Life is full of encounters... In 1967, I came to Japan from Belgium and discovered the path of Zen, which allowed me to approach the heart of Jesus from a new angle. In addition, I have met many people with physical disabilities and have walked the path of life together with them. With gratitude, I would like to share my experiences and thoughts on this site. I would appreciate it if you could refer to the article on here. Henri Huisgoms
At the heart of spiritualities
Living in Japan since September 1967, it seemed appropriate to me to put on line certain texts that I have composed up to this day. These are articles or texts not yet published .
You can also find photos of people and landscapes on this site.
I hope that the material presented will become an inspiration to you .
Henri Huysegoms
Henri Huysegoms アンリ・ホイスゴムスA Path to our Common Source (Henri Huysegoms)
(Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, 16/2006/2, p. 211-214, Peeters, Leuven)
The practice of contemplative prayer inspired from Zen spirituality can become for followers of Christ the occasion to project a new light on the gospel. Moreover, the rediscovery of the rich tradition of mystics like Meister Eckhart and the anonymous author of “The Cloud of Unknowing” can foster the dialogue of Christians with Buddhists because Buddhists recognize their experience as one of enlightenment.
Christian spiritual guides usually stress that the fruit of Christian meditation is not only obtained by one’s own efforts but through grace as well. On that point, they are prone to assert the originality and superiority of Christian prayer over oriental spirituality. In fact, such a discussion about a salvation obtained through grace or through deeds appeared in Christianity from the beginning. At the time of St. Paul, the Christian community had already discussed this distinction. In Japanese Buddhism too, people make a distinction between stressing one’s own efforts as in Zen and stressing the “power of Another,” as in Pure Land Buddhism. But if one deepens Zen meditation, he discovers that such a distinction is quite shallow. It is a fact that Zen training includes physical and spiritual efforts that are exacting. But they are efforts for letting go of the self so that one can discover one’s relation to a reality that is the source of our existence. Jesus also invited his disciples to engage in the same struggle to renounce the self.
One of the methods recommended by the Zen masters as a way for abandoning all images and thoughts which reason conceives in one’s mind and for making possible the discovery of one’s essential nature is the repetition of the word “Mu” in every breath, focusing one’s mind constantly in the region below the navel. One must forget one’s self completely and even reject the desire to obtain some kind of spiritual experience like enlightenment.
In regard to this point, the Zen masters tell the story of a mysterious bird. One day, a woodsman went to the forest to work. From afar he noticed a bird he had never seen before. He found it strange. The bird said to him: “Why am I so strange?” The man thought: “What? A speaking bird?” The bird answered: “I see that you can’t believe that I’m able to speak.” The man dreamed about catching that bird and selling it for a good price in town. But the bird exposed this intention too. At the end the man began to work earnestly and forgot about the bird. After a while, the bird felt secure and little by little came quite close to him. When the bird arrived next to the man, he caught the bird at once.
When taking part in a Zen retreat of five days, we will find that if a strict instructor is next to us for supporting our efforts, we can throw ourselves totally into that sound of Mu so that we become one with it. At the end, it is Mu that is doing Mu in ourselves, and we notice that the ego has completely vanished. This discovery has been made possible by an effort to make us available to an experience that we accept as a gift. We waken to a reality that we did not have to search for because it has always been there from the beginning.
To concentrate on a sound like Mu when we inhale or exhale might not seem a very spiritual activity. However, the anonymous mystic of the 14th century who wrote “The Cloud of Unknowing” also recommended this kind of method. He said: “If you want to gather all your desire into a simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one-syllable word such as ‘God’ or ‘love’ is best. But choose one that is meaningful to you. Then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may. Should some thought go on annoying you demanding to know what you are doing, answer with this one word alone. If your mind begins to intellectualize over the meanings and connotations of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its simplicity.” This author recommends a word like “God,” but he does not cling to it. One can discover the source of one’s being through the repetition of any word provided it is short. Choosing something other than the word “God” has the advantage of making it easier to avoid any thoughts about the divine and to cut off all duality. “When we are able to pray in our heart with purity, without any distractions, we renounce plurality, division and diversity, and we are immediately, above all discourse, at one with the One, the Simple, with Him who unifies” (Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopouloi).
