Category Archives: Spirituality

Plotinus, Ennead I.6.9 on Spiritual Beauty

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This was our final reading at the recent Jesuit Retreat on the Rule of Augustine at the Art Monastery. From the Enneads of Plotinus:

9. And this inner vision, what is its operation? Newly awakened it is all too feeble to bear the ultimate splendour. Therefore the Soul must be trained- to the habit of remarking, first, all noble pursuits, then the works of beauty produced not by the labour of the arts but by the virtue of men known for their goodness: lastly, you must search the souls of those that have shaped these beautiful forms.

But how are you to see into a virtuous soul and know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself and look. Continue reading →

Monk Manifesto » Abbey for the Arts

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[Part of the Daily Lectio series, named after the Benedictine tradition of lectio divina, "divine reading." For instructions and background on the series, click here. Subscribe to Daily Lectio. Send comments or suggested readings to nathan@artmonastery.org]

With the previous post in mind, I invite you to meditate on this, Paintner’s Monk Manifesto: Continue reading →

Christine Valters Paintner is an artmonk

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[part of the "__ is an artmonk" series]

One of the Art Monastery’s spiritual teachers, Dr. Joel Levey, just forwarded me a link to the Abbey of the Arts, the “virtual monastery” of Christine Valters Paintner OblSB, PhD, REACE.

What I read on Paintner’s site resonates with so many of the conversations we have been having at the Art Monastery Project for the past three years (not to mention, this morning). More importantly, it gives those conversations acute clarity and voice. It gives me, in the words of Joel’s partner Michelle, “truth bumps.”

This feels deeply timely for us artmonks. We just wrapped a 4-day visioning retreat and are stepping into a 7-day silent Jesuit retreat on the Rule of St. Augustine this Saturday. We’ve been sharing resources on various monastic rules (of Augustine, Benedict, etc.), with a view to concocting our very own Art Monastic Rule.

Did I mention that she has written books called:

  • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness,
  • Lectio Divina: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
  • The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom?

Or that she is offering a course called ”Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist” that begins January 17th 2011, the day we wrap up our second Artmonk Retreat in Joshua Tree, CA (which is being led by Joel & Michelle Levey)?

The Cloud of Unknowing, “in whiche a soule is onyd with god”

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Partially in order to a brush up on my middle english (rusty since reading Chaucer in college), I’ll be working through text of the medieval Cloud of Unknowing, one of the sources of the practice of Centering Prayer. I’ll let you know what I find.

HERE BYGYNNITH A BOOK OF CONTEMPLACYON, THE WHICHE IS CLEPYD THE CLOWDE OF UNKNOWYNG, IN THE WHICHE A SOULE IS ONYD WITH GOD.

Nuggets

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Ken Wilber, in Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-Present Awareness:

Many people have stern objections to “mysticism” or “transcendentalism” of any sort, because they think it somehow denies this world, or hates this earth, or despises the body and the senses and its vital life, and so on. While that may be true of certain dissociated (or merely Ascending) approaches, it is certainly not the core understanding of the great Nondual mystics, from Plotinus and Eckhart in the West to Nagarjuna and Lady Tsogyal in the East.

on Boomeritis Buddhism:

But as authentic as those states truly are—and nobody is denying that!—they are immediately snapped up and interpreted by the green meme [postmodernism/pluralism].  Consequently, the person then interprets Buddhism—or simply his or her own spiritual experiences—to mean that authentic spirituality must be anti-hierarchical, relativistic, primarily a matter of participatory sharing, focused on caring dialogue, a democratic jettisoning of any ranking between teacher and student (‘the sangha is the buddha’), denying any grading and judging, encouraging a multiplicity and diversity of equally valid truths, asserting a plurality of spiritual ultimates, de-emphasizing enlightenment since any ‘higher’ states might marginalize somebody, seeing the spiritual teacher as merely an egalitarian friend with whom we walk the nonhierarchical spiritual path, hand in hand as equals, dispensing with intense discipline and denying that awakening is anything other than doing the laundry with some sort of awareness….”

theFWD submission #3

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[I'm not the first person to feel that spirituality is a bit of a Chinese finger trap, but I haven't heard it posed in game language per se.  For the Future We Deserve collaborative book project.]

