13. Brute Otherness, Nothingness, and Wilderness
The rocks and water and bamboo and clouds and mountains and flowers beloved of Zen reference are fulfilled only in Christ. It is only the fact that we are made in the image of Him Who created them that enables these elemental objects to mirror our personalities and minds. I find Dooyeweerd, again, exceptionally helpful in these matters:
But Christ is the root of a "con-verted" ("about-turned") humanity. A humanity which ceases in its futile determination to interpret reality away from God, and undertakes anew its original commission to interpret reality unto God. Which begins to discover the face of God in every fact of the cosmos. And thus to discover our own face. To discover that we are not alienated but at home. The resonance of each fact is infinite, since the One from Whom the meaning flows is infinite. So we through whom the meaning flows are conduits of the infinite, crying Hallelujah!
We see therefore that there is a point at which Zen objectivity (at best startlingly beautiful) pushes beyond 'common grace' clarity and asserts raw atheist dogma. Much as existentialism does. Much as the philosophical materialism of neo-Darwinism does. Christ as meaning of the rocks is in some fundamental way denied with all the "epistemological self-consciousness" of resolute atheism. The result is brute blank Nature, void of meaning or common intimacy with us:
In Darwinland, in Zenland, (to adapt the film trailer cliché) no-one can hear you scream. Of course, no-one can hear you laugh either. The pathos of this is heartbreaking. Listen to this poignant comment from Peter Ralston in a transcribed interview in the above-mentioned book "Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power"-
Consider the ravens. Consider the geese. Consider the sparrows, indeed - "Not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows" (Matt 10 29-31) "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Whom be the glory for ever. Amen" (Romans 11:36).
And because all things are His, all things are also ours in Him -
The totality of meaning of our whole temporal cosmos is to be found in Christ, with respect to His human nature, as the root of the reborn human race. In Him the heart, out of which are the issues of life, confesses the sovereignty of God, the Creator, over everything created...Now, in the midst of these words of Dooyeweerd, I find the following sentences in particular of profound relevance to questions of "Brute Otherness"and "Nothingness". Dooyeweerd says that "Our temporal world, in its diversity and coherence of meaning, is... bound to the religious root of mankind. Apart from this root it has no meaning and so no reality". He also says that "there cannot exist an earthly 'world in itself' apart from the structural horizon of human experience". Dooyeweerd is adamant that reality is not self-existently "out there". It is not a "Ding an sich". Yet neither is it subjective, simply in our heads. He is saying that the meaning of the cosmos flows from God, but via humanity. Humanity in its apostasy has attempted to find meaning in the discrete "thing in itself". But the "thing in itself" is illusion. Delusion. Fool's gold which turns to dust. Then to abyss. Brute Otherness turns to Nothingness.
Sin is the revolt against the Sovereign of our cosmos. It is the apostasy from the fullness of meaning and the deifying, the absolutizing, of meaning, to the level of God's Being. Our temporal world, in its diversity and coherence of meaning, is in the order of God's creation bound to the religious root of mankind. Apart from this root it has no meaning and so no reality. Hence the apostasy in the heart, in the religious root of the temporal world, signified the apostasy of the entire temporal creation, which was concentrated in mankind....
Our thesis...is founded in the Divine Revelation concerning the creation of man in the image of God. Since God has created the 'earthly' world in a concentric relation to the religious root of human existence, there cannot exist an 'earthly' 'world in itself' apart from the structural horizon of human experience.
Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, I, 99, 100, and II, 549
But Christ is the root of a "con-verted" ("about-turned") humanity. A humanity which ceases in its futile determination to interpret reality away from God, and undertakes anew its original commission to interpret reality unto God. Which begins to discover the face of God in every fact of the cosmos. And thus to discover our own face. To discover that we are not alienated but at home. The resonance of each fact is infinite, since the One from Whom the meaning flows is infinite. So we through whom the meaning flows are conduits of the infinite, crying Hallelujah!
