Ignatian Spirituality and Buddhism

IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY AND BUDDHISM

Paul Knitter, an American theologian, recently wrote a book, Without the Buddha I Could not be a Christian. When questioned about it by an interviewer he quotes a New York priest who is also a Zen teacher: “Christianity is long on content but short on method and technique.” Then he adds that while Christianity projects a God out there, Buddhism rather makes us experience a God within, related with us non-dually. Let me say in passing that this non-duality is more characteristic of Hinduism than Buddhism. The point however is well taken. But if we do the Spiritual Exercises we will realize that these elements are not absent in the Ignatian tradition. An experience of Buddhism (or Hinduism) may help us to rediscover what has been ignored so far in Ignatian spirituality.

Aloysius Pieris, from Sri Lanka, has pointed out how the theological outlook of Ignatius was ‘positive’. It focused on experience. His goal was to “taste and relish” (gustare et sentire) the divine, not simply to know and talk about it. He wanted to “hear” what God was of telling him to do. He was using methods like the Application of the Senses. His contemplations do not lead to a vision of truth but to decisions shown in an experience of life and love. But, unfortunately, he was, partly, and his disciples, fully, prisoners of a narrow rational scholastic theological approach that was focused on “knowing” and abstract knowledge. Rational meditation, using the three faculties memory, intellect and will, was preferred to contemplation. Before dialoguing with Buddhism, therefore, we have to rediscover the experiential dimensions of Ignatian spirituality. When we then start dialoguing with Buddhism we find that two of the basic principles of Buddhist practice find their analogues in the Spiritual Exercises. These are mindfulness and egolessness. Let us look into each of these.

Mindfulness in Buddhism is basically being aware fully of the present moment and living and acting in it. Our mind is usually like a monkey. Its attention keeps moving from one to another topic constantly. The topics are, of course, persons or events or objects that we are attached to. In the process we live either in the past or in the future. We remember with pleasure or with regret what has happened or weimagine what could have happened. Or we foresee with expectation and anxiety what may happen in the future. These images are pleasing or painful according to our attachments and desires. In the process we let the present moment slip by without attending to, or only partially attending to, what is there before us. We will be regretting later what we did not do at the present. Mindfulness teaches us to be fully aware of the present and do what we are doing with full attention, whether we are eating, washing clothes, driving or studying, whatever. We are peaceful in the present without bothering about the future. When we concentrate on the present moment in this way we feel the power of energy in an extraordinary manner. We have the satisfaction of doing well whatever we have to do. Our motivations are not external to the action itself, thus alienating us in some way.

Being mindful will correspond to being “contemplative in action” in the Ignatian tradition. Contemplation does not mean having an intellectual vision. It is being fully aware of the divine presence and action in us and in the world even as we are fully concentrating on the task before us. It is not something added on to action. It is being alive to another dimension of reality. The world and our own actions become sacraments of a divine relationship. This is what we see in the Contemplation to Obtain Love. It is not God being active as a force external to the world but as an energizing presence in and through the world, “just as the rays come down from the sun, or the rains from their source”. (SE. 237) It does not demand a conscious focus on the divine. When we are looking at things around us we do not look at the light that makes them visible to us. Our focus is on what we are living and doing. But there is an awareness of another dimension. This is a different way of being mindful. It is not something added on. The context of our mindfulness is different. It is true that in the Contemplation to Obtain Love Ignatius speaks of God giving us gifts and we giving them back to him. This is a way of speaking in the context of a dualistic approach to reality. In an advaitic or non-dual context, there is no question of receiving and giving, but living an ongoing mutual presence of the divine in us and in the world.

Ignatius proposes an exercise to help us improve our mindfulness. It is what is called the “Examination of Consciousness”. Once a day we look back on the day as it were a movie and become aware of moments in which we have not been fully aware, torn away from the present by our emotions and desires. Such an awareness helps us to slowly get rid of our desires that are distracting us. In the past we have been more worried about our sins and transgressions. Our exercise in awareness may indicate that our transgressions may simply be due to our lack of awareness of the present moment. Being mindful can also be seen as a discerning attitude becoming a habitual way of life. In Ignatian terms it means living continuously in a situation of ‘consolation without cause’. (cf. SE. 336)

The second Buddhist spiritual principle in which we are interested is egolessness or anatta. The ideal of Nirvana is usually understood as emptiness or nothingness. This is a misrepresentation of Buddhism. The European philosophical tradition tends to think of the world as an assemblage of monads or free individuals who relate to each other. The Asian traditions in general and the Buddhist tradition in particular does not see the individual isolated in itself, but as related to everything else. In the words of the Vietnamese Buddhist guru, Thich Nhat Hanh, “to be” is “to inter-be”, that is, to be inter-related. This goes back to the Buddhist principle of “dependent co-arising” – praticca samutpaya. To become egoless is really to become aware of one’s relatedness to everything. As long as we behave as totally independent beings we tend to dominate and instrumentalize everything else. Wisdom is not to deny the ego as a principle of action, but as an autonomous monad. Emptiness is the disappearance of such monad egos. I can no longer speak of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’.

Ignatius used to say that self-abnegation is more important than a multiplicity of spiritual exercises, fasts and prayers. He says at the end of the section on discernment in the Spiritual Exercises: “In all spiritual matters, the more one divests oneself of self-love, self-will, and self-interest, the more progress one will make.” (SE. 189)

There are a number of passages in the New Testament which speak of egolessness. In St. John’s gospel, Jesus says: “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30); “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn 15:5); “As you Father are in me and I in you, may they also be one in us” (Jn 17:21). Here we are not speaking of an assembly of ego-monads, but beings-in-relationship. After all, the unity of being in the Trinity does not militate against three persons in relationship. Sometimes we use the word ‘communion’. Raimon Panikkar speaks of “Cosmothenadric Communion”. But in a Western context, perhaps, it does not indicate the union of inter-being. Moreover, in the Christian context inter-being does not mean inter-dependence. We are dependent on God, but God is not dependent on us. This asymmetry is clear in Hindu advaita. So Ignatian spirituality in an Asian – Buddhist and Hindu – context will lead us to experience ourselves, not as monadic egos, but as related in “inter-being”. This vision of reality will also fit in well with Confucian and Taoist traditions.

In the past, there has been a tendency to look on Yogic or Buddhist meditation as a preparation for Christian prayer. I think that it is time to grow out of this perspective. Concentration is a technique. It can be used also in a Christian context. I would like to think that this is what Christians who practice Yoga or Zen are doing.

Michael Amaladoss, S.J.

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