Hans Memling, Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation (c.1485)
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a meditation, an escape, a collage of things i love and think about.
by MABEL NASH-GREENBERG Submit
a meditation, an escape, a collage of things i love and think about.
by MABEL NASH-GREENBERG Submit
April 13, 2012
March 20, 2012
serendipitous flashes of the magical within the mundane
It is my pleasure to announce to you, oh devoted readers, that Nathaniel Dorsky, avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist, will be screening a variety of his films at The Whitney this week. Dorsky (who currently lives in San Francisco) was born in 1943 in NYC, and attended Antioch College and NYU. His piece, “Devotional Cinema” has been hugely influential to me, an exploration of the meeting of film and religion/metaphysics, and the idea of film as devotional practice and projection.
Kathleen Tyner (author of Literacy in A Digital World), writes here of this book as follows: “Devotional Cinema, reprised from filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky’s lecture on religion and cinema at Princeton University, is a rare treasure of penetrating insight into the language of film. In a compelling style, somewhere between a Zen koan and a Victorian love story, Devotional Cinema makes the case for mindful viewing as a transcendent experience. In the process, Dorsky reflects upon the role of filmmaking in faith, prayer, pleasure, and the renewal of the human spirit. For Dorsky, the material nature of film illuminates a path to devotion. Devotional Cinema is a guide for makers and viewers who, like Dorsky, seek the ‘elemental glory’ of film.”
I highly recommend it, and I hope to see you at The Whitney this week.
My method over the last thirty years is to allow the intuitive interests, in relation to the world as I come upon it, to determine the needs and atmosphere of a particular work. This inside-out method, rather than one of filling in the details of a pre-selected subject matter, brings forth a present and accurate cinema.
In my films the screen itself is transformed into a speaking character, and the images themselves function as pure energy rather than secondary symbols. The montage does not lead to verbal understanding, but is actual and present like this statement held in your hand. The narrative is that which takes place between the viewer and the screen. By delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of meaning can manifest.
My films are silent because silence allows the viewer to feel these delicate articulations of vision, which are simultaneously poetic and sculptural, with a personal freedom and intimacy.
“It is the direct connection of light and audience that interests me. The screen continually shifts its dimensionality from being an image-window, to a floating energy field, to simply light on the wall. …Silence allows these articulations, which are both poetic and sculptural at the same time, to be revealed and appreciated.”
March 16, 2012
January 28, 2012
John Cage and the Silence of Zen
Mabel Nash-Greenberg
Essay for Religious Experience & Literary Form with Alan Hodder
12.08.11
John Cage and the Silence of Zen
John Cage, (1912-1992) was an American artist, philosopher and music theorist. He was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde and is regarded widely as one of the most important composers of the 20th Century. Cage was deeply inspired by Zen Buddhism and other Eastern modes of thought and philosophy, inspirations which reflected in his creative works. In 1952, Cage composed what would be viewed by many, later, as the pinnacle of his musical career: 4’33’’. 4’33’’ was a piece consisting of three movements, and not a single musical note, lasting four minutes and thirty-three seconds. 4’33’’ may be John Cage’s most widely-known, and most controversial piece. By drawing into question the nature of music and performance, as well as the relationship between performer and audience, he not only lost a handful of friends; Cage introduced to the Western art world an entirely new mode of interpreting art that was influenced greatly by his fascination with Zen Buddhism and its treatment of silence.
Any attempt at realizing the “Truth of Zen” by way of discursive thought and language is a nonsensical one, a road to a dead end. This must be said before any attempt can be made to do so:
The idea that the ultimate truth of life and of things generally is to be intuitively and not conceptually grasped, and this intuitive prehension is the foundation not only of philosophy but of all other cultural activities, is what the Zen form of Buddhism has contributed to the cultivation of artistic appreciation among the Japanese people… It is here then that the spiritual relationship between Zen and the Japanese conception of art is established. (Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 219-220)
Despite the inability of language to convey tathata, Zen texts still utilize form, language and art, but in a far different manner than most religious scriptures. Zen is anti-dogmatic and anti-scriptural; emphasizing instead the importance of experiential wisdom, the direct realization of spiritual truths through intuition rather than intellect. Belief in the non-reality of a pervading Self is ubiquitous in most (if not all) Zen Buddhist texts. How then, is it possible that an artist may be both them-Self, a distinguished creator of artistic works, and Zen? How has John Cage incorporated Zen Buddhism into his creative works? Is the concept of a “Zen artist” not inherently problematic?
Zen is a product of the meeting of Chinese and Indian thought. Though many legends focus on The Buddha as the primary figure of Enlightenment, Zen incorporated much from Taoism in terms of metaphysics. Technically a school of Mahayana Buddhism, Zen is believed to have been born when Indian monk Bodhidharma (470-543 CE) taught at the Shaolin Monastery of China.
Zen differs from other forms of Mahayana Buddhism in its characteristic method of realizing its philosophy. It emphasizes experiential wisdom as the path to enlightenment. This method is known as za-zen, meaning “practice enlightenment.” In Zen, meditation-practice (za-zen) is itself considered Enlightenment, not a means of achieving It. D.T. Suzuki (who is often credited with bringing Zen to the West in the late 1940s) wrote that “one should free oneself of the idea that practice and enlightenment are not one in the same.” According to Suzuki, the method of transmission of Zen consists in seeing directly into the mystery of our own being, which, according to Zen, is Reality itself:
Zen advises us not to follow the verbal or written teachings of the Buddha, not to believe in a higher being other than oneself, not to practice formulas of ascetic training but to gain an inner experience which is to take place in the deepest recesses of one’s being. This is an appeal to an intuitive mode of understanding which consists in experiencing what is known in Japanese as Satori (wu in Chinese). Without Satori, there is no Zen. Zen and satori are synonymous. The importance of this satori experience has thus now come to be regarded as something exclusively related to Zen. (Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, from “Zen and Haiku,” 218)
This Satori experience is an intuitive grasp of reality, beyond the forms it takes, and is reminiscent of William James’ qualities of a mystical experience. Suzuki lays out the characteristics of a Satori experience: “That there is noetic quality in mystic experiences has been pointed out by (William) James…Another name for satori is “kensho” (chien-hsing in Chinese) meaning “to see essence or nature,” which apparently proves that there is “seeing” or “perceiving” in satori…Without this noetic quality, satori will lose all its pungency, for it is really the reason of satori itself.” (Suzuki, Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T, Suzuki, 103-108.)