We see therefore that there is a point at which Zen objectivity (at best startlingly beautiful) pushes beyond 'common grace' clarity and asserts raw atheist dogma. Much as existentialism does. Much as the philosophical materialism of neo-Darwinism does. Christ as meaning of the rocks is in some fundamental way denied with all the "epistemological self-consciousness" of resolute atheism. The result is brute blank Nature, void of meaning or common intimacy with us:
"Maintenant je savais: les choses sont tout entières ce qu'elles paraissent - et derrière elles... il n'y a rien"The cosmic "wall-panel" enigmatically and instantly revolves again from objective to subjective. The rocks cease to appear as concrete particulars founded on Christ as concrete universal. Now all concrete particulars are sacrificed to the pseudo-universal of our own Zen-atheist mind. As a result, Nothingness is experienced as all-pervasive. But in Christ there is no Nothingness. For in Him (whether we like it or not) we live, and move, and have our being. As the nature-replete Song of Moses reminds us -
("Now I knew: objects are entirely what they appear to be - and behind them... there is nothing")
(Jean-Paul Sartre, La Nausée, Éditions Gallimard, 1938, p137,138)
Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;When the True Rock is denied, the abyss opens. Van Til comments -
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.
I will proclaim the name of the LORD .
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he.
They have acted corruptly toward him;
to their shame they are no longer his children,
but a warped and crooked generation.
Is this the way you repay the LORD,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,
who made you and formed you?
You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
See now that I myself am He!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
no-one can deliver out of my hand." (Deuteronomy 32:1-6, 18, 39)
"When the non-Christian, not working on the foundation of creation and providence, talks about musts in relation to facts he is beating the air. His logic is merely the exercise of a revolving door in a void, moving nothing from nowhere into the void."(Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Nutley, New Jersey, 1977, p 299)These words of Van Til are startlingly reminiscent of Zen. It is as if Calvinist and Zenist both glimpse what existence without Christ entails, and their testimonies confirm one another.
In Darwinland, in Zenland, (to adapt the film trailer cliché) no-one can hear you scream. Of course, no-one can hear you laugh either. The pathos of this is heartbreaking. Listen to this poignant comment from Peter Ralston in a transcribed interview in the above-mentioned book "Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power"-
"I've found a lot of joy in this work. I've experienced a lot of joy. I almost break down and cry for joy sometimes. Once I was doing a routine and it was feeling perfect without any thought of its perfection. The tremendousness of that...! There is a beauty that I can't really talk about; a tremendous, great, beautiful thing happening, and I was just feeling it. When I stepped out of the movement I didn't think about it, I simply felt gratitude in my heart, love and gratitude and I wanted to thank somebody. I turned around, and there was nobody to thank. So, I bowed. My body just went down. I bowed as if my body and heart just wanted to express a deep respect and gratitude for no 'reason'. (p 149)In an article on Haiku, the Irish poet Gabriel Rosenstock writes the following-
"Caroline Gourlay, one-time editor of Blyth Spirit, Journal of the British Haiku Society, recalls how deeply impressed she was with these lines found in The World of Zen, an anthology edited by Nancy Wilson Ross:I wonder if, with these lines, we are not on the cusp of the matter. Here is the moment when objectivity teeters on the brink of Brute Otherness and meaninglessness. Of course, the Calvinist does not imagine either that the geese intend to cast their reflection, nor that the water has a mind to reflect them. But the Calvinist resists totally a reductionist view which concludes that geese and water are brute facts, that there is no transcendent Mind to suffuse them with individual and mutual coherence. The 'Rock' fathered them. The meaning of geese and water is infinitely personal in Him. Their concrete reality is founded in Him. He, not blank chance, wounds them and heals them. ("That the bones which Thou hast broken may rejoice" Psalm 51:8).
The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection.
The water has no mind to receive their image."
Consider the ravens. Consider the geese. Consider the sparrows, indeed - "Not one of them falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows" (Matt 10 29-31) "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Whom be the glory for ever. Amen" (Romans 11:36).
And because all things are His, all things are also ours in Him -
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,"He catches the wise in their own craftiness"; and again, "The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come--all are yours. And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. (1 Cor 3:19-23)Dooyeweerd comments:
In the Biblical attitude of naïve experience the transcendent, religious dimension of its horizon is opened. The light of eternity radiates perspectively through all the temporal dimensions of this horizon and even illuminates seemingly trivial things and events in our sinful world...
