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Mystical Experience: The Realization of Dharma in Buddhism And the Union with God in ChristianityBy Khai Thien
Entering a religion or a tradition of faith
requires
encountering the mystical elements that appear right not only in the
essence of
that tradition, but also in its religious forms: rituals, meditation,
prayer,
chanting, etc. The fact is that without mystical elements serving as
the holy
inspirations—which always separate the sacred from the
profane—in the practice
of any religion, no spiritual growth would occur whatsoever. In such a
case, the
holy essence of religion would become an exclusive foundation for all
mystical
traditions. In his research on religious mysticism, Andrew Harvey
stated,
“Mystical experience is always available—like the
divine grace it is—to any who
really want it; and all human beings are given in the course of their
lives
glimpses into the heart of the real which they are free to pursue or
forget.”[1]
Likewise, if the essential element
of any religion is the sacredness
or—in Schmidt’s words—that thing which is
“paradoxically both known and hidden;
it is near at hand, manifest in things and known in human experience,
yet
transcendent, invisible, and indefinable,”[2]
then
mystical experience must always be an indispensable part in the soul of religions. For this reason,
study of mysticism is, indeed, essential for grasping the spirit of
mysticism
and religious traditions. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to
study the
common views on mysticism of two major religious traditions: Buddhism
and
Christianity. I. What Is Mysticism? Because of the impotence of human languages,
all efforts to describe mysticism
thus
far have failed to arrive at the soul
of mysticism or the mystic itself. However, what
we can do in order
to touch
the mystic
reality is attempt to clarify and identify the other part of it from
the human
perspective, identifying things or events of ineffability,
inexplicability, and
inexpressibility. Perhaps the best way to interpret a mystical event is
through
the mystic itself. In the words of Lao Tzu, this is “the mystery of mysteries”[3];
Bede
Griffiths called it the “presence
of
an almost unfathomable mystery.” From the
deepest level of human
consciousness, the mystic is “beyond name and beyond form; no
name or no form,
no dogma, philosophy, or set of rituals can ever express it
fully.”[4]
For
this reason, people can perceive the mystical not through the knowledge
of
logic and rationality, but through the inner experience, individually
and
personally. Throughout the history of both Eastern and
Western religions, mystic element in religions have never become un
fait de
masse (a mass event), as Marxists called it. To obtain
mystical experience,
as many mystical traditions suggest, is not to grasp it or chase it,
but to empty
our desires to do so. Lao Tzu says, “Thus,
constantly free of desire, one observes its wonder; and constantly
filled with
desire, one observes its manifestations.”[5]
In fact,
people cannot exactly interpret the nature of the mystic events that
have occurred
in human history—e.g., Moses received the Torah of Judaism
from God on Mount
Sinai and/or Moses saw a bush burning without being consumed; the only
thing we
can talk about those events is our mystical
experience mixed with emotional breaths. Shilomo Biderman,
in his
research, stressed that, “The unique quality of mystical
identity is expressed
in various ways. Sometimes it is expressed not by means of ecstasy but,
rather,
by means of devotion.”[6]
As a
result, the only foundation for recognizing mysticism is the
“inner core of
mystic experience” with which each individual perceives
reality differently. In
explaining the essence of individually mystical experiences, Shilomo
asserted,
“Having a mystical experience is having something that is
exclusively one’s
own.”[7]
However, the following definitions[8]
provide
a better knowledge of how important we are in searching for the true
meaning of
any mystical experience. According to Another specific feature of mysticism that should
be mentioned herein is the basic difference between Eastern and Western
religions: monistic versus theistic mysticism. Scholars group Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Daoism (religions of the East) into monistic mysticism;
they
named the other group, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
(religions of
the West), theistic mysticism. Based on this classification, two major
trends
of mysticism have concerned the Eastern and Western mystical traditions
the
most: non-dualistic mysticism (Eastern) and dualistic mysticism
(Western). From
these two orientations, we will delve further into an initial
comparative
mysticism between Buddhism and Christianity. II. Buddha, Jesus, and the Mystical Experiences Unquestionably, both the Buddha and Jesus were
originally born as human beings; both experienced deep suffering and
happiness
of “human destiny” before finally, after an
extremely difficult course of
spiritual training, reaching the highest state of being absolutely free—whether this
state is called nirvana or the union
with God. The unique feature of both the Buddha and Jesus is that they
obtained
ultimate perfection that goes beyond all ordinary capacities for human
beings
and, with this ultimate perfection, became uniquely known as the
Buddha, the person of Enlightenment,
and the
son of God, the only begotten son of
God the Father, respectively. Other than this, we know
relatively little
about them except for their words as recorded in the Buddhist Sutras
and
Christian Bible. However, the point is that, without certain
mystical events—such as nativity, enlightenment, and nirvana
in the life of the
Buddha and crucifixion and resurrection in the life of
Jesus—that happened and
permanently transformed the person
and the life of both the
Buddha
and Jesus, we would perhaps not have so-called mysticism today.