Suzuki states that the noetic quality is “the reason of satori itself.” The satori experience operates outside of logic and discursive thought, and knowledge of this very fact is the only reasonable element of satori experience. In the moment of Satori, and in any attempts to express it linguistically, the ineffectiveness and limitations of language are seen clearly by the person experiencing these things.
The [spiritual] relationship [between Zen and the Japanese conception of art] rises from an appreciation of the significance of life—of we may say the mysteries of life enter deeply into the compositions of art. When an art, therefore, presents those mysteries in a most profound and creative manner, it moves us to the depths of our being; art then becomes a divine work. The greatest productions of art, whether painting, music, sculpture, or poetry, have invariably this quality—something approaching the work of God. The artist, at the moment when his creativeness is at its height, is transformed into an agent of the creator. This supreme moment in the life of an artist, when expressed in Zen terms, is the experience of Unconscious (mushin, no mind), psychologically speaking. Art has always something of the Unconscious about it. (Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, p.219-220, emphasis mine.)
In the moment of Satori, the artist is transformed into an agent of the creator, experiencing their unconscious and imitating nature and creation. The experience of Satori seems to solve the problem of the artist within Zen. Satori is a passing experience, it is a sort of temporary enlightenment which allows the artist to take part in the process of time and creation. The ego does not factor into this experience. According to Suzuki, “sense of the beyond” is one of the characteristic traits of satori experience. It consists of a “loosening” of one’s sense of individuality, “a melting away into something indescribable, the feeling that one has finally arrived at a destination… In satori,” Suzuki writes, “there is always what we may call a sense of the Beyond; the experience indeed is my own but I feel it to be rooted elsewhere. The individual shell in which my personality is so solidly encased explodes at the moment of satori.”
The Satori experience is bound inherently to the inability of language to express that experience. This is why, in Zen literature, the use of language is very deliberate and oftentimes nonsensical—Koans are a common form of written word used to express Zen; they are inaccessible to the discursive mind operating with Logic, and only may be understood through use of ones’ intuitive faculties. Haiku, oftentimes called “sublime poetry” is also historically bound to the Japanese written tradition. Haiku is restrained by its syllabic form, controlled to moderate the syllables and breath of the reader.
When used to convey the truths of Zen, language (and, as John Cage would have us amend, any other medium that Zen may take in the mind of the artist), is always used self-critically. The Zen artist or writer, having experienced Satori, is always aware of the limitations of their chosen medium.
Zen follows a lineage of direct transmission from teacher to student, which according to legend originated with the Flower Sermon, in which The Buddha transmitted the True Dharma Eye to his disciple, Mahākāśyapa, the only one of his disciples who intuitively understood the meaning of the “sermon.” The Flower Sermon is Zen Buddhism. Before the legendary Flower Sermon, The Buddha offered regular ‘Dharma talks,’ where he would lecture to his disciples about a given topic related to Buddhism.
According to the legend of the Flower Sermon, one day The Buddha gathered his disciples for the Dharma Talk, and without a word, he lifted his hand, which held a lotus blossom. His eyes twinkled and he smiled. At that moment, one of the disciples (Mahākāśyapa) smiled, signifying to the Buddha his direct cognition of the sermon. The Buddha said, “I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma Gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahākāśyapa.” Thus began the tradition in Zen Buddhism of the close relationship between teacher and student, and the practice of Transmission from the former to the latter, which is still practiced today.
In response to having received the Kyoto Prize in November 1989, John Cage delivered a commemorative lecture for the Inamori Foundation, called simply, “An Autobiographical Statement.” In it, Cage addresses his artistic and intellectual influences, and provides a summary of his artistic ventures as they had progressed and evolved over time. Cage first became aware of Zen Buddhism while he was young, and studying at The Cornish School. He writes that later in life, Zen came to replace psychoanalysis for him. Cage regards his creative pursuits in a way that is reminiscent of Zen:
In my late thirties I heard a lecture by Nancy Wilson on Dada and Zen. I mention this in my forward to Silence then adding that I did not want my work blamed on Zen, though I felt that Zen changes in different times and places and what it has become here and now, I am not certain. Whatever it is it gives me delight and most recently by means of Stephen Addiss’ book The Art of Zen. I had the good fortune to attend Daisetz Suzuki’s classes in the philosophy of Zen Buddhism at Columbia University in the late forties. And I visited him twice in Japan. I have never practiced sitting cross-legged nor do I meditate. My work is what I do and always involves writing materials, chairs, and tables. Before I get to it, I do some exercises for my back and I water the plants, of which I have around two hundred. (Cage, From Where’m’Now, in “Statement” p . 4)
When Cage writes, “I have never practiced sitting cross-legged nor do I meditate. My work is what I do” it is clear that his “work” serves a meditative purpose in his life. He has created a ritual around that which comes naturally to him. If Zen is about embracing the mind and following one’s intuition, then Cage seems to be doing both of these things. There is no sense of desire in him to practice in any other way. Cage does not willingly identify himself as “being Zen,” but he does feel that Zen changes in different times and places.
