Meditation in Western Mysticism Reg Naulty
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MEDITATION IN WESTERN MYSTICISM REG NAULTY ANY YEARS AGO, when I was pre- tion, such inward repetition is called a mantra, paring for a thirty day retreat, The and is used as a mind emptying device. MSpiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, The argument of this essay is that the west- I was told that the word ‘meditation’ comes ern mystical tradition has a meditation com- from the Latin ‘me ditare’, speaking to my- ponent arrived at by following practitioners self. It meant an inner monologue. For exam- who had written about it. By ‘meditation’ is ple, it might mean interrogating oneself about meant the elimination of mental states, fol- one`s conduct. That is one meaning, but more lowed by introversion. And that is yoga. It in- often it just means thinking. One may be medi- volves primarily stilling the thought stream. tating about a parable of Jesus, attempting to The great Hindu writer, S.N Dasgupta, expands define the point of it. usefully: ‘yoga concentration …aims solely to Today, thousands of Australians attend stop the movement of the mind and to prevent meditation classes every week, but they are its natural tendency towards comparison, clas- not being coached in Ignatian meditation or sification, association, assimilation and the silent thinking. They are doing yoga. The aim like.’1 As thousands of people are now re- is physical and mental relaxation. To this end, minded every week in yoga classes, the point they do physical and mental exercises. The of meditation is to still the monkey mind. latter involves a gradual process of mind emp- If the yoga practitioner persists, something tying until the empty mind contemplates itself. else may happen: This results in a feeling of peace. ‘[he] steadily proceeds towards that ultimate There are two routes to meditation in this stage in which his mind will be disintegrated sense in the Christian spiritual tradition. In mon- and his self will shine forth in its own light and asteries and other religious houses it is custom- he himself will be absolutely free in bondless, ary to keep the Grand Silence, that is no speak- companionless, loneliness of self illumination.’2 ing, from about 5.00 pm till after breakfast. ‘His mind will be disintegrated.’ Can Some generous people went a step further. Why Dasgupta, the author of a famous five volume not keep an inner silence to correspond with the history of Indian philosophy, really mean that? external silence? This question was asked by a What does he mean? He means that the dis- twelfth century Cistercian, Guerric of Igny, who cursive, thinking mind will be disintegrated. had been a monk of St Bernard‘s at Clairvaux. However, he doesn`t mean that it`s destroyed Guerric did not know it, but he was practicing forever. He means that continual practice at yoga meditation. If we do that, he wrote, we meditation enables the practitioner to lay it may find the all powerful Word flowing into us aside temporarily, which may permit some- from the Father‘s Throne. thing else to come to light. On the next page: Another route to yogic meditation in the …as a result of the gradual weakening of the Christian tradition, more characteristic of East- constitution of the mind, the latter ceases to live ern than Western Christianity, is the constant and work and is dissociated forever from spirit inward repetition of the Jesus prayer. This was or the self. It is then that the spirit shows forth originally repetition of the word ‘Jesus’, and in its own lonely splendor…3 was later lengthened to ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son And the spirit is revealed as having splendor. of God, have mercy on me.’ In the yoga tradi- It has a ‘self- shining which is unique.’ And 29 Compass #4 2010 text.indd 29 22/12/2010 2:52:22 PM COMPASS that is enlightenment. Reg Naulty, formerly of Zen Buddhism is in fundamental agree- Charles Sturt Univer- ment. Thus a Zen master, Rosen Takashina in sity, Riverina, has been 1954, advises us to be without thoughts. That writing about Spirit- is the secret of meditation: uality for over thirty It means to cut off at the root and source, all our years. He is also a discriminating fancies. If we really cut them off published poet. He now at the root, then of itself the freedom of thought lives in Canberra. will come, which means that our own true nature appears, and this is called enlightenment… the radiance of the Buddha heart breaks forth from in becoming a Christian, but was impeded by ourselves. We come to know that the majesty of two intellectual