2022/06/04

Hildegard of Bingen - Wikipedia

Hildegard of Bingen - Wikipedia


Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages.[1][2] She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history.[3] She has been considered by many in Europe to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.[4]
Saint

Hildegard of Bingen

OSB
Hildegard von Bingen.jpg
Illumination from Hildegard's Scivias (1151) showing her receiving a vision and dictating to teacher Volmar
Doctor of the Church, Virgin
BornHildegard von Bingen
circa 1098
Bermersheim vor der Höhe, County Palatine of the Rhine, Holy Roman Empire
Died17 September 1179 (aged 81)
Bingen am Rhein, County Palatine of the Rhine, Holy Roman Empire
Venerated in
Beatified26 August 1326 (confirmation of cultus) by Pope John XXII
Canonized10 May 2012 (equivalent canonization), Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Major shrineEibingen Abbey, Germany
Feast17 September
Philosophy career
Notable work
EraMedieval philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolNeoplatonism
Main interests
mystical theology, medicine, botany, natural history, music, literature
Notable ideas
Lingua ignota, humoral theory, morality play, viriditas
Influences
Influenced

Hildegard's convent elected her as magistra (mother superior) in 1136. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works,[5] as well as letters, hymns, and antiphons for the liturgy.[2] Furthermore, she wrote poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias.[6] There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words.[7] One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.[a] She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal canonization is complicated, regional calendars of the Roman Catholic church have listed her as a saint for centuries. On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 7 October 2012, he named her a Doctor of the Church, in recognition of "her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching."[8]

BiographyEdit

Hildegard was born around 1098, although the exact date is uncertain. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim.[9] Sickly from birth, Hildegard is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child,[10] although there are records of only seven older siblings.[11][12] In her Vita, Hildegard states that from a very young age she experienced visions.[13]

SpiritualityEdit

From early childhood, long before she undertook her public mission or even her monastic vows, Hildegard's spiritual awareness was grounded in what she called the umbra viventis lucis, the reflection of the living Light. Her letter to Guibert of Gembloux, which she wrote at the age of 77, describes her experience of this light with admirable precision:

From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old. In this vision my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places. And because I see them this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open. So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now. The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it "the reflection of the living Light." And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam.[14]

Monastic lifeEdit

Perhaps because of Hildegard's visions, as a method of political positioning, or both, Hildegard's parents offered her as an oblate to the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg, which had been recently reformed in the Palatinate Forest. The date of Hildegard's enclosure at the monastery is the subject of debate. Her Vita says she was eight years old when she was professed with Jutta, who was the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim and about six years older than Hildegard.[15] However, Jutta's date of enclosure is known to have been in 1112, when Hildegard would have been 14.[16] Their vows were received by Bishop Otto of Bamberg on All Saints Day 1112. Some scholars speculate that Hildegard was placed in the care of Jutta at the age of eight, and that the two of them were then enclosed together six years later.[17]

In any case, Hildegard and Jutta were enclosed together at Disibodenberg and formed the core of a growing community of women attached to the monastery of monks. Jutta was also a visionary and thus attracted many followers who came to visit her at the monastery. Hildegard tells us that Jutta taught her to read and write, but that she was unlearned and therefore, incapable of teaching Hildegard sound biblical interpretation.[18] The written record of the Life of Jutta indicates that Hildegard probably assisted her in reciting the psalms, working in the garden, other handiwork, and tending to the sick.[19] This might have been a time when Hildegard learned how to play the ten-stringed psaltery. Volmar, a frequent visitor, may have taught Hildegard simple psalm notation. The time she studied music could have been the beginning of the compositions she would later create.[20]

Upon Jutta's death in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected as magistra of the community by her fellow nuns.[21] Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg asked Hildegard to be Prioress, which would be under his authority. Hildegard, however, wanted more independence for herself and her nuns and asked Abbot Kuno to allow them to move to Rupertsberg.[22] This was to be a move toward poverty, from a stone complex that was well established to a temporary dwelling place. When the abbot declined Hildegard's proposition, Hildegard went over his head and received the approval of Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent, however, until Hildegard was stricken by an illness that rendered her paralyzed and unable to move from her bed, an event that she attributed to God's unhappiness at her not following his orders to move her nuns to Rupertsberg. It was only when the Abbot himself could not move Hildegard that he decided to grant the nuns their own monastery.[23] Hildegard and approximately 20 nuns thus moved to the St. Rupertsberg monastery in 1150, where Volmar served as provost, as well as Hildegard's confessor and scribe. In 1165, Hildegard founded a second monastery for her nuns at Eibingen.[24]

Before Hildegard's death in 1179, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz: A man buried in Rupertsberg had died after excommunication from the Catholic Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the church at the time of his death.[25]

VisionsEdit

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five, she began to understand that she was experiencing visions.[26] She used the term 'visio' (the Latin for "vision") to describe this feature of her experience and she recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.[27] Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary.[28] Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear."[29] Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations.[30] In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. […] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out, therefore, and write thus!'[31]

It was between November 1147 and February 1148 at the synod in Trier that Pope Eugenius heard about Hildegard's writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credence.[32]

On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.[33]

Vita Sanctae HildegardisEdit

Hildegard's hagiography, Vita Sanctae Hildegardis, was compiled by the monk Theoderic of Echternach after Hildegard's death.[34] He included the hagiographical work Libellus or "Little Book" begun by Godfrey of Disibodenberg.[35] Godfrey had died before he was able to complete his work. Guibert of Gembloux was invited to finish the work; however, he had to return to his monastery with the project unfinished.[36] Theoderic utilized sources Guibert had left behind to complete the Vita.

WorksEdit

Scivias I.6: The Choirs of Angels. From the Rupertsberg manuscript, fol. 38r.

Hildegard's works include three great volumes of visionary theology;[37] a variety of musical compositions for use in the liturgy, as well as the musical morality play Ordo Virtutum; one of the largest bodies of letters (nearly 400) to survive from the Middle Ages, addressed to correspondents ranging from popes to emperors to abbots and abbesses, and including records of many of the sermons she preached in the 1160s and 1170s;[38] two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures;[39][40] an invented language called the Lingua ignota ("unknown language");[41] and various minor works, including a gospel commentary and two works of hagiography.[42]

Several manuscripts of her works were produced during her lifetime, including the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript of her first major work, Scivias (lost since 1945); the Dendermonde Codex, which contains one version of her musical works; and the Ghent manuscript, which was the first fair-copy made for editing of her final theological work, the Liber Divinorum Operum. At the end of her life, and probably under her initial guidance, all of her works were edited and gathered into the single Riesenkodex manuscript.[43]

Visionary theologyEdit

Hildegard's most significant works were her three volumes of visionary theology: Scivias ("Know the Ways", composed 1142–1151), Liber Vitae Meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits" or "Book of the Rewards of Life", composed 1158–1163); and Liber Divinorum Operum ("Book of Divine Works", also known as De operatione Dei, "On God's Activity", begun around 1163 or 1164 and completed around 1172 or 1174). In these volumes, the last of which was completed when she was well into her seventies, Hildegard first describes each vision, whose details are often strange and enigmatic, and then interprets their theological contents in the words of the "voice of the Living Light."[44]

SciviasEdit

The Church, the Bride of Christ and Mother of the Faithful in Baptism. Illustration to Scivias II.3, fol. 51r from the 20th-century facsimile of the Rupertsberg manuscript, c. 1165–1180.