In his forward to Silence, John Cage asks, “What nowadays, America mid-twentieth century, is Zen?” (xi) He does not eliminate the possibility that his own practice may be in line with Zen Buddhism though they may be different—and he never apologizes for its difference. He says he “is not certain” what Zen has become here and now, but that he finds delight in Zen regardless. Cage’s early encounters with Zen Buddhism were accompanied by a sense of frustration in his inability to convey a certain emotion to his audience. This ultimately lead him to the belief that the purpose of music is to “imitate nature in her manner of operation”:
I was disturbed in my public life and my private life as a composer. I could not accept the academic idea that the purpose of music was communication, because I noticed that when I conscientiously wrote something sad, people and critics were often apt to laugh. I determined to give up composition unless I could find a better reason for doing it than communication. I found this answer from Gira Sarabhai, an Indian singer and tabla player: The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus making it susceptible to divine influences. I also found in the writings of Ananda K. Coomaraswammy that the responsibility of the artist is to imitate nature in her manner of operation. I became less disturbed and went back to work. (Cage, “Statement” p. 3, emphasis mine)
Cage discovered in an anechoic chamber, that there is no such thing as silence, and that life is constant noise. The body unconsciously creates two sounds, a high tone created by the nerve’s systematic operation, and a lower tone created by the blood’s circulation throughout the body. John Cage promptly decided to devote his music to silence. His understanding of life and sound are intrinsically linked. For Cage, sound is life—both literally and figuratively.
Following this idea, Cage asserts quite explicitly: “Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.” (Silence, 8) However, Cage states that:
fearlessness is only possible if one turns in the the direction of those [sounds or silences] he does not intend. This turning is psychological and seems at first to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity—for a musician, the giving up of music. This psychological turning leads to the world of nature, where, gradually or suddenly, one sees that humanity and nature, not separate, are in this world together; that nothing was lost when everything was given away. In fact, everything is gained. In musical terms, any sounds may occur in any combination and in any continuity.” (Silence, p. 8)
The rhetoric used to convey Cage’s “turning toward silence” is reminiscent of Zen enlightenment narratives: He discusses sound and silence as Buddhists speak of existence, nonexistence and emptiness. He realizes the nature of emptiness in a sonic sense and then experiences the joyous realization of unlimited possibility that exists in every moment.
In his essay on Experimental Music, Cage states that humans are, in fact, “technically equipped to transform our contemporary awareness of nature’s manner of operation into art.” (Silence, p. 9) But there is a parting of ways; one must choose:
If he does not wish to give up his attempts to control sound, he may complicate his musical techniques towards an approximation of the new possibilities and awareness. (I use the word “approximation” because a measuring mind can never finally measure nature.) Or, as before, one may give up the desire to control sound, clear his mind of music, and set about discovering means to let sounds be themselves rather than vehicles for man-made theories or expressions of human sentiments.” (Silence, 10)
Cage seems to be calling into question whether the idea of an artist is problematic within Zen. He desires to approximate nature in his musical works. Yet to do so requires that he control sound, thus going against nature. Cage has controlled sound in such a way that they might serve as vehicles for his man-made theories (consider 4’33’’). If his intuition urges him to create music and control sound, is that necessarily problematic?
John Cage’s goal as an artist seems to be to create the musical equivalent of a kōan, or a meditation, for his audience. Many of his works engage with the same ideas as Zen, such as chance, randomness, nonsense. Cage was a major proponent of Indeterminate Music, which incorporates an element of chance into the compositional process. In a letter to Pierre Boulez, he wrote, “chance comes in here to give us the unknown.” Cage’s work frequently incorporates this idea of chance/indeterminacy, releasing a controlled element of “the unknown” within a larger structure or constraint. Over time, Cage developed complicated mathematical processes using the I Ching to introduce these elements of chaos, indeterminacy. The use of time in his pieces is sometimes the random variable; other times, in the case of 4’33’’, it was the audience in the room.
In reading John Cage’s Autobiographical Statement, a pattern begins to emerge from his body of work: He begins his compositional process by developing a theoretical concept or problem (which oftentimes draws from Zen,) and then he plans his method of composition. Usually his method involves a set of self-imposed boundaries, and an element of chance. Cage frequently created pieces such that the structure of the artwork or performance allowed for the incorporation of external, uncontrolled environmental events. This is his philosophy of Indeterminacy. Cage uses what he calls “experimental actions” as the pursuit and engagement with the unforeseen in his work. He wrote, “an experimental action is one the outcome of which is not foreseen” (Cage 1961, 39). Of Experimental Music, Cage wrote:
In this new music nothing takes place but sounds: those that are notated and those that are not. Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences, opening the doors of the music to the sounds that happen to be in that environment…There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. (Silence, p. 7-8)
This creative structuring which involves an element of the unknown resembles za-zen. There are certain limitations one must abide by in practicing Zen meditation, such as the proper stance. (Sitting either cross-legged or on the edge of ones’ chair, with the spine in an erect posture.) One is told to focus on their breath, and to cast away any thoughts that enter their head. These thoughts resemble the element of chance that Cage consistently employed within his work.
In the late forties I found out by experiment (I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University) that silence is not acoustic. It is a change of mind, a turning around. I devoted my music to it. My work became an exploration of non-intention. To carry it out faithfully I have developed a complicated composing means using I Ching chance operations, making my responsibility that of asking questions instead of making choices. (Statement, p. 4)
Cage’s use of chance and indeterminacy may be viewed as an attempt to “remove [him]self from the activities of the sounds [he] makes” (Cage, Silence. p. 10) something Cage desired to do on some level. Of 4’33’’, he wrote: “I wanted my work to be free of likes and dislikes, because I think music should be free of the feelings and ideas of the composer.” (Gann, No Such Thing As Silence, 16) Thus, Cage relinquished his artistic responsibility of “making choices” to chance, as an “exploration of non-intention.” However, the strictness of the mathematical processes used in the execution of chance in his music almost manage to eliminate the sense of spontaneity that is characteristic of Zen.
