The Li Nezha shrine, Macao, on the Gate of Demon, or northeast corner of “Persimmon” mountain on which the facade and remains of the Catholic cathedral “Sao Paolo” of Macao still stands. Nezha, or “Taizi Yeh” is the 3rd son of Bishamon, ruler of the 33rd heaven, protector of the north. The folk Daoist shrine is still very active, with incense burning, prayers being offered, and Daoist rituals performed on a daily basis.
The annual festival in honor of Taizi Yeh, Li Nezha, takes place in the 6th lunar month. Lion dance associations, and temple devotees participate. The processions begins in the central “Senate Square” of Macao, passes through the cobblestone lined streets, and eventually ends at the hillside shrine itself. A young lmale child is selected to re-enact the role of Taaizi Yeh, marching in the procession in the place of the child god.
A Daoist “Taiping” (Great Peace) Jiao festival is offered to celebrate the birthday of Nezha. Since Nezha’s shrine rests on the geomantic “Gate of demon,” to the northeast of the hill on which the facade of Sao Paolo Cathedral still stands, and the Catholic martyrs of Japan and Korea or buried, the annual “Great Peace” festival is offered, to pray for continual blessing for Macao, and protect the old Chinese quarters of the city from the evils of modern gambling, immorality, and the corrupt administration of Colonial Portugal. The Jesuit mission to China was destroyed by Portugal in 1762, and a search proclaimed for the “Treasures left behind.” When digging up the floor of the cathedral ruins, the remains of the Catholic martyrs of Japan and Korea were found instead. The spiritual legacy of China, Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian, Christian, is protected by inter-spiritual collaboration.
The youth clubs, Lion dance, martial arts, and classical dance clubs, hold a procession in honor of the birthday of Nezha Taizi Yeh. The processions passes from the foot of the Nezha shrine through the streets of old Macao, and ends at the cobblestone “Senate Square.” A young boy is chosen to represent Taizo Ye, as a child, during the procession. Nezha’s festival occurs on the 17th day of the 5th Lunar month, June 28th this year.
The batik paintings on cotton cloth are listed alphabetically on the website, with a brief explanation under each title. We hope that our readers/viewers will enjoy them. High resolution prints on acid free paper, made with fade proof colors, can be requested and mailed to you at cost only plus shipping, from our publisher, Oracle Bones Press/dupli-cat printing (see this website for ordering & other information). Schools and clinics built in greater Tibet (Kham, Amdo, and T.A.R.) are supported by our Sino-Asian Institute funds. We plan to go to the Yushu/Jiegundo earthquake area soon to help repair the school-orphanage we built there. None of our students were hurt during the earthquake, for which we are very grateful.
Mystic, in its original Greek = “darken” mind and eye with “unknowing”
4 kinds of mysticism, by “western” (U.S. and Europe) standards:
Feeling good in nature’s beauty
Feeling good in peaceful presence
Feeling good in sacred presence (kataphasis; art, image, scripture)
Apophasis; the experience of Transcendent Presence, without image or object
All religious systems share the 4th kind of mystic prayer, the apophatic experience,
i.e., Prayer without Boundaries imposed by faith/belief systems
Only the last of these experiences is universally considered mystic.
As such, it allows for inter-religious dialogue for peace.
Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all teach ways to experience apophasis.
Christian apophasis is taught by Theresa of Avila (The Interior Castle), John of the Cross (The Dark Night), and Inigo de Loyola (The Spiritual Exercises, 3rd week).
Islamic Sufi and Judaic Kabala also teach apophatic “Prayer without Boundaries,” as can be found in Fair ud din Attar’s Conference of the Birds, and Moses de Leon’s Zohar.
Buddhism teaches 3 paths to apophasis, Zen meditation, Pure Land Chant, and Tantric “Body-mouth-mind” (in harmony) meditation.
Daoism teaches the most effective path to the “emptiness” (apophatic) experience, by emptying the mind (“sitting in forgetfulness” of all images and judgments), “heart fasting” form all selfish desires and goals (even the goal of self perfection); and then focusing on the belly, called the “Lower alchemy furnace” (xia dan tian), solar plexus ie the body’s center of gravity, from which wisdom, awareness of Transcendent presence, and healing other’s illness originate.