With permission from Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg, she began journaling visions she had (which is the basis for Scivias). Scivias is a contraction of Sci vias Domini (Know the Ways of the Lord), and it was Hildegard's first major visionary work, and one of the biggest milestones in her life. Perceiving a divine command to "write down what you see and hear,"[45] Hildegard began to record and interpret her visionary experiences. In total, 26 visionary experiences were captured in this compilation.[32]

Scivias is structured into three parts of unequal length. The first part (six visions) chronicles the order of God's creation: the Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve, the structure of the universe (famously described as the shape of an "egg"), the relationship between body and soul, God's relationship to his people through the Synagogue, and the choirs of angels. The second part (seven visions) describes the order of redemption: the coming of Christ the Redeemer, the Trinity, the church as the Bride of Christ and the Mother of the Faithful in baptism and confirmation, the orders of the church, Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the Eucharist, and the fight against the devil. Finally, the third part (thirteen visions) recapitulates the history of salvation told in the first two parts, symbolized as a building adorned with various allegorical figures and virtues. It concludes with the Symphony of Heaven, an early version of Hildegard's musical compositions.[46]

In early 1148, a commission was sent by the Pope to Disibodenberg to find out more about Hildegard and her writings. The commission found that the visions were authentic and returned to the Pope, with a portion of the Scivias. Portions of the uncompleted work were read aloud to Pope Eugenius III at the Synod of Trier in 1148, after which he sent Hildegard a letter with his blessing.[47] This blessing was later construed as papal approval for all of Hildegard's wide-ranging theological activities.[48] Towards the end of her life, Hildegard commissioned a richly decorated manuscript of Scivias (the Rupertsberg Codex); although the original has been lost since its evacuation to Dresden for safekeeping in 1945, its images are preserved in a hand-painted facsimile from the 1920s.[6]

Liber Vitae MeritorumEdit

In her second volume of visionary theology, composed between 1158 and 1163, after she had moved her community of nuns into independence at the Rupertsberg in Bingen, Hildegard tackled the moral life in the form of dramatic confrontations between the virtues and the vices. She had already explored this area in her musical morality play, Ordo Virtutum, and the "Book of the Rewards of Life" takes up that play's characteristic themes. Each vice, although ultimately depicted as ugly and grotesque, nevertheless offers alluring, seductive speeches that attempt to entice the unwary soul into their clutches. Standing in our defence, however, are the sober voices of the Virtues, powerfully confronting every vicious deception.[49]

Amongst the work's innovations is one of the earliest descriptions of purgatory as the place where each soul would have to work off its debts after death before entering heaven.[50] Hildegard's descriptions of the possible punishments there are often gruesome and grotesque, which emphasize the work's moral and pastoral purpose as a practical guide to the life of true penance and proper virtue.[51]

Excerpt from the manuscript Liber divinorum operum. Manufactured in the 12th century. Preserved in the Ghent University Library.[52]

Liber Divinorum OperumEdit

Universal Man illumination from Hildegard's Liber Divinorum Operum, I.2. Lucca, MS 1942, early 13th-century copy.

Hildegard's last and grandest visionary work had its genesis in one of the few times she experienced something like an ecstatic loss of consciousness. As she described it in an autobiographical passage included in her Vita, sometime in about 1163, she received "an extraordinary mystical vision" in which was revealed the "sprinkling drops of sweet rain" that John the Evangelist experienced when he wrote, "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). Hildegard perceived that this Word was the key to the "Work of God", of which humankind is the pinnacle. The Book of Divine Works, therefore, became in many ways an extended explication of the Prologue to John's Gospel.[53]

The ten visions of this work's three parts are cosmic in scale, to illustrate various ways of understanding the relationship between God and his creation. Often, that relationship is established by grand allegorical female figures representing Divine Love (Caritas) or Wisdom (Sapientia). The first vision opens the work with a salvo of poetic and visionary images, swirling about to characterize God's dynamic activity within the scope of his work within the history of salvation. The remaining three visions of the first part introduce the famous image of a human being standing astride the spheres that make up the universe and detail the intricate relationships between the human as microcosm and the universe as macrocosm. This culminates in the final chapter of Part One, Vision Four with Hildegard's commentary on the Prologue to John's Gospel (John 1:1–14), a direct rumination on the meaning of "In the beginning was the Word" The single vision that constitutes the whole of Part Two stretches that rumination back to the opening of Genesis, and forms an extended commentary on the seven days of the creation of the world told in Genesis 1–2:3. This commentary interprets each day of creation in three ways: literal or cosmological; allegorical or ecclesiological (i.e. related to the church's history); and moral or tropological (i.e. related to the soul's growth in virtue). Finally, the five visions of the third part take up again the building imagery of Scivias to describe the course of salvation history. The final vision (3.5) contains Hildegard's longest and most detailed prophetic program of the life of the church from her own days of "womanish weakness" through to the coming and ultimate downfall of the Antichrist.[54]

MusicEdit

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval Catholic Church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard's music. In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, sixty-nine musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost.[55] This is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.

One of her better-known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. It is uncertain when some of Hildegard's compositions were composed, though the Ordo Virtutum is thought to have been composed as early as 1151.[56] It is an independent Latin morality play with music (82 songs); it does not supplement or pay homage to the Mass or the Office of a certain feast. It is, in fact, the earliest known surviving musical drama that is not attached to a liturgy.[7]

The Ordo virtutum would have been performed within Hildegard's monastery by and for her select community of noblewomen and nuns. It was probably performed as a manifestation of the theology Hildegard delineated in the Scivias. The play serves as an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, it is the female Virtues who restore the fallen to the community of the faithful, not the male Patriarchs or Prophets. This would have been a significant message to the nuns in Hildegard's convent. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima (the human souls) and the Virtues.[57] The devil's part is entirely spoken or shouted, with no musical setting. All other characters sing in monophonic plainchant. This includes Patriarchs, Prophets, A Happy Soul, A Unhappy Soul, and A Penitent Soul along with 16 female Virtues (including Mercy, Innocence, Chasity, Obedience, Hope, and Faith).[58]

In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. The songs from the Symphonia are set to Hildegard's own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences, to responsories.[59] Her music is monophonic, that is, consisting of exactly one melodic line.[60] Its style has been said to be characterized by soaring melodies that can push the boundaries of traditional Gregorian chant and to stand outside the normal practices of monophonic monastic chant.[61] Researchers are also exploring ways in which it may be viewed in comparison with her contemporaries, such as Hermannus Contractus.[62] Another feature of Hildegard's music that both reflects the twelfth-century evolution of chant, and pushes that evolution further, is that it is highly melismatic, often with recurrent melodic units. Scholars such as Margot Fassler, Marianne Richert Pfau, and Beverly Lomer also note the intimate relationship between music and text in Hildegard's compositions, whose rhetorical features are often more distinct than is common in twelfth-century chant.[63] As with most medieval chant notation, Hildegard's music lacks any indication of tempo or rhythm; the surviving manuscripts employ late German style notation, which uses very ornamental neumes.[64] The reverence for the Virgin Mary reflected in music shows how deeply influenced and inspired Hildegard of Bingen and her community were by the Virgin Mary and the saints.[65]

Scientific and medicinal writingsEdit

Hildegard of Bingen and her nuns

Hildegard's medicinal and scientific writings, although thematically complementary to her ideas about nature expressed in her visionary works, are different in focus and scope. Neither claim to be rooted in her visionary experience and its divine authority. Rather, they spring from her experience helping in and then leading the monastery's herbal garden and infirmary, as well as the theoretical information she likely gained through her wide-ranging reading in the monastery's library.[40] As she gained practical skills in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, she combined physical treatment of physical diseases with holistic methods centered on "spiritual healing".[66] She became well known for her healing powers involving the practical application of tinctures, herbs, and precious stones.[67] She combined these elements with a theological notion ultimately derived from Genesis: all things put on earth are for the use of humans.[68] In addition to her hands-on experience, she also gained medical knowledge, including elements of her humoral theory, from traditional Latin texts.[66]

Hildegard catalogued both her theory and practice in two works. The first, Physica, contains nine books that describe the scientific and medicinal properties of various plants, stones, fish, reptiles, and animals. This document is also thought to contain the first recorded reference of the use of hops in beer as a preservative.[69][70] The second, Causae et Curae, is an exploration of the human body, its connections to the rest of the natural world, and the causes and cures of various diseases.[71] Hildegard documented various medical practices in these books, including the use of bleeding and home remedies for many common ailments. She also explains remedies for common agricultural injuries such as burns, fractures, dislocations, and cuts.[66] Hildegard may have used the books to teach assistants at the monastery. These books are historically significant because they show areas of medieval medicine that were not well documented because their practitioners, mainly women, rarely wrote in Latin. Her writings were commentated on by Mélanie Lipinska, a Polish scientist.[72]

In addition to its wealth of practical evidence, Causae et Curae is also noteworthy for its organizational scheme. Its first part sets the work within the context of the creation of the cosmos and then humanity as its summit, and the constant interplay of the human person as microcosm both physically and spiritually with the macrocosm of the universe informs all of Hildegard's approach.[40] Her hallmark is to emphasize the vital connection between the "green" health of the natural world and the holistic health of the human person. Viriditas, or greening power, was thought to sustain human beings and could be manipulated by adjusting the balance of elements within a person.[66] Thus, when she approached medicine as a type of gardening, it was not just as an analogy. Rather, Hildegard understood the plants and elements of the garden as direct counterparts to the humors and elements within the human body, whose imbalance led to illness and disease.[66]