One might feel uneasy about the appropriateness of a meditation without any object, without any trace of dialogue. But this kind of training makes it possible to act in daily life with a purity of intention without expecting some kind of recognition.
During a Zen retreat, the Master sometimes tells the following story: A young man visits a Zen Master and asks to allow him to become his disciple. But he is not easily accepted because the Master wants to be sure about the man’s determination. The young man persists in his request and is finally accepted. One day, all the monks go out in line to beg for their food in the village. The young man notices an old man drawing his cart up a slope. He leaves the line and rushes forward to help the man. On the way back, the Master blames him for his action and sends him away. The monk did not realize the importance of the training he had been receiving.
This story might come as a shock to many Christians, but it stresses the necessity of a period of spiritual training for renouncing one’s self so that one can act with an absolute purity of intention. Prayer as a dialogue should also be grounded in a contemplative activity without duality. “Between You and me, there is that ‘me’ which troubles me,” wrote Allaj, the Iranian Sufi Master.
Jesus used to tell to those who opposed him: “My teaching is not from me, but from the One who sent me.” The religious leaders of his time interpreted this assertion as the expression of an inordinate arrogance bordering on blasphemy, although it was the expression of the humiliation of Him Who, with His baptism, accepted to abase Himself all the way to death. This self-denial made Him able to proclaim His unity with the Father by saying: “Before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus was disappointed to notice that His disciples could not see the Father in him.
We may not think that these statements concern also ourselves. But in the “Blue Cliff Record,” a collection of one hundred Zen koans compiled in China in the twelfth century, we can find: “In the heavens and on earth I alone am the Honored One.” This sentence echoes that of Jesus. In this koan, the Honored One does not point to the Buddha but is said by a Zen Master. It is not an expression of ostentation, but an assertion of the ultimate I who is immortal and can only be perceived by a complete renouncement of the self. This koan, like the sentence “Show me your original face before your parents were born” is given to those who perform Zen training in order to become one with the Reality of the absolute “I am” and to express their understanding of that Reality through words or deeds.
A Buddhist Zen Master is able to certify the discovery of one’s essential nature made by a disciple even if he belongs to a different religious tradition because that experience lies beyond the realm of concepts and teachings.
In the preface to the “Gateless Gate,” translated with Commentary by Zen Master Kôun Yamada, H. M. Enomiya-Lassalle, S.J. wrote: “Zen practice has nothing to do with Buddhist philosophy.” The expression “If you meet a Buddha, you will kill him,” found in Case 1 of that manuscript of the 13th century, points to the same reality. Any attempt to conceptualize lays a yoke on a borderless Reality.
The ultimate experience of one’s essential nature, although being a source of joy drawing sometimes near ecstasy, is exempt from images and thoughts. Therefore, it is possible to think that Meister Eckhart, the Buddhists, and meditating people of all ages and traditions have essentially had a similar experience but have put it in words with their own cultural and religious background. Differences appear when people try to express a reality that is inexpressible.
St. Paul, in his second Letter to the Corinthians, says he was snatched up to the highest heaven and heard things which cannot be put into words, things that human lips may not speak. Trying to express that experience, he notes in his Letter to the Galatians: “It is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Based on a similar experience, a Buddhist says that it is no longer he who lives, but the Buddha living in him.
The more essential words expressed by Christ and people like St. Paul about their being can become our own if, in meditation, we bring silence to all discursive thoughts so that we can become one with a power which unifies all beings.
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https://hhuysegoms.jimdofree.com/le-silence-des-pensees/
THE SILENCE OF THOUGHTS,
WELCOMING THE PRESENT IN ITS FULLNESS
Henri Huysegoms
" All man's misfortune comes from one thing,
which is not knowing how to remain at rest in a room."
Blaise Pascal, Thought 205
We generally agree to recognize the virtues of silence, but when we want to specify its nature, we discover a great diversity. Some find peace of heart by listening to the murmur of a spring, the song of a bird during a solitary walk. Others may find peace of soul reading a book of deep spiritual density. By listening or by thoughts, these silences are furnished.
There is, however, a silence of another quality that the following pages will attempt to describe. They point out that many spiritual guides belonging to a theistic religion have sought it, but that it is in Buddhism that it is practiced in a radical way. Silence, the fruit of a very demanding mental activity, is maintained there , during meditation, in its nudity . The following fact may make one imagine the asceticism it requires.
