Category: Philosophy/Religion

(I reproduce this essay from my website as an introduction to some thoughts on the Gospel of Thomas. I no longer agree with my linking of the Native American twins motif with a wild/civilized dichotomy – only a few tribes have myths that might be interpreted that way. It is definitely true of Cain/Abel, Esau/Jacob and Ishmael/Isaac, however.)

Occasionally, across the gulf that is said to separate us dull-eyed, tin-eared interlopers from the ancient owners of the land, there comes a familiar cry. Some sign of our shared humanity, perhaps, reminding us that for them, too, the world was always an ineluctably tragic place. The great comparative religionist Mircea Eliade somewhere says that the major problem with the myth of the “noble savage” is that the so-called savages, too, believed it–about their own, most distant ancestors. Which is to say, in the mythologies of virtually all peoples, indigenous or otherwise, paradise is lost: either in time, or in space. And it’s this acute sense of fallenness that has given rise to codes of ethical behavior based on Welcome to the widow, the orphan, the stranger in the land. Any one of these wanderers (literal or figurative) could be an emissary from that back-of-beyond in the sky, or in the heart of the hills.

But for many traditions, that seemingly inaccessible realm remains nonetheless at hand, in the form of all that is irreducibly Other, beyond human control or comprehension. For American Indians as for the ancient Hebrews, wilderness constitutes a kind of mirror to the settled, human domain. For both, this relationship is most often symbolized by the sometimes friendly, sometimes antagonistic bond between brothers or twins. As in many cultures, the realm of the sacred manifests itself as a living paradox, a union between the two poles of Human and Wild that may be approached through ritual but only experienced directly at death, or through dream and vision. A place inhabited by the sacred is like a transformer, crackling with power and danger. And in fact, the imperative to protect sacred places is sparking a return to traditional conservation values among Native peoples throughout the hemisphere.

I worry that, in trying to understand such traditional worldviews, we risk distortion by assimilating them to our own abstract dichotomies. For instance, is finding a spirit guide really the romantic errancy that New Age would-be practitioners of shamanism imagine–or simply a pragmatic necessity for survival among potentially malevolent forces? There’s very little that one could call dreamy or sentimental in the visionary experiences of Elijah in I Kings, or of Tecumseh, Black Elk or Handsome Lake.

With this lengthy introduction I offer a quote from historian Anthony F.C. Wallace. At issue here are the dream-therapy customs of the Huron as described by early Jesuit missionaries. To my way of thinking, this has the quality of an environmental morality tale.

“The whole village vied to give the sick person his every wish, for any frustration was a threat to life. A dying man might be seen surrounded by literally thousands of scissors, awls, knives, bells, needles, kettles, blankets, coats, caps, wampum belts, beads, and whatever else the sick man’s fancy, or the hopeful guesses of his friends, suggested. And if he died at last, “He dies,” the people would say, “because his soul wished to eat the flesh of a dog, or a man; because a certain hatchet that he wished for could not be procured; or because a fine pair of leggings that had been taken from him could not be found.” And if, on the other hand, he survived, the gift of the last thing that he wished for during his illness was cherished for the rest of his life.” (The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, Random House, 1969, pp. 70-71.)

As Americans, I believe it is our sacred and patriotic duty to pay much closer attention to the often barely comprehensible demands of our most afflicted: the dreamers and the drug addicts, the autistics and the schizophrenics, the nihilists and the fanatics. Edward Abbey once pointed out that unlimited growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Out of the depths of our shared sickness, what is it that we truly crave? What gift will save us?

What about Zen? The Dark Zen website offers a new/old version of the teaching that bears a striking similarity to the classic via negativa of the West. Rather than maintaining that a sudden enlightenment experience is the final goal, writers on this site claim that it is only the first stage. Descriptions of subsequent stages of mystical experience are reminiscent of The Cloud of Unknowing or St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night.

In this, they claim to have returned to the roots of Chan (Chinese Zen), and they may be right. Linji (Rinzai) admonished his disciples that “Mind is without form and pervades the ten directions. In the eye it is called seeing, in the ear hearing, in the nose it smells odors, in the mouth it holds converse, in the hands it grasps and seizes, and in the feet it moves and runs. Fundamentally it is a single subtle radiance, divided into six sensory perceptions. Yet since this mind is nothing, it is free, wherever one is!” (Ruth Fuller Sasaki, tr., The Recorded Sayings of Ch’an Master Lin-chi Hui-chao of Chen Prefecture. Institute for Zen Studies, 1975, p. 9.)

What I particularly like about the site, however, is the number of good, critical articles. This seems to be one school that is able to take an unflinching look at Zen’s authoritarian tendencies, as well as what our anti-intellectual, consumer culture has made of it.

“Taking a quick sample of popular Buddhist literature, including slick magazines like Shambhala Sun or Tricycle, from what I can surmise, the profane product they’re all trying hard to sell is how to feel good or the same, how do I restore and keep myself in a state of feeling good about myself?”
Zenmar, “Modern Buddhism: Sacred or Profane?”