Thus, the nearly three hundred chapters of the second book of Causae et Curae "explore the etiology, or causes, of disease as well as human sexuality, psychology, and physiology."[40] In this section, she gives specific instructions for bleeding based on various factors, including gender, the phase of the moon (bleeding is best done when the moon is waning), the place of disease (use veins near diseased organ or body part) or prevention (big veins in arms), and how much blood to take (described in imprecise measurements, like "the amount that a thirsty person can swallow in one gulp"). She even includes bleeding instructions for animals to keep them healthy. In the third and fourth sections, Hildegard describes treatments for malignant and minor problems and diseases according to the humoral theory, again including information on animal health. The fifth section is about diagnosis and prognosis, which includes instructions to check the patient's blood, pulse, urine, and stool.[66] Finally, the sixth section documents a lunar horoscope to provide an additional means of prognosis for both disease and other medical conditions, such as conception and the outcome of pregnancy.[40] For example, she indicates that a waxing moon is good for human conception and is also good for sowing seeds for plants (sowing seeds is the plant equivalent of conception).[66] Elsewhere, Hildegard is even said to have stressed the value of boiling drinking water in an attempt to prevent infection.[73]

As Hildegard elaborates the medical and scientific relationship between the human microcosm and the macrocosm of the universe, she often focuses on interrelated patterns of four: "the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth), the four seasons, the four humors, the four zones of the earth, and the four major winds."[40] Although she inherited the basic framework of humoral theory from ancient medicine, Hildegard's conception of the hierarchical inter-balance of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) was unique, based on their correspondence to "superior" and "inferior" elements – blood and phlegm corresponding to the "celestial" elements of fire and air, and the two biles corresponding to the "terrestrial" elements of water and earth. Hildegard understood the disease-causing imbalance of these humors to result from the improper dominance of the subordinate humors. This disharmony reflects that introduced by Adam and Eve in the Fall, which for Hildegard marked the indelible entrance of disease and humoral imbalance into humankind.[40] As she writes in Causae et Curae c. 42:

It happens that certain men suffer diverse illnesses. This comes from the phlegm which is superabundant within them. For if man had remained in paradise, he would not have had the flegmata within his body, from which many evils proceed, but his flesh would have been whole and without dark humor [livor]. However, because he consented to evil and relinquished good, he was made into a likeness of the earth, which produces good and useful herbs, as well as bad and useless ones, and which has in itself both good and evil moistures. From tasting evil, the blood of the sons of Adam was turned into the poison of semen, out of which the sons of man are begotten. And therefore their flesh is ulcerated and permeable [to disease]. These sores and openings create a certain storm and smoky moisture in men, from which the flegmata arise and coagulate, which then introduce diverse infirmities to the human body. All this arose from the first evil, which man began at the start, because if Adam had remained in paradise, he would have had the sweetest health, and the best dwelling-place, just as the strongest balsam emits the best odor; but on the contrary, man now has within himself poison and phlegm and diverse illnesses.[74]

Lingua ignota and Litterae ignotaeEdit

Alphabet by Hildegard von Bingen, Litterae ignotae, which she used for her language Lingua Ignota

Hildegard also invented an alternative alphabet. Litterae ignotae (Alternate Alphabet) was another work and was more or less a secret code, or even an intellectual code – much like a modern crossword puzzle today.

Hildegard's Lingua ignota (Unknown Language) consisted of a series of invented words that corresponded to an eclectic list of nouns. The list is approximately 1000 nouns; there are no other parts of speech.[75] The two most important sources for the Lingua ignota are the Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek 2 (nicknamed the Riesenkodex)[75] and the Berlin MS.[41] In both manuscripts, medieval German and Latin glosses are written above Hildegard's invented words. The Berlin MS contains additional Latin and German glosses not found in the Riesenkodex.[41] The first two words of the Lingua as copied in the Berlin MS are: Aigonz (German, goth; Latin, deus; [English God]) and Aleganz (German engel; Latin angelus; [English angel]).[76]

Barbara Newman believes that Hildegard used her Lingua Ignota to increase solidarity among her nuns.[77] Sarah Higley disagrees and notes that there is no evidence of Hildegard teaching the language to her nuns. She suggests that the language was not intended to remain a secret; rather, the presence of words for mundane things may indicate that the language was for the whole abbey and perhaps the larger monastic world.[41] Higley believes that "the Lingua is a linguistic distillation of the philosophy expressed in her three prophetic books: it represents the cosmos of divine and human creation and the sins that flesh is heir to."[41]

The text of her writing and compositions reveals Hildegard's use of this form of modified medieval Latin, encompassing many invented, conflated, and abridged words.[13] Because of her inventions of words for her lyrics and use of a constructed script, many conlangers look upon her as a medieval precursor.[78]

SignificanceEdit

During her lifetimeEdit

Maddocks claims that it is likely Hildegard learned simple Latin and the tenets of the Christian faith, but was not instructed in the Seven Liberal Arts, which formed the basis of all education for the learned classes in the Middle Ages: the Trivium of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric plus the Quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.[79] The correspondence she kept with the outside world, both spiritual and social, transcended the cloister as a space of spiritual confinement and served to document Hildegard's grand style and strict formatting of medieval letter writing.[80][81]

Contributing to Christian European rhetorical traditions, Hildegard "authorized herself as a theologian" through alternative rhetorical arts.[80] Hildegard was creative in her interpretation of theology. She believed that her monastery should exclude novices who were not from the nobility because she did not want her community to be divided on the basis of social status.[82] She also stated that "woman may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman."[33]

Hildegard's preaching tours

Because of church limitation on public, discursive rhetoric, the medieval rhetorical arts included preaching, letter writing, poetry, and the encyclopedic tradition.[83] Hildegard's participation in these arts speaks to her significance as a female rhetorician, transcending bans on women's social participation and interpretation of scripture. The acceptance of public preaching by a woman, even a well-connected abbess and acknowledged prophet, does not fit the stereotype of this time. Her preaching was not limited to the monasteries; she preached publicly in 1160 in Germany. (New York: Routledge, 2001, 9). She conducted four preaching tours throughout Germany, speaking to both clergy and laity in chapter houses and in public, mainly denouncing clerical corruption and calling for reform.[84]

Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters.[1] She traveled widely during her four preaching tours.[85] She had several devoted followers, including Guibert of Gembloux, who wrote to her frequently and became her secretary after Volmar's death in 1173. Hildegard also influenced several monastic women, exchanging letters with Elisabeth of Schönau, a nearby visionary.[86]

Hildegard corresponded with popes such as Eugene III and Anastasius IV, statesmen such as Abbot Suger, German emperors such as Frederick I Barbarossa, and other notable figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who advanced her work, at the behest of her abbot, Kuno, at the Synod of Trier in 1147 and 1148. Hildegard of Bingen's correspondence is an important component of her literary output.[87]

VenerationEdit

Hildegard was one of the first persons for whom the Roman canonization process was officially applied, but the process took so long that four attempts at canonization were not completed and she remained at the level of her beatification. Her name was nonetheless taken up in the Roman Martyrology at the end of the 16th century. Her feast is 17 September.[88] Numerous popes have referred to Hildegard as a saint, including Pope John Paul II[89] and Pope Benedict XVI.[90] Hildegard's parish and pilgrimage church in Eibingen near Rüdesheim houses her relics.[91]

On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the veneration of Saint Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church[92] in a process known as "equivalent canonization,"[93] thus laying the groundwork for naming her a Doctor of the Church.[94] On 7 October 2012, the feast of the Holy Rosary, the pope named her a Doctor of the Church.[95] He called Hildegard "perennially relevant" and "an authentic teacher of theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music."[96]

Hildegard of Bingen also appears in the calendar of saints of various Anglican churches, such as that of the Church of England, in which she is commemorated on 17 September.[97][98]

Modern interestEdit

German 10 DM commemorative coin issued by the Federal Republic of Germany (1998): Hildegard of Bingen writing the book (Liber), 'Sci vias Domini', inspired by the hand of the Lord
German 10 DM commemorative coin issued by the Federal Republic of Germany (1998) designed by Carl Vezerfi-Clemm on the 900th anniversary of Hildegard of Bingen's birth
Line engraving by W. Marshall

In recent years, Hildegard has become of particular interest to feminist scholars.[99] They note her reference to herself as a member of the weaker sex and her rather constant belittling of women. Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis.[100] Such a statement on her part, however, worked slyly to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable, therefore giving Hildegard the authority to speak in a time and place where few women were permitted a voice.[101] Hildegard used her voice to amplify the church's condemnation of institutional corruption, in particular simony.

