Phronema

Meditation is hard. It is very difficult to maintain attention without letting distractions draw the mind away. And distractions can be so seductive, especially those fantasies which flatter and expand the ego. They can become so real that they shape behaviour, actions and attitudes. Hence the importance of concentration and letting the thoughts and distractions go. Hence too the wisdom of the Buddhist approach. It is agnostic. It requires only a commitment to seeking the truth. The faith it requires is the belief that the truth can be found and that meditation is a sure way, though not the only way. Now I know why I am suspicious of so much of modern spirituality – things like the Enneagram. They seem to me to be ego-centric. They flatter and expand the ego. They focus attention on it when ‘it’ is as ephemeral as the drone of flies on a summer day. Meditation should not become an episode in the day, a sort of fugue state separated from other activities. Mindfulness and one-pointedness should persist throughout the day.

Meditated for half an hour in the garden this afternoon. It has been a beautiful day, full of life. A strong south-west wind bringing showers and vast cumulus clouds chasing their shadows across the wheat-fields. Sitting in the garden, buffeted by the wind, eyes closed, focusing on simply being aware of all round about. It was easy to believe that life pervades the whole of the cosmos. Certainly motion does. I am coming to understand why meditation demands a moral way of life. It was interesting looking at some of the statements on meditation to be found on the Internet which suggested that moral behaviour is an option. On the contrary it is a fundamental requirement, always has been and all religions have emphasised this. What has been exercising me is why this should be so. The answer lies in the fact that meditation is a search for the Truth. Enlightenment, its goal, is to know the Truth. Now the Truth is that all are one, whether you understand this as all having the same Buddha nature, or all being incorporated into the Body of Christ, or tat tvam asi. All the great religions have this insight somewhere in their tradition. The sad thing with the tendency towards sectarianism today is that this is too often forgotten. Even the Catholics, who should know better if they were mindful of their mystical traditions, are increasingly caught up in an emphasis on the supreme importance of dogmatic orthodoxy.

Reading Kapleau’s Three Pillars of Zen*; he makes the interesting remark (p. 17) that Chinese and Japanese masters stress that only upon full enlightenment can one truly know good from evil. There is something in this. Of course one knows good and evil in an egocentric sense from a very early age. Good is what pleases and evil what hurts. But to know in a cosmic sense, to see the inter-connectedness of all that is and the ramifications of even the most neutral-seeming actions, that is another matter. So often evil comes in the guise of good, good for the subject, that it is not recognised for what it is.

What an interesting connection with the Genesis myth and the command given to Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge because then they would be like God. They would cease to be like innocent children and know good and evil. In the Hindu tradition ignorance is the great evil precisely because it prevents the discernment of the real good, ultimate reality. Another reason why prescriptions and ethical codes are necessary. ‘Obey the nature of things and you are in concord with The Way’ said Seng Ts’an. This concordance must reverberate through one’s whole being and facilitate the search for the Truth. In a sense one has found the Truth but does not yet know it.

In Zen meditation great emphasis is placed on the importance of hara. This is the region just below the navel and is seen as the physical and spiritual centre of the body. The attention should be focused here. It takes one out of the head and into the body. The centre of gravity shifts to its proper place and one no longer feels top heavy. The whole body feels lighter, head raised, shoulders straightened, one is at ease with oneself, more detached, more able to see body and self in perspective. Kapleau makes a comparison between the agonised and tortured attitude of Rodin’s Thinker and the peaceful tranquillity of the Buddha in the lotus posture. Such a little thing and such a profound change.

*Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen, Anchor Books, New York, 1989

The great thing about meditating is that it faces you with yourself. It faces you with your attitude towards yourself, towards God, towards how you see your relationship with God. There is no escape. I am struck by the passive attitude of much present day spirituality.

“Mon Père, je m’abandonne a vous. Faites de moi ce que vous plaira. Quoi que vous fassiez de moi je vous remercie. etc.”*

It is as though there is a longing to be a passive little child in the arms of God. I wondered why. Maybe that is the image we carry around of ourselves – a helpless, innocent child; untainted, unsullied; innocent, open, loving and loved. This was the real me before I began to exert my independence and to wear the masks that we all wear, even with ourselves; before I did all the things I regret, before the hurts, the wounds, the blows. Now I no longer know which is the real me. My masks deceive even me. I am driven by vague longings which are never satisfied because they are never fully realised and what realisation there is turns to ashes as soon as it is tasted. And so the longing that one day, perhaps, the little child within will emerge and all the dross, all the false masks, the scars and the calluses will fall away. The child will be cradled on the breast of Christ and dandled with love.