From the 12th thru the 16th centuries, Judaism, Islam, and Christians lived side by side in Spain, in peaceful contemplation. Colonial Spanish and Portugal interests ended all hopes for inter-religious dialogue and peace, by suppressing and expelling Jews and Islam. The “Crusades” are still with us, vilifying other beliefs, instead of dialoguing about “prayer without boundaries.”
Asians, to the contrary, taught that Confucian Ethics, Buddhist compassion, and Daoist apophasis, were all part of a unified cultural system.
Today in Honolulu, (Open table, Interfaith Alliance, Believers Network) use “Prayer without Boundaries ,” and interreligious spiritual dialogue as means to mutual respect, social justice, and world peace.
The authors and titles of books that teach “Prayer without Boundaries” (Apophasis) are listed here below.
SAVING L.A.
Rags and riches, the story of L.A., “where the homeless are celebrities.”
20 pictures, (20,000 would not suffice) show the truth of the proverb “corruptio optimi pessimum est.” (Or put in another way, Wealth and poverty are best neighbors).
Most of these pictures come from one square mile in downtown LA, from Coca Cola bottling company on the southwest corner to Fr Greg Boyle’s”Homeboy/Homegirl Industries” on the northeast, the geomantic “Gate of Hell” (East LA).
Two wonderful works arise like phoenixes from LA’s ashes: one finds jobs for youth released from prison (“nothing stops a bullet like a job”, Fr Greg Boyle says, while Sister Ines and the “Soledad Enrichment Action” provides education for 4,400 high school students, a Charter school, 19 sites, that brings youth from drugs, gang killings, and poverty into a loving and caring educational environment.
Each picture has its own title, and message. No comment is really necessary. Perhaps what is not shown is equally telling. The homeless live in downtown street tunnels when it rains. The drug trade uses gangs, and poverty stricken youth as merchants. Barbed wire protects industry, commerce, and private property, from what in daytime is less seen, nighttime dominant, violence.
“Don’t live here” a friend who saw my room and study, said.
But Fr. Greg Boyle’s youth and Sister Ines’ students also need college, after high school, to “evolve” out of poverty. The reason to show these pictures is to propose a “Charter University,” for less than the tuition asked by the “state,” much much less than private universities – easier done than said. No administrators, deans, provosts, directors, only teachers. Most universities have a ratio of 6 administrators per one teacher salary. “New Charter” University just has teachers, we “companeros /companeras,” with Fr Greg’s and Sister Ines’ compassion as inspiration.
The pictures from LA show only the good parts and good people; violence and death have occurred in so many families. Fr Boyle’s “Home Boy – Home Girl” work and SEA Charter School give individual care and attention to each student, with a very high rate of success. Charter schools are state funded, and accredited. Let’s hope it can work at the university level as well!
Click images to view larger.
The Muosuo are a gentle, peace-loving people, who live by a lake on the Tibet-Yunnan-Szechuan border, in SW China. There has been no crime or violence in their village for recorded history – the past 800 years – - because, as social scientists agree, they are matriarchal, i.e., women, not men, head the family, manage the land, and nourish the children.
Joseph Rock, a renowned University of Hawaii Botanist, National Geographic explorer (1923-1939) and Asian scholar, left behind, among his many celebrated works, a series of pictures with a careful description of the little known Muosuo women and their culture. Fleeing from the violence of Kubilai Khan’s wars in 1235, they crossed over a mountain pass (now called “Eternal Peace” Yongning 永寧 ) and came to the serene beauty of Lake Lugu (瀘沽湖) with the massive “Lion Head Mountain” towering above the northwest shore, (the geomantic “Gate of Heaven”). Lion Head Mountain is the home of the Muosuo Mother Goddess who “gives birth to the cosmos.”
Austrian born Rock was so taken by the peace and serenity of the Muosuo village on the shores of Lake Lugu, that he took up residence there, and was asked to “father” a Muosuo child, by one of the matriarchal households.