Hildegard has also become a figure of reverence within the contemporary New Age movement, mostly because of her holistic and natural view of healing, as well as her status as a mystic. Although her medical writings were long neglected and then, studied without reference to their context,[102] she was the inspiration for Dr. Gottfried Hertzka's "Hildegard-Medicine", and is the namesake for June Boyce-Tillman's Hildegard Network, a healing center that focuses on a holistic approach to wellness and brings together people interested in exploring the links between spirituality, the arts, and healing.[103] Her reputation as a medicinal writer and healer was also used by early feminists to argue for women's rights to attend medical schools.[102]

Reincarnation of Hildegard has been debated since 1924 when Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner lectured that a nun of her description was the past life of Russian poet-philosopher Vladimir Soloviev,[104] whose visions of Holy Wisdom are often compared to Hildegard's.[105] Sophiologist Robert Powell writes that hermetic astrology proves the match,[106] while mystical communities in Hildegard's lineage include that of artist Carl Schroeder[107] as studied by Columbia sociologist Courtney Bender[108] and supported by reincarnation researchers Walter Semkiw and Kevin Ryerson.[109]

Recordings and performances of Hildegard's music have gained critical praise and popularity since 1979. There is an extensive discography of her musical works.

The following modern musical works are directly linked to Hildegard and her music or texts:

The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Hildegard.[114]

In space, the minor planet 898 Hildegard is named for her.[115]

In film, Hildegard has been portrayed by Patricia Routledge in a BBC documentary called Hildegard of Bingen (1994),[116] by Ángela Molina in Barbarossa (2009)[117] and by Barbara Sukowa in the film Vision, directed by Margarethe von Trotta.[118]

Hildegard was the subject of a 2012 fictionalized biographic novel Illuminations by Mary Sharatt.[119]

The plant genus Hildegardia is named after her because of her contributions to herbal medicine.[120]

Hildegard makes an appearance in The Baby-Sitters Club #101: Claudia Kishi, Middle School Drop-Out by Ann M. Martin, when Anna Stevenson dresses as Hildegard for Halloween.[121]

A feature documentary film, The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard, was released by American director Michael M. Conti in 2014.[122]

The off-Broadway musical In the Green, written by Grace McLean, followed Hildegard's story.[123]

In his book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks devotes a chapter to Hildegard and concludes that in his opinion her visions were migrainous.[124]

See alsoEdit

NotesEdit

  1. ^ Some writers have speculated a distant origin for opera in this piece, though without any evidence. See: [1]; alt Opera, see Florentine Camerata in the province of Milan, Italy. [2] and [3] Archived 12 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine

ReferencesEdit

  1. ^ a b Bennett, Judith M. and Hollister, Warren C. Medieval Europe: A Short History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), p. 317.
  2. ^ a b "Women of Historic Note". Washington Post, By Gayle Worl 9 March 1997
  3. ^ Jones, Gaynor G.; Palisca, Claude V. (2001). Grout, Donald J(ay). Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11845.
  4. ^ Jöckle, Clemens (2003). Encyclopedia of Saints. Konecky & Konecky. p. 204.
  5. ^ Campbell, Olivia, Abortion Remedies from a Medieval Catholic Nun(!), JSTOR Daily, October 13, 2021
  6. ^ a b Caviness, Madeline. "Artist: 'To See, Hear, and Know All at Once'", in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 110–24; Nathaniel M. Campbell, Imago expandit splendorem suum: Hildegard of Bingen's Visio-Theological Designs in the Rupertsberg Scivias Manuscript in Eikón/Imago 4 (2013, Vol. 2, No. 2), pp. 1–68, accessible online here Archived 16 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ^ a b Burkholder, J. Peter, Claude V. Palisca, and Donald Jay Grout. 2006. Norton anthology of western music. New York: W.W. Norton.
  8. ^ Pope Benedict XVI, Apostolic Letter Proclaiming Saint Hildegard of Bingen, professed nun of the Order of Saint Benedict, a Doctor of the Universal Church, 7 October 2012.
  9. ^ Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 40; Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 9.
  10. ^ Gies, Frances; Gies, Joseph (1978). Women in the Middle Ages. Harper & Row. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-06-464037-4.
  11. ^ Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), pp. 278–79.
  12. ^ Fiona Bowie, Oliver Davies. Hildegard of Bingen: An Anthology. SPCK 1990. Some sources note younger siblings, specifically Bruno.
  13. ^ a b Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), p. 138; Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Visionary Women (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fotress, 2002), p. 7.
  14. ^ Newman, Barbara. "Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation." Church History 54, no. 2 (1985): 163–75.
  15. ^ Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), p. 139.
  16. ^ Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), pp. 52–55, 69; and John Van Engen, "Abbess: 'Mother and Teacher', in Barbara Newman, ed., Voice of the Living Light (California: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 30–51, at pp. 32–33.
  17. ^ Michael McGrade, "Hildegard von Bingen", in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopaldie der Musik, 2nd edition, T.2, Vol. 8, ed. Ludwig Fischer (Kassel and New York: Bahrenreiter, 1994).
  18. ^ Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Visionary Women (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fotress, 2002), p. 6.
  19. ^ Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), pp. 70–73; Reed-Jones, Carol. Hildegard of Bingen: Women of Vision (Washington: Paper Crane Press, 2004), p. 8.
  20. ^ Reed-Jones, Carol. Hildegard of Bingen: Women of Vision (Washington: Paper Crane Press, 2004), p. 6.
  21. ^ Furlong, Monica. Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics (Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications, 1996), p. 84.
  22. ^ Furlong, Monica. Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics (Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications, 1996), p. 85.
  23. ^ McGrade, "Hildegard", MGG.
  24. ^ "Women in art and music". rutgers.edu.
  25. ^ Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: a visionary life (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 11.
  26. ^ Underhill, Evelyn. Mystics of the Church (Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 1925), p. 77.
  27. ^ Schipperges, Heinrich. Hildegard of Bingen: Healing and the Nature of the Cosmos (New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997), p. 10.
  28. ^ Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 55.
  29. ^ Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Visionary Women (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fotress, 2002), p. 8.
  30. ^ Underhill, Evelyn. Mystics of the Church (Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 1925), pp. 78–79.
  31. ^ Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop with an Introduction by Barbara J. Newman, and Preface by Caroline Walker Bynum (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 60–61.
  32. ^ a b Oliveira, Plinio Correa de. "St. Hildegard Von Bingen, 17 September". St. Hildegard von Bingen, Saint of 17 September.
  33. ^ a b Madigan, Shawn. Mystics, Visionaries and Prophets: A Historical Anthology of Women's Spiritual Writings (Minnesota: Augsburg Fortress, 1998), p. 96.
  34. ^ Silvas, Anna (1998). Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-271-01954-3. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  35. ^ Silvas, Anna (1998). Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-271-01954-3. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  36. ^ Coakley, John (2012). "A Shared Endeavor? Guibert of Gembloux on Hildegard of Bingen". Women, Men, and Spiritual Power : Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 45–67. ISBN 978-0-231-13400-2.
  37. ^ Critical editions of all three of Hildegard's major works have appeared in the Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis: Scivias in vols. 43–43A, Liber vitae meritorum in vol. 90, and Liber divinorum operum in vol. 92.
  38. ^ Ferrante, Joan. "Correspondent: 'Blessed Is the Speech of Your Mouth'", in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 91–109. The modern critical edition (vols. 91–91b in the Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Medievalis) by L. Van Acker and M. Klaes-Hachmöller lists 390 canonical letters along with 13 letters that appear in different forms in secondary manuscripts. The letters have been translated into English in three volumes: The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, trans. Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (Oxford University Press, 1994, 1998, and 2004).
  39. ^ Hildegard von Bingen, Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing), trans. by Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan, ed. by Mary Palmquist and John Kulas (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Inc., 1994); Hildegard von Bingen, Physica, trans. Priscilla Throop (Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1998)
  40. ^ a b c d e f g Florence Eliza Glaze, "Medical Writer: 'Behold the Human Creature,'" in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 125–48.
  41. ^ a b c d e Higley, Sarah L. Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 21–22.
  42. ^ Hildegard of Bingen. Homilies on the Gospels. Trans. Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Cistercian Publications, 2011); and Hildegard of Bingen. Two Hagiographies: Vita Sancti Rupperti Confessoris and Vita Sancti Dysibodi Episcopi, ed. C.P. Evans, trans. Hugh Feiss (Louvain and Paris: Peeters, 2010).
  43. ^ Albert Derolez, "The Manuscript Transmission of Hildegard of Bingen's Writings," in Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of her Thought and Art, ed. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke (London: The Warburg Institute, 1998), pp. 22–23; and Michael Embach, Die Schriften Hildegards von Bingen: Studien zu ihrer Überlieferung und Rezeption im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003), p. 36.
  44. ^ Beuys, Barbara (2020). "Mit Visionen zur Autorität". Damals (in German). No. 6. pp. 22–29.
  45. ^ "Protestificatio" ("Declaration") to Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 59–61.
  46. ^ SCIVIAS.
  47. ^ Letter 4 in The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, trans. Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 34–35.
  48. ^ Van Engen, John. "Letters and the Public Persona of Hildegard," in Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, ed. Alfred Haverkamp (Mainz: Trierer Historische Forschungen, 2000), pp. 375–418; and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, "Hildegard of Bingen", in Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition, c. 1100–c. 1500, ed. Alastair Minnis and Rosalynn Voaden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 343–69, at pp. 350–52.
  49. ^ Hildegard of Bingen. The Book of the Rewards of Life. Trans. Bruce W. Hozeski (Oxford University Press), 1994.
  50. ^ Newman, Barbara. "Hildegard of Bingen and the 'Birth of Purgatory'," Mystics Quarterly 19 (1993): 90–97.
  51. ^ Newman, Barbara. "'Sibyl of the Rhine': Hildegard's Life and Times," in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 1–29, at pp. 17–19.
  52. ^ "Liber divinorum operum[manuscript]". lib.ugent.be. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  53. ^ "The Life of Hildegard", II.16, in Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources, trans. Anna Silvas (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 179; Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 162–63.
  54. ^ St. Hildegard of Bingen, The Book of Divine Works, trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018). ISBN 978-0-8132-3129-7
  55. ^ Hildegard of Bingen. Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (2nd Ed.; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988, 1998).
  56. ^ Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A Visionary Life (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 102.
  57. ^ Audrey Ekdahl Davidson. "Music and Performance: Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum." The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies, (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1992), pp. 1–29.
  58. ^ "Hildegard von Bingen Biography". www.singers.com. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  59. ^ Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 194.
  60. ^ Newman, Barbara. Voice of the Living Light (California: University of California Press, 1998), p. 150.
  61. ^ Holsinger, Bruce. "The Flesh of the Voice: Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179),"Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19 (Autumn, 1993): pp. 92–125.
  62. ^ See Jennifer Bain, "Hildegard, Hermannus and Late Chant Style," Journal of Music Theory, 2008, vol. 52.
  63. ^ Margot Fassler. "Composer and Dramatist: 'Melodious Singing and the Freshness of Remorse,'" Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 149–75; Marianna Richert-Pfau, "Mode and Melody Types in Hildegard von Bingen's Symphonia," Sonus 11 (1990): 53–71; Beverly Lomer, Music, Rhetoric and the Sacred Feminine (Saarbrücken, Germany: Verlag Dr. Müller, 2009) and eadem, "Hildegard of Bingen: Music, Rhetoric and the Divine Feminine," in Journal of the International Alliance of Women and Music, vol. 18, No. 2, 2012. See also Lomer's discussion of "The Theory and Rhetoric of Hildegard's Music," in the International Society for Hildegard von Bingen Studies' online edition of Hildegard's Symphonia.
  64. ^ See the facsimile of her music now freely available on IMSLP.
  65. ^ Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader (Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2007), p. 27; see also Beverly Lomer, "Hildegard of Bingen: Music, Rhetoric and the Divine Feminine," in Journal of the International Alliance of Women and Music, vol. 18, No. 2, 2012.
  66. ^ a b c d e f g Sweet, V. (1999). "Hildegard of Bingen and the greening of medieval medicine". Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 73(3), pp. 381–403. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/bhm.1999.0140
  67. ^ Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 155.
  68. ^ Hozeski, Bruce W. Hildegard's Healing Plants: From Her Medieval Classic Physica (Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2001), pp. xi–xii
  69. ^ Kitsock, Greg. "Hops: The beer ingredient (most) drinkers love". The Washington Post.
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  72. ^ Walsh, James (1911). Old Time Makers of Medicine. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 194–201..
  73. ^ "Hildegard of Bingen." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004.
  74. ^ Quoted in Glaze, "Medical Writer: 'Behold the Human Creature,'" p. 136.
  75. ^ a b Ferzoco, George. (2014). "Notes on Hildegard's 'Unknown' Language and Writing." In A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, p. 318. Leiden: Brill. Accessed 7 May 2021. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004260719_015.
  76. ^ As translated in Higley, Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 21, 205.
  77. ^ Barbara J. Newman, "Introduction" to Hildegard, Scivias, p. 13.
  78. ^ Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion, ed. Sarah Higley (2007)
  79. ^ Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age. New York: Doubleday, 2001. p. 40.
  80. ^ a b Dietrich, Julia. "The Visionary Rhetoric of Hildegard of Bingen." Listening to their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historic Women, Molly Meijer Wertheimer, ed. (University of South Carolina Press, 1997), pp. 202–14.
  81. ^ For cloister as confinement see "Female" section of "Cloister" in Catholic Encyclopedia.
  82. ^ See Hildegard's correspondence with Tengswich of Andernach, in Letters 52 and 52r, in The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, Vol. 1, trans.Baird and Ehrman (Oxford University Press, 1994), 127–30; and discussion in Alfred Haverkamp, "Tenxwind von Andernach und Hildegard von Bingen: Zwei »Weltanschauungen« in der Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts," in Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein, ed. Lutz Fenske, Werner Rösener, and Thomas Zotz (Jan Thorbecke Verlag: Sigmaringen, 1984), 515–48; and Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 165–67.
  83. ^ Herrick, James A., The History of Rhetoric: An Introduction, 4th ed. (Boston: Allyn Bacon, 2005), pp. ??.
  84. ^ Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Visionary Women. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. pp. 28–29.
  85. ^ Furlong, Monica. Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics (Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications, 1996), 85–86.
  86. ^ Hildegard von Bingen, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, trans. by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (NY: Oxford University Press, 1994/1998), p. 180.
  87. ^ Schipperges, Heinrich. Hildegard of Bingen: Healing and the Nature of the Cosmos (New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997), p. 16.
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  102. ^ a b Sweet, V. (1999). "Hildegard of Bingen and the greening of medieval medicine." Bulletin of the history of Medicine, 73(3), p. 386.
  103. ^ June Boyce-Tillman, "Hildegard of Bingen at 900: The Eye of a Woman," The Musical Times 139, no. 1865 (Winter, 1998): p. 35.
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  113. ^ In: Ein Hofer Königspaar. Rondeau Production, Leipzig 2012
  114. ^ Place Settings. Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved on 6 August 2015
  115. ^ Minor Planet Center: Lists and Plots: Minor Planets, accessed 8 October 2012
  116. ^ Hildegard of Bingen at IMDb
  117. ^ "Barbarossa – HP". Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
  118. ^ Vision at IMDb
  119. ^ Sharatt, Mary (2012). Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-56784-6.
  120. ^ Schott, H.W., Endlicher, S.F.L. Meletemata Botanica. (Vienna: Carolus Gerold, 1832)
  121. ^ Martin, Ann (2015). Claudia Kishi, Middle-School Dropout. New York: Scholastic Publishers.
  122. ^ The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard at IMDb
  123. ^ Meyer, Dan (28 June 2019). "Read What Critics Thought of in the Green Off-Broadway". Playbill. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  124. ^ Sacks, Oliver (1986). The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. London: Picador. p. 160. ISBN 0-330-29491-1. Retrieved 27 July 2021.