Spirituality as a game

“My advice to you is not to undertake the spiritual path. It is too difficult, too long, and it is too demanding. What I would suggest, if you haven’t already begun, is to go to the door, ask for your money back, and go home now. This is not a picnic. It is really going to ask everything of you and you should understand that from the beginning. So it is best not to begin. However, if you do begin, it is best to finish.”

—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Viewing spirituality itself as an evolving, self-perpetuating game may be a potentially useful perspective for a secular monastic tradition (which itself is very much like a game [see "Art Monastery as game"])

Holding a spiritual view and being skilled at distinguishing between the views and goals of others are important skills; some views and goals are more favorable, helpful, or accurate than others.

Should you begin, upon surveying the world’s spiritual traditions by reading texts and attending lectures and meditation retreats for several years, to view spirituality as a pursuit of something you already are, something you already have, you begin to wonder: well why can’t I experience it? Why am I not aware of it? Where can I look or the absolute, God, bodhichitta, pure unborn non-dual awareness, wisdom, compassion, mindfulness, gratefulness, truth, if that’s what I already am? Any goal you might be able to articulate or name is an illusion, you begin to feel, because you immediately are making it something you are not. You begin to desire some kind of relief, some kind of fruition, you want to reach some conclusion, yet you’re trapped in language games, contradiction and paradox.

Very quickly you realize that, despite yourself, you have moved from having spiritual views to having spiritual goals. When you make that transition—from holding spiritual view to having a spiritual goal—you have entered the Game of Spirituality.

The primary goal of the game of spirituality, the only way to win, and the only essential rule, is to see through the game, to recognize the game as a “game”.

Secondary rules are designed to help you see through the game, to get out of your own way. The rules are regularly argued about by all the players. Thus, some rules will be experimented with, and seen as superior or inferior to others.

Secondary goals to spirituality may include things like finding more people to play with, deepening your connection and alignment with your fellow players, crafting better secondary rules or creating more beautiful expressions of the game, but only as long as they serve the primary goal. Secondary goals are not valuable in themselves, but only in relation to the rest of the game, the play, and the fun.

The opponent is your own sense of alienation from the goal.

Winning often happens as soon as you’ve given up playing, or as if by the “grace of God”. Having won the game, a reasonable response is to craft more helpful, better secondary goals & rules. You are still playing until you can see through the game, constantly.

Thus (to use Roger Caillois’s criteria for what constitutes a game), spiritual pursuit is considered a (rather esoteric) sort of fun for a finite period of time, in which we discover, create and follow rules, accomplished nothing useful and all the while acknowledge the illusory quality of the whole affair.

9/11 and Compassion: We Need It Now More Than Ever – From Karen Armstrong – Compassionate Action Network

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via Jon Ramer, “9/11 and Compassion: We Need It Now More Than Ever- From Karen Armstrong” – Compassionate Action Network.

In today’s Huffington Post from Karen Armstrong:

The anniversary of 9/11 reminds us why we need the Charter for Compassion. It should be an annual summons to compassionate action. The need is especially apparent this year. In the United States, we have witnessed an upsurge of anti-Muslim feeling that violates the core values of that nation. The controversy surrounding the community centre near Ground Zero, planned by our dear friends Imam Feisal Rauf and Daisy Khan (who were among the earliest supporters and partners of the Charter) has inspired rhetoric that shames us all. And now we have the prospect of the Quran burning proposed by a Christian pastor, who seems to have forgotten that Jesus taught his followers to love those they regard as enemies, to respond to evil with good, and to turn the other cheek when attacked, and who died forgiving his executioners.

