Why Orthodox Catholics Look to Zen

Hans Urs von Balthasar maintained that there have been two main competitors to the Catholic Church’s claims to universality in the contemporary world: Communism and Asian meditative religion, notably Buddhism. He saw the former’s appeal as biblical in origin: Marx was more Hebrew prophet than German phil­osopher (for his concern was not with “Being,” or its being forgotten, but with social justice); he was a prophet gone astray, but one who could remind Christians of much they had tended to forget.

A relative of mine who had been at one time a high-ranking official in Communist Poland smiled wryly at me when I saw him in 1984: The Catholic Church as personified in the Pope, he held, had stolen the Commu­nists’ thunder. Indeed, in much of the world the Church has become the voice for human rights and a just economic order. Although this is no novel situation for the Church, the “prophetic” side has clearly come to the fore in ways older Catholics could not have imag­ined when their lives tended to revolve around novenas. Perhaps the struggle over a truly Catholic vision of social justice represents the birth pains of a very important reassimilation of biblical truths to which the tradition itself had become somewhat blind and which it was goaded to remember by an ostensibly anti-Christian movement. Certainly Communism was not the monolithic monster, the anti-Church, it had appeared to be earlier in this century.

As Communism dies, the second alterna­tive vision remains. We have been reminded of the prophetic in our religion, but the con­templative (the spiritual, the mystical) has lan­guished for decades. The atrocities of the post-Vatican II iconoclasts may not have been stopped, let alone repaired, but there are powerful voices in the Church today that are trying to remind us that the Church did not begin in 1968. Moreover, there has been no dearth of interest in matters spiritual in the surrounding culture.

At the pop level, things like astrology, the New Age movement, and the occult surround us. The most important and respectable element here is the Buddhist tradition, particu­larly Zen. Once the stuff of Beat poets, ver­sions of Zen have found a place in Catholic spiritual writing and retreat work. Of course, it is unfortunate that a tradition as profound as Buddhism should be lumped together with such things as the occult, though one need only go to an American bookstore to find all manner of solid spiritual reading lumped to­gether with the bizarre. No less a figure than the late Jesuit Cardinal Henri de Lubac held Buddhism to be the highest mysticism created by man.

Zen is the essence of Buddhism, which the Church, most notably in the Second Vat­ican Council, urges her children to respect. At the same time, in the encounter of East and West there is great danger that the discussion will be surrendered to “experts” so aware of detail and nuance that the fact that we are considering different forests is lost in the study of similar trees.

With that in mind, I want to ask: Why would Catholics look East? In particular, what could orthodox Catholics in America legitimate­ly seek to assimilate in these meditative tradi­tions? Three possibilities suggest themselves: first, a traditional wisdom, near the heart of which is a traditional discipline; second, expe­rience, especially silence; third, a technique, one which is nonpersonal. Let’s look at each of these separately.

Not too long ago I listened to a large group of women retreatants singing a modern religious song of the sort one hears endlessly these days. Written, no doubt, within the past 20 years, it is a piece of that resigned senti­mentality that is characteristic of “easy-listen­ing music.” Although pleasant enough, it is spiritual Wonder Bread: It utterly lacks roots, depth, sustenance. It is all right as a starter, to open the heart to prayer. But unless fed by some solid food, say Gregorian Chant, serious seekers will turn elsewhere. At the same re­treat house, I entered a chapel to see other re­treatants praying. One was on the floor, an­other poured onto a chair; the spirit was one of slouch. In contrast, Zen offers something that has been around for centuries, and it does so in a disciplined way.

Secondly, meditative religion offers silence. The practice of exterior silence penetrates in­wardly. Given the overwhelming proliferation of words today, and the noise which Thomas Merton has called the “demon of our age,” si­lence, while free, is no cheap commodity. Moreover, the stance of silence, of reverent attention without self-assertion, is inherently ennobling.

Thirdly, a technique, a method, is offered. Although some teachers would no doubt hold that technique, in its highest reaches, might be discarded, it is very much at the heart of the practice of meditation. As such, it would seem to be perfectly adapted to modern, technical consciousness. That Asian meditation is imper­sonal and technical is crucial for its appeal to Westerners, who are often fleeing the personal into the impersonal and who know no way of being in the world other than through technique.

Thus, the hunger for traditional wisdom and discipline, the weariness with chatter and the longing for silence, and the need for a technique that is nonpersonal are met in med­itation, notably Buddhist. As for the first two basic elements, we must seriously ask if to­day’s Church adequately addresses these needs of the heart. Is it not precisely these elements — traditional wisdom combined with a prayer­ful, reverent atmosphere (silence) — that those serious Catholics heartbroken by the revolution in the Church find most missing? If so, then perhaps it is understandable that the “wisdom of Asia” has been filling our modern gap. God works in strange ways. (Remember that the Church from her earliest period engaged the wisdom of the gentiles — what the Fathers called the “treasures of the Egyptians.”) The third element, technique, is more problematic for the Christian, but its resolution could eventually lead to a correct assimilation of the first two.

