Lankavatara Sutra
In other words intense concentration on any image (even if the image be a sacred symbol, like the lotus) or on any idea, from the idea of hell to the idea of some desirable virtue or its apotheosis in one of the divine attributes, is always concentration on something produced by one’s own mind. Sometimes, in mortified and recollected persons, the art of concentration merges into the state of openness and alert passivity, in which true contemplation becomes possible. But sometimes the fact that the concentration is on a product of the concentrator’s own mind results in some kind of false or incomplete contemplation. Suchness, or the divine Ground of all being, reveals itself to those in whom there is no ego-centredness (nor even any alter-ego-centredness) either of will, imagination, feeling or intellect.
I say, then, that introversion must be rejected, because extraver-sion must never be admitted; but one must live continuously in the abyss of the divine Essence and in the nothingness of things; and if at times a man finds himself separated from them (the divine Essence and created nothingness) he must return to them, not by introversion, but by annihilation.
Benet ofCanfield
Introversion is the process condemned in the Lankavatara Sutra as the way of the Yogin, the way that leads at worst to idolatry, at best to a partial knowledge of God in the heights within, never to complete knowledge in the fullness without as well as within, Annihilation (of which Father Benet distin-
guishes two kinds, passive and active) is for the Mahayanist the ‘state of imagelessness’ in contemplation and, in active life, the state of total non-attachment, in which eternity can be apprehended within time, and samsara is known to be one with nirvana.
And therefore, if thou wilt stand and not fall, cease never in thine intent, but beat evermore on this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and thy God, with a sharp dart of longing love. And loathe to think of aught under God. And go not thence for anything that befalleth. For this only is that work that destroyeth the ground and the root of sin. . . .
Yea, and what more? Weep thou never so much for sorrow of thy sins, or of the passion of Christ, or have thou never so much thought of the joys of heaven, what may it do to thee? Surely much good, much help, much profit, much grace will it get thee. But in comparison of this blind stirring of love, it is but little that it doth, or may do, without this. This by itself is the Best part of Mary, without these other. They without it profit but little or nought. It destroyeth not only the ground and the root of sin, as it may be here, but also it getteth virtues. For if it be truly conceived, all virtues shall be subtly and perfecdy conceived, felt and comprehended in it, without any mingling of thine intent. And have a man never so many virtues without it, all they be mingled with some crooked intent, for the which they be imperfect. For virtue is nought else but an ordered and measured affection, plainly directed unto God for Himself.
The Cloud of Unknowing
If exercises in concentration, repetitions of the divine name, or meditations on God’s attributes or on imagined scenes in the life of saint or Avatar help those who make use of them to come to selflessness, openness and (to use Augustine Baker’s phrase) that’ love of the pure divinity,’ which makes possible the soul’s union with the Godhead, then such spiritual exercises are wholly good and desirable. If they have other results—well, the tree is known by its fruits.
Benet of Canfield, the English Capuchin who wrote The Rule of Perfection and was the spiritual guide of Mme Acarie and Cardinal Berulle, hints in his treatise at a method by which concentration on an image may be made to lead up to imageless contemplation, ‘blind beholding,’ ‘love of the pure divinity,’ The period of mental prayer is to begin with intense concentration on a scene of Christ’s passion; then the mind is, as it were, to abolish this imagination of the sacred humanity and to pass from it to the formless and attributeless Godhead which that humanity incarnates. A strikingly similar exercise is described in the Bar Jo Thddol or Tibetan Book of the Dead (a work of quite extraordinary profundity and beauty, now fortunately available in translation with a valuable introduction and notes by Dr. Evans-Wentz).
Whosoever thy tutelary deity may be, meditate upon the form for much time—as being apparent, yet non-existent in reality, like a form produced by a magician Then let the visualization of the tutelary deity melt away from the extremities, till nothing at all remaineth visible of it; and put thyself in the state of the Clearness and the Voidness—which thou canst not conceive as something—and abide in that state for a little while. Again meditate upon the tutelary deity; again meditate upon the Clear Light; do this alternately. Afterwards allow thine own intellect to melt away gradually, beginning from the extremities.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
As a final summing up of the whole matter we may cite a sentence of Eckhart’s. ‘He who seeks God under settled form lays hold of the form, while missing the God concealed in it,’ Here, the key word is ‘ settled,’ It is permissible to seek God provisionally under a form which is from the first recognized as merely a symbol of Reality, and a symbol which must sooner or later be discarded in favour of what it stands for. To seek Him under a settled form—settled because regarded as the very shape of Reality—is to commit oneself to illusion and a kind of idolatry.
The chief impediments in the way of taking up the practice of some form of mental prayer are ignorance of the Nature of Things (which has never, of course, been more abysmal than in this age of free compulsory education) and the absorption in self-interest, in positive and negative emotions connected with the passions and with what is technically known as a ‘good time,’ And when the practice has been taken up, the chief impediments in the way of advance towards the goal of mental prayer are distractions.
Probably all persons, even the most saintly, suffer to some extent from distractions. But it is obvious that a person who, in the intervals of mental prayer, leads a dispersed, unrecollected, self-centred life will have more and worse distractions to contend with than one who lives one-pointedly, never forgetting who he is and how related to the universe and its divine Ground. Some of the most profitable spiritual exercises actually make use of distractions, in such a way that these impediments to self-abandonment, mental silence and passivity in relation to God are transformed into means of progress.
But first, by way of preface to the description of these exercises, it should be remarked that all teachers of the art of mental prayer concur in advising their pupils never to use violent efforts of the surface will against the distractions which arise in the mind during periods of recollection. The reason for this has been succinctly stated by Benet of Canfield in his Ride of Perfection. ‘The more a man operates, the more he is and exists. And the more he is and exists, the less of God is and exists within him.’ Every enhancement of the separate personal self produces a corresponding diminution of that self’s awareness of divine Reality. But any violent reaction of the surface will against distractions automatically enhances the separate, personal self and therefore reduces the individual’s chances of coming to the knowledge and love of God.
In the process of trying forcibly to abolish our God-eclipsing daydreams, we merely deepen the darkness of our native ignorance. This being so, we must give up the attempt to fight distractions and find ways either of circumventing them, or of somehow making use of them. For example, if we have already achieved a certain degree of alert passivity in relation to Reality and distractions intervene, we can simply ‘look over the shoulder* of the malicious and concupiscent imbecile who stands between us and the object of our ‘simple regard.’ The distractions now appear in the foreground of consciousness; we take notice of their presence, then, lightly and gently, without any straining of the will, we shift the focus of attention to Reality which we glimpse, or divine, or (by past experience or an act of faith) merely know about, in the background. In many cases, this effortless shift of attention will cause the distractions to lose their obsessive ‘thereness’ and, for a time at least, to disappear.
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master’s presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord’s presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
St Franfois de Sales
In this case the circumvention of distractions constitutes a valuable lesson in patience and perseverance. Another and more direct method of making use of the monkey in our heart is described in The Cloud of Unknowing.
When thou feelest that thou mayest in no wise put them (distractions) down, cower then down under them as a caitiff and a coward overcome in battle, and think it