Some 52 years later, beginning from 1992 until today, I bring students from the University of Hawaii, and other colleges, to visit the Muosuo. We then follow Joseph Rock’s footsteps from Yunnan northward, though Kham-East Tibet, Amdo North-Tibet, and westward into Tibet proper. Rock collected, catalogued, and preserved some 16,000 species of flora during his journeys. The stunningly beautiful flowering trees that fill the University of Hawaii Manoa campus, bear witness to Rock’s enduring work.
The first thing I warn my students about the Muosuo, when visiting the lake around which they dwell, is never, never ask a matriarchal woman “who is the father” of her children. This is not only a taboo, as well as an insensitive, meaningless question, it is obvious that the father of the child comes into the matriarchal household each evening, helps feed his children, and if invited, spends the night with his matriarchal “wife.” Days are spent with his mother, helping out on her farm property; the men also handle the affairs of the village, confront the neighboring warlike Yi, and Han Chinese “Party” cadres, who often lack ethical-moral codes of behavior.
Other neighbors, the Mongols, Pumi, and Tibetans, live in harmony with the Muosuo. The Pumi, who reside in or near the lakeside village, also have learned to follow Muosuo matriarchal ways.
Most of the 52 ethnic groups who speak Tibeto-Burmese, Malayo-Polynesian, or other dialects of Yunnan Province (as far south as the Burma-Laos border) follow one or another form of what western trained anthropologists call “matriarchy” (woman is head), by which is meant, among other things, that the woman, not the father of her children, has the ultimate say over what happens inside the family. The Muosuo, who go much farther than this definition, also pass on the family plot of land for farming to the most capable of their female children (matrilineal), and the children to whom she and her sisters give birth reside in the matriarch’s residence (matrilocal).
Men born into a matriarchal family live with their mother during the day, helping maintain her farm, crops, livestock, chickens, and pigs. They also help care for the public administration of the village, control the forays of thieving or plundering “Yi” neighbors, and keep ethnic Chinese and other tourists from HK, Taiwan, and SE Asia, away as much as possible, from the cultural purity and authenticity of Muosuo village life. At night the Muosuo men may stay with their spouse, help care for, and visit with their children.
Realizing the attraction that the notion of “matriarchy” has to Western, as well as Chinese and other Asian males, (i.e., the “woman chooses the man”) Chinese tourist agencies began early on to build hostels for visitors, which included baths, discos, and women dressed as “Muosuo,” not only to demonstrate Muosuo folk dancing, and but even be made available to paying Cadre-Communist Party patrons. The Muosuo men, as well as the matriarchs of the village, strongly opposed this invasion and disruption of Muosuo life. Discos were closed, or moved out of the village. A central “cultural center-museum” was built (funds provided by the Muosuo and concerned scholars) for all visitors to watch folk dancing, cultural events, singing, away from and outside the privacy of the matriarchal households.
This model is followed throughout much of Yunnan, mainly in the Dai (Thai), Nakhi, and Tibetan cultural areas, but was not found necessary in the remote Aini-Hani, Lisu, Lahu, Jing, Wa, Yao-Mien, or Miao-Hmong areas, which are accessible only by foot, without roads or tourist buses. (See Ni Feng’s paintings, made between 1992-1999, and cloth batik inspired by her, of all these incredibly colorful and peace loving people).
The pictures of the Muosuo seen here on WordPress and Facebook, were taken between 1992 and 2006, covering some 14 years of my living with a family by the shore of Lake Lugu. During this time, 4 generations of Muosuo matriarchs can be seen, in the household, by the Mongol style fireplace, in the yard, and by the scenic lakeside, washing clothes, cleaning fish, and crossing over the lake by boat to an island, where a small monastery of Gelugpa monks (Dalai Lama school) pray and chant daily.
The Muosuo family hearth shows their Mongol origins, as does the trident flag on the roof of the Muosuo matriarchal household, and the four stone shrines with willow trees at the four corners (E, S, W, N) of the village.
