Reason and Contemplation

That discursive reasoning cannot attain contemplative wisdom or enlightenment is obvious enough. As I mentioned in my last post, if it this was possible, enlightenment could be attained in much the same way one follows a reasonable argument in a book. But enlightenment is not attained in this way; the great mystics of every tradition are unanimous on this point. It follows an experience, and one cannot simply "think" one's way into the experience.

Nevertheless, mysticism cannot be irrational, though some people see it this way. This is true both of detractors of mysticism as well as some who embrace it.

Ken Wilber writes, "all true mysticism is transrational and never antirational; 'right thought' always precedes 'right meditation.'"¹ He is alluding here to two elements of Buddhism's Eightfold Path.

Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, a high-ranking teacher in the Tibetan tradition, make a similar point about "right view," or "correct view," as he calls it.

Traleg Rinpoche notes that a lot of Westerners who are interested in Buddhism are very into meditation, but become resistant when it comes to studying the philosophy of Buddhism. I think this is true of a lot of people interested in contemplative spirituality in general: they want to meditate, but they don't care for philosophy.²

Traleg Rinpoche notes that many Western Buddhists believe "that meditation is all about getting rid of views or that all views will hinder us from attaining our spiritual goal." On the contrary, he says, "It is only incorrect views that we need to overcome. The correct view is to be cultivated with great diligence."³

The reason this is so important is that the experience of a higher state of consciousness is simply that: an experience. It is not itself knowledge. It has to be understood, and it will be understood within a particular framework. Taking care to ensure that the framework is adequate—that is, to make sure we have the "correct" or "right" view—is of great importance if our experience is going to be translated into authentic wisdom. As Traleg Rinpoche says, "We cannot simply practice meditation and hope for the best; we need a conceptual framework that is based on correct view."⁴

For people at the "Synthetic-Conventional" stage (or earlier), the framework in which they understand their experience will be one that is largely, if not entirely, unexamined. If someone at such a stage has a vision, there is a good chance they will take it at face value. So if I am at this stage and I have a vision of Mary or Jesus (or Krishna or Kuan Yin, or whoever) I will probably understand it quite literally as being that person or deity (or bodhisattva, or whatever).

A more rational perspective will recognise that the sensible content (visions, auditions, etc.⁵) of such an experience is likely drawn from the imagination of the one having the experience. It's not an accident that it's usually Catholics who have visions of Mary and Hindus who have visions of Krishna.

Even higher mystical states that do not feature any kind of sensible content have to be understood or interpreted. The understanding then has to be judged (which is to say, reasonably affirmed) for it to count as actual knowledge. The adequacy of this understanding and this judgment will depend on a large extent on the adequacy of our prior conceptual framework, even as this framework will likely undergo some changes as a result of the experience.

So I would say that rationality plays two very important roles in mysticism: first, in cultivating a correct view, which is to say an adequate framework in which the experience will be understood; and second, in judging whether the insight that results from the experience is itself correct.

The implications of this, as I see it, are twofold: First, you should not embark on the contemplative path unless you are willing to also learn philosophy and cultivate a correct view; you will not be able to properly understand your experience otherwise. Second, you should not simply assume that whatever insight occurs to you during the experience is correct. It is quite possible to have a mistaken insight during such an experience, and the powerful quality of the experience can too easily convince the person having the experience that the insight is correct.⁶

Cultivating a correct view, of course, is not simply something that happens before the experience, but also after. So it is not as simply as, "philosophise now, experience later." Wisdom, I think, is refined through an ongoing dialectical process of thinking and experiencing, thinking more, and experiencing more.

Notes

[1] Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, 179.

[2] One reason for this, I think, is that a lot of people become interested in this kind of spirituality when they reach James Fowler's Stage 5, the post-modernist "Conjunctive" stage, which corresponds with Wilber's "green altitude." For more on the relationship between Fowler's stages and Wilber's "altitudes" see "The Colours of Spiritual Development."