BibliographyEdit

Primary sources (in translation)Edit

  • Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing). Trans. by Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan. Edited by Mary Palmquist and John Kulas. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Inc., 1994.
  • Causes and Cures of Hildegard of Bingen. Trans. by Priscilla Throop. Charlotte, VT: MedievalMS, 2006, 2008.
  • Homilies on the Gospels. Trans. by Beverly Mayne Kienzle. Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications, 2011.
  • Physica. Trans. Priscilla Throop. Rochester Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1998.
  • Scivias. Trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop. Introduction by Barbara J. Newman. Preface by Caroline Walker Bynum. New York: Paulist Press, 1990.
  • Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions. Trans. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, with Jenny C. Bledsoe and Stephen H. Behnke. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications / Liturgical Press, 2014.
  • Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations), ed. and trans. Barbara Newman. Cornell Univ. Press, 1988/1998.
  • The Book of the Rewards of Life. Trans. Bruce Hozeski. New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.
  • The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen. Trans. by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman. 3 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994/1998/2004.
  • Three Lives and a Rule: the Lives of Hildegard, Disibod, Rupert, with Hildegard's Explanation of the Rule of St. Benedict. Trans. by Priscilla Throop. Charlotte, VT: MedievalMS, 2010.
  • Two Hagiographies: Vita sancti Rupperti confessoris. Vita sancti Dysibodi episcopi. Intro. and trans. Hugh Feiss, O.S.B.; ed. Christopher P. Evans. Paris, Leuven, Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2010.
  • Hildegard of Bingen. The Book of Divine Works. Trans. by Nathaniel M. Campbell. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018.
  • Sarah L. Higley. Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  • Silvas, Anna. Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-271-01954-3

Secondary sourcesEdit

  • "Un lexique trilingue du XIIe siècle : la lingua ignota de Hildegarde de Bingen", dans Lexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientifique (Moyen Âge-Renaissance), Actes du colloque international organisé par l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes-IVe Section et l'Institut Supérieur de Philosophie de l'Université Catholique de Louvain, Paris, 12–14 juin 1997, éd. J. Hamesse, D. Jacquart, Turnhout, Brepols, 2001, p. 89–111.
  • "'Sibyl of the Rhine': Hildegard's Life and Times." Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
  • "Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation." Church History 54 (1985): 163–75.
  • "Un témoin supplémentaire du rayonnement de sainte Radegonde au Moyen Age ? La Vita domnae Juttae (XIIe siècle)", Bulletin de la société des Antiquaires de l'Ouest, 5e série, t. XV, 3e et 4e trimestres 2001, pp. 181–97.
  • Die Gesänge der Hildegard von Bingen. Eine musikologische, theologische und kulturhistorische Untersuchung. Olms, Hildesheim 2003, ISBN 978-3-487-11845-1.
  • Hildegard von Bingen. Leben – Werk – Verehrung. Topos plus Verlagsgemeinschaft, Kevelaer 2014, ISBN 978-3-8367-0868-5.
  • Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.
  • Tugenden und Laster. Wegweisung im Dialog mit Hildegard von Bingen. Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron 2012, ISBN 978-3-87071-287-7.
  • Wege in sein Licht. Eine spirituelle Biografie über Hildegard von Bingen. Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron 2013, ISBN 978-3-87071-293-8.
  • Bennett, Judith M. and C. Warren Hollister. Medieval Europe: A Short History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 289, 317.
  • Boyce-Tillman, June. "Hildegard of Bingen at 900: The Eye of a Woman." The Musical Times 139, no. 1865 (Winter, 1998): 31–36.
  • Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader. Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2007.
  • Davidson, Audrey Ekdahl. "Music and Performance: Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum." The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1992.
  • Dietrich, Julia. "The Visionary Rhetoric of Hildegard of Bingen." Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historic Women. Ed. Molly Meijer Wertheimer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 202–14.
  • Fassler, Margot. "Composer and Dramatist: 'Melodious Singing and the Freshness of Remorse.'" Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
  • Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A Visionary Life. London: Routledge, 1989.
  • Fox, Matthew. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. New Mexico: Bear and Company, 1985.
  • Furlong, Monica. Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics. Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications, 1996.
  • Glaze, Florence Eliza. "Medical Writer: 'Behold the Human Creature.'" Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
  • Holsinger, Bruce. Music, Body, and Desire In Medieval Culture. California: Stanford University Press, 2001.
  • Kienzle, Beverly, George Ferzoco, & Debra Stoudt. A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen. Brill's companions to the Christian tradition. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Notes on Hildegard's "Unknown" Language and Writing.
  • King-Lenzmeier, Anne. Hildegard of Bingen: an integrated version. Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2001.
  • Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
  • Madigan, Shawn. Mystics, Visionaries and Prophets: A Historical Anthology of Women's Spiritual Writings. Minnesota: Augsburg Fortress, 1998.
  • McGrade, Michael. "Hildegard von Bingen." Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopaldie der Musik, 2nd edition, T. 2, Volume 8. Edited by Ludwig Fischer. Kassel, New York: Bahrenreiter, 1994.
  • Moulinier, Laurence, Le manuscrit perdu à Strasbourg. Enquête sur l'œuvre scientifique de Hildegarde, Paris/Saint-Denis, Publications de la Sorbonne-Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 1995, 286 p.
  • Newman, Barbara. Voice of the Living Light. California: University of California Press, 1998.
  • Richert-Pfau, Marianne and Stefan Morent. Hildegard von Bingen: Klang des Himmels. Koeln: Boehlau Verlag, 2005.
  • Richert-Pfau, Marianne. "Mode and Melody Types in Hildegard von Bingen's Symphonia." Sonus 11 (1990): 53–71.
  • Salvadori, Sara. Hildegard von Bingen. A Journey into the Images. Milan: Skira, 2019.
  • Schipperges, Heinrich. Hildegard of Bingen: healing and the nature of the cosmos. New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997.
  • Stühlmeyer, Barbara. Die Kompositionen der Hildegard von Bingen. Ein Forschungsbericht. In: Beiträge zur Gregorianik. 22. ConBrio Verlagsgesellschaft, Regensburg 1996, ISBN 978-3-930079-23-0, S. 74–85.
  • The Life and Works of Hildegard von Bingen. Internet. Available from Internet History Sourcebooks Project; accessed 14 November 2009.
  • Tillman, June-Boyce. "Hildegard of Bingen at 900: The Eye of a Woman". The Musical Times 139, no. 1865 (Winter, 1998): 31–36.
  • Underhill, Evelyn. Mystics of the Church. Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 1925.

Bibliography of Hildegard of BingenEdit

Main article: Bibliography of Hildegard of Bingen

Primary sourcesEdit

Editions of Hildegard's worksEdit

  • Beate Hildegardis Cause et cure, ed. L. Moulinier (Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 2003)
  • Epistolarium pars prima I–XC edited by L. Van Acker, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 91A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991)
  • Epistolarium pars secunda XCI–CCLr edited by L. Van Acker, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 91A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993)
  • Epistolarium pars tertia CCLI–CCCXC edited by L. Van Acker and M. Klaes-Hachmoller, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis XCIB (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001)
  • Hildegard of Bingen, Two Hagiographies: Vita sancti Rupperti confessoris, Vita sancti Dysibodi episcopi, ed. and trans. Hugh Feiss & Christopher P. Evans, Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 11 (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2010)
  • Hildegard of Bingen's Unknown Language: An Edition, Translation, and Discussion, ed. Sarah Higley (2007) (the entire Riesencodex glossary, with additions from the Berlin MS, translations into English, and extensive commentary)
  • Hildegardis Bingensis, Opera minora II. edited by C.P. Evans, J. Deploige, S. Moens, M. Embach, K. Gärtner, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 226A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), ISBN 978-2-503-54837-1
  • Hildegardis Bingensis, Opera minora. edited by H. Feiss, C. Evans, B.M. Kienzle, C. Muessig, B. Newman, P. Dronke, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 226 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), ISBN 978-2-503-05261-8
  • Hildegardis Bingensis. Werke Band IV. Lieder Symphoniae. Edited by Barbara Stühlmeyer. Beuroner Kunstverlag 2012. ISBN 978-3-87071-263-1.
  • Liber divinorum operum. A. Derolez and P. Dronke eds., Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996)
  • Liber vitae meritorum. A. Carlevaris ed. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 90 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995)
  • Lieder (Otto Müller Verlag Salzburg 1969: modern edition in adapted square notation)
  • Marianne Richert Pfau, Hildegard von Bingen: Symphonia, 8 volumes. Complete edition of the Symphonia chants. (Bryn Mawr, Hildegard Publishing Company, 1990).
  • Scivias. A. Führkötter, A. Carlevaris eds., Corpus Christianorum Scholars Version vols. 43, 43A. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003)

Early manuscripts of Hildegard's worksEdit

  • Dendermonde, Belgium, St.-Pieters-&-Paulusabdij Cod. 9 (Villarenser codex) (c. 1174/75)
  • Leipzig, University Library, St. Thomas 371
  • München, University Library, MS 2∞156
  • Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS 1139
  • Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek, MS 2 (Riesen Codex) or Wiesbaden Codex (c. 1180–85)

