Meditation

Many people in our world look at the East for their spiritual needs. Transcendental Meditation, Yoga and Zen have already been in vogue, often reduced to a fashion or fitness fad. Christians however were asking seriously if it was possible for them to avail of the riches of oriental spirituality while remaining committed to Christ and to the Gospel. Some forerunners have believed it possible and have blazed the trail. We all have inherited the fruits of their efforts.

Meditation: only a fitness exercise?

Stars do it. Athletes do it. Judges in the highest courts do it. A path to enlightenment that winds back 5,000 years in its native India, yoga has suddenly become cool, fashionable. In the U.S., yoga now straddles the continent. From Hollywood to Washington, Americans rush from their high-pressure jobs to the mellow voice of their yoga instructors. Or they sit in meditation.

Fifteen million Americans include some form of yoga in their fitness regimen, twice as many did five years ago; the majority of health clubs offer yoga classes. As for meditation, it is now offered in schools, hospitals, law firms, government buildings, corporate offices and prisons. There are specially marked meditation rooms in airports alongside the prayer chapels and Internet kiosks.

In a confluence of Eastern mysticism and Western science, doctors are embracing meditation because scientific studies are beginning to show that it works, particularly for stress-related conditions. As usual, what happened in USA, also in this field, is been quickly adopted by the rest of the developed world.

Today yoga and meditation are demystified and mainstreamed and their methods have been simplified. There’s less incense burning today, but there remains a nugget of Buddhist philosophy: the belief that by sitting in silence for 10 minutes to 40 minutes a day and actively concentrating on a breath or a word or an image, you can train yourself to focus on the present over the past and the future, transcending reality by fully accepting it.

Unfortunately, the success of yoga and meditation in the consumer societies, is an ambiguous one; it may only mean that they have been assimilated to the prevailing commercialism and have lost their depth and original religious meaning.

Christian Meditation facing the East

A considerable number of modern people are practicing meditation and find themselves drawn into deeper states of consciousness that are ordinarily called mystical. Beginning with the repetition of a mantra, or awareness of the breathing, or the savoring of a phrase from sacred Scripture, they feel drawn, beyond thinking and reasoning, to a consciousness wherein they rest silently in the presence of the Great Mystery that envelops the whole universe.

As a mass movement it started in the sixties. The sixties are a decade of change: Vatican II, the students’ revolution, the Beatles. At that time the great meditation movement which subsequently spread to the whole western world was in its early phase. Transcendental meditation and yoga and Zen were already in vogue. Christians were asking if it was possible for them to avail of the riches of oriental spirituality while remaining committed to Christ and to the Gospel.

The research and the experimentation of those years have now passed in the mainstream and the novelties are taken from granted, but it is all the same interesting and formative to explore the articulations of that discovery. The Catholic world that was committed to a serious dialogue with the East by means of giants like Bede Griffits and Thomas Merton, produced also those who acted as guides in the journey of prayer: John Main, Anthony De Mello and William Johnston.

Pathways of an encounter: the Forerunners

John Main is a clear example of cross fertilization between the religious traditions of the East and the West. It was his encounter with an Indian monk which inspired him in his personal quest for contemplative meditation and eventually made of him a master of a form of meditation that is the fruit of the integration between the eastern influence and the rediscovered western tradition.

The bridge was the calm, continuous repetition of a single word or phrase throughout the time of meditation as a way of bringing our chronically distracted human mind to attention in God and developing poverty of spirit. He wrote: “In contemplative prayer we seek to become the person we are called to be, not by thinking of God but by being with God. Simply to be with God is to be drawn into being the person God calls us to be”.

He taught people to pray from a theology of the indwelling Spirit and the inner Christ which opens a new possibility for prayer in our era of secularism. He illustrates the intimate connection between scripture and the prayer of the heart. The universal call to holiness invites a personal contemplative practice in daily life.

John Main saw that the modern search for deeper interiority required a simple contemplative discipline that could be practiced daily. From this developed the worldwide community of meditators, the network of Christian Meditation Centers and the weekly meditation groups which practice his recommended discipline of two daily half-hours of meditation.

In Anthony de Mello, the best currents of the East and the West flow naturally together. As a native of India, he was culturally equipped to understand the followers of Oriental religions. As a Jesuit, his own spirituality was formed largely by the Spiritual Exercises as well as by theological and psychological studies which he pursued for many years in Europe and the United States. His little book: “Sadhana, a way to God (Christian exercises in eastern form)”, published in 1978, was a breakthrough when it came out and it still remains a classic of modern spirituality.

In it, the author aims to teach interested readers how to pray, through a series of practices drawn from the Church’s tradition, St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, oriental techniques stemming from sources such as yoga or Zen Buddhism, and modern psychology. To it, de Mello added books of short stories representing the wisdom of the East in the fragment. They made him immensely popular.