This is what is wrong with much Christian spirituality. It is a search for passive, innocent, blissful childhood. But there is no child within.

There is a child within but it is a chimera, a mental construct, a memory, a symbol. I am sure one of the reasons why a happy childhood is such an important and necessary departure point for adulthood is because of the power of this symbol. If it is lacking then something fundamental and necessary is lacking. We have arrived where we are, adults, without the necessary qualifications and experience. We are expected to give to our children what we have never experienced. We feel we are both impostors and the victims of unfair fate which has dealt us a rotten hand. And there is always the longing…if only… For those who have had a happy childhood there are memories of unclouded joy which compare unfavourably with the problems, worries, tensions and anxieties of adulthood. It all becomes so tiring that the wishful dream of regression to innocent bliss can become overwhelming.

It is a powerful symbol, both for those who have had a happy childhood and for those who have not. People are drawn by it, they seek to possess it in reality. And, as in the market place where there is an expressed want the market will supply it, so too in religion. In spite of statements like, ‘Come to me all you who labour and are burdened.’ and ‘Unless you become like little children.’ I do not think that Jesus was offering passive bliss. I think he meant us to be much more proactive. This is very clear in ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like’ parables where it is precisely those who sit back, do nothing, who leave it all to fate, who are the people who do not belong. But too many spiritual writers and commentators have interpreted him otherwise. It even colours our attitude to death. ‘Eternal rest give to them, O Lord.’ It conjures up a vision of Heaven as a vast nursery full of babies sleeping blissfully in their cots.

Prayer of Charles de Foucauld. Father I abandon myself to you. Do with me whatever you will. Whatever you do with me I shall thank you.

I came across Enomiya-Lassalle’s book on the Practice of Zen Meditation* in the library. It is very good. The question of passivity suddenly struck me. Meditation is passive concentration. It is not prayer in the sense that the will is not actively involved in willing. It is a very great mystery, prayer. On the one hand there is the impulse to pray and the conviction that prayer is effective, on the other hand there is no evidence, or indeed any real knowledge as to what or how prayer works or is effective. Is one to understand it in terms of the use of natural energy or in terms of relationships, or neither, or both?

Zen meditation on the other hand is passive and I can see the merits of that. It is first of all a journey and if the will is actively involved with expectations and wishes then one will not get anywhere because one is only looking for what one knows, or hopes and expects. But the one thing certain is that one does not know – neither one’s real self, nor God nor enlightenment. So to establish the parameters from the outset means that one will only get, at best, somewhere that is already within one’s grasp. One has first to put away all expectations and concentrate simply on being aware – first of the body, then the thoughts and feelings which arise. Once one has got past these one enters new territory where there is no road, no ground, no sky, nothing. This is the frightening, terrifying part of the journey, when one begins to question one’s sanity, the validity and usefulness of what one is doing. There come moments of enlightenment but these are not the goal.
*The Aquarian Press, Wellingbourogh, 1990

Today I had the meditation group after school. Three turned up in spite of the rain and the wind. It was very calm and peaceful in the little chapel. I began to think about where saying the mantra over and over again leads. It brought up a possible question someone might ask – why concentrate on the mantra to the exclusion of thought? It occurred to me that in the journey to the cave of the heart, when one enters the cave, a holy place, it wouldn’t do to be distracted, to be so busy with ones thoughts that one didn’t know what was going on, that one didn’t notice the beauty and experience the peace. That’s why it is important not to be caught up in thoughts, why one needs to be alert and aware, receptive to everything. In one sense it is a long journey to the cave. One goes through many moods, states of mind, is buffeted by many storms. The thing to do is press on regardless. To disregard all that is going on round about. I was trying not to think of all this, telling myself that I would write it all down later, when all that was bothering me vanished and I felt immersed in peace, quite indescribable. I kept saying, ‘This is now. The eternal is in the now.’ The journey to the cave is the shortest journey. One was there all the time but did not know it.