This question has plagued me for a long time so I’d love to hear some input. Often times when someone experiences something they struggle for a digitallanguage with which to express the analog nature of the occurrence. Bearing this in mind, is it possible that the “nothingness” state pursued by Buddhists was the first “stage” of theosis, becoming passionless, and has merely become distorted through language and zealots?
This is an interesting question. I have to admit not having enough knowledge about Buddhism to speak to it but I am reading several books by Buddhist authors and will let you know what I can find. From what I have gathered to date I do not believe the Buddhist would agree but then again I’m not very knowledgable.
I have a great respect for this tradition and as an Orthodox Christian find many similarities with reference to mysticism. At least I can see very similar results. I was once on a panel for a conference on Religion, Psychology, and Medicine (posing as a psychologist). On the panel with me was a Hindu MD. The topic under discussion was particularly “lame” I thought. It was regarding the “Weigh Down” program designed to help people lose weight using the Bible. The presenter was an evangelical Christian MD. Frankly, during the discussions i found I had more in common with the Hindu MD than with the evangelical one. We had a good conversation as we left together.
I hope someone knowledgable can address this question for us both. Or perhaps we can simply explore it ourselves. Here’s to the journey!
A friend of mine read a quote to me this weekend during our kayak trip wherein C.S. Lewis is quoted as having said that those who adhere most firmly to the truth of the their individual religions often have more in common with one another than two from the same religion but of opposite commitment levels (I’m sure I did it disjustice in the paraphrasing, but you get my point). We also discussed some writings by Fr. Thomas Hopko wherein he writes that many believe that certain writings written by St. Damascene (I think that’s who it was) wherein he references another saint are referring to the Buddha. I’ll check with him for more exact sources but someone else may know more about it.
Hmmm… that’s really interesting about the Hindu and the panel discussion. You’re a psychologist? I’m a former MFT (now I teach).
Glad you returned. So you left your practice? I have considered doing something like that too but as a therapist on a college campus most of the year I get lots of opportunites to teach. I enjoy that like. Especially since I don’t have to grade papers and tests and have elaborate teaching plans. Best of both worlds!
By the way I am Orthodox too.
I am reading several books right now and have found that Siddharta was very reluctant to speak about God at all. He preferred to leave questions of the Divine to the Brahmans, etc. Since this is so I suspect an avoidance of the idea of deification per se. However, if he is true to the pantheisitic idea (all is God) then there would have to be a convergence somewhere. It simply wouldn’t contain the idea of Person and the Personal.
His focus was on the process of eradicating negative emotions and nurturing equanimity. What he saw beyne this goal I’m not sure. But I’ll see what I can find out.
“It wouldn’t contain the idea of Person and the Personal.” Yes! This is so true. I remember Mother Gabrielle saying, “All religions teach something good and moral. Christianity teachers Christ incarnate.”
The incarnation has been very interesting to me as I’ve been reading more about the Tao (the Way). Many believe that this Tao is the Logos. The Logos that dwelt among us. As I’ve read about the Tao it becomes even more clear why Jesus is the only way. The idea that the Logos became incarnate (Person and Personal revealed!) is very fresh in my mind.
For years I asked pastors and Bible study leaders what does “logos” mean and they would always say “the Word.” That never helped me to understand the Gospel of John. Understanding Heraclitus’s “logos” in the same frame as the “tao” helps me immensely.
I heard a cd series by Fr. John Oliver the name of which escaped me now. He expanded the notion of logos beyond simply “word” but to “organizing principle”. Since all things are “held together in Him” and He is everywhere present, that He is the “organizing principle” behind all that exists makes sense. The Patrisitc word “interpenetration” refering to the Divine Energies “underlying” (words fail here as everywhere) all that exists is helpful to me.
Sincere seekers cannot escape the “seeds of truth” found at the very core of everything that makes them up whether they know the language to use. Certainly they must encounter Him as Person however they may explain the experience since He is Person.
I know of several quotes from the Fathers about this and when I find them I’ll post them for us to consider.
No, I haven’t read the book you refer to. Do you recommend it? And please post Heraclitus defintion for me if you’ve got it handy.
Hi Dn. Neal! Glad you’re back! You’re in eastern TN? I’m in western TN. Small world.
I’ve never heard the word “interpenetration.” That’s really interesting. I’ll have to contemplate that for a while. I’d be really interested in the material by Fr. John if you can point me to it. I’ll do some searching around myself, too. I’d be interested in thatPatristic quotes, too. Whenever you get time. I’ll be in and out for the next few months as I’ll be traveling abroad so I’m in no big hurry.
I absolutely recommend “Christ the Eternal Tao.” And you can buy it from 8th Day
Heraclitus was an ancient Greek philosopher to whom the term “logos“ is credited. He lived about 500 years before Christ, strangely enough around the time of Lao Tsu.
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As I’ve continued to contemplate these things I’m increasingly thinking about the place of prayer. As a “once saved--always saved” Protestant I found the idea of prayer peaceful in the pragmatic/experiential but terribly meaningless and irritating in the conceptual. The seeming meaninglessness of it continued to crowd out the peacefulness of theexperiential aspect of it. Coming into Orthodoxy I was relieved to find that, at the very least, it has meaning. More and more the profundity of itessentialness (is that a word?) is challenging and changing me in ways for which I was unprepared. More and more things are starting to make sense.