People at every level tend to be very resistant to certain tendencies that are characteristic of the previous level. The previous level in this case would be the modernist "Individuative-Reflective" stage, at Wilber's "orange altitude." The orange stage is characterised by what the green stage sees as a too-strong emphasis on rationality.

The next stage, Wilber's teal-altitude Integral stage, seeks to correct this by reclaiming rationality against green, but correcting the error of orange, which generally rejects the idea that valid knowledge can be attained in non-normal states of consciousness. I've written about this stage before in "The Problem is Orange." Note that Wilber's understanding of teal-altitude spirituality is quite different from Fowler's sixth (and final) stage, the "Universalizing" stage. A number of critics have found Fowler's Stage 6 problematic, as it is not based on the same kind of empirical evidence as the previous stages. See, for instance, Romney M. Mosely's "Forms of Logic in Faith Development Theory," in Christian Perspectives on Faith Development, Jeff Astley and Leslie J. Francis, eds., Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992: 169.

[3] Kyabgon, Mind at Ease, 25.

[4] Kyabgon, Mind at Ease, 26.

[5] I use the term "sensible content" to refer to things that do not literally involve the senses, but which are described as though they were. So one does not actually use one's eyes when one has a vision, but it nevertheless has a visual character.

[6] Traleg Rinpoche says,

"Some meditative experiences may have the appearance of being genuine, but in reality are false and misleading. Such experiences can be deceptive, giving us the false conviction that we have attained a particular meditative state when in reality we have simply gone astray or fallen victim to fanciful thinking. To separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and to endeavor to find out whether anything genuine has occured, we must make use of conceptual tools that steer us in the right direction. That way, we can purposefully continue with our spiritual practice by critically examining and refining our views." (Mind at Ease, 26)

The failure of some people to recognise this, I think, stems from the erroneous belief that knowledge is attained simply through experience, which is sometimes called "naive realism": I saw it, therefore it's real.

Others might assume that whatever "insight" they had from the experience is necessarily true, apart from (or prior to) any kind of reasonable affirmation. This likely happens because the experience of having this mystical insight is so powerful that whatever one understands from it is simply accepted without question. It seems to me that the monistic non-dualism of the Advaita Vedanta tradition probably originated in this: I experience myself as "one with everything," so everything is "one," and so multiplicity is illusory. That’s kind of a complicated topic, though, so I won't go into it right now.

NCR Interview with Paul Knitter

The National Catholic Reporter has posted an interesting interview with Paul Knitter about his latest book, Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian.

Knitter doesn't really say anything in the interview that isn't in the book, but if you haven't read it but think you might find it interesting, the interview is worth checking out.

I wrote a review of the book last summer. I indicated that I was going to write more about it, but for some reason never really got around to it for some reason. Maybe this summer, who knows.

Review: Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian, by Paul F. Knitter

I could have written a book with this title, and meant it quite sincerely. (But, I hasten to add, it wouldn't have been nearly as good.)

Paul Knitter, presently the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York, is well known for his work on the subject of religious pluralism. This book is not like his other books, at least not the ones that I've read, or read from. Knitter has never been one to try to hide his authorial presence behind dry academic prose, but here we find him writing very personally, sharing his struggles with elements of the Christian faith, and relating how his study of Buddhism -- and his own Zen practice -- have helped him through the struggle. Indeed, he describes himself as a "Buddhist Christian" (which is a little bit further than I'd go myself).

Knitter, who was a priest from 1966 to 1975, and whose teachers included such luminaries as Jesuit Frs. Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, admits that he has struggled for much of his career with what many would insist are essential Christian beliefs -- "not the ethical teachings of Jesus and the New Testament witness," or "the controversial ethical or practical teachings" of the Catholic Church:¹

No, when I say I'm struggling, I mean with the big stuff -- the stuff that applies to all Christians, not just my own Roman Catholic community. I'm talking about the basic ingredients of the Creed, the beliefs that many Christians proclaim together every Sunday and that are supposed to define who they are in a world of many other religious beliefs and philosophies. I'm talking about "God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth," who as a personal being is active in history and in our individual lives, whom we worship and pray to for help and guidance. I'm talking about "his only-begotten Son" who "died for our sins" and will "come again at the end of time" and who will grant eternal life and personal immortality to the body and souls of all those who answer God's call, while those who reject the call will be dispatched to a hellish punishment that will never, ever end.²