The Muosuo-Mongol square hearth (symbol of earth) is kept burning with live coals 24/7. The circular (symbol of heaven) tripod stove in the center, has water boiling, ready to make tea for guests. Behind the fireplace, to the north, is the family altar, in 3 stages. Coming out of the fire to the first level of the altar is a stone “phallus”, the symbol of male fertility. Each morning a piece of pig fat, or a steamed bun is placed on top of the Phalus, and a strong rice alcohol poured over it, as a drink offering. A fire-like “hand” comes out of the coals, to consume the offering.
Next a cup of strong brick tea is made, and salt added. The cup of tea is offered to the 2nd layer of the altar, symbol of the Female Goddess of the Lion Head Mountain, She who brings fertility to the soil, the lake, and the mothers of the household.
Lastly an offering of fruit, flowers, and other gifts is made to the third and highest level of the altar, where the symbol of Lord Buddha is seen, in the symbolic image of “precious colored jewels”. The Presence of Lord Buddha within the enlightened heart, on the family altar, and in the Village Buddhist temple (the center of the lake) is commemorated each morning, at sunrise.
The Muosuo are devout Tibetan Buddhists, and follow “Bon” or “Daba” (Dongba) religion as well. Throughout all of Asia, Buddhism (ritual for the afterlife) must be complemented by a 2nd ritual system for the living. Bon in Tibet, Daba for the Muosuo, Daoism for China, Shaman (Mudang) for Mongolia and Korea, Miko for Japan, are complementary phenomena universally found throughout Asia.
The Jiao,醮 an ancient Chinese word for offering wine and incense, developed over two millennia of Daoist practice, to become a rite for renewing and re-uniting humans with the nourishing presence of Dao in nature. You may now watch this dramatic liturgy on YouTube, as well as on www.michaelsaso.org).
To prepare for the liturgy of renewal, the Daoist uses the I-ching 易經 (Yi Jing) to become aware of Dao, gestating (元 yuan), nourishing like a mother hen 亨(heng), emptying the mind (Li 利), and writing on the heart with flaming presence (zhen 貞). Years of meditation are needed to perfect “inner tranquility” awareness.
Daoists must also meditate on the “Yin-yang Five Element” 陰陽五行 philosophy, to understand nature’s eternally recycling changes, symbolized in Jiao renewal ritual.
Most important of all, the 81 Chapters of Laozi’s Daode Jing, and the Zhuangzi Inner Chapters must become an essential part of the Daoist’s life and practice.
A wide variety of elements, literate as well as folk culture in origin, are combined into the dramatic Jiao liturgy, so the men and women of China’s towns and villages can see and understand these symbolic meanings.
Scrolls which show the Daoist “Three Pure Ones” (Sanqing 三清) i.e., Dao as Gestating, Mediating, and Indwelling, are hung on the north wall of the Tan壇 sacred area, with military and literary officials to the left (west) and right (east) respectively. The scrolls showing this appear in Part One of the video.
The Daoist Master, with his/her cantors and acolytes, sings, dances sacred steps, and meditates in the very center of the Tan 壇 altar during the Jiao festival. Inner alchemy meditations (neidan內丹) accompany the Daoist Master’s Jiao liturgy.
The lay people in the temple, “orphan souls” in purgatory, and the unrefined, even impure spirits of the folk religion, watch from the south of the sacred Tan altar.
The Jiao rituals are shown here in 6 “five minute” video segments, as follows:
1.) Rites of entrance: Announce (fa biao發表) to the spirits of the 3 realms, heaven earth, and underworld, that a Jiao rite of renewal will take place. Invite (qing shen清神) the spirits to be present; and purify the sacred Tan altar (jin tan 禁壇) by using esoteric “5 Thunder-Vajra” chants 五雷法 and sacred “pacing the void” 步虛 dance . *
2.) The Daoist “plants” the 5 Lingbao Sacred writs, (An Lingbao zhenwen) 按靈寶五真文 to renew the “5 Elements” in the cosmos. The Daoists use the Ming tang 明堂 ancient Confucian “Book of Rites”, Monthly Commands chapter (Li Ji Yueling 禮記月令) as the model, for which reason Daoists were always appointed to the Board of Rites, to perform the rite for the emperors 5 times a year. The Daoist name for the Rite is “Su Qi” 宿啟 to hide its imperial origins from scholars and mandarins.