Moreover, it is
the very mystical elements that retained the whole structure of the
castle of
religion—the religion of Buddha or that of
Jesus—and made it last thousands of
years without any interference from the profane rationalism. Then what
are the
essentially mystical events that made the life of Buddha and Jesus
different
from ordinary people? What mystical events could be used as the basis
upon
which we can count in order to reconnect or rebuild the divine
presentations
that represent our mystical traditions—both East and West? III. Enlightenment and
Resurrection Prince Siddhartha
would definitely
not have become a Buddha if the moment of enlightenment had not
occurred as he
was deep in meditation under the Bodhi tree. This determined moment in
the
Buddha’s life is in fact the most crucial point that gave
rise to the whole
history of Buddhism. Many Buddhist canonical texts confirm that the
prince
claimed himself the Buddha only after his achievement of Bodhi, and
that this
spiritual achievement is so important that it made him transcend all
limitations of the human world and human senses. At that point, he
ceased to be
a human being, although he still lived with the five skandhas
(psychophysical aggregates) as any ordinary person does.
In partially expressing the mystical event of the Buddha’s
enlightenment, D.T.
Suzuki stated that, “In
Enlightenment, there are
heavenliness and genuine sense of transcendence. Things of earth go
through
renovation and a refreshing transformation. A new sun rises above the
horizon
and the whole universe is revealed.”[9]
A
record in Brahmajala Sutta
described
the inner experience of the Buddha’s enlightenment: …Of these, Brethren, the
Tathagata knows that these speculations thus arrived at, thus insisted
on, will
have such and such a result, such and such an effect on the future
condition of
those who trust in them. That does he know, and he knows also other
things far
beyond (far better than those speculations): and having that knowledge
he is
not puffed up, and thus untarnished he has in his own heart realized
the way of
escape from them, has understood, as they really are, the rising up and
passing
away of sensations, their sweet taste, their danger, how they cannot be
relied
on: and not grasping after any [of those things man are eager for], he
the
Tathagata is quite set free…[10]
Furthermore, in Digha
Nikaya, the Buddha explained that
his experience of enlightenment was in fact the highest realization of
dharma (yathabhutam)—the
absolute truth or universal
law. He emphasized that “the
Dharma […]
was to be directly perceived (sanditthika), beyond
limits of time (akalika),
to be personally experienced (ehipassika),
altogether persuasive (opanayika),
and to be understood each for himself by the wise (paccattam
veditabbo
vinnuhi).”[11]
Clearly the dharma must be intuited by oneself and through
one’s own efforts;
people cannot understand the dharma by applying analytical or logical
approaches. Suzuki, in his Essays in Zen Buddhism,
asserted that “the
Buddha had an insight of higher order into the nature of things than
that which
could be obtained through ordinary logical reasoning is evidenced
everywhere
even in the so-called Hinayana literature.”[12]
Obviously, anything related to the
Buddha’s enlightened event is considered Buddhism’s
greatest mysticism; the
same can be said of the life Jesus upon his resurrection. For almost
all
Christians, the crucifixion of Jesus is the most important
event—either human or
divine—to open a new door of faith to his followers. Jesus
himself accepted
death on the cross in order to redeem humanity’s sins. Since
then, the cross
and his crucifixion have been affective symbols for Christians, viewed
respectfully
not only as the major historical event of Christianity, but also as the
Holy
symbols for their beliefs. The fact is that the climax of Jesus
Christ’s life
is his sacrifice on the cross; for Christians, the death of Jesus
resulted not from
crime, but from salvation. The question, then, is that if God
did not raise Jesus from the
dead
on the third day after his crucifixion
and/or Jesus
himself did not come back to life and/or those who went
to anoint the
body found the tomb empty, etc., then his last departure on the cross
would not
have had any special meaning in the promised context of a religion. As
such, his
death would be considered an ordinary crucifixion often applied to
criminals at
the time, no more and no less. Yet the case herein is different. D.T.