“It is fashionable among practitioners in the West to consider critical thought as “un-Zen.” With this view in place, the entire spectrum of permissible thought is now caught and limited within Zen’s mythological presentation, which was a completed creation by the eleventh century in China. Analysis or active use of “the discriminating mind” is frowned upon, or worse, it is viewed as a sign of having too large an ego. Any genuine interpretation or questioning of the meaning of Dharma transmission, lineage, the Zen roshi, their place in the institution, their accountability, and so on is made to seem absurd. The idea and ritual of Dharma transmission rather than the meaning or content of that transmission, becomes the prominent and meaningful fact. Zen elevates its leaders to super-human status, then emphasizes that we should be obedient and subservient to a powerful and supremely accomplished authority figure, precisely because he is powerful and supremely accomplished. Is it any wonder that the inevitable abuses that we have seen for the last thirty years should follow?”
Stuart Lachs, “Richard Baker and the Myth of the Zen Roshi”

“The idea that Zen’s emphasis on wisdom while only giving lip service to compassion in reality is then about power is an idea that I have just begun to examine.” (Ibid.) This is a very interesting point. I am reminded of a quote, which I just came across, by the psychologist Adolph Guggenbuhl-Craig (The Emptied Soul): “Those who cannot love want power.”

When I lived in Japan, I found myself drawn much more to the Pure Land sects, especially Jodo Shinshu. They dispensed with monasteries entirely and, along with the followers of Nichiren, were the first to pay any attention to the common people. They put much more of an emphasis on compassion and on something called Other-power (tariki), analogous to the Christian concept of grace.

Many of the Zennists themselves have historically acknowledged the fairness of the Pure Land sects’ critiques of their practices: that they are available only to an elite few, and that they place too strong an emphasis on individual power (jiriki). In China, Chan was eventually supplanted almost entirely by Pure Land sects. In Korea, Zen or Seon evolved into something more moderate and humane than what it became in Japan under the patronage of the samurai.

“In Korean Zen, the equivalent of roshi/Zen master, the pangjang, is surprisingly an elected position and carries an initial ten-year term… If the master does not perform adequately, a petition by fifty monks would be enough to have a recall vote… A monk’s affinities are more with his fellow meditation monks than with a specific master”. – The Zen Monastic Experience, Robert E. Buswell, Princeton University Press, 1992, cited in Stuart Lachs, “Coming Down from the Zen Clouds: A Critique of the Current State of American Zen”
Yay for the Koreans!

Closely related to the ban on (mis)using the Name is the taboo against Image-making. Obviously, there is a great diversity in the understanding of this commandment among the People of the Book. Rather than doing the obvious and going to Muslim sources, however, I propose to quote the Christian mystic Eckhart — as interpreted by a contemporary, secular Jewish poet, Stanley Kunitz. You’ll see why in a second:

The Image-Maker

A wind passed over my mind,
insidious and cold.
It is a thought, I thought,
but it was only its shadow.
Words came,
or the breath of my sisters,
with a black rustle of wings.
They came with a summons
that followed a blessing.
I could not believe
I too would be punished.
Perhaps it is time to go,
to slip alone, as at a birth,
out of this glowing house
where all my children danced.
Seductive Night! I have stood
at my casement the longest hour,
watching the acid wafer
of the moon slowly dissolving
in a scud of cloud, and heard
the farthest hidden stars
calling my name.
I listen, but I avert my ears
from Meister Eckhart’s warning:
All things must be forsaken.
God scorns
to show Himself among images.

(Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected, Norton, 1995. 122.)

“I avert my ears”: I love that!

This is something else that intrigues me. There are a myriad versions of the self-curse, usually beginning with (and sometimes going no further than) “Well, I’ll be . . . ” The biblical commandment refers only to using the name of God in vain . . . which often leads me to wonder whether selfish, petitionary prayers — the staple of TV ministries — may not, in fact, be blasphemous! (What could be more vain, more of a presumption and an offense against the divine will, than praying for a new SUV?)

Let’s remember the original point of this commandment: to ensure divine sovereignty/autonomy by situating the deity beyond all human control. In the magico-religious worldview, ritual naming – invoking – is a fundamental assertion of power over the being or object named. Hence YHWH’s bullshitting answer to the soon-to-be wizard Moses at the burning bush: “I will be who I will be. Tell them I Will Be has sent you!” To regard the wagering of oneself also as a transgression would seem to involve the slightly unorthodox notion of the God within.

Job’s wife’s utterance is powerful precisely because of this kind of ambiguity. In an age that could not conceive of atheism, the worst one could do was to invite one’s own damnation. But this was also an age without the belief in an afterlife reward for the virtuous. God favors his chosen with the promise of innumerable descendents. So is Job’s wife really advising him to court damnation? He will go down to Sheol one way or another, and God has already killed off all his heirs. Any possibility of further blessings thus seems already out of the question.

Pious people have always had a huge problem with Job. He is in the end rewarded for talking back to God, and his friends are severely chastised because they insist on mouthing pieties! Job’s God asserts for all time that the ultimate heresy is presuming to pass judgement in God’s stead, which encompasses, finally, any definitive statement about “life, the universe, and everything!”