3) Fen Deng 分燈 “Lighting the (3) lamps with a new fire,” the Daoist master chants the 42nd chapter of the Lao-zi, “The Dao gives birth to the One” (lights first candle); “One gives birth to Two” (2nd candle); “Two gives birth to Three” (3rd candle); ”The 3 (feminine Dao, water, womb) gives birth to the Myriad Creatures.” At this point all of the lights in the temple are turned on; the brass bowl (yang) and wooden fish (yin) are sounded separately, then in union, rebirthing the world. The Dao of Wu Wei, now present, grants inner audience to the meditating Daoist.
4) Sending off the ShuWen 疏文 “Memorial Rescript” to the “Jade Emperor” in the Heavens (玉皇大帝),and to the “Three Pure Ones” (San Qing 三请), bringing the people’s petitions to the Jade Emperor, and to the Three Highest Daoist spirits in Daoist Heaven. The late 64th generation Celestial Master is seen performing the ritual; the drum represents “Taiji” (太極), the stringed instruments are Yang, and the hollow wind instruments are “Yin.”
5) Floating the Lanterns 放水燈 This colorful “folk religion” ritual is shared by Buddhists as well as Daoists throughout East Asia, including Japan, all of China, Korea, and the Chinese of Southeast Asia. The souls of the deceased are released from the punishments of the Buddhist – Daoist underworld, by lighting candles or oil lamps, and floating them out to sea.
6) The Dao Chang or Zheng Jiao 道場正醮 . The climax and meditative conclusion to the 3 day Jiao liturgy completes the meditative process of “returning to the Dao.” The Daoist sees the “Dao” as an infant, (chi zi 赤字) dwelling as a ruddy child within the “womb” center of the body. Union with the Dao is now achieved. A sacred rescript (shuwen) is carried down from the heavens by the “Du Jiang” Chief Cantor, and presented to the Master, who then performs the sacred dance called “Pacing the Void” Bu Xu 步虛 in thanks. “One with Dao” is now realized.
N.B., The Video does not show the Morning, Noon, or Night Audiences, when the “Three Fives” (East’s 3/wood + south’s 2/fire; Center’s 5/earth; west’s 4/metal+ north’s 1/water) are refined into the Three Life Principles, Qi, Shen, Jing ; nor does it show the final “Pu-Du” rite for freeing all souls from the underworld, then thanking, and seeing off the spirits. These rites will be posted soon.
“In the Footsteps of Matteo Ricci”; The Legacy of Fr. Yves Raguin S.J.’
(Asian Catholic Prayer in Buddhist and Daoist dialogue).
The year 2010 marks a worldwide movement to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the legacy of Matteo Ricci, SJ, who passed away in Beijing, China, in 1610. Ricci is acclaimed by historians for introducing western science to China, and adapting Chinese cultural and spiritual values to Jesuit missionary work in Asia. During the ensuing 400 years, the Jesuits were “suppressed” (1762 to 1810) by those who opposed Ricci’s vision.
The work of Fr. Yves Raguin, SJ, and his quiet, less publicized movement to adapt Asian forms of prayer to Catholic/Christian spirituality, continues until today, transcending and going far beyond Ricci’s original “Confucian limited” vision.
A report on the “Monastic Interreligious Dialogue,” which occurred between Sep 18-22 1995, gives a concise account of the teachings of Fr. Yves Raguin, SJ, on Asian Catholic prayer. The following report on “Prayer of the Name and Prayer of Silence,” organized by the Commission of the Secretariat “Aide Inter-Monasteres,” took place at the abbey of Bec-Hellouin in France. ,” A special session, given the title “Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique was called, to study the question of “meditation without object.” The input of Fr Yves Raguin SJ was the core and main topic of this session.
The essence of Asian meditation, Fr. Raguin suggested, was: “meditation without object, without theme, without reflection, without image and frequently without rite.” It was Fr. Raguin’s life long mission to show that such meditation has a place in the spiritual, monastic, as well as Lay Christian tradition
The question is of even greater importance for Christian prayer when it comes into contact with other religions, particularly Buddhism and Daoism. The Catholic Church in Asia must face squarely the question of the relevance of pre-Christian Greek and Roman cultural “weltanschauung” (world view), when dialoguing with men and women versed in Asian forms of apophatic prayer. This can be seen as one of the benefits of dialogue with other Asian religions, Fr Raguin suggested.