Suzuki
argued that “Crucifixion [of Jesus Christ] has no meaning
whatsoever unless it
is followed by resurrection.”[13]
Furthermore, Schmidt emphasized that Christians view the resurrection
of Jesus
Christ in two ways: 1) the physical body literally came back to life
and 2) Christians
believe that they will be given a new spiritual body free from the
limitations
of corporeal bodies. Theologically, believing in the resurrection in
either
sense leads to the survival of the whole psychophysical organism that
provides
the maintenance of personal and social relationships—both in
this life and the
afterlife.[14]
Undoubtedly,
it is not Christ’s death, but his resurrection that provided
the raison d’être
for the existence of the entire history of Christianity. On a deeper level of meaning, based on Saint
Paul’s assertion that, “If
Christ be not risen, then
is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain…Ye are yet
in sins,” Suzuki clarifies
that “The crucifix must have a double sense: one
individualistic and the other
humanistic; the first sense symbolizes the destruction of the
individual ego,
while the second stands for the doctrine of vicarious atonement whereby
all our
sins are atoned for making Christ die for them.” Suzuki
subsequently provides a
particular conclusion to the resurrection of Jesus: “In Adam
we die, in Christ
we live.”[15] In either case—the
Buddha’s enlightenment
or Jesus Christ’s resurrection—it is interesting
that both spiritual
achievements strictly indicate that the enlightenment and the
resurrection,
respectively, are unique events in the history of human religions. No
other
duplication occurs, be it with the Buddha or Jesus; furthermore, their
spiritual achievements transcended all human faculties of knowledge.
These
events have perpetually become the greatest mystical facts in human
history. IV. The Realization
of Dharma and the Interestingly, people may discover a
common justification in the
meaning
of both the Buddha’s enlightenment and Jesus
Christ’s resurrection: both can be
expressed as the spiritual journey
of returning home. The hymn of victory in Buddhist
literature, through which the Buddha proclaimed his own enlightenment,
recorded
the voice of the absolute freedom
of the Buddha: Through birth and rebirth’s
endless round,/Seeking in vain, I hastened on, To find who framed this
edifice,/What misery!—birth incessantly! O builder! I discovered
thee!/This fabric thou shall ne’er rebuild! The raters are all broken
now,/And pointed roof demolished lies! This
mind has demolition reached,/And seen the last of all desire![16] The Buddha’s long and
difficult road to enlightenment
is indeed a journey of returning to his own house—the
mind—in which the light
of enlightenment, once switched on, expelled the darkness of ignorance
that remained
there for thousands of year, through birth and rebirth. In other words,
it is
this enlightenment that led to the end goal of the Buddha after his
long voyage
of purification of the mind: the end
of all sufferings and the last of all desires. The
Buddha’s
enlightenment, therefore, is understood as the individual’s
inner discovery of
his own original Buddhahood—the true mind—and/or
the great realization of dharma—the
ultimate truth. Similarly, Jesus Christ’s
resurrection
is also considered as the return trip to the father’s
kingdom, the union with
God. The following words are noteworthy: Jesus lifted up his eyes to
heaven, and said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy son,
that thy Son also
may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life
eternal,
that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast
sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work
which thou
gavest me to do…” (John 17: I-6). From this text, it becomes evident
that the only
difference between the Buddha’s enlightenment and Jesus
Christ’s resurrection
is Buddha’s going home
in a non-dualistic way—i.e.,
he did not
unite with any other entity,
except realizing his own Buddhahood or his own original mind.
Meanwhile, Jesus
Christ’s returning home followed a dualistic
path on which he actually united with
his father in the V. Reincarnation and Rebirth The concepts of reincarnation
and rebirth in Buddhism and
Christianity
are quite different, although both share the same theme: embodiment in a new form of life. In
Buddhism, reincarnation indicates the cycle of life (samsara)
in which a person or a sentient being is born and reborn
successively until he or she reaches enlightenment, the highest
liberation from the circle of
birth and death that transcends
all phenomenal beings, all human senses, and all consciousness of time,
space,
and causation. As such,
enlightenment means to put an
end to the operation of the samsara
and/r to stop being reborn—except for a
Bodhisattva’s vow of rebirth (i.e., a
Bodhisattva who voluntarily wishes to reenter the world of birth and
death in
order to help sentient beings liberate themselves). Otherwise, no
meaning exists
in the concept of reincarnation. However, the concept
of rebirth in Christianity
carries within it a special meaning that seems to represent the major
theistic
religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Christians believe that
each
person has only two lives: this life and the afterlife. This life is
limited, whereas
the afterlife is eternal. The idea of rebirth, therefore, is closely
connected to
the existence of the afterlife—namely, the union with God.