The silence of Sister R.
It was the spring of 1987. In the meditation center founded by the Jesuit priest HM Lassalle in the suburbs of Tokyo, a Zen retreat was held , led by the nun Sister R. During this kind of spiritual exercises, there is a daily instruction to help the meditators to exercise correctly the seat disposing to the awakening. It generally consists of commenting on an ancient Chinese story which describes a dialogue between a Zen master and one of his disciples. Sister R., in her first interview, used such a story to account for a tragic event. She announced that her sister and her husband had just been murdered. The author of the double murder was none other than their son. The act was the consequence of the delusional state of a person suffering from mental illness.
I wondered how the nun was going to comment on this drama. Was she going to hold a religious discourse, affirm the need to surrender oneself to the will of God? Invite participants to pray for the soul of the victims as well as for the culprit? Or would it remain consistent with the intuition that constitutes the center of the Buddha's message, namely, to abstain, during meditation, from indulging in considerations that distance us from the present reality recognized as our only absolute?
She introduced two characters. First of all, Job who wondered about the reason for the heavy tests to which he was subjected. Unable to pierce the mystery of his suffering, he ends up recognizing his radical powerlessness to judge his fate: " I am not the weight, what will I reply to you? I put my hand on my mouth. I spoke once , I will answer no more, twice, I will add nothing. " (Jb 40, 4-5) . He gave up asking “ whys ” . He does not conclude that God is absent, but accepts His silence. What had created his confusion became an acceptance of the human condition.
She then introduced Yuima (in Sanskrit, Vimalakīrti ), considered by tradition to be one of the most eminent disciples of the Buddha's lifetime. An episode of his life is detailed in case 84 of the " Green Cliff Collection " , a set of koans (lit. public treatises) composed in China in the 10th century and completed in their present form in the 12th century . A koan is a short story, often in the form of a dialogue between a disciple and his teacher, of which one must demonstrate one's understanding without resorting to discursive thought.
This collection constitutes the basis of the teaching of Rinzai Zen Buddhism. Legend has it that when Yuima was seriously ill, Bodhisattvas , personifications of mercy, went to his bedside. Yuima asked them, " What is the Bodhisattvas' gateway to non-duality ? " Each offered an answer. A Bodhisattva then invited Yuima to give an answer himself . He maintained silence. But this silence, it is said, was more deafening than the thunder. When words and notions expire, the heart of reality is revealed.
It is quite probable that the nun had felt shaken in her faith in a God of love and tenderness, but she concluded by saying simply: " Now let us return to our seat. " She recognized, like Job and Yuima, having been confronted with a situation that defies all interpretation. In the zen sitting that followed, the words of the nun doubtless awakened in everyone, and in herself, images and reflections, but we tried to maintain ourselves in the silence of our thoughts.
The silence of the Buddha
It is common to define Buddhism as a religion, but since the message of the Buddha is independent of any discourse and does not require adherence to " truths " , it is at a more fundamental level than any religion understood as a teaching which requires adherence to faith.
Among the abundant writings of the Indian Jesuit Raimon Panikkar is the work " The Silence of the Buddha " (Actes Sud, 2006). He highlighted in his work a sentence of Saint John of the Cross: " Nothing is more necessary for us than to keep in the presence of our great God the silence of desires and that of the tongue. The language he hears, it is the silent language of love. " He emphasized in his work that the Buddha refrains from any questioning on the destiny of man because it is necessary to get down to the most urgent. The important thing is elsewhere. The Buddha is credited with the following remark: when a house catches fire, it is not the time to ask questions about the cause of the fire. It is necessary to deal with the most urgent: to endeavor to extinguish the flames. This underlines the importance of adopting the correct attitude in the situations which present themselves at every moment.
The Zen practice of silence
The practice of silent meditation as it is traditionally practiced in a Zen room is very demanding from a physical and mental point of view. The five-day sessions include ten sittings a day, lasting forty minutes. The pose is that of the lotus or the half-lotus. The gaze is lowered, the body straight, but without tension. From a mental point of view, you are asked to focus on your breathing while remaining well aware of your surroundings. Sometimes noises are heard, the sound of footsteps, a door opening, the cry of a bird. Continually come to mind scattered thoughts, ideas, feelings. The exercise is not to act on it. They will vanish like the clouds that dissipate in the blue sky.