I. The “Departure” of Christ
The 1995 conference was based on an earlier talk, given on October 15, 1978, when Father Raguin spoke at the Notre-Dame conference on prayer in Paris. The title was: “Ways of Contemplation—Encounters between East and West.” After the conference Raguin was assailed with multiple questions. One of the auditors objected “but, Father, it is necessary that we center on Christ and make Him the object of our meditations and contemplation.” Father Raguin spontaneously responded with the words of Christ: “It is expedient that I go away. If I do not depart, the Holy Spirit will not come to you” (John 16:7). The “departure” of Christ, and the “taking away of the presence of God the Father” is indeed an essential part of Christian spirituality, as seen in the 3rd week of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, as those versed in the Ignatian way of prayer know well. He went on to say: “We no longer see Him before us as an object of thought. Henceforth it is He Himself who through His Holy Spirit turns our regard toward the Father and makes us cry: “Abba, Father.”
That is to say, only after “departing from us,” as seen in the Ignatian 3rd Week, can Christ invite us to share in the 4th Week of the Spiritual exercises, the “Via Unitiva,” which is indeed an attentiveness to the divine presence within us, an awareness that would have been impossible without experiencing Christ’s sense of abandonment in the Gospel. “Meditation without an object” is not a meditation. It is a pure attention which becomes awareness of who we are, children of God, made in His image, following in His footsteps, including the experience of apophasis, or “kenosis.”
Buddhist, Daoist, and Christian mystics agree that this attention is without object; it is pure attention, total silence, void of all thought. The organizers of the session at Bec-Hellouin posed to Father Raguin the question of whether this “meditation without object” has a place in the spiritual and monastic Christian tradition. The question almost totally overlooked the tradition of apophatic prayer in the western Church. It is precisely the mystical tradition of the Church, which offers the basis and the pathway for dialogue with other religions such as Buddhism and Daoism. Just as Buddhism refers its faithful to the experience of the Buddha, so it is necessary that Christians model their prayer on the experience of Christ.
II. The Spiritual Experience of Christ
Jesus’ awareness of His filiation and “Union with the Father” was affirmed as He grew. Again, paraphrasing Fr Raguin’s talk, “At the age of twelve, while in the temple, which was the place of the presence of His Father, He gained a new awareness of the fact that He was the Son of the Father. When His mother said to him: “my child, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been searching for you (loss of a sense of Jesus’ presence) with concern,” Jesus responded very simply: “Did you not know that I must be in the house of my Father?” (Luke 2:48-49).
The years spent at Nazareth were a time of “increasing in wisdom and stature before God and men.” Just as He grew in awareness of Who He is, so the Christian too must grow in awareness that he/she must also experience Thabor, the ascent to Jerusalem, the agony in the Garden, the Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension. Christian prayer is thus a growth in awareness that Christ Himself pursued throughout His whole life. And this growing awareness cannot happen without a “prayer without object,” an experience shared in all mystic forms of spiritual cultivation.
III. The Discovery of the Word
Again, quoting the words of Fr Raguin, “In this process of becoming aware of Himself, in this “prayer without object”, there surfaced “the Word”. Christ became aware that He is the “Word of the Father, the word in which the Father knows Himself.” He knew Himself as the Word of the Father and this Word of the Father was to inform and model His humanity. He became the perfect image of the Father. This is why He could say: “Whoever sees me, sees the Father” John 14:9).
When Christ is the wordless object of our contemplation, this contemplation “brings us into silence in the face of He who is. He reveals Himself as the source springing up within.” Fr Raguin suggested that this is what Christ wanted us to understand in the allegory of the vine. Seeing the fruit invites us to be aware of the flow of sap, which rises from the roots. In the same way the word invites us to become aware of the current of life, which rises from the depths of God. “But such a prayer is truly a prayer without object, for it flows out of a simple awareness that God, by His spirit, animates our whole life. In this way we join ourselves with the prayer of Christ as it was spoken of above.”
