Christian Koans part IV

Case 41: Fr. Mark's "Different from the 'you' who rises.

Br. Adam’s Introduction: A man who has become Rabbouni’s teaching and example carries a bush, burning and unconsumed, within him. When the Logos is like a burning fire, shut up in his bones, right and wrong are intermingled. When every cell in his body is a snake, lifted on a pole in the wilderness, his hands will feel the cross as fullness for their emptiness, and he will see his teacher face to face.

Main Subject: A novice asked Fr. Mark “St. Paul said ‘I died daily.’ I know all students of Jesus will do the same. I know all activity of the mind will stop. I know, in light of that daily death, that ‘we will not all die, but we will all be changed.’ But if a student dies daily, how will resurrection be?”

Fr. Mark said “The Logos, born in us, is a vision of God. And God said ‘I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.’ Since it was purely God’s doing, Jesus himself didn’t worry about resurrection. Neither should we. In ways we can’t currently grasp, the “you” who dies will be identical to, yet totally different from the “you” who rises. As to what that looks like, remember the scriptures: “For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.” ...

More »

Christian Koans Part III

Helpful Precedents for reading these Koans are in the following posts.  Steps in Solving Koans, On the Logos: Christian Koans Part I, Christian Koans Part II.  Good luck!


Case 38: Fr. Mark Extends his finger

Br. Adam’s Introduction: This is not a question of whether, like the virgins (whose lamps either contained oil or lacked it), we ourselves are wise or foolish. Christ comes, (and indeed, he is already here,) whether we are ready to accept him or not. What does readiness look like? See the following.

Main Subject:

Fr. Mark said “Without preparation and context, accepting Rabbouni—who is, himself, the experience of contemplation—this can be too shocking to be constructive. Remember Bartimaeus: He saw Jesus and was glad, but the way he shouted for Jesus tells us why: he’d already accepted he was the “Son of David.” On the other hand, in Bethsaida, when Jesus leads a blind man out of the city, puts saliva on his eyes and lays hands on him, the man only says “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” True vision requires Jesus to touch him a second time. ...

More »

Realm of Mystery, Hill of Calvary:

Ego, the “garment of flesh” in which we return to God, is not to be disparaged too loudly: but its pitfalls are glaring and unavoidable.  Regardless of liabilities, though: both in Catholicism, and in such hindu paths as jnana yoga—thought yoga—it’s possible to elevate the ego until it leads to God, the source of all things.

The post “On Removing Self from Knowing” basically said this: If you know truth with the ego, it will lead you astray. Unless they are grounded in fierce individual ownership of communal deficiencies, even our efforts to proclaim the communally gleaned “truths of the faith” will be treated as credentials or reasons to judge others.

From a certain perspective, both society at large and the Church as a whole have closed their eyes to this. "I think therefore I am,” a highly prized societal maxim, and “It’s right if you think it’s right” the battle cry our relativism—these grow from the same tree: the ego. They both sprout the same fruit: the false self. Even for those claiming to consciously live a spiritual path, interacting with the ego haphazardly commonly leads to mistaking the self for God. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s “Spiritual Materialism” talks about the harm of turning spiritual goals into playthings for the ego, Under the Influence has spoken of the pitfalls of building an identity based on spiritual consolations and wisdom. Figures as prominent as St. Paul have said that the devil masquerades as an angel of light: in such malevolent hands, sources as pure as God’s law serve to take life as opposed to giving it.

We’ve paid lip service to absolute truth, then built towers to the heavens on the shifting foundation of Ego. The story of the “tower of babel” serves as a warning of the result: such self-sabotage will leave us with wreckage and misunderstanding every time.

And yet there are aspects of the Christian experience, often, at most, merely alluded to, that we’d be well served to take more seriously. Images such as Christ’s descent into hell, Benedict’s ladder of Humility, and Bernard of Clairvaux’s “Steps of Humility and Pride” suggest, as last week’s “Parkway to Paradise, Highway to Hell” post did, that ascending and descending use the same stuff, and happen simultaneously. Those we call great saints often have a degree of awareness of their own sinfulness that would be terrifying if not for God’s mercy, entirely eschewing the popular equation of perfection with faultlessness. Relativism officially feels icky. And yet it’s absolutely true that many of our categories are “relativized.” Behold, a mystery, the depths of which it’s in our best interests to plumb! (Huzzah!)

The question Under the Influence is concerned with today is whether there’s a more reliable way to interact with reality. Not while we’re caught up in ourselves as the “interactor” there’s not, but I get ahead of myself. Taking some catechetical cues from other wisdom traditions, I’ve come to the following conclusion: that something called the “realm of mystery” is an aspect of the present moment. Not only is it a non-egotistical starting point, it’s an ongoing foil to the false certainties of the ego, which ultimately connects us more reliably to Reality, helps us slip the trap of Abstraction, thereby creating silence full of God, Christ, and the Gospel, out of which we can speak if God wills. ...

More »

Parkway to Paradise, Highway to Hell: in Search of the Gateless Gate

Lately I’ve been hearing quite personally all those reminders that Nirvana and Samsara ("liberation into the goal” and “obsession with the obstacle” respectively)—well, they both exist in the same moment, use the same stuff, occupy the same space. Intellectually, it makes me think Christians need to expand their cosmologies of heaven and hell in similar directions, but I didn’t want to write an intellectually driven post today. Lately, see, I’ve been hearing Ram Dass’ warning with particular force, the one from his book Love Service Devotion about the way we “recreate our own heaven or hell wherever we go—whichever one we’re attached to, anyway.” I’ve been noticing I am so obsessed with the ego, that I can’t connect with egolessness. And lately it’s been getting to me.

In the past, I’ve had several opportunities to encounter what I consider to be “the door to egolessness.” What I mean by this is, I’ll be full of a bunch of mind-moments that seem Very Important, or Very Spiritual. I’ll be, on some level, conscious of the fact that I’m “praying." And in the midst of these mind-moments, “egolessness” will be represented. People say that, if you’re in prayer and you see a door, go through it. If you see a snake, jump into its mouth. Give it a hug. Turn and face it. I come to that wise advice with a history of having misinterpreted the mental phenomena of my spiritual life, though, and it makes it hard to hear. ...

More »