difficulties, one of which was Buddha is our own majesty also.4 that he could form no idea of a spiritual, as How meditation got into the western mys- opposed to a material, object. Their books tical tradition is a curious story. The key fig- solved that problem for him: ure is the philosopher Plotinus [205-270 A.D.], These books served to remind me to return to a Greek speaking Egyptian who taught the Ro- my own self…I entered the depths of my soul man elite. He was interested in Indian thought, [and]…and saw the light that never changes so he decided to go to India to find out more casting its rays …over my mind. It was not the about it. To that end, he joined the military common light of day that is seen by the eye of expedition of the emperor Gordianus against every living thing of flesh and blood, nor was it the Persians, but it was defeated in what is now some more spacious light of the same sort, as if Iraq, and Plotinus returned, with great diffi- the light of day were to shine far, far brighter than it does and fill all space with its brilliance. culty, to Rome. What I saw was something quite different from Recognizably Indian practices, especially any light we know on earth.7 deliberate mind emptying, figure importantly As St. Augustine was by far the most in- in his philosophy. In his great work, The fluential of the Fathers of the Western Church, Enneads, he advises his reader to ‘sever the and as The Confessions are among the most agent [the self] from the instrument, the body’, accessible of his books, this passage ensured which it does by eliminating ‘the desires that that meditation was transmitted to the western come by its too intimate commerce with the mystical tradition. body, emancipated from all the passions, And it keeps on turning up. Thus in Eng- purged of all that embodiment has thrust upon land, St Edmund Rich [1180-1240], an Arch- it , withdrawn, a solitary, to itself again.’5 bishop of Canterbury, is instructing the soul When you are ‘self gathered in the purity on the third step of contemplation which is to of your own being,’ you may notice a light not strive to see two things ‘its Creator and His of a spatial nature: own nature’: When you find yourself wholly true to your es- But the soul can never attain to this until it has sential nature, wholly that only veritable Light learned to subdue every image, corporeal, which is not measured by space, not narrowed earthly and celestial, to reject whatever may to any circumscribed form nor again diffused come to it through sight or sound or hearing or as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable touch or taste or any other bodily sensation, and as something greater than all measure and more to tread it down, so that the soul may see what 6 than all quantity… it itself is outside of its body.8 And there it is, all the way back to Hindu- Plotinus lives in mediaeval England! And ism. Plotinus was a ‘pagan’ i.e., he was not a there are traces of him in Eckhart. In the twen- Christian. His school was read by another pa- tieth century, Meister Eckhart [1260-1329], gan, Augustine of Hippo, who was interested known to his contemporaries as ‘the man from 30 Compass #4 2010 text.indd 30 22/12/2010 2:52:22 PM MEDITATION IN WESTERN MYSTICISM whom God hid nothing’ , attracted two stud- the breathless and motionless trance [Sabilka ies comparing him to eastern mystics: Rudolph Samadhi], without which no man can attain God Otto`s Mysticism East and West, and Suzuki`s perception…Among Christian mystics who have Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist. Otto been observed in Sabilka Samadhi may be men- points to a position shared by Eckhart and the tioned St Teresa of Avila, whose body would be- come so immovably fixed that the astonished nuns Indian mystic Sankara: in her convent were unable to alter her position Thus withdrawn inwards, free from inclinations or to arouse her to outward consciousness.11 and attachments, stripped of all sense impressions and thoughts…the atman [inner self] shines forth I conclude that meditation has been fre- in its own light as pure consciousness.9 quently used by western mystics. But for all When writing about Plotinus and Eckhart, that, it remains a side stream in western mys- it is customary to mention that they were neo- ticism, the mainstream of which, is a mysti- Platonists, as indeed they were. Both adopt the cism of prayer. And the mystical experience neo–Platonic metaphysical scheme of emana- attendant on that is an experience of God‘s tion from the One and return to it. Both use neo- love. As a result of this experience, the mys- Platonic concepts.