The mysticism of silence

In his later works he develops his theory of contemplation as awareness. The concept of Christian revelation makes him recall the sentence of Lao-tse: ‘“Silence is the great revelation”. He knows that we are accustomed to think of the Scripture as the revelation of God. And so it is. But he wants us to discover the revelation that silence brings.

He writes: “In exercising an awareness of our bodily sensations, we are already communicating with God”, a communication that he explained in these terms. “Many mystics tell us that, in addition to the mind and heart with which we ordinarily communicate with God, we are, all of us, endowed with a mystical mind and mystical heart, a faculty which makes it possible for us to know God directly, to grasp and intuit him in his very being, though in a dark manner.

But this intuition, without images or form, is that of a void: “What do I gaze into when I gaze silently at God? I gaze at a blank.” And thus one arrives at “the seemingly disconcerting conclusion that concentration on your breathing or your body sensations is very good contemplation in the strict sense of the word”. Interior enlightenment is the true revelation: “When you have knowledge you use a torch to show the way. When you are enlightened you become a torch”. This mysticism of stillness and silence recalls the parallel experience of “the dark night” of Saint John of the Cross.

Anthony de Mello however did not realize that he was been carried away by his enthusiasm of learning from the East to the point of overlooking the revelation of God in Christianity. This is why, after his death, the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith published a letter which put in evidence the dangers of de Mello’s position.

Well aware of these dangers was instead the other Jesuit, William Johnston, who spent most of his life in Japan and, as a scholar of spirituality, was better equipped for this demanding task. He is the author of a book: “Christian Zen (A Way of Meditation), published in 1971, which is also a classic. His enthusiasm for the dialogue with Zen Buddhism became a long life commitment.

He writes: “Christians might not only avail of the riches of oriental meditation but they should become leaders in a movement of which Christ would be the center – a meditation movement which would humbly learn from Zen. I have told Japanese Christians- and I believe it is true- that they have an important role to play in the development of Christianity. Their vocation is to renew meditation within the Church (because of their Zen tradition) and interpret it to the West”.

The best example of the truth of this vision is the life experience of a Japanese Dominican priest, Fr. Shigeto Oshida who died last November at Takamori. He was a convert from Buddhism and a Zen practitioner when he met Christ in the witness of a German friend, during the war.

Fr. Oshida was used to share his spiritual journey: how following the noble silence of Zen he had easily believed in the Man who died on the cross proclaiming universal forgiveness. “Forgiveness is silence within silence” explains Fr. Oshida, “To keep silence is to enter the womb of God. Christ is in the heart of Zen”. Fr. Oshida’s death has been the best illustration of the Christian potentialities of Zen mysticism.

In the convent of Takamori, in the last days of his life, he spent long time contemplating the way autumn dresses the surrounding hills in colors. Looking at the leaves falling gently on the ground, he uttered the words that will remain on his lips until the last breath: “God is marvelous! Amen, Amen!” His face in death was radiant with beauty and peace.<WM

Copyright ©World Mission Magazine

Nonstop

Read the Editorial

Feedback on this article?

write to

mail@worldmission.ph

Learning From The East

by Lorenzo Carraro, mccj

HOW HAS THE EAST INFLUENCED THE WESTERN CONCEPT OF PRAYER AND MEDITATION?

Praying with the body

We will analyze the contributions of the East to the western concept of prayer and meditation, guided by William Johnston. Asian meditation is holistic. It stresses the role of the body and teaches us how to sit, how to breathe, how to eat, how to fast, how to sleep, how to watch and how to relax.

Balancing Body and Soul: this is the tradition and the teaching of Yoga. Yoga has been experiencing a resurgence, thanks to media images. Yet media images of sophisticated bodily postures send false messages that yoga is an alternative to weights lifting and aerobics and merely a fitness fad. Western mentality tends to take the asanas (yoga postures) out of context from a lifestyle that values the balance of body and soul.

Yet Yoga is not equivalent to exercise. Its basic premise has to be upheld. The premise is that we are a whole and spiritual being. The body is only a part of our wholeness. Yet the spirit or soul manifests itself through the body.

Asan is a Sanskrit word for “seat.” To take one’s seat means to enter into a state of rest. This involves moving towards a resting position and controlling your breath. The yoga postures are meant to facilitate meditation.

Inner Stillness

Consider the words of Jesus: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on” (Mt. 6:25).

When one sits down to meditate, the first thing is to let go of one’s anxieties. And that may include reasoning and thinking together with preoccupation and planning and all the rest. One must let them go. And this is not easy. For, as we all know, the human mind is restless. It looks to the future with fear or anticipation; it looks to the past with nostalgia or with guilt. Seldom does it remain in the here and now.

Yet Jesus tells us clearly to drop anxiety about the future in order to remain in the present. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day” (Mt. 6:34)

In all the great cultures life is symbolized by breath. It is precisely in experiencing your breath that you experience your life. So just sit quietly with your back straight and become aware of your breathing.As time goes on, the breathing of its own accord becomes deep and abdominal.