Cage regards his writing and his creativity much in the same way as a Zen Buddhist regards za-zen; as a process rather than an object: “I don’t hear the music I write. I write in order to hear the music I haven’t yet heard.” (Cage, “Statement,” p. 8) As he matured, Cage developed a fascination with the relationship between performer and audience—how is it similar to the teacher/pupil relationship of Zen? His goal as an artist seems to be to manipulate these relationships in order to create a sort of meditation in his audience, to transport the listener to the current moment:
People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be at this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is. (Cage, “An Autobiographical Statement” p. 8).
John Cage expected his audience members to listen to their environment much in the same way as somebody practicing Zen meditation would be aware of their surroundings. This, of course, was not communicated to the audience, which was clear in their response to 4’33’’. The “boundaries” Cage established, and the element of chance present in 4’33’’ were determined by the space where it was first performed: in a concert setting, at a particular point in time,
where any muttering or clearing one’s throat, let alone heckling, was a breach of decorum. Thus, there was already in place in these settings, as in other settings for Western art music, a culturally specific mandate to be silent, a mandate regulating the behavior that precedes and accompanies musical performance…
…4’33’’, by tacitly instructing the performer to remain quiet in all respects, muted the site of centralized and privileged utterance, disrupted the unspoken audience code to remain unspoken, transposed the performance onto the audience members. (Douglas Kahn in No Such Thing As Silence, p. 18-19)
4’33’’ casts a shadow of doubt on the simplicity of the models used to determine indeterminacy. David Tudor (the pianist who performed 4’33’’ at its premiere) was made fully aware of the content of the music and his directions. All aspects of the composition were determined ahead of time, though the individuals who comprised the audience added an element of chance to the performance. However, 4’33’’ complicated the dynamic between performer and audience members by forcing the audience to become performers, in effect switching the rolls of performer and audience member.
In his book, No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’3’’, Kyle Gann pointed out that the public reception of 4’33’’ is inseparable from the piece’s sonic identity:
One of the crucial aspects of 4’33’’ at least in the first performances, is that there was a pianist onstage, whose presence, and whose behavior in the previous pieces on the program, clearly led the audience to expect that his hands would at some point engage the keyboard, and that they would hear deliberately made sounds coming from the stage. That this did not happen, that the listeners’ expectations were deliberately flouted, cannot be entirely divorced from the sonic identity of the piece. (Gann, No Such Thing as Silence, 17)
In a sense, Cage’s presentation of 4’33’’, and its public reception, echoed the legend upon which Zen Buddhism is built: The Flower Sermon, in which The Buddha conveyed the ineffable tathata (Sanskrit: thusness, suchness) to his disciple Mahākāśyapa, which could be understood as “the Truth” of Zen. Sandwiched between two “normally-played” pieces as it was, when 4’33’’ began, the audience had developed certain expectations of the pianist onstage, David Tudor, who sat poised before the piano. Similar expectations were present in all of The Buddha’s disciples except for Mahākāśyapa. When the Buddha, who had delivered many Dharma Talks before the Flower Sutra in a normal manner, held up the lotus without a word, his audience was confused, and even angry that their expectations from the previous Talks were not being met. Just as members of Cage’s audience stormed out of the concert hall, Buddha’s group of disciples did not intuitively understand the beauty of the present moment that The Buddha conveyed to Mahākāśyapa, without a single sound.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1961. Print.
- Cage, John. “An Autobiographical Statement.” Southwest Review (1991). Print.
- Gann, Kyle. No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33” New Haven: Yale UP, 2010. Print.
- James, William, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Bruce Kuklick. “Lectures XVI and XVII: Mysticism.” The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Library of America, 2010. 242-386. Print.
- Matsuo, Bashō. The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and Other Travel Sketches;. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966. Print.
- Plasencia, Clara, and Jorquera Ana. Jiménez. The Anarchy of Silence: John Cage and Experimental Art. Barcelona: Museu D’Art Contemporani De Barcelona, MACBA, 2009. Print.
- Suzuki, D.T. Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T, Suzuki, (New York: Anchor Books, 1956), pp. 103-108.
- Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro, and Richard M. Jaffe. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2010. Print.
November 30, 2010
"
The service of philosophy, and of religion and culture as well, to the human spirit, is to startle it into a sharp and eager observation. Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive for us,—for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?
“To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, this is success in life.”
"— Walter Pater, Preface to Studies in the History of Renaissance (1873)
October 7, 2010
Jonathan Edwards and the Sovereign Unknown
Jonathan Edwards and The Sovereign Unknown
In the fifteenth century, English Puritans saw “The New World” as a symbol of religious freedom from the oppressive Anglican church of England. Unlike Anglicans, Puritans echoed the beliefs of French theologian John Calvin, (1509-1564) a key figure of the Protestant Reformation.Puritans believed that the English Reformation was unsuccessful in eliminating practices which they associated with the Catholic Church, and thus adopted a reformed theology that aligned their beliefs with those of John Calvin, most prominently known for his doctrine of predestination and the absolute sovereignty of God.
It is evident in his Personal Narrative that Jonathan Edwards, Puritan theologian and prominent architect of America’s first Great Awakening was not always the devout Calvinist we know him to be today. Perhaps encouraged by his deeply religious atmosphere and upbringing, Edwards recalls as a child being “concerned about the things of religion, and [my] soul’s salvation” (282) though time brought upon Edwards “great and violent inward struggles” (282) and his life-changing experiences converting to the Christian faith.
Although the product of a very pious upbringing, in his youth, Edwards did not ‘feel’ the presence of a sovereign God as he did in later years. In his Personal Narrative he wrote:
The doctrine of God’s sovereignty has very often appeared, an exceedingly pleasant, bright and sweet doctrine to me: and absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not with this. (283)
Edwards echoed John Calvin in affirming the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, but later describes the objection he had to the doctrine as a child. His first visceral “experience” of God occurred in reading the Bible, particularly the following verse: I Tim. 1:17 “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen,” (284) which guided Edwards into profound meditations on the nature of Christ, God and man, and ultimately his own conversion into Christianity.