Other sourcesEdit

  • Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis, in Analecta Sacra vol. 8 edited by Jean-Baptiste Pitra (Monte Cassino, 1882).
  • Explanatio Regulae S. Benedicti
  • Explanatio Symboli S. Athanasii
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Emil Roth, "Glossae Hildigardis", in: Elias Steinmeyer and Eduard Sievers eds., Die Althochdeutschen Glossen, vol. III. Zürich: Wiedmann, 1895, 1965, pp. 390–404.
  • Homeliae LVIII in Evangelia.
  • Hymnodia coelestis.
  • Ignota lingua, cum versione Latina
  • Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis (1163–73/74)
  • Liber vitae meritorum (1158–63)
  • Libri simplicis et compositae medicinae.
  • Patrologia Latina vol. 197 (1855).
  • Physica, sive Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum libri novem
  • Scivias seu Visiones (1141–51)
  • Solutiones triginta octo quaestionum
  • Tractatus de sacramento altaris

Further readingEdit

General commentary
  • Burnett, Charles and Peter Dronke, eds. Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of Her Thought and Art. The Warburg Colloquia. London: The University of London, 1998.
  • Cherewatuk, Karen and Ulrike Wiethaus, eds. Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
  • Davidson, Audrey Ekdahl. The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992. ISBN 978-1-879288-17-1
  • Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua to Marguerite Porete. 1984. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  • Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 978-0-7607-1361-7
  • Gosselin, Carole & Micheline Latour. Hildegarde von Bingen, une musicienne du XIIe siècle. Montréal: Université du Québec à Montréal, Département de musique, 1990.
  • Grimm, Wilhelm. "Wiesbader Glossen: Befasst sich mit den mittelhochdeutschen Übersetzungen der Unbekannten Sprache der Handschrift C." In Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, pp. 321–40. Leipzig, 1848.
  • King-Lenzmeier, Anne H. Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001.
  • Newman, Barbara, ed. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Berkeley: University of California, 1998.
  • Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
  • Pernoud, Régine. Hildegard of Bingen: Inspired Conscience of the Twelfth Century. Translated by Paul Duggan. NY: Marlowe & Co., 1998.
  • Schipperges, Heinrich. The World of Hildegard of Bingen: Her Life, Times, and Visions. Trans. John Cumming. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999.
  • Wilson, Katharina. Medieval Women Writers. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984.
On Hildegard's illuminations
  • Baillet, Louis. "Les miniatures du »Scivias« de Sainte Hildegarde." Monuments et mémoires publiés par l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres 19 (1911): 49–149.
  • Campbell, Nathaniel M. "Imago expandit splendorem suum: Hildegard of Bingen's Visio-Theological Designs in the Rupertsberg Scivias Manuscript." Eikón / Imago 4 (2013, Vol. 2, No. 2), pp. 1–68; accessible online here Archived 5 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine.
  • Caviness, Madeline. "Gender Symbolism and Text Image Relationships: Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias." In Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeanette Beer, pp. 71–111. Studies in Medieval Culture 38. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997.
  • Eadem. "Artist: 'To See, Hear, and Know All at Once'." In Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman, pp. 110–24. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
  • Eadem. "Calcare caput draconis. Prophetische Bildkonfiguration in Visionstext und Illustration: zur Vision »Scivias« II, 7." In Hildegard von Bingen. Prophetin durch die Zeiten, edited by Äbtissin Edeltraud Forster, 340–58. Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 1997.
  • Eadem. "Hildegard as Designer of the Illustrations to Her Works." In Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of Her Thought and Art, ed. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke, pp. 29–62. London: Warburg Institute, 1998.
  • Eadem. "Hildegard of Bingen: German Author, Illustrator, and Musical Composer, 1098–1179." In Dictionary of Women Artists, ed. Delia Gaze, pp. 685–87. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
  • Eadem. Bildgewordene Visionen oder Visionserzählungen: Vergleichende Studie über die Visionsdarstellungen in der Rupertsberger Scivias-Handschrift und im Luccheser Liber divinorum operum-Codex der Hildegard von Bingen. Neue Berner Schriften zur Kunst, 5. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 1998.
  • Eadem. Die Miniaturen im "Liber Scivias" der Hildegard von Bingen: die Wucht der Vision und die Ordnung der Bilder. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1998.
  • Führkötter, Adelgundis. The Miniatures from the Book Scivias: Know the Ways – of St Hildegard of Bingen from the Illuminated Rupertsberg Codex. Vol. 1. Armaria patristica et mediaevalia. Turnhout: Brepols, 1977.
  • Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550–1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976. ISBN 978-0-394-73326-5
  • Keller, Hiltgart L. Mittelrheinische Buchmalereien in Handschriften aus dem Kreise der Hiltgart von Bingen. Stuttgart: Surkamp, 1933.
  • Kessler, Clemencia Hand. "A Problematic Illumination of the Heidelberg "Liber Scivias"." Marsyas 8 (1957): 7–21.
  • Meier, Christel. "Zum Verhältnis von Text und Illustration im überlieferten Werk Hildegards von Bingen." In Hildegard von Bingen, 1179–1979. Festschrift zum 800. Todestag der Heiligen, ed. Anton Ph. Brück, pp. 159–69. Mainz: Selbstverlag der Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 1979.
  • Otto, Rita. "Zu einigen Miniaturen einer »Scivias«-Handschrift des 12. Jahrhunderts." Mainzer Zeitschrift. Mittelrheinisches Jahrbuch für Archäologie, Kunst und Geschichte 67/68 (1972): 128–37.
  • Saurma-Jeltsch, Lieselotte. "Die Rupertsberger »Scivias«-Handschrift: Überlegungen zu ihrer Entstehung." In Hildegard von Bingen. Prophetin durch die Zeiten, ed. Äbtissin Edeltraud Forster, pp. 340–58. Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Herder, 1997.
  • Schomer, Josef. Die Illustrationen zu den Visionen der hl. Hildegard als künstlerische Neuschöpfung (das Verhältnis der Illustrationen zueinander und zum Texte). Bonn: Stodieck, 1937.
  • Suzuki, Keiko. "Zum Strukturproblem in den Visionsdarstellungen der Rupertsberger «Scivias» Handschrift." Sacris Erudiri 35 (1995): 221–91.
Background reading
  • Boyce-Tillman, June. The Creative Spirit: Harmonious Living with Hildegard of Bingen, Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8192-1882-7
  • Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. Man of Blessing: A Life of St. Benedict. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-61261-162-4
  • Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
  • Bynum, Caroline Walker. Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
  • Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990. ISBN 978-0-500-20354-5
  • Constable, Giles Constable. The Reformation of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  • Dronke, Peter, ed. A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  • Eadem. Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine. New York: Routledge Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-415-97634-3
  • Holweck, the Rt. Reverend Frederick G. A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints, with a General Introduction on Hagiology. 1924. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1990.
  • Lachman, Barbara. Hildegard: The Last Year. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.
  • McBrien, Richard. Lives of the Saints: From Mary and St. Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother Teresa. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.
  • McKnight, Scot. The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006.
  • Newman, Barbara. God and the Goddesses. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1911-1
  • Pelikan, Jaroslav. Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
  • Stevenson, Jane. Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, & Authority from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  • Sweet, Victoria. "Hildegard of Bingen and the Greening of Medieval Medicine." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1999, 73:381–403.
  • Ulrich, Ingeborg. Hildegard of Bingen: Mystic, Healer, Companion of the Angels. Trans. Linda M. Maloney. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993.
  • Ward, Benedicta. Miracles and the Medieval Mind. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1987.
  • Weeks, Andrew. German mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein: a literary and intellectual history. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-7914-1419-4

External linksEdit

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Living Through Dying: The Spiritual Experience of St. Paul: Dales, Douglas, Allchin, A MacDonald: 9780718828981: Amazon.com: Books

Living Through Dying: The Spiritual Experience of St. Paul: Dales, Douglas, Allchin, A MacDonald: 9780718828981: Amazon.com: Books







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Living Through Dying: The Spiritual Experience of St. Paul Hardcover – January 1, 1994
by Douglas Dales (Author), A MacDonald Allchin (Foreword)
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In this beautifully written study, Douglas Dales examines fine autobiographical passages in St Paul's letters, notably II Corinthians, in the light of continuing spiritual experience and language of fine church, to ascertain the saints own experience of entering into the dying and rising of Christ. He seeks to show how the roots of all that is distinctive about Paul's theology spring from this seminal experience. This phenomenon is related to certain aspects of other New Testament writings, especially early Christian attitudes to fine passages about suffering in fine Old Testament, and fine testimony of the Apostolic Fathers.