It would be an illusion to suppose that a true Christian always displays this Biblical attitude in his pre-theoretical experience. Far from it. Because he is not exempt from the solidarity of the fall into sin, every Christian knows the emptiness of an experience of the temporal world which seems to be shut up in itself. He knows the impersonal attitude of a 'Man' in the routine of common life, and the dread of nothingness, the meaningless, if he tries to find himself again in a so-called existential isolation. He is acquainted with all this from personal experience, though he does not understand the philosophical analysis of this state of spiritual uprooting in Humanistic existentialism.
But the Christian whose heart is opened to the Divine Word-revelation knows that in this apostate experiential attitude he does not experience temporal things and events as they really are. i.e. as meaning pointing beyond and above itself to the true religious centre of meaning and to the true Origin.”And this from Calvin:
Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, III, p29
As soon as ever we depart from Christ, there is nothing, be it ever so gross or insignificant in itself, respecting which we are not necessarily deceived.Another bird-story (you need your French for this). In "Le Zen et les Oiseaux de Kentigern", the final chapter of his essay-book "La Figure du Dehors", Kenneth White discusses the work of his fellow Scot, Neil Gunn, who shared White's interest in Zen. White refers us to certain aspects of Gunn's novel "Highland River"in this regard, but adds that reference to Zen is most explicit in Gunn's essay entitled "Light". White's French reads:
(Jean Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, Argument)
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01/cvgn1-02.txt
Je ne saurais dire où Gunn avait puisé l'histoire qu'il appelle celle des "oies sauvages", mais la source originale est le Pi Yen Lu (Recueil de la falaise bleue), un des principaux livres du bouddhisme, très prisé notamment des adeptes zen. Il fut composé par un moine tch'an chinois, Hsueh-tu, au XIe siècle, et sous le titre Les Canards sauvages de Hyaku-jo, l'histoire dit ceci:White then quotes Gunn's commentary on this koan. Gunn states that koans are beyond definitive interpretation, but suggests that the master's physical gesture enables the disciple to transcend thought for the first time - his spirit is arrested, the void invades, light inundates, "et les oies sont devenues immortelles". White takes issue with this last point:
«Un jour, Ba tei-shi se promenait avec un de ses disciples, Hyaku-jo, quand ils virent sugir devant eux un canard sauvage. "Qu'est-ce que s'était?" demanda Ba Tei-shi. Et Hyaku-jo répondit: "Un canard sauvage." Ba Tei-shi: "Où est-il parti?" Hyaku-jo: "Il s'est envolé." Irrité par un réponse si banale, Ba Tei-shi tordit le nez à Hyaku-jo. Hyaku-jo cria de douleur. Ba Tei-shi dit alors: "Imbécile! Tu dis qu'il s'est envolé. Mais il n'a pas changé de place. »
[«Baso and Hyakujo were out walking one day when they saw a wild duck take flight in front of them. "What was that?"Baso said. "A wild duck" Hyakujo answered. Baso asked, "Where did it go?". Hyakujo replied, "It flew away". Annoyed by such a banal response, Baso twisted Hyakujo's nose. Hyakujo cried out in pain. Then Baso said "Imbecile! You say it flew away. But it has not changed position"»]
Si je dis que Gunn n'a pas tout à fait compris, c'est qu'en aucun cas on ne peut affirmer que les oies sauvages sont devenues immortelles. Il n'y a pas de place pour l'éternité dans la logique bouddhiste. Les "oies sauvages" de Gunn font bien plus penser au vase grec de Keats qu'aux espaces vides, parcourus d'instants fugitifs, du zen.In part 5 above we noted a curious verse in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. The Israelites have left Egypt and are struggling through the wilderness towards the Promised Land. Paul says -