Interestingly, many of the experiences that characterized Edwards’ conversion into Christianity were bound to nature. His descriptions of his ‘experience’ with God evoke images of a New England landscape that is too beautiful for words; he spent much of his time “alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapped and swallowed up in God.” The sense that Edwards had of “divine things,” within the natural world would often “kindle up a sweet burning in [my] heart; an ardor of my soul, that I know not how to express.” (284) Throughout the narrative Edwards periodically observes nature, gazing into the clouds and sky, at the grass, flowers, trees, and moon—in thunderstorms from which God appears to him, and on the Hudson River bank. He spent a significant amount of time observing in awe the world around him, so that he might behold, in nature, the “sweet glory of God.” (285)
Religious practice not only fulfilled Edwards, it seemed to overwhelm him. His perception of God evolved with time—he was convinced of God’s sovereignty and overwhelmed by his love for God and holiness. In realizing that the soul of a ‘true Christian’ was humble and God-loving, he wrote: “my heart as it were panted after this, to lie low before God, and in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be all.” (288) Edwards’ revelation of God’s sovereignty became official when he converted on January12, 1722-3, vowing to dedicate himself to God, and sacrificing his own self-interest in acknowledgement of God’s sovereign power. He felt an overwhelming enthusiasm for Christianity and longed for those he loved to convert. However, Edwards’ wholehearted embrace of a completely sovereign God may begin to explainhis tendency to internalize his own sinfulness. In sacrificing himself to God and attempting to be a “good Christian,” Jonathan Edwards had difficulty escaping his own feelings of sin and incompetence before God.
Edwards’ understanding of God as a sovereign being may have allowed him to internalize his own insignificance in relation to God, which in turn contributed to his ability to summon rhetoric as intimidating as that of his infamous 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and at various points throughout his narrative.
Ultimately there was little distinction between his embrace of Calvin’s doctrine and Edwards’ own conversion to Christianity. It was in nature that he felt overwhelmed by the love and power he came to assign to God. Edwards would likely not have converted to Christianity were it not for his delight in the visceral feeling of a sovereign God which was accessible to him through the beauty of his uncharted New England landscape.
Edwards’ theology is no doubt informed by the experiences he had during those transformative years, the visions, the feeling of selflessness in the shadow of something larger— all-encompassing, divine Love. These feelings were bound by their core to the landscape that brought them to life.
Edwards’ conception of God was similar to the Puritanical conception of the New World as a place of promise and possibility, hope and freedom. In a sense, The New World was not unlike God for Edwards. The land represented for the Puritans a potential that felt—to them—boundless. It meant release from the religious persecution they faced in England, their own physical saving Grace. The land, unknown to them and seemingly without end, maintained a divine quality that was bound tightly to the Puritan experience and allowed for Edwards’ enthusiastic embrace of God as “The Sovereign Unknown:” something vast, natural and of a beauty that induces awe and is intuitively and viscerally Divine.
1 (1730s-1740s)
June 4, 2010
"A case of contradictions, both of them are true. There is a God. There is no God. Where is my problem? I am quite sure that there is a God in the sense that I am sure my love is no illusion. I am quite sure there is no God, in the sense that I am sure there is nothing which resembles what I conceive when I say the word."
— Simone Weil, from Waiting for God
May 2, 2010
Transcending Paradox in Zen Buddhism
Mabel Nash-Greenberg
April 6th, 2010
Over the course of time, religious practice has served as a lens through which humans have understood the nature of Existence. Although the contemplation of paradox is deeply rooted in religious discourse, the extrapolation of practice and ritual from the core beliefs of the religion seems paradoxical. Within Buddhism (specifically Zen Buddhism) it is understood that Nirvana may only be achieved through self-realization, and thus there is little emphasis on spiritual intermediaries such as gurus or doctrine. How is the nature of existence portrayed through Zen Buddhist texts and teachings, when it would seem that the existence of any teaching—or canon—is paradoxical? To explore this paradox, one might explore the role of koan, (Zen stories) and za-zen (Zen meditation) as presented in Meditations and The Legend of the Buddha Shakyamuni of the Buddhist Scriptures.
Buddhism deemphasizes doctrine and instead is centered on the idea that Nirvana (literally: to be extinguished [from suffering]) is achievable only through self-realization. Nirvana is the state of being in which there is the absence of suffering, desire, and of sense of Self. It is this essentially individual nature that proposes one apparent paradox of Zen Buddhism: how might a transcendent state in which there is no sense of Self be achieved only through self-realization?
It is no feat for the unenlightened being to find paradox in Zen Buddhism: How might we desire to not desire? How can we seek to exist in the present? How can we seek to achieve spontaneity? One may not achieve enlightenment if one desires to do so, yet for what other reason would one practice Zen?
It would seem that these paradoxes are the product of an admittedly unrealized Self. Zen masters, having achieved Nirvana, would likely cast away any mention of paradox as unimportant—as the legend describes Buddha himself doing. As the Buddha was approaching enlightenment, Mara—the evil one—asked of him,
‘How could speech-defying revelation be translated into words, or visions that shatter definitions be caged in language? In short, how show what can only be found, teach what can only be learned?’ (Buddhist Scriptures, 87)
The Buddha replied simply: “There will be some who will understand.” (Buddhist Scriptures, 87)
The Buddha’s cryptic response and disregard of paradox is somehow indicative of Zen Buddhism as a whole. Zen, which makes transcending language barriers its central concern, does not equate itself with any verbal formula whatsoever. The Buddha refused to equate his experiential discovery with any verbal expression, in the belief that words, though necessary, are ambiguous and can be deceptive and misleading. (The World’s Religions, 131) Attempting to find cogency in the text is a paradox in itself, for the nature of the koan is irrational and elusive.
In The World’s Religions, Huston Smith reminds us that it is not existence that contains paradox, but the language used to signify it.