It is this kind of prayer which contemplatives share and live in Christian, Buddhist, and Daoist context, without even being aware of it, since attention is totally given to “presence” in itself. It is in mind and heart’s silence, whether through Zen contemplation, Daoist “centering” prayer, or Christian mystic experience, that one passes from prayer with object to prayer without object, the passage from self-expression to simple awareness.
(The above quotes are taken from an article entitled “Christian Spirituality and Spiritualities of Other Religions,” published in Bulletin of the Secretariatus pro non Christianis, Rome, 1988, XXIII/2 #68.
IV The Doctrine of No-Thought, No-Attachment in Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism and the Christian Experience.
(From a talk given by Fr. Raguin in October 1988, “Bulletin 33”)
“The Zen experience,” Father Raguin taught, “is based on a few very simple principles, which are quite well known:
1) The way to the ultimate experience of oneness with the Absolute Reality is not based on a relationship to God through a mediator. The way to this ultimate experience is through the realization of the oneness of our original nature with “the Buddha-nature” in Buddhist prayer, and with the “Absolute reality,” in the Christian mystic experience.
2) At the depth of our human being lies our “original nature,” which is absolutely pure. When the Zen monk, or Daoist Monk/nun sit in meditation, he/she become aware of Absolute presence in oneself, as well as in all of nature—in the Daoist sense as “gestating” or “birthing”, in the 3 western traditions (Judaic, Christian and Islamic) as “creating.”
3) We cannot reach, understand, or “will” the experience of Absolute presence. We can only wait for it to manifest itself and shine at the depth of our human being. This manifestation, which will be a real enlightenment, is beyond our power, because by our original nature we are in fact open to this awareness.
4) To arrive at this form of wordless, “apophatic” enlightenment, the best we can do is to sit in pure attentiveness to our original nature. We cannot think about it, and still less imagine it. This is the reason why the great masters of Zen and of Daoism teach the principles of the method: no thinking, no relying on, no attachment. This creates a real “emptying” of the “heart,” which becomes void. This does not mean that the Zen or Daoist contemplative faces “nothing.” He/she faces original nature through void mind and heart empty of selfish desire (心斋坐忘 “heart fasting, sit in forgetfulness,” in the words of the Zhuangzi, Ch. 4).
Again, we listen to Fr Raguin speaking: “From Zen practice, I learned not to search for a God on high, a transcendent level, but I turned toward my inner being, facing my human nature. Since my human nature is God’s image, I simply wait for this image of God to manifest itself to me. Being a child of the Father, I learned from Christ to be simply attentive to my inner mystery, knowing that I cannot see myself as God’s child, unless the Father enlightened me by His Spirit.
The practice of Zen, as well as Daoist meditation can teach all who practice it, Christian as well as other faiths, to stay in pure attentiveness before the inner mystery. “No judgment, no thought” makes one realize this inner mystery. Buddhist, Daoist, and Christian mystics agree that one cannot rely on any thought, any desire, to reach this presence of “God within me.”
In Father Raguin’s words (from a private letter written to a Nun in Macao): “When I was told not to think, not to rely on anything, I was a little disturbed. I was not allowed to think of Christ. Then I realized, after some years, that the last step of the Gospel was not only to follow Christ, but to imitate him.” These are necessary steps, but the last step of the Gospel is taken when Christ says: “It is good for you that I go.” We would comment: “You will not see me any more before you, you will not be able to rely on my external presence, but I will be in you.”
In the book of an anonymous 14th Century Benedictine, The Cloud of Unknowing, Christ is not seen as an object of contemplation, but as the one who, living in us, stirs in us this intent of love which turns our attention toward God Himself, the God which cannot be known by knowing, but only by unknowing.
The way of prayer of Jesus when he was alone was of the “Zen” or Daoist type. He was simply aware that all his life was filled with the awareness of sharing the life of his Father. “This is why I dare to say that the practice of Zen led me to a deeper understanding of God’s presence in me and of Christ’s way of prayer.”
(The above quotes are based on a series of lectures first given at the Institute of East Asian Spirituality, Taipei, from 1977 to 1982, and later published in a four-volume series called Ways of Contemplation East and West).