Knitter claims that the traditional sources of Christian theology have proven inadequate to the task of helping him through his struggle. He has come to realise, he says, that he has "to look beyond the traditional borderlines of Christianity to find something that is vitally, maybe even essentially, important for the job of understanding and living the Christian faith: other religions."³ Following the example of people like Raimon Panikkar, Aloysius Pieris, Bede Griffiths, and Thomas Merton, Knitter says he has come to realise that he has to do his theology dialogically. "Or," he says, "in current theological jargon: I have to be religious interreligiously."⁴

Each chapter in this book follows a similar pattern: First, Knitter describes some traditional Christian belief that he finds problematic. Second, he "passes over" into Buddhism, explaining some aspect of Buddhist thought that might be relevant. Third, he "passes back" to Christianity, and explores how the Buddhist ideas might help to provide a solution.

The chapters are as follows:

Preface: Am I Still a Christian?

1. Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other

2. Nirvana and God the Personal Other

3. Nirvana and God the Mysterious Other

4. Nirvana and Heaven

5. Jesus the Christ and Gautama the Buddha

6. Prayer and Meditation

7. Making Peace and Being Peace

Conclusion: Promiscuity or Hybridity?

I won't say too much about the contents just yet, as I intend to blog about this a fair bit in the near future. I will say that I found it to be quite a satisfying read.

The book is clearly aimed at open-minded Christians willing to consider how another religious tradition might inform their own religious perspective. Knitter does not presume that the reader will know very much about Buddhism (I kind of wonder, though, how many people without a considerable prior interest in Buddhism will actually bother to read this book).

I expected it to be somewhat predictable, and I occasionally found myself thinking that I already knew exactly where he was going to go with each chapter. Sometimes I was right, but more often I was pleasantly surprised.

Towards the end Knitter discusses some of the elements of Christianity that, at least on the surface, would seem to be in stark contrast with Buddhism. One is Christianity's emphasis on history and eschatology, found most significantly in Jesus's teachings about the kingdom of God. For Buddhists, as Knitter puts it, "the world isn't going anywhere."⁵

Another difference is the traditional Christian commitment to social justice. Actually, this was one of the more interesting things in the book, at least for me. Buddhism, Knitter says, has long been concerned with peace, but not justice, which is not something I had given much thought to before (although I'm certainly aware of the relatively recent emergence of "Engaged Buddhism," as exemplified in the work of people like Thich Nhat Hanh, Maha Ghosananda, and Sulak Sivaraksa, among others). Knitter, who in addition to being a theologian is also a social activist, shares some wonderful insights into the relationship between contemplation and action, which was one of the many rewarding aspects of this book.

It is often noted that Buddhism poses an intellectual challenge to Christianity. This is true, but there is no need to take a defensive posture. Paul Knitter has shown that engaging with Buddhist thought can greatly enhance Christian faith. Knitter finds that "the more deeply one enters into the core experience that animates one's own tradition, the more broadly one is enabled and perhaps moved to enter into the experiences of other traditions."⁶ Whether one is finally interested specifically in Buddhism or not, Knitter has provided a very compelling, personal, and accessible account of how fruitful this engagement with another tradition can be.

Notes

[1] Knitter, Without Buddha, x. Of the latter, Knitter mentions "matters such as birth control, divorce, the role of women, homosexuality, clerical celibacy, episcopal leadership, and transparency." He adds, "Certainly these are matters of grave concern, but with many of my fellow Catholics I've realized that, as has often been the case in the history of our church, on such issues the "sense" or "voice" of the faithful has a few things to teach the pastors. It's a matter of time."

[2] Knitter, Without Buddha, x.

[3] Knitter, Without Buddha, xi.

[4] Knitter, Without Buddha, xii.

[5] Knitter, Without Buddha, 180.

[6] Knitter, Without Buddha, 216.