Quand Ba Tei-shi posa sa question piège à propos des canards sauvages, Hyaku-jo aurait dû, non pas répondre, mais déjouer, non pas suivre la logique de la question, mais la briser, selon la logique négativiste bouddhiste...tandis qu'il lui aurait fallu montrer qu'il était capable de s'ouvrir au monde, et de voler "dans la vide", commes les canards sauvages, qui ne vont nulle part: ils vont, dans le vide (sans se poser de questions, ne demandant donc aucune réponse). Dans le bouddhisme, personne ne va nulle part, puisque la "personne" n'existe pas, et que le monde étant un tout, on ne peut aller "nulle part", il s'agit seulement d'être pleinement au monde, un monde vide de distinctions, un monde blanc. (Kenneth White, La Figure de Dehors, Grasset, Livre de Poche, 1978, pp 209-215)
"they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:5)This verse perhaps vies with any koan in defying adequate interpretation. It occurs to me, though, as suggested above, that in a real sense the verse impresses on us that the Homeland of the Israelite was not in fact over the horizon in Canaan. The real Homeland was with them all the time. It was always where they were. That Rock was Christ. And in the light of White's discussion here of the wild duck koan, and especially his observation that from the Buddhist point of view nobody goes anywhere ("personne ne va nulle part"), it strikes me all the more forcibly that there is a radical sense in which the Christian is always "at home", since Christ has promised never to leave us or forsake us. Moreover, in this same sense, the Christian is (paradoxically) most "at home" when life is experienced as a "wilderness journey". It is not without some awareness of irony that this observation is ventured in the context of Kenneth White's writings. He is a supreme exponent of a very engaging genre of literature which combines wilderness travel with sophisticated discussions regarding the meaning of existence (cf Pirsig). These often fascinating and informative discourses by White are nonetheless marked by a deep-rooted hostility to Christianity. For him, the latter is a nightmare - a nightmare we have endured far too long:
Enfant, grâce à une éducation religiouse écossaise, je baignais jusqu'au cou dans la Bible, dont je connaissais des chapitres par cœur. De là, étant donné le «fonds» dont je parle ici, une légère schizophrénie...Sans vouloir entrer dans une polémique quelconque, on me comprendra si je dis qu'a partir du moment où j'ai pu voir clair, j'ai préféré nettement «le bruit des vagues le matin sur les plages de galets blancs» à des passages de la Bible comme celui-ci (Apocalypse XIX, 12-16):From White's pro-shamanist perspective the coming of Christianity eclipsed (he might prefer a less neutral word like "suppressed") a more idyllic engagement of humanity with nature. Though he is magnanimous enough to quote the following hymn (attributed to St Patrick), White qualifies his endorsement by informing us that it expresses "un naturalisme cosmique bien rare dans le christianisme", and indeed that it evinces the saving grace (as it were) of a residual "sense «païen» du paysage":
«Ses yeux? Une flamme ardente. Sur sa tête, plusiers diadèmes. Inscrit sur lui, un nom qu'il est seul à connaître. Le manteau qui l'enveloppe est trempé de sang. Et son nom? Le Verbe de Dieu [...] De sa bouche sort une épée acérée pour en frapper les paîens. C'est lui qui les mènera avec un sceptre de fer. C'est lui qui foule dans la cuve le vin de l'ardente colère de Dieu, le Maître de tout. Un nom est inscrit sur son manteau et sur sa cuisse: Roi des rois et Seigneur des seigneurs.» English
Nous sommes en plein cauchemar. Et nous y sommes depuis trop longtemps. (Kenneth White, La Figure du Dehors, Grasset, Livres de Poche, 1978, p 26)
Je me lie aujourd'huiI cannot pass up the opportunity here of presenting the original ancient Gaelic of the above quote (A Thighearna, cluinn, agus beannaich ar cànan as ùr!):
à la puissance du ciel
à la lumière du soleil
à la blancheur de la neige
à la force du feu
à l'illumination de l'éclair
à la vitesse du vent
à la profondeur de la mer
à la stabilité de la terre
à la dureté des rochers...
Atomriug indiuIt will be clear by now that my own conviction is the reverse of White's, to whit that it is a residual paganism (e.g. Gnostic dualism) within Christianity which has often compromised its engagement with nature.
niurt nime
soilsi gréine
étrochtai snechtai (ésci)
áini thened
déini lóchet
lúaithi gaíthe
fudomnai maro
tairismigi thalman
cobsaidi ailech.http://wikisource.org/wiki/St._Patrick%27s_Breastplate
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