In 1976 the Archbishop of Taipei invited Fr. Raguin to teach a course at the Institute of East Asian Spirituality. He was asked to teach “the method which emphasizes sitting,” i.e., not sitting physically but “any attitude of prayer in which one does not face a person or object.”
Fr Raguin explains his method as follows:
“In my development of the topic I decided to make East and West meet but not in a syncretic manner; Christ would be the center and way from start to finish. The whole course began to appear to me as a highway leading to God. The central experience would be Christian, but as I moved ahead I would meet Buddhists, Taoists, Yogists and many others. Christ would help me understand them, while their experience would help me deepen my understanding of Christ. To my amazement, this is what actually happened.”
The course, comprising four parts, has been published. Its basic outline is as follows: 1) The Structure of the Spiritual World; 2) Methods and Powers; 3) Spiritual Writers and Works: A Parallel between East and West; 4) Chinese Spirituality: Important Authors and Works.
The work of Father Raguin has had a profound influence on nuns, lay people, and members of varying faiths in Asia, who are on a spiritual path. Fr. Raguin hoped that his legacy would encourage and assist all those eager to participate in inter-religious dialogue on spirituality and inner contemplative practice. In celebrating the legacy of Matteo Ricci over the past 400 years, surely Fr Yves Raguin must rank as one of those who furthered and expanded, even transcended the impressive work of the early Jesuits in China, truly one of those whom Fr George Dunne SJ would rank as “A Generation of Giants.” (University of Notre Dame Press, 1962).
For a continuation of this theme, please see the recent work of Thierry Meynard, SJ, “Following the Footsteps of the Jesuits in Beijing,” (St Louis: 2006)
Dao in a Nutshell
We are needed, the bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who relinquishes passing into the Pure Land until all sentient beings are freed from suffering) teach us. God/Dao/Fo is immediately with us, when judgment ceases. Zhuangzi says, in Ch. 4, “renjian shi” 人间事， “心斋坐忘“. “Fast in the heart” (ie, no selfish desires), and “sit in forgetfulness (no judgments at all), and then you will be “One with Dao” 与道合一。
The book of Genesis in the bible states almost the same thing. Adam and Eve could not stay in the Garden of Happiness, talking straight to God, when they “ate the fruit of judging good and evil.” So the moment we stop judging good and evil, we are back in Eden-paradise, the Daoists say. And when we start forgiving others, we are back in paradise too.
Patience (quiet inner awareness) attains everything, Teresa de Avila said. The book “Zen is For Everyone” (tranquil-awareness meditation) or”taza shikan” 打坐止观 teaches how to meditate in this manner. Dzogchen in Tibet, Shikan in Japan, and Daoist “Centering,” focusing in the “Lower Cinnabar field,” (the body’s center of gravity, just below the belly button, 3 inches in), teach this method.
One of my favorite stories from Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi) is in Ch 7. “Baby Yin and baby Yang used to love to play inside Hundun, 混沌 (primordial awareness of God/Dao presence). They felt sorry for her (i.e., Hundun female dao), ie, she had no eyes, ears, nostrils, or mouth. So each day, for seven days, they drilled a hole in Hundun (Dao/God inner presence). On the 7th day, Hundun died.” I.e., our 7 apertures, 2 eyes, 2 ears, 2 nostrils, and mouth, when used to judge or seek outer things, lead us away from God/Dao presence. So focus on Dao presence, in the belly, and stop all judging, all selfish desiring, even the desire for spiritual perfection, or heaven. Dao will be there of “herself,” waiting.
If you look at the wood block print of the Daoist body, you will see that Spinning girl is in the belly, eternally spinning out “QI” Dao/God awareness/vital energy. Cowherd boy is in the heart, holding the Pole Star in his hands (ie, focused on the Dao as center of the heaven, and center of my life). If her wisdom energy reaches him in the heart, then the heart of the male is filled with compassion, and the wisdom of the female Dao in the belly reaches him too.
Daosm is profound, far more than we ever expected. We must read and put into practice the Lao-tzu Dao De Jing, 老子道德经， as well as the Zhuangzi 莊子.
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