Scholars maintain that the prologue and epilogue derive from the folk tradition, the remainder being the work of a master poet. Thus, in the prologue Job gives one answer to his wife, and over the course of the dialogues with his companions, a very different answer. But obviously the composer/poet left the preliminary answer intact for a reason. What at first seems to be submission to the will of a transcendent, unknowable deity is transformed into an unflinching belief in one’s own innocence and integrity — even against God Himself.

The prominent old testament scholar Marvin H. Pope, in his Job volume for the Anchor Bible, says that the passage Christians have traditionally understood as an anachronistic reference to Jesus — “I know my Redeemer liveth” in the King James Version — is in reality a plea for a lawyer. Well, I’ll be damned!

In my mind (and maybe in reality, who knows?) the beginning of the via negativa in the West has its roots in the anti-authoritarianism of the ancient Hebrews, who gave us first the prophets, then the great wisdom literature of Job, Ecclesiastes, certain psalms, and of course the Proverbs. The process of redaction involved — among many other things — the principle that context could alter content, sometimes by 180 degrees. Pagan hymns such as Psalms 19 and 104 and the Song of Songs were not shunned, but captured and converted. Popular sayings were elevated by inclusion within aristocratic compositions about the ineffable.

A fascinating article from a recent issue of the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (27:2, Dec. 2002, 223-235), by Laura Joffe, references Douglas Adams in its title, “The Answer to the Meaning of Life, the Universe and the Elohistic Psalter.” (In Adams’ comic novel Life, the Universe and Everything, the answer to the meaning of life is revealed to be . . . 42!) Here’s the abstract. (Apotropaic means ‘designed to avert evil.’)

“This article asks why the Elohistic Psalter (Pss. 42-83) was commissioned. It is suggested that the Elohistic Psalter was constructed in order to invoke a ‘magic triangle’ (comprising God’s name, the number 42, and a blessing) for some apotropaic purpose. It is argued that this theory gains credence from two areas: first, the importance of numerical organization of large groups of Psalms; and, second, the history of the number 42, which in biblical times was a number of disaster, and in later Jewish tradition became associated with a protective name of God.”

I’m no big fan of numerology, but toward the end of the article Joffe gets at a point that has always been of great interest to me: “How does the biblical curse of 42 relate to the Elohistic Psalter — the blessing of 42? Blessing and cursing themselves are closely related concepts, often mentioned together (Deut. 11.26-28; Josh. 8.34; Ps. 109.17-18; Prov. 27.14). In the prose prologue to Job, the same root [Hebrew letters given] serves for both blessing (1.21) and cursing (1.5, 11; 2.5).”

So in Job’s famous renunciation speech — “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” — may we hear a little ambiguity, even irony, in that “blessed”? It’s even more a matter of interpretation with Job’s wife’s sole speaking part. In light of this new information, I would advocate switching “curse” to “bless” in the translation, enhancing the bitterness with sarcasm: “Then his wife spoke up and said, “Why do you still cling to your faith? Bless God and die.”

Joffe continues with other examples from the Old Testament, concluding, “The curse of 42 that invoked the name of God could be effectively warded off by a blessing that also involved 42 and the name of God.” In a footnote, she wisely points out that “Using like to fight like features highly in both the ancient and modern worlds. The eye that protects against the evil eye, homeopathic medicine and immunization, are all examples of the same thing.”

“GodDAMN!” one may say with the utmost reverence, upon seeing something particularly striking (usually a woman). The simplest invocation of all — “Oh, God!” — may operate as both blessing and mild oath at the same time, depending on the circumstances: for example, in the throes of sexual rapture.

This will get us into the even murkier territory of distinguishing between sacred and profane, if we go any further. Best to leave it alone for now.

In Rabbinical Judaism, hermeneutics – deep reading and critical analysis – became the explicit substitute for the act of sacrifice. The connection, I take it, is that both are discriminatory. In Christianity, sacrifice continues, but in a more sublimated form: the rite of eucharist. In both cases, the tendancy is away from violence.

Pueblo religion transformed the bloody sacrificial traditions of greater Mesoamerica in a similarly ingeneous fashion. Prayers are animated, given shape, by carved and feathered prayer sticks fashioned by the petitioner himself, or in the case of a woman by her husband. They are, in fact, effigies of the petitioner. Their use is phenomenologically similar to the act of crossing oneself.

It is at this crossroads in the self that the most important sacrifice is enacted.

Every nation-state is built around an altar; ours is no different. But I am not sure what to think about altared states of being: the bull that turned into a god in the ancient Near East, the Mesoamerican serpent demanding that the whole world shed its skin. Like so many moderns, I prefer the living with their claws and hooves, their manes and humps and barbs, their scales, their feathers. When I eat them, it is not for power. At most I might sketch their shadows, I might dream of trading colors for a world of scent. I have no ambition to don a theurgist’s cloak or wield a jewel-encrusted letter-opener to read a supposed message from another supposed world: this one’s enough. To suck the marrow yet would be too much. I don’t taste half of what I eat.