To avoid getting carried away by these solicitations, it is advisable to exhale the mu sound throughout the exhalation. Watched by the person in charge of the room who encourages them and pushes them to give their all, some beginners make this sound loudly. Expressions of a desire to maintain rigorous inner silence, they do not disturb other meditators. They can also become a support for them in their own practice. Meditators, to whatever religious tradition they belong, are united in the same quality of silence if they strive for the complete emptiness of thoughts which alone allows awakening.
The silence of Jesus and his kenosis [1]
At the beginning of the Gospels, we can see Jesus inviting men to follow him, to renounce all attachment and to lay down their lives for every human being. These are its primary requirements. He did not care to give an answer to those who asked questions that were not essential for their action.
To the one who asked him: " Will there be only a few people who will be saved? " , he contented himself with answering: " Strive to enter through the narrow door " (Lk 13, 23-24). The Gospel of John records a meeting of the disciples with their Master after his resurrection. Peter , after having been chosen as leader of the disciples, casts a glance on the disciple John and asks Jesus : " And him, Lord, what will happen to him? " . As in the previous case, Jesus is silent on this subject. He asks Peter not to concern himself with the fate of the beloved disciple, a subject that has no bearing on his behavior, and to fulfill his mission as a disciple: " If I want him to remain until let me come, what does it matter to you? You follow me! ” (Jn 21:22)
This affirmation of the priority given to a concrete commitment is also found in the episode of Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus. This Jewish notable, imbued with his knowledge, comes to find Jesus at night and authenticates him as a Rabbi. But Jesus presented him with a requirement he had not expected: to be reborn. He demands of him a death to himself , a total stripping in order to act faithfully according to the Spirit who, like the wind, will lead him on ever new paths.
Jesus himself had previously signified this plunge into death by his immersion in the Jordan. He came out animated by " the Spirit " . His affirmations such as " I and the Father are one " (Jn 10, 30) and " This word which you hear is not from me but from the Father who sent me " (Jn 14, 24), are the testimony of this perfect unity with the Source of his being.
The moment of his passion bears witness to the putting into practice of the commitment made at his baptism. In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul noted this fact remarkably when he said of Jesus that " he emptied himself [literal translation in Japanese: " he was moved " ], taking on the condition of a servant. [ …] He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, and death on a cross. ” (Phil 2:7). Jesus pushed his renunciation so far as to accept being deprived of the perception of a compassionate God. The attitude in which Jesus arrived at the end of a fight testifies to his acceptance of an inescapable reality, which theistic religions describe as " the will of God " . : " Let not my will but yours come true ! " (Lk 22, 42).
The Silence of Past Christian Spirituals
The Buddhist practice of a radical silence as a spiritual activity par excellence seems difficult to accept for the Christian who defines prayer as a dialogue with God. Saint Francis de Sales and others have presented discursive meditation and affective prayer as the only valid ones. They advise to start from considerations of a doctrinal order based on a biblical text or on a book of spirituality and to express feelings of gratitude, regrets, resolutions.
It was not always so. It was not until the 16th century that the importance of contemplative, non-objective prayer was misunderstood. During the first fifteen centuries of the life of the Church, objectless contemplation is considered the normal evolution of an authentic spiritual life. In the 7th century , Jean Climaque noted: " A hair is enough to blur the gaze, a simple worry to destroy solitude (hésychia) because solitude is the stripping of thoughts and the renunciation of reasonable worries. " ( Small ph i localie of the prayer of the heart, Cahiers du Sud, 1953, p.89)
It is even more remarkable to read in the work " The Cloud of Unknowing " , an anonymous text in English from the 14th century: " [For the work of meditation,] a direct and naked impulse towards God is sufficient, without no cause but Himself, and that if this impetus, it behooves you to have it folded up and bundled up in a word, in order to hold on to it more firmly, even if it is a small word, and very short in syllables: for the shorter it is, the better it is attuned to the work of the Spirit. A similar word is the word: God, or again the word: love. Choose the one you want, or such other as you like, provided that "It is short of syllables. And that one, attach it so firmly to your heart, that it never deviates from it, whatever happens." (The Cloud of Unknowing, Seuil, 1977, p. 39) . This advice basically agrees with that of the Zen masters about sitting .