By paradox and non sequitur Zen provokes, excites, exasperates, and eventually exhausts the mind until it sees that thinking is never more than thinking about, or feeling more than feeling for. Then, having gotten the rational mind where it wants it—reduced to an impulse—it counts on a flash of sudden insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and firsthand life. (World’s Religions, 134-5)
The Koans in particular suggest a recurring theme of the devaluation of verbal communication—as if nirvana requires that one forego coherent speech in favor of irrational behavior and abrupt gestures. The Buddha himself regarded language as a low form of communication, which is classically demonstrated in his Flower Sermon:
Standing on a mountain with his disciples around him, the Buddha did not on this occasion resort to words. He simply held aloft a golden lotus. No one understood the meaning of this eloquent gesture save Mahakasyapa, whose quiet smile, indicating that he had gotten the point, caused the Buddha to designate him his successor. The insight that prompted the smile….contains the secret of Zen. (The World’s Religions, 128)
The Buddha was followed by Gutei, a roshi (Zen master) who when asked the secret of Zen simply lifted his index finger.One might ask how it is possible that the ‘secret’ of Zen be literally beyond words, in which case a roshi would likely suggest that one meditate on his or her question.
Where Smith might impose that koans excite the mind into the spontaneous merging of lives, meditation allows the practitioner to steady the mind, improve insight and “be Buddha” (Buddhist Scriptures, 135). Meditation is “‘outwardly to be in the world of good and evil yet with no thought arising in the heart, this is Sitting (Za): inwardly to see one’s own nature and not move from it, this is Meditation (Zen).’” (Buddhist Scriptures, 134)
“Zen must be to use that power which grips the Zen meditation and to bring it directly to beat upon and vivify our present daily life….Meditation in movement is a hundred, a thousand, a million times superior to meditation at rest” (136). In a way, it seems that the purpose of practicing za-zen is to transcend the active practice, and achieve meditation in everyday life so that “the heart becomes one’s meditation room.” (World Religions, 130)
In studying Zen Buddhism from a Western perspective, it is imperative that we always be conscious of our own epistemic position. It is in our nature to view paradox and contradiction in a negative light, yet this is not necessarily true for those born of a Zen perspective. It seems that Zen Buddhists view paradox in an entirely different way: not so much as a conflict that needs to be solved, but as an object that, paradoxically, exists in contrast but is not necessarily at odds. Perhaps it is our attachment to paradox that is our connection to suffering. How then, might an unenlightened individual transcend the ephemeral conflict of paradox from a perspective that commands that we see the elements of paradox as aggressively in contrast? Perhaps the path to nirvana requires a certain degree of submission to za-zen, and a detachment from logic. Let us be reminded of the following koan:
Light breaks on secret lots….
Where logics die
The secret grows through the eye.
1 Buddhist teachers would likely disapprove of my capitalization of “self.” I do so for the purpose of emphasis.
2 Originally proposed by Elaine Pagels, the concept of Epistemic Positionality describes how perspective determines what may be seen. It operates on the regulative notion of truth, to which we may only approach asymptotically.
April 26, 2010
Protocol on William James’ The Divided Self, and the Process of its Unification
William James begins his lecture on The Divided Self by describing two ways of looking at life, characteristic of those harmonious ‘healthy-minded’ people who need only to be born once, and those inharmonious ‘sick souls’ who need to live twice in order to be happy. While the former need only ‘eliminate badness’ in order to achieve goodness, the latter has difficulty achieving happiness and often succumbs to Salvationism or extreme renunciation of what James calls ‘the natural life’ in order to live a ‘spiritual’ one.
This is the familiar argument of the discordant personality, similar to Plato’s allegory of the chariot, in which a charioteer balances the tendencies of two horses: one of noble birth and the other of ignoble birth. It is the tendency of the first to ascend into the heavens and ‘dwell in the infinite,’ and of the second to remain on earth, despite (and perhaps because of) the bodily temptations present there. It is the charioteer’s job to balance the force of both horses and guide the entire chariot into the heavens. What constitutes the ‘healthy-minded’ manner of ascent? How does Plato suggest that the charioteer balance his vehicle in such a way as to guide us upward into the heavens, where we aspire to dwell?
The passages cited in James’ lecture are reason to believe it may not be the easiest journey. Saint Augustine wrote,
The new will which I began to have was not yet strong enough to overcome that other will, strengthened by long indulgence. So these two wills, one old, one new, one carnal, the other spiritual, contended with each other and disturbed my soul. I understood by my own experiences what I had read, ‘flesh lusteth against spirit, and spirit against flesh.’ It was myself indeed in both wills, yet more myself in that which I approved in myself than in that which I disappointed in myself….Still bound to earth, I refused, O God, to fight on thy side, as much afraid to be freed from all bonds as I ought to have feared being trammeled by them. (172)
Little is won from this battle of flesh and spirit but a sense of unrest, displeasure and self-hatred. “What I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I” (St. Paul, (171)). Man views his interior expanse as a battle-ground for what seem to be two hostile selves, one actual, and the other ideal.
In the context of these whole revelations, the discordant personality is cast in a new light. The incongruous Self is revealed as a sort of boundary between the ‘finite soul’ within us (those flecks of the World Soul that Plato established as the origin of our Divine element in Timaeus) and the infinite, external ‘World Soul’ that we aspire to dwell within. Beneath the apparent controversy lies a state of emotional peace, rest and love. James refers to the transcendence of this boundary as the ‘birth of a new man.’ It is the revelation that peace exists beneath the illusory discordance.
Knowing of this discordance requires that we ask: what next? Is the ‘next step’ renunciation—liberation from the tendencies and seductions that characterize our physical—ignoble—element? Or is rather a process of unification—the harmonizing of our discordant horses—that will bring us to our destination? (And if so, what characterizes the process of unification? How might the divided individual interact with God?
April 18, 2010
Protocol on William James’ ‘Mysticism’ from The Varieties of Religious Experience
Mabel Nash-Greenberg
James begins his lecture on Mysticism by establishing four definitive characteristics that form a distinct region of consciousness known by some as the cosmic consciousness. These characteristics that are: 1) Ineffability 2) Noetic Quality 3) Transiency and 4) Passivity.