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What do you make of the concept that God is “no - thing” (nothing)? Have you encountered this? Just curious.
Yes, I’m in Johnson City, a small city of about 56,000 people. It’s beautiful here. Where in WT are you?
The following quotes come from Olivier Clement’s book, The Roots of Christian Mysticism.
St. Isaac the Syrian wrote:
“Faith is the doorway to the mysteries. What the eyes of the body are for physical objects, faith is for the hidden eyes of the soul. Just as we have two bodily eyes, so we have two spiritual eyes, and each has its way of seeing. With one we see the glory of God hidden in creatures; with the other we contemplate the glory of God’s holy nature when He deigns to give us accessto the mysteries.”
St. Hippolytus wrote:
“The imagery borrowed from created things signifies that God exists in them and outside them, that He both transcends and pervades them. The hollow of His hand symbolizes the power of His divinity revealing itself. The throne and the footstool shows He controls external objects because He is within them Himself. He is inside and outside everything...Nothing is beyond the reach of the one who is infinite...There is no place without God; place does not exist except in God.”
God is omnipresent as classical Christian theology states. How can He be everywhere and yet not “be” all things? That was one reason for the use of the philosophical construst of “energies”. The divine energies “interpenetrate” all things that exist even “space” while not permitting the absorption of them into His Essence. Only God is God. Panentheism rather than pantheism. Otherwise nothing would exist at all.
“Interpenetration” is used by theologians such as St. Maximus the Confessor to describe how man can be in “union” with God but not Be God. The image often used is that of iron heated in a fire. It takes on heat and light by virtue of its being placed in the fire but it does not BECOME fire. It is “energized” by it in a real and organic sense though such that the energies are observable (light and heat).
For the Orthodox too, since the goal of life is union with God rather than simply to be declared “justified” and to do moral things, prayer unites us with Him. It is not something we do but really something we become. Prayer is the essential being of man as “homo adorans"--the one who worships or adores. Therefore prayer is not about simply talking with a geographically distant Being but the reorientation, metanoia ("deification") of man via “communion” in both the general and specific sense.
Yes, I have run across many times the idea of God as “no-thing”. As St. Gregory the Theologian wrote He is “being beyond being’ in other words He cannot be desribed even by the term “being” since He is “wholly other” than creation. He is the Uncreated, not created.
Apophatic theology removes all categories of human thought from God so that we may experience Him as He is rather than as we “think” He is. This includes even the idea of “being”.
Okay… I’m FINALLY replying. Oh… and I live in Memphis (for the time being, anyway).
Your thoughts are really intriguing. I’m especially interested in what you have to say about the essence and energies. These truths have fascinated me ever since I first heard of them. Have you read David Hart’s book, “Beauty of the Infinite?” I think that his premise about the inherent distance in beauty makes great sense in light of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as essence and energies.
Recently I heard a Buddhist-lite person talking about their concept of communion and it seems that they were missing the essential piece of personhood. While they grasped that all become one they missed the communal understanding of communion and its marriage to personhood.
I’m really intrigued by “interpenetration.” Brings to mind, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Of course, many things bring that verse to mind.
I’m reminded, too, of Mother Gabriella when she said, “All religions teach some good and something moral. Christianity teaches God Incarnate.” The fact that The WAY became Man is the hinge point of it all. I was reading an article on “Get Religion“ that quoted an interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church wherein she refused to claim that Christ is the only Way. It seems to me (at least from the quoted interview anyway—otherwise I’m not very familiar with her and I’ll readily admit that it’s easy to take someone out of context) that she misunderstands Logos and ancient understanding of The Way and therefore is it possible that she doesn’t understand the Incarnation?
There are interesting parallels with our faith in all world religions. I, personlly, hold all scriptures as an “Old Testement” for that faith. If I ever get to study for my Ph.D.this is an area I would like to explore.
The Tao-te Ching is an interesting read for Christians. I like thise Tao-te-Ching bacause it is very concise and to the point. One of the parallels between the Tao-teChing and the Christian scripture is the corelation between the logos and the tao. In “Christ the Eternal Tao” Br. Damescene says that “ the tao bacame flesh and dwelt among us.”
Another
Tao-te-Ching: “As a fish is in water, so are we in the Tao”.
Christian Scripture: “He in Whom we live and move and have our being”.
I like the reference to other religions as a kind of extended “Old Testament”. On the surface at least it sounds like Justin Martyr’s description of the “seeds of truth” in other belief systems. All of them are “shadows” of Reality. Even the New Testament is only a “shadow”, a “glass” through which we still view the Incomprehensible One necessarily “darkly”, albeit much more clearly.
I have not read David Hart’s book yet and I understand it is powerful and erudite. I will have to pick it up and stretch my mind...I understand it is not an easy read.
The primary metaphysical difference (other than the questions of the Trinity and the role of Christ) between Eastern Orthodox theology and the other eastern religions is we are “pan-entheistic” rather than “pan-theistic”. Indeed, as you quoted St. Paul, “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Many Christians seem to imply a geographical as well as qualitative distance between man and God such that God dwelling in us is a very awkward concept at best.
The question of how is it that God dwells in us implies the larger questions of His “relationship” with all of His creation. Where is He? And if, as classical Christian theology states, He is everywhere then what practical implications does this have for the former question?
“Interpenetration” seems to me to be the only logical (and at the same time mystical) answer.