Sultan Valad, Runi’s
son, said, “A human being must be born twice, once from his
mother and again
from his own body and his own existence. The body is like an egg and
the
essence of man must become a bird in that egg through the warm of love,
and
then he must go beyond his body and fly in the eternal world of the
soul.”[17]
Obviously, the idea of rebirth in the heart of Christians, from the
beginning,
is identical with the theological theme of Jesus Christ’s
resurrection. Rebirth
here can be expressed as hope, love, “good news,”
and the end goal of religious
faith. The Bible states, “No one
can
enter the kingdom of heaven without being born of water and spirit.
What is
born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit is spirit.
Do not be
astonished that I said to you, ‘Ye must be born again’”
(John 3: 5-7). Consequently, if reincarnation in
Buddhism is defined as entering or being in a circle of birth and
death, the
embodiment of samsara, then rebirth
in theistic religions—particularly Christianity—is
verified as the end goal of
the spiritual fate: the union with God as a way to reach the eternal
Kingdom. Furthermore,
based on these concepts, time in Buddhism is explained as a cycle,
whereas in
Christianity it is commonly described as a straight line from alpha to
omega.
In the heart of the liberal, however, the idea of time—in
both Buddhism and
Christianity—is entirely destroyed by the doctrine of the
present God and the present
Buddha. In this regard, Meister Eckhart said, “God
the Father and the Son have nothing to do with time. Generation is
not in time, but at the end and limit of time. …Time gone a
thousand years ago
is now as present and as near to God as this very instant. The soul who
is in this
present now, in her the Father bears his one-begotten Son and in that
same
birth the soul is born back into God” (Evans
209).[18]
In
the same way, the Buddhist teachings of the triple body (Trikaya:
Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya,
and Nirmanakaya) emphasize
in particular the eternal and existential body of the Buddha: the true
nature
of the Buddha, which is identical to reality and the essential laws of
the
universe and is timeless, permanent, devoid of characteristics, and
free from
duality. At any rate, the concepts of reincarnation and rebirth sketch
out the
starting point and the end target for our spiritual voyage; what we can
know
about the mystic is always limited in the frame of the beginning or the
ending. Conclusion The great Islamic mystic Runi said that, “Generation upon generation have passed, my friend, but these meanings are constant and everlasting. The water in the stream may have changed many times, but the reflection of the moon and the stars remains the same.”[19] In discussing mystical experiences, we are also commenting on the mystic because, thus far—since we have not reached the point of enlightenment or union with God—we cannot truly understand this realm. However, the realization of dharma, union with God, resurrection, and reincarnation always provide great inspiration to push us toward what we do not know or have not yet learned. [1] Andrew Harvey, ed. The Essential Mystics (New York: Harpercollins Publishers, 1997) x. [2] Roger Schmidt, Exploring
Religion, 2nd
ed. (Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth, 1988) 62. [3] Tao
Te
Ching; see [4] [5] Tao Te Ching, verse 1. [6] Shlomo
Biderman, “Mystical Identity and
Scriptural Justification,” Mysticism
and Sacred Scripture,
ed. Steven T. Katz ( [7] Ibid.
69. [8] Notes from Dr. Kenneth A. Locke’s lectures, Uwest, Spring 2005. [9] Daisetz
T.
Suzuki, Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist ( [10] The Dialogues of the Buddha, Sacred
Books of The Buddhists, vol. II; see D. T. Suzuki,
Essay in Zen Buddhism
[11] Suzuki,
Essay in Zen Buddhism,
61. [12] Ibid. 62. [13] Suzuki, Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist, 149. [14] Schmidt 283. [15] Suzuki, Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist, 148-149. [16] Dhammapada Sutta, verses 153-154; see Suzuki, Essay in Zen Buddhism, 66. [17] [18] Extracted from “Meister Eckhart and Buddhism”; see Suzuki, Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist, 5. [19]
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