The lecture consists largely of descriptions of individual mystical experiences, the authors of which all introduce with a similar disclaimer: their mystical experiences are difficult to describe linguistically, yet they had the sense, at the time, of discovering a “state of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect.” (379)
They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance (380) that have been interpreted in the context of many religions. When the Buddhist enters Samadhi, he “comes face to face with facts which no instinct or reason can ever know.” The mystical experience surpasses all functions of rationality and logical authority; some have described having the sense that “feeling” is greater than “intellect.”
It seems that a sense of incommunicableness is common to all mystical experiences, and might exist under any religious denomination, though the mystical truth delivered exists for the individual who has the transport, and no one else. Do mystical states establish the truth of those theological affections in which the saintly life has its root?
Though the nature of the mystical experience establishes that it cannot truly be identified, what are those threads which are common to the diverse experiences of which James speaks? He mentions several traits which pervade them all: a sense of optimism, monism, unity and reconciliation, an appeal to the “yes-function,” a sense of the unlimited absorbing the limited, and a negative description of Ultimate Truth.
The nature of the mystical experience is manifold: Tennyson achieved it through repetition of his own name, Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Malwida von Meysenbug and J. Trevor by presence in nature, (396) countless others through meditation, and even consumption of anesthetics as alcohol, nitrous oxide and ether. (391) How can the mystical experience be achieved through certain vessels (music, prayer, or a substance) if one of its central characteristics is passivity? What differentiates the sober Mystical Experience from the one witnessed under the influence of a mind-expanding drug?
In what sense is the Mystical Experience different from a dream or hallucination? One can approach this question by examining the role of time within the Mystical Experience. One of its definitive characteristics lies in the subject’s ability to isolate it their experience as having occurred within a distinct period of time. Unlike a dream, from which one awakes knowing that he has been dreaming, the Mystical Experience is distinct from everyday life, because the individual knowingly ‘awakes’ from a waking state, aware that they have not been dreaming.
The Mystical Experience occurs within a limited period of time; unfolding between two clear points of start and finish. One is aware of the vision’s end, though as J. Trevor writes, “the sentiment is [often] recurring as a presence of “inner richness and importance.” (381) The sentiment has a superior authority over the individual that is conferred on them by their intrinsic nature. (427) The Mystical Experience may ‘live on’ as a sort of moral compass around which the subject may orient his beliefs and behavior. The mystical experience proposes
a life whose experiences are proved real to their possessor because they remain with him when brought closest into contact with the objective realities of life. Dreams cannot stand this test. We wake from them to find that they are but dreams….Indeed, their reality and their far-reaching significance are ever becoming more clear and evident. When [the mystical experiences] came, I was living the fullest, strongest, sanest, deepest life. I was not seeking them. When I was seeking, with resolute determination, was to live more intensely my own life, as what I knew would be the adverse judgment of the world. (397)
According to Alan Watts, Western Buddhist thinker from the 1960s, the term “cosmic consciousness” connotes a state that is “too otherworldly,” not concrete or physical. He describes the feeling from a Zen Buddhist position as “vivid and overwhelming certainty of the universe, precisely as it is at [that] moment, as a whole and in every one of its parts, [it] is so completely right as to need no explanation or justification beyond what it is simply….[it provides] insight that is immediate now, whatever its nature” which, he writes, is the goal and fulfillment of life.”
This sense of cosmic consciousness seems to transcend religious identity entirely and dwell in the origin of religious belief: a place of peace, love and oneness with the surrounding world. What is the nature of a cosmic consciousness such that it is trans-denominational or even secular? How can Mystical Experience simultaneously transcend and define religion as a whole? How might it exist in the context of any one religious denomination, or distinct from all?
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1982.
Watts, Alan W. . This Is It: and other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience. New York: Vintage, 1973.
April 18, 2010
Response to A Valentinian Exposition (xi 2) from The Nag Hammadi Library
Mabel Nash-Greenberg
Gnosticism Independent Study with Dr. Bruce Matthews
According to Pagels, the Valentinian Expositions claim to deliver a “secret catechism for candidates being initiated into gnosis” that allows the individual to partake in sacramental rituals such as anointing, baptism and the eucharist as they are understood by the Gnostics. Because the Valentinian system is only known through the words its opponents, notably Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, it is difficult to understand the cosmogony as a comprehensive system, though this writing may be considered my attempt to do so.
Let us first establish several definitions. Archons (Greek: “Ruler/lord”) are several servants of the demiurge that stand between the human race and the transcendent God and make it difficult for man and God to become one, (though this is achievable through Gnosis.) A Valentinian Exposition introduces the concept of pleroma (Greek: “fullness”/ “heavenly all”). Pleroma is the totality of all that is regarded in our understanding of the Divine. It is the ‘light above our world’ consisting of Aeons—the first 30 beings who self-emanated from the pleroma in sexually complementary pairs which correspond to seven planetary spheres. Above these seven planetary spheres there exists an eighth sphere, in which dwells the mother of all archons, Sophia, who set into motion the creation of the material world.
The Apocryphon of John describes how Sophia prepared a place for the souls in heaven, where Jesus, the incarnation of the aeon Christ (note: there is an important distinction to make between Jesus and Christ, as the latter precedes the former?) disclose the true knowledge of how to return to their home in pleroma, where they would ascend past the rulers (archons) and be made holy and faultless.
What is this place in which the triple-powered male virginal Youth of Allogenes XI 45 “[becomes] perfect” and can thus “[know himself ….and the perfect] Invisible [Spirit]?” (444) What is this space in which there can exist no fault? How does it relate to and interact with the material world created by Sophia? How can the faulted material world exist and interact fluidly with pleroma? How does knowing oneself provide the key to transcending the material world so that one might “become as the [divine Triple Male—the power that is higher than God] is?”