The Bible is emphatically personal, and knows nothing of any technique. The very word “meditation” appears rarely in Scripture, as opposed to “prayer,” which is perhaps something quite different. Zen, with its love of nature, fits naturally into, say, California, with its beautiful redwood groves. But child of the forests that I am, in all this I cannot help but see the “sacred groves” against which the prophets of Israel stormed. There is a tendency in modern Christianity, confronted with other religious traditions and wanting to be respect­ful of all, to presume a “godhead” behind the God who has revealed Himself definitively in Jesus Christ. But for the orthodox Christian, Jesus is not one prophet among others, one “child of God” among the rest, even if some­what special. Rather, Jesus is the revelation of God, and the full revelation of God: He is God. That is, Jesus, the one who came to earth, who spoke with people, the one who risen ate a fish, relates to us as a person among people, and relates to the Father as a Son. This relatedness is not something to be tran­scended, not some “allegory” or “metaphor.” Rather, the personal relation, in faith and love, is the heart of reality for the Christian. To attempt to bring a technique into this relation, as the attempt to bring a machine into love, is bizarre.

Thus, no matter how badly abused the concept of “personality” has been in Christiani­ty, no matter how weary we are of personhood, we must rediscover the personal. We who know so well how to deal with machines — and with all creation lower than us — are proving ourselves utterly incapable of living together in any way that is congruent with the bulk of human experience, let alone with Scripture and Catholic tradition. For example, all the sex and gender problems of our society are the raw side of this profound wound to our humanity. Personal relation in love is the craving no method will still.

Anchored in the personal relation to God which gives the human being his infinite dig­nity and worth, we can turn to the other hun­gers that are poorly addressed in today’s Church. First, we certainly are heirs to a tradi­tion, a wisdom, and a discipline, but they do not seem to carry themselves. Perhaps the fact that they tended to carry themselves led to great abuses which in their turn led to exces­sive reactions from which we are suffering today. No matter: The abuses are long gone, the excesses remain. That which carries the tradition, the wisdom, and the discipline for the Catholic is not a “what” but a “who,” and a “who” who is a community of persons — the Blessed Trinity — which overflows into the communion of saints. Our entrance into this community has nothing to do with sociological models or feeling good about whoever we may be. We enter into this community through the wounds of the man Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen. It is through His heart that we live, and through His eyes that we are directed to savor holy tradition, to seek His wisdom (which is ultimately “folly to the world”), and to live the discipline of one who shares the mission of Jesus in the world.

Secondly, as to the beautiful silence of the meditative schools, this is something crucially needed by the Christian today. And it is here — and really only here — that technique can help. Even as there is much to be gained from using a heater to render a room comfortable enough in which to pray, so there is much to be gained from the recollection Asian tech­niques offer to the one who would pray, that is, listen for the Word of God and attempt to respond. Most people today live in a world so utterly scattered, so cut off from God’s creation and not least from themselves, that recollection is no mean feat. Meditative technique is a powerful tool to aid in the recollection, and in the inner silencing which contemplation craves. Yet our faith is in the Word, a Word who is eternal and personal: a dialogical Word. We are silent in order to hear what the Christmas hymn calls the “silent Word.” American fundamentalist religiosity notwith­standing, the Word of God is not like a used-car ad that comes blaring over the radio. The Word of God comes to us like a deer that emerges from the mist in the forest where you have been sitting without moving a muscle. If you are still and gentle enough, you will not scare the deer away. Of course, our deer is also the Hound of Heaven who relentlessly pursues us. But we approach God in paradox, and so He is both Word and Silence, the One who will not be silenced, and yet the one who does not shout or raise His voice.

Thus, in the encounter with Asian tradi­tion today, Catholics have much to gain. But, it is not really that these traditions will give us things that are totally unknown to us. Perhaps Asian traditions of meditation can give us a spur to recall that which is best in our own faith, to contemplate better the beloved Face of the Word and approach Him with true love for our neighbor. Although we must be on guard against any syncretism — the God of Israel is the only Bridegroom for His Church — we have nothing to fear from the righteous among the neighbors of His Israel. After all, though there is one Shepherd, He claimed to have other sheep not of this flock (Jn. 10:16). Let us listen for the voice of the Shepherd, then, wherever it resounds, while prudently avoid­ing thieves and robbers.