Master Eckhart seems to me the closest to the Buddhist masters in his way of presenting the spiritual attitude to keep during meditation. We can read , for example, in his sermon 1: " It is [like Jesus] that the man should stand who would find himself receptive to the supreme truth and living there without before and without after and without being hindered by all the works and all the images of which he was ever aware, distraught and free, receiving again in this now the divine gift. ” (L’eclair de l’âme, Albin Miche l , 1998, p. 35). "Should Jesus discourse in the soul, then she must be alone and she herself must be silent, if she is to hear Jesus discourse. " (Ibid. p. 37)
One can easily notice similarities between the meditation of these spiritual Christians and the meditation practices of Buddhists. But these have two distinct characteristics. First of all, it precisely determines the position of the body most favorable to self-forgetfulness. Moreover, there is maintained a more bare silence concerning the present reality, the ultimate mystery of which no words can account. This is a sign of deep respect for her.
Conclusion
The practice of a spiritual exercise aimed at maintaining oneself in such a radical silence can be disorienting: it can be considered futile and insignificant. However, a state of emptiness of all thought is the only one that can consciously put us in the presence of the absolute: the real in its elusive dimension.
In this time when we are inundated with information, assaulted by noisy advertisements which delight our inner peace, this inner silence which " brings nothing, but changes everything " is all the more necessary for us. We can already notice that in the West, seeds of this silence have again been sown and are beginning to blossom, signs of a more stripped-down spirituality . ▣ H.H.
hhuysegoms@gmail.com
(Free Christian Thought, No 28/2014, pp. 17-22)
[1] Concept of Christian theology expressed by a Greek wordkenosiscoming from
from the epistle of Paul to the Philippians 2, 7: action to make empty, to deprive of everything.
Zazen itself is a prayer...
When my interest in Zen began almost 30 years ago, I could never have imagined that this path would have a profound impact on my life for the rest of my life . He was educated in Christianity and developed a habit of meditation. Before coming to Japan, I studied the basic teachings of Buddhism so that I could understand the feelings of Japanese people.
About 12 years ago, a Zen friend wrote me a letter and said, "I think that zazen itself is a prayer." I knew that through zazen I could lose myself and be thoroughly purified, but I saw this as a condition of pure dialogue between God and man rather than the highest form of prayer.
However, I have found that for the Christian priests and nuns who introduced me to the path of Zen, this practice and enlightenment is a much more important part of their lives. One incident made this clear to me.
Last spring, I was informed by an American nun who had conducted sesshin that my sister and her husband had been murdered. Although she has been practicing Zen for many years and has become a junior teacher, I thought that she would refer to the comforting words of the Bible after encountering this tragic event. He talked about the 84th rule of Hekiganroku . According to the sutra on which this koan is based, when Monju Shiri came to visit Yuima, who was ill, he asked Monju, 'What does it mean to enter the school of Fuji?' Manjushri replied, "This is leaving the questions and answers." Later, Monju asked Yuima the same question, but he was silent. But this silence resounded louder than thunder.
Through this story, she was trying to say that when a person is in a situation of great misery, no explanation is necessary, and the correct attitude is to simply sit down. .
In her advocacy the next day, she quoted the Book of Job from the Bible. Job, who was a righteous man, lost his property, livestock, and family. and I have told you wonderful works that are beyond my knowledge, and I despise myself.” This also means that death and suffering cannot be properly explained.
As you get to know your best friend for a long time, even if you exchange few words, you will be able to communicate with each other. In the same way, for me, zazen is becoming more than a dialogue and a prayer.
Zen is said to be a Sanskrit-derived word that means meditation. Before Jesus began his public life, we are told that he lived a life of prayer and fasting in the wilderness for some time. Immediately afterwards, by the sign of completely immersing his body in the Jordan under John the Baptist, Jesus emptied himself, humbled himself, and expressed his determination to accept whatever sufferings were to come.
Jesus often went to the mountain and spent the night to pray. Even then, he completely emptied himself. Could it be that he had disappeared and only the work of God was there?
( 1997 , 1997, Korekoan Senshinkai, 11th Sesshinkai Bulletin , H. Henry)