The Sino-Japanese tradition has always taught that life and energy well up from the tanden, the point which lies about an inch below the navel-which is expressively called the “ocean of energy”. And tanden breathing is basic not only to meditation but also to judo, fencing, archery, calligraphy, flower-arrangement and the tea-ceremony. One does not attain to awareness of breathing overnight. It takes time.

But if one perseveres one gradually comes to realize that this breath is not only the life that fills the body from head to toe. It is more. It is a sharing in the breath of the universe: a cosmic force which penetrates all things. As for Hebrews, they believed that their breath was the breath of God whose presence gave them life. For Christians the breath, like the wind, symbolizes the Holy Spirit who fills all things with his love, giving wisdom and joy and peace.

Receiving the love of god

William Johnston writes: “While breathing, you can recite the words: “Come, Holy Spirit”, asking to be filled with the breath of the Spirit. And you can let go of anxieties as the conviction of being loved grows and deepens and becomes an unshakable source of strength.

Let me repeat that I am not saying that one should reason and think about faith. Only that one should sit silently, receiving the love of God into the depths of one’s being.

The principal thing is to receive and to keep receiving the immense love which is being offered. Perhaps we could say that the basis of Christian meditation is the art of being loved. The Song of Songs speaks of opening the door to the Beloved. And Jesus says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to share his meal, side by side with him” (Rev. 3:20).

At this point, the roads of the wisdom of the East (Yoga and Zen) and Christian prayer have already parted. The starting point can be similar if not the same, but then, in the course of the journey, the roads diverge. Christian mysticism is always Christ-centered. The metaphors of darkness, desert, abyss, silence, unknowing used by Christian mystics differ from those non-Christian. Thus it is a “dazzling” darkness, a “fertile” desert, a “love-filled” abyss, a “Word-resonant” silence, a “knowing” unknowing.

For them it is only in the crucified Christ, where the opposites of Word and silence, Life and death coincide, that there is loving access to the Father who dwells in unapproachable light. For the Christian, moreover, love of God and love of neighbor are simultaneous actions. This explains the extraordinary development of the works of charity in Christianity as the fruit of prayer and contemplation.

An Encounter with a Personal God

“Christian prayer is always determined by the structure of the Christian faith, in which the very truth of God and creature shines forth. For this reason, it is defined, properly speaking, as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and God. The essential element of authentic Christian prayer is the meeting of two freedoms, the infinite freedom of God with the finite freedom of man (Christian Meditation, letter of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, 1989).

“For me, then – writes W. Johnston - the greatest practical difference between Zen and Christian contemplation is that, whereas Zen rewards thoughts and feelings and aspirations of love for God as illusion, I regard these sentiments as-yes, imperfect and inadequate to express the reality, but nevertheless as true and valid and valuable religious experiences. From Zen I can, and will continue to, learn many things. But I am convinced that it is not the same as the Christian contemplation to which I feel called”.

Paul Williams, a Buddhist who found his way back to Christianity, writes: “Buddhism is all about the mind. Mental states are essentially subjective. The great glory of Buddhism is its relevance to the immediate situation of suffering. And suffering springs (naturally) from the mind. The Christian religion instead is all about God and the salvific actions of God through Christ.

Buddhism is working on oneself. For if Buddhism is all about the mind it has to be the mind of someone. And that someone is oneself. But God is not a mental state. Christians who would seek common ground with Buddhists in meditation, and “mystical experiences” should be careful that they are not throwing out the Holy Baby with the bathwater.

As for me, in the last analysis, I realized I could not avoid a choice. Did I want to focus on myself for all eternity, or did I want to love the Living God?

In the womb of god

“The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is itself enlightenment”: this is what the Zen masters teach. In other words, oriental breathing and posture should not be regarded only as warming-up exercises, preparation for the real thing. What we can learn from the East is not just preparatory devices but the art of prayer itself.

For the Orient can teach us to pray with our breathing, to pray with our body, to pray with our whole being. After all, God created the whole person, not just the mind; and he should be adored by the whole person, not just by the mind.

Yet another result of this training is that one comes to experience the great wisdom of the body. One whose mind is attuned to his body finds that the body tells him when to eat and when to fast, when to sleep and when to watch, when to work or when to meditate.

Then one proceeds to enlightenment according to one’s own tradition. And yet we believe that “every genuine prayer is done in the Holy Spirit” (John Paul II) and in the womb of God is the meeting place of all the saints. The same Spirit is at work in the heart of all men and women, and in the scriptures and traditions of all authentic religions. Now we realize that each religion has its unique message. We learn from one another. Indeed, as we enter the third millennium we at last realize that we need one another.<WM

India: Fr. Carlos SVD meditating