gives us this book, knowing that some of us will interpret it differently and then (according to some) punishes us when we do. Kinda like the ol’ apple in the garden, heh? Isn’t that entrapment?

So, God must have had a purpose for the ambiguity, the confusion causing verbiage. Was it to test us? Was it to weed out some of us? What possible reason could there be? Furthermore, how can any of us even pretend to have the “right” answer? So many options, so many ideas, so many opinions and the one that appeals to me just happens to be the one and only correct interpretation?

But, hey … just a thought.

In Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist D.T. Suzuki quotes Meister Eckhart …

I have read many writings both of heathen philosophers and sages, of the Old and New Testaments, and I have earnestly and will all diligence sought the best and the highest virtue whereby man may come most closely to God and wherein he may once more become like the original image as he was in God when there was yet no distinction between God and himself before God produced creatures. And having dived into the basis of things to the best of my ability I find that it is no other than absolute detachment from everything that is created. It was in this sense when our Lord said to Martha: “One thing is needed,” which is to say: He who would be untouched and pure needs just one thing, detachment. [emphasis mine]

This is quite interesting to me and very non-mainstream Christian. Eckhart is saying that man existed before God created anything. But man didn’t exist as man, man existed as an image in God and as an image that was not distinct from God. Does this mean that man was/is God?

What does “no distinction between God and himself” mean? The meaning that first comes to mind is that you can’t tell them apart. Does this mean than man is God? As an analogy, it is most likely possible to produce a counterfeit ten dollar bill that is indistinguishable from a real ten dollar bill. But what would that take? It would take the exact same ink, the exact same paper, an exact duplicate of the plates, and probably a couple other things. But if the “fake” bill uses the same ink and paper and identical plates, is it really fake? Isn’t it really only fake because it wasn’t printed in a sanctioned government mint (or wherever it is that money is printed)? And if this is the only difference, then isn’t it really a genuine bill; fake in name only? In other words, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck …

Then I looked up the word “distinction.” The definition, of course, references “distinct” which has two definitions that seem relevant: 1. distinguished as not being the same; not identical; separate and 2. different in nature or quality; dissimilar. Following these definitions then, Eckhart is saying that man and God are the same, identical, not separate, not different, not dissimilar. This is quite a statement! It is so very reminiscent of the well-known Zen koan: What was your face before your parents were born? Answer that and you’ve discovered your Buddha-nature. Answer that and you’ve discovered God. Answer that and you’ve re-discovered your true, essential Self; the Self not tied to this earthly body, this creature made by God.

Eckhart is also implying that the act of creating man on the sixth day was the act that resulted in the separation (the distinction) between God and man. Being human is being separated from God. Or, more accurately, thinking of our Selves as human — being attached to our humanity, as as such, our separateness from other humans and from God — is being separated from God. Perhaps this is the real reason Jesus became human. We were so intent on pushing God “out there” and then trying to re-bridge the gap with religion but it wasn’t working. We had totally forgotten our origins, our face before our parents were born, our true nature as indistinct from God. Jesus’ humanity demonstrates our actual situation — God (or something indistinct from God) incarnate. That is what we are to emulate in Jesus — his God-nature.

Paradise was never lost because we can’t change what we are. Paradise only seems lost because all our attention is on our humanity. We’ve really just forgotten that we are already in paradise right now. And the solution, as Eckhart says, is “absolute detachment from everything that that is created.” Detachment from our humanity and from our society and our culture. This detachment is exactly what Jesus speaks of when he tells us to not worry and trust in him for everything. It’s what Paul talks about when he tells us to pray without ceasing. It’s having our focus on heaven and storing up riches where thieves do not break in and steal.

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.

“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.

Bertrand Russell, in an essay titled Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?, writes:

… Perhaps we might … ask ourselves whether we have any evidence of purpose in the universe apart from the purposes of living beings on the surface of this planet.

The usual argument of religious people on this subject is roughly as follows: “I and my friends are persons of amazing intelligence and virtue. It is hardly conceivable that so much intelligence and virtue could have come about by change. There must, therefore, be someone at least as intelligent and virtuous as we are who set the cosmic machinery in motion with a view to producing Us.” I am sorry to say that I do not find this argument so impressive as it is found by those who use it. …

Then again, considered as the climax to such a vast process, we do not really seem to me sufficiently marvelous. Of course, I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better. … So far as scientific evidence goes, the universe has crawled by slow stages to a somewhat result on this earth and is going to crawl by still more pitiful stages to a condition of universal death. If this is to be taken as evidence of purpose, I can only say that the purpose is one that does not appeal to me. I see no reason, therefore, to believe in any sort of God, however vague and however attenuated. (emphasis mine)

And I’ve heard others object on similar grounds with something like: “I just can’t believe in a God who would …” and fill in “condemn millions to Hell” or “let little children suffer” or “allow such evil to exist.”

But, I wonder. Does God have to do what WE want him to or think he should? We try to hold God to some “moral” standard that seems right to us. We accuse God of not acting to eliminate evil — should be easy for him, no? After all, God is an omnipotent, omniscient, awesomely powerful being so he should be able to erase evil from the world!

But … God is an omnipotent, omniscient, awesomely powerful being. What gives us the right to hold him accountable for anything he does or does not do? Russell makes the same claim — “I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own” — and then claims to be able to see beyond his own limitations — “Nevertheless, even after making allowances …”

But is seeing beyond our own limitations really possible?

The second line of objection I mentioned above can basically be labeled as double standards. God says one thing and then does another. A God of love condemns people to Hell. A God of love allows suffering and evil. God says “Thou shalt not kill” and then kills. God says not to be jealous and then calls himself a “jealous God.”

Here is one example of a double standard that every single person in the world has taken part in — and in most cases, on both sides.

Little Johnny is five years old. He can’t vote, drink, drive, or serve in the military. He must be in bed by 8:00. He should not swear, fight, yell, hit, be selfish or stubborn, or tell lies — even tiny white lies. He must always be polite, share, say “please” and “thank you.” He must eat all his broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and beans. He should not date, make out, watch porn, or have sex.

Little Johnny’s dad, however can vote, drink, drive, and serve in the military. He does not have to be in bed by 8:00. He can swear, fight, yell, hit, be selfish or stubborn, and tell white lies. He does not always need to polite, share, say “please” and “thank you.” He can throw his broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and beans in the garbage if he wants. He can date, make out, watch porn, and have sex (all on the same night, if he wants).

Is this a double standard? Dad tells Johnny to not lie and then tells white lies to Johnny’s mother about how that dress makes her look. Dad tells Johnny to not be selfish and then misses Johnny’s school play because he was too busy. Dad tells Johnny not to swear and then calls Bush a dumb $%&@#$%&!.

Yes, this is a double standard but Johnny’s dad can get away with it because he’s an adult and he’s Johnny’s dad. Now, I submit to you that the gap between God and us is a tad bigger than that between a parent and child. So, if Johnny’s dad is not held to the same standard that Johnny is, then why should God be held to the same standard that we are?