God in Buddhism and Christian MysticismContemplations, Essays -Maurice Walsh
What is termed 'mysticism' has a long history in the Christian Church. It has frequently been an object of suspicion: the Catholic Church has always sought to control its mystics lest they slip into heresy, while the Protestants have often rejected it partly for its 'Catholic' associations, and partly because of its alleged 'pagan' origins in Neoplatonism, as well as its affinities to various Oriental schools of thought, including Buddhism. In the author known as 'Dionysius the Areopagite' (ca. 500), we find notions of that negative theology expressed in the 14th-century English 'Cloud of Unknowing', as well as the classical threefold way of the mystic's progress, the way of 'purgation, illumination, and union'. The word 'mysticism' comes from a Greek root meaning to close the eyes or mouth, and has associations with the ancient Greek mysteries. One definition is 'an immediate knowledge of God attained in this present life through personal religious experience'. If we equate this with a true 'intuition of the Unborn', we can assert that it is in fact the indispensable basis of the religious life. Any 'religion' is dead, or sterile, if no such intuition informs it. Let us glance briefly at one of the greatest of Christian mystics, the German Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1328).
Eckhart was a prominent member of the Dominican order, who taught at the University of Paris and held high office until he was accused by the Archbishop of Cologne of spreading heretical doctrines among the common people. His case was referred to the Pope, and in 1329, after his death, 28 of his propositions were condemned. His case has remained controversial to this day, though the majority view now is that he remained — if only just — within the bounds of orthodoxy...
About a hundred of his German sermons have been preserved, in which he constantly pursues the theme of the 'birth of the Son (i.e. Christ) or the Word, in the soul'. This birth takes place in the peak (or spark, or castle) in the soul, and the man in whom it takes place is said to be deified, 'just as the bread and wine at the Eucharist become God'. The way to achieve this birth is by radical detachment from all earthly things, for 'all things are pure nothing', since God alone has being. The 'power of the soul' by which, through divine grace, this is achieved is the 'higher intellect'. It may be fairly urged that those who condemned Eckhart's views as heretical did so because they were unable to rise to his level of consciousness.
Eckhart said, 'To get at the kernel, you must break the shell'. We may compare Eckhart with Nrtgilrjuna, the great Buddhist philosopher and founder of the Mndhyamaka ('Middle Way') school, who 'broke the shall1 of traditional Buddhist formulations. In the freer atmosphere of ancient India he was able to get away with this as Eckhart was not. Yet much of what Eckhart had said was put a little differently by the great Cusanus (Nikolaus von Cues 1401-64), who nearly became Pope. One of the most learned men of his age, Cusanus took a prominent part in the (not very successful) efforts to reform the Church after the scandals of the Avignon papacy. His work De Docta Ignorantia uses mathematical symbolism to show how man can never attain by finite means to a perfect knowledge of God who is infinite, and who is called hy him in a famous phrase 'the coincidence of opposite*'. In the same spirit he strove for unity within the Christian world and even beyond it, boldly declaring: 'Hence there is a single religion and a single creed for all beings endowed with understanding, and this religion is presupposed behind the diversity of rites'. If only the spirit Cusanus had prevailed, the religious history of Europe would have taken a decided turn for the better.
Contrasts
It would not be honest to pretend that there are no differences between Buddhism and Christianity, and before going further we should once more consider these. In doing so, we are at once confronted with the question of 'level'. Obviously, at the 'fundamentalist' level the differences are greatest, and it is fair to point out that at this level Buddhism may claim an advantage: it really is pretty difficult in the present age to maintain a fundamentalist view of Christianity based on a literal interpretation of the sources (i.e. the Bible), whereas the difficulties of accepting Theravada Buddhism in this way are very much less. The Pali Canon, despite its enormous length, is remarkably self-consistent and it contains very little which a modern Western-trained mind (unless conditioned to reject all religious ideas) can really find totally unacceptable, though much may be unfamiliar.
Let us consider briefly the difference between the founders of Buddhism and Christianity as seen by their respective followers. Each was in a sense a man — a perfect man — and at the same time more than a man. Each was in a sense unique: Jesus as Christ absolutely so, the Buddha at least relatively 'unique' in the sense that Buddhas appear only at vast intervals of time, so that Gotama was the only Buddha for this age. They attained their particular status, however, as it were from opposite directions. The Christ was God — or an aspect of God — who had descended from heaven in order to be born as a man. The Buddha had attained his status — in the course of this life — as the culmination of innumerable human lives of unexampled effort, in order to rise decisively above human (or any kind of 'relatively' superhuman) status and become the supreme Teacher of gods and men'. In modern jargon we might say they represent two different 'models' of the Transcendental in man — the 'God-man' and the 'Dhamma-man'. Jesus said: 'I and my Father are one' (John 10: 30). The Buddha declared: 'He who sees me sees the Dhamma'. Each taught a 'Way' to be followed, and in some sense was that 'Way'. Each is an exemplar to be followed, and indeed one of the most influential books of Christian devotion ever written was The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis (d. 1471). Yet still there is a difference. The Buddha is an exemplar and teacher to be followed: the Christ is also, and most importantly, a sacrificial victim by whose death on the Cross mankind may be saved. This sacrifice is repeated (in the Catholic view) or commemorated (according to the Protestants) in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Man, in the Christian view, can never become God: the creature is eternally distinct from the Creator. In Buddhism, a man can become a Buddha by following the almost inconceivably difficult path of the Bodhisattva (in the Theravada school as well as in Mahayana Buddhism). Christianity offers no real parallel to this. Both religions grew up against a background of original polytheism, which they transcended in different ways: Buddhism did not formally reject the gods of an earlier pantheon, but devalued them. Before the rise of Christianity, Judaism had long-since elevated the one time tribal god to the status of Creator of heaven and earth, and Christianity incorporated the Jewish concept of the Messiah as an aspect of Deity.
Just as Buddhism differs at its apex from Christianity by having no God-concept, so too at the human level it differs similarly by having no soul-concept. It is not the place here to discuss the intricacies of the anatta doctrine in Buddhism, but there is a sharp contrast here between the Christian emphasis on the importance of the human soul and the Buddhist view of the impersonality of all things including our 'selves'. In the next section it will be indicated that even this difference is perhaps less total than appears, but it would be wrong to pretend that no difference exists.
Other consequences flow from the difference between a theistic and a non-theistic religion: thus there are different attitudes towards the question of good and evil, and the rule of
justice. Medieval theologians could even spend their time debating whether a thing is good because goodness is an absolute principle, or simply because God just decided thai certain things are good. And too, with the virtual collapse for many of the traditional Christian concepts of heaven and hell modern Christians are left with a largely unresolved dilemma u to what they should believe about an after-life, and the rewards and punishments for their actions. The gradually growing uncertainty about this contributed, along with the development of an increasingly materialist scientific outlook, with all its obvious practical successes, to the tremendous decline in the religious sense which is so notable today — even though it looks as if a reaction has now set in. God in Buddhism and Christian Mysticism
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