If we want to preserve our humanity, we must make the compassionate voice of religion and morality a vibrant and dynamic force in our polarised world. We can no longer afford the barbarism of hatred, contempt and disgust. At the same time as we are so perilously divided, we are drawn together electronically, economically and politically more closely than ever before. A Quran burning, whenever it is held (it appears to have been delayed for questionable reasons by the pastor behind it), would endanger American troops in Afghanistan and send shock waves of distress throughout the Muslim world. In an age when, increasingly, small groups will have powers of destruction that were previously the preserve only of the nation-state, respect and compassion are now crucial for our very survival. We have to learn to make a place for the other in our minds and hearts; any ideology that inspires hatred, exclusion and division is failing the test of our time. Hatred breeds more hatred, violence more violence. It is time to break this vicious cycle.

In response to the prospect of a Quran burning, some people planned readings of the sacred Quran. Others are organizing interfaith gatherings on September 11. Each person who has affirmed the Charter, each one of our partners and associates, will know how best to respond in his or her own community. It is an opportunity to protest against the hatred that is damaging us all; to sit and do nothing is not an option. Instead of looking at one another with hostility, let us look at the suffering that we are seeing in so many parts of the world — not least in Pakistan, where millions of people have been victims of the flooding. On September 11, let us all try to find something practical to do that can, in however small a way, bring help and relief to all those in pain, even — and perhaps especially — those we may regard as enemies. We are all neighbours in the global village and must learn to live together in harmony, compassion and mutual respect.

Imam Feisal Rauf is a Sufi. Over the centuries, Sufis, the mystics of Islam, have developed an outstanding appreciation of other faith traditions. It is quite common for a Sufi poet to cry in ecstasy that he is no longer a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew and that he is at home equally in a synagogue, mosque, temple or church, because once you have glimpsed the immensity of the divine, these limited, human distinctions fall away into insignificance. We need that spirit today — perhaps especially near Ground Zero. Here I would like to add some words of the great thirteenth-century Sufi philosopher Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi, which I have found personally inspiring:

Do not attach yourself in an exclusive manner to any one creed, so that you disbelieve all the rest: if you do this, you will miss much good; nay, you will fail to realize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for He says, “Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah” (Quran 2.109). Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would not do if he were just but his dislike is based on ignorance.

It is time to combat the ignorance that inspires hatred and fear. We have seen the harm religious chauvinism can do; now let us bear witness to the power of compassion.

Links for August 29th 2010

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Monos,

  • “a non profit organization that is concerned with the current engagement between monastic culture, spirituality and contemporary society,”
  • “an attempt to offer a facility for the on-going dialogue between monastic spirituality, society, culture and church, and to begin to ask serious questions concerning the relationship between Secular Monasticism, Church and society, both historically and contemporarily. Monos also provides a facility for individuals and groups to explore monastic spirituality in terms of a lived Christian experience.” Offers retreats.

Monastic Matrix -

  • “A scholarly resource for the study of women’s religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE”

A History of Monastic Spirituality

  • from a Benedictine perspective, gives a primarily western account, but includes a pre-history and discussion of eastern traditions
  • A discussion of the some of the elements of monasticism
    • [Separateness] “The first thing that stands out is that these various forms of para-Christian monastic life have a tendency to set themselves apart, to separate themselves from the world in isolation from the rest of men. This isolation often has an exterior sign, a wall, a reserved enclosure, access to certain buildings being reserved to the ascetics. Yet frequently they insist rather on the cloister of the heart.”
    • [Celibacy, Renunciation] “We also find ascetic practices such as celibacy, at least temporarily, and poverty understood as detachment. These practices are meant to encourage interior vigilance.”
    • [Spirituality] “Finally, the third essential element: mystical aspiration that is to say a profound sense of the Absolute and a desire for communion with this absolute reality. This is perhaps the deepest foundation of the monastic life, for it is the source of a keen awareness of the radical insufficiency of this changing world. It is the driving power of the two other elements: separation from the world and ascetic practices.”

Benedictine Oblates

  • “While the Oblate does not take vows and is not bound to take up new religious practices, being a Benedictine Oblate brings about a very real, living relationship with the monastery of oblation. It will always involve a sharing in prayer with the community and usually entails more practical assistance in one way or another. The Oblate will seek to live a life that is marked by a certain balance of prayer and work, a striving for peace and a commitment to others in charity. It is a call to holiness and to witness to Christ by word and example as a member of a particular monastic family.”