Who is this “One who truly exists” the ‘divinity of divinity’ who contains and embodies paradox: the One who expresses that one ‘undivided Energy’ which is only the substance of his own beginning? We know that it is impossible for the individuals to comprehend the ‘All’ located in the “place that is higher than perfect” (445) How can there exist a power “higher than God”—and what would characterize such a being?
It would seem that no such power could exist, and in a sense, it does not. Interestingly, the language used to describe this One is indicative of his nature. The elusiveness of God’s nature requires that he is spoken of in negative terminology, often as irrational and indirect as Zen koans.
God is revealed as the “Unknown One, invisible, unfathomable, incomprehensible,” the “spiritual, invisible Triple Power” which is the “best of the best” and exists, paradoxically, as the “non-being Existence.”
He provides everything for himself since it is he who shall come to be when he recognizes himself. And he is [One] who subsists as a [sort of being] and a source and an immaterial [material and an] innumerable [number and formless] form and a shapeless shape and ….an [inactive] activity….when he is recognized as the traverser of the boundlessness of the Invisible Spirit that subsists in him, the boundlessness turns to itself in order that it might know what is within him and how he exists. And he is becoming salvation for every one by being a point of departure for those who truly exist, for through him his knowledge endured, since he is the one who knows [what] he is. (445)
There follows a description of the elements which combine as the definitive traits of the divine Triple Male, that power which is higher than God: Vitality, Mentality and That Which Is. (“the three are one, although they are each three as individuals”(445)) What is this power which is higher than God, and from where did it arise? What significance do the elements of God’s triplicity (vitality, mentality and That Which Is) have within the entirety of God’s power? What purpose does the Divine Triple Male serve, if it is beyond God? Is this the knowledge that constitutes Gnosis?
What is the significance of those three elements which compose that power which is higher than God? What are Vitality, Mentality and Existence such that they are beyond any human contemplation before Gnosis, and may be realized though self-reflection and then transcendence?
‘Youel said to me, ‘[O Allogenes], you shall know that the Triple Power exists before the glories. They do not exist. among those who exist. Rather all these exist as divinity and blessedness and existence…The Triple Male is something beyond substance….’ (447)
We witness, through this revelation dialog, what I believe is Allogenes’ realization and acceptance of the redemptive Gnosis, and then acceptance into the eternal pleroma. However, he is told clearly not to know the Triple Power, though it would seem that in Gnosis he should be able to: “Do not know him, for it is impossible, but if by means of an enlightened thought you should know him, become ignorant of him.” This seems akin to the idea of Buddhist nirvana: one can not seek enlightenment if they are to find it: and the ultimate, unobtainable presence exists paradoxically in everything that it is not.
McConkey Robinson, James. “The Valentinian Expositions”. The Nag Hammadi Library. New York: Brill Academic Publishers, 1997.
April 12, 2010
…The Valentinian cosmological system replaces the seven world-creating archons of the Hebdomad with the Aeons: the first series of beings, believed to be fifteen sexually complementary pairs.
April 4, 2010
March 29, 2010
Conversations
Found my old notebook today; here’s something from it. I’ve copied it down verbatim.
5/25/09
Today I knelt down in the garden and lowered my forehead to the moist earth. I let the ground accept my sadness for a couple of minutes until I felt a warm hand on my shoulder blade. I heard, a fat yellow bumblebee buzzing around my head and through the frequency of his vibration this being beside me spoke. It was sexless and translucent, naked and neuter=
“I am the God of Broken Promises.” There was another who sat on my other side. “I am ‘hum’ the God that deals with misperceptions of eternity.” They let this sink in for a while. The green and lavender aromas were so strong they seemed to be making me delusional. The first God spoke again. “Some people make promises. Of those people, some break them and leave their loved ones in pain. That is why I am here, to help the loved ones come to term with their pain. You must remember though that there are people who keep their promises. You may, one day and for whatever reason, be the person who breaks their promise. You should remember how it has made you sad to have a promise broken on you. But I will be there to comfort the ones who are sad because of your actions. Do not be that person and do not surround yourself with that person.” This made sense to me. I said, “ok,” I knew that in my life
I had broken promises and wondered which of my loved ones the God of Broken Promises had visited on my accord. I hoped the number was few. The second God spoke, and both rubbed my shoulder blades in unison. “You have dealt wrongly with the concept of eternity. You have wished an untrue love to live forever—to do this is an insult to the Gods and to the true loves you will simultaneously belong to and own in the future. You have included eternity where it does not belong. Eternity may not exist within mortality, though the opposite is true. Lift your head.” (When I did I saw no Gods but felt their touch on my shoulders. Just the silent bee.
He continued to speak: “Look around you at this beauty. Experience this beauty. This is transcendence. See the lavender, smell it, Taste the cool soil. Breathe the air.” I did all of these things and immediately understood. I continued to listen: “This before you is God. This is beauty. Grace. Balance. This experience, this all-encompassing beauty, this is God. This is God. This is love. God equates love. When you can understand the relativity of Existence you can experience love that is true, love that is transcendent, love that is eternal. Only through the eyes of God can you love, for before God every Sadness is relative. And only when you can understand the relativity of sadness can you truly forgive another for their broken promise. Do not let mortality and its various embodiments cloud your vision of Eternal Love.”
Their hands were gone from my back but I could still feel their impact, as one feels energy, or warmth, even after it has passed. The garden was silent save for the songs of several far-away birds, I heard the gentle cooing of a pigeon, and opened raised my face from the soil to face it. The Gods were gone and so was the bee. I could not understand the coos of the pigeon without the bee’s frequency adaptor, but the pigeon, smiling, soon evaporated, leaving in its place only a wide expanse of God’s green eternity.
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Elizabeth Taylor, age 18
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Lindsey Wixson “Like A Doll” in Vogue Italia January 2012 by Tim Walker for
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Traci Lords in Cry-Baby (1990)
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Julia Margaret Cameron, Young Girl in Prayer, 1866