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97 pages

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From Publishers Weekly
Paul of Tarsus, in many ways the founder of the early Christian movement, experienced a dramatic conversion on his way to Damascus. While the book of Acts records Paul's many missionary journeys to the early Christian churches, his letters to these communities are highly autobiographical and record his deep spiritual experiences. In his letter to the Philippian church, Paul declares that "my one desire is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and to share his sufferings in growing conformity with his death, in hope of somehow attaining the resurrection of the dead" (3:10-11). Dales, head of religious studies at Marlborough College, examines Paul's letters in-depth and argues that the motif of glory through suffering provides the foundation for Paul's teachings on justification by faith, the Church as the body of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Dales contends that many Old Testament passages provide Paul with interpretive lenses through which to view the suffering of Jesus and his own persecution as a Christian. Dales argues that texts such as Isaiah 53, Lamentations 3 and Psalm 22 represent the "movement from darkness to light, through suffering to salvation...and [they] took on new meaning in light of the resurrection." The author also asserts that such post-Pauline Christian writers as Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria emphasize the theme of glory through suffering, using Christ's crucifixion and resurrection as a model. Dales demonstrates through the evidence the ways in which early Christianity came to accept martyrdom as a glorious calling, since it promised, in the Christian conception at least, imminent resurrection as a reward for following Christ even unto death. Dales's accessible study offers a expansive overview of one chapter in the development of early Christianity. (Aug.)

Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Dales is Chaplain and Head of Religious Studies at Marlborough College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.


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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lutterworth Press (January 1, 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 97 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0718828984
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0718828981
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.26 x 0.66 x 9.53 inchesBest Sellers Rank: #3,730,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)#5,003 in Christian Saints
#5,358 in New Testament Criticism & Interpretation
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Douglas Dales


The Revd Douglas Dales is an Anglican parish priest in the Oxford diocese and was formerly Chaplain of Marlborough College, an independent boarding school of boys and girls, where he taught Theology, History and Latin. He has active friendships with Catholic and Orthodox monasteries in the UK and abroad, including Mount Athos, as well as links with the Lutheran church in Latvia and Austria. He teaches theology and church history and travels widely in Europe. He is married with three grown up children and four grandchildren. He has recently produced a trilogy of studies of St Bonaventure to mark the eighth centenary of his birth in 1217. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His interests include music, art, archaeology and horticulture.



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알라딘: 틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑Fidelity _ how to create a loving relationship that lasts


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What does Fidelity mean?

fidelity, allegiance, fealty, loyalty, devotion, piety mean faithfulness to something to which one is bound by pledge or duty. fidelity implies strict and continuing faithfulness to an obligation, trust, or duty. marital fidelity allegiance suggests an adherence like that of citizens to their country.

Fidelity Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Websterhttps://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › fidelity
관련 검색: What does Fidelity mean?

Translations of fidelity
Part of speech Translation Reverse translations Frequency
help_outline
Noun
  • 충실도fidelity
  • 충실faithfulness, fidelity, substantiality, troth
  • 정절fidelity, tangent, honesty
  • 성실sincerity, fidelity, truth
  • 절개incision, dissection, section, fidelity
  • 진실성verity, fidelity
  • 충신loyalist, loyal subject, fidelity
  • 원 물건과 꼭같음fidelity

What is Fidelity known for?
About Fidelity

Once best known for its mutual funds—the Fidelity Funds—the company is now a diversified investment brokerage, offering the full range of investment products, and some of the lowest trading fees available in the industry. The company remains a major player in mutual funds.2020. 11. 3.

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알라딘: 틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑

틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑 
틱낫한 (지은이),신소영 (옮긴이)영림카디널2014-02-15
원제 : Fidelity (2011년)





틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑


양장본216쪽

이 책의 원서/번역서
 Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts (Hardcover) Hardcover

책소개

틱낫한 스님이 전하는 진정한 사랑의 의미. 하룻밤 스쳐지나가는 인스턴트 사랑이 넘쳐나는 현대사회에서 진실하고 참된 사랑을 하기 위해서는 어떻게 해야 할까? 점점 진실한 사랑을 잃어가고 있는 현대인들에게 마음챙김과 집중, 그리고 지혜를 통해 자기 자신에 대한 이해와 사랑을 바탕으로 연인, 가족, 다른 사람들과 올바른 사랑과 관계 맺기를 할 수 있는 방법을 소개한다.

"진실한 사랑에서 행복이란 각자의 문제가 아니다. 사랑을 하는 사람과 사랑받는 사람을 구별하지 않는다. 당신의 고통은 곧 나의 고통이며 나의 행복이 곧 당신의 행복이다. 사랑하는 사람과 사랑받는 사람은 한 몸이다." 
이 책에서 틱낫한 스님은 감각적이고 육체적인 사랑이 아닌 정신적으로 교감할 수 있는 진실한 사랑의 의미와 행복에 이르는 길을 안내한다.


목차
1. 진실한 사랑

2. 친밀감
감정적 친밀감
육체적 친밀감
영적 친밀감

3. 욕망의 근원
두려워하지 않기
갈망하기
습관의 힘
강박관념
갈망에서 벗어나기

4. 외로움과 고통 변화시키기
관심갖기
외모
고통 이해하기
잘못된 시각
지배권

5. 이해와 용서
귀 기울여 듣기
용서하기

6. 행복에 이르는 세 가지 열쇠
마음의 소 풀어주기
마음챙김
집중하기
지혜 얻기

7. 진실한 사랑의 네 가지 요소
자애
연민
기쁨
평온

8. 진실한 맹세
강하게 염원하기
내면이 부처 일깨우기
매 순간을 부처로 살기

9. 신의
깊게 뿌리 내리기
첫 번째 뿌리 : 믿음
두 번째 뿌리 : 수행
세 번째 뿌리 : 공동체의 지지
두 개의 정원
진정한 안식처

부록
애욕망경
마음챙김 수행법

====                    
추천글                                           
                
세계적으로 영향력이 높은 불교 지도자들 중 달라이 라마에 버금가는 틱낫한 스님이 현대인에게 지혜를 선사한다. - 뉴욕 타임스 
쉼 없는 친절함으로 틱낫한 스님은 낭만적인 행복으로 가는 과정은 또한 연민의 과정이라는 것을 알려준다. - 수전 파이버 (<The Wisdom of a Broken Heart>의 저자) 
틱낫한 스님은 쉽고, 정확하고, 진정으로 영감을 주는 방법으로 사람들의 정신세계를 파고든다. - 더 선 
살아있는 현인이라 불러도 좋을 만큼 인자한 틱낫한 스님은 우리에게 익숙한 여러 가지 혼란스러운 상황을 불교의 지혜를 빌려와 해결한다. - 마크 네포 (『일깨움의 책』 『마음이 볼 수 있는 한』의 저자) 

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이 책을 추천한 다른 분들 : 
한겨레 신문 
 - 한겨레 신문 2014년 3월 3일자 교양 새책


저자 및 역자소개
틱낫한 (Thich Nhat Hanh) (지은이) 

세계에서 가장 존경받는 영적 지도자이자 선불교의 스승, 그리고 사회 변화를 위한 행동가이다.1926년 베트남에서 출생, 열여섯 살이던 1942년에 선불교에 입문하여 승려가 되었다. 1961년 미국으로 건너가 프린스턴대학교와 컬럼비아대학교에서 비교종교학을 공부했으며, 불교사상의 사회적 실천과 사회 문제에 대한 적극적 참여를 기본 정신으로 하는 ‘참여 불교(Engaged Buddhism)’를 주창하며 다양한 사회 운동을 펼쳤다. 이후 베트남 전쟁이 발발하자 전 세계를 돌며 반전평화운동을 전개하다가 베트남 정권에 의해 귀국 금지 조치를 ... 더보기
최근작 : <평화 되기>,<천천히 가라, 숨 쉬며 그리고 웃으며>,<틱낫한 지구별 모든 생명에게> … 총 1071종 (모두보기)


신소영 (옮긴이) 
연세대학교 영어영문학과를 졸업한 후, 이화여자대학교 통번역대학원 한영번역과에 재학 중이다. 역서로는 『팔지 않고 사게 만드는 판매원칙 33』 , 『비즈니스는 신뢰다』 등이 있다. 현재 전문 통번역가로 활동하고 있다.

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출판사 제공 책소개

전 세계인의 정신적 스승, 틱낫한 스님이 전하는 진정한 사랑의 의미!
하룻밤 스쳐지나가는 인스턴트 사랑이 넘쳐나는 현대사회에서 진실하고 참된 사랑을 하기 위해서는 어떻게 해야 할까? 이 책에서 틱낫한 스님은 점점 진실한 사랑을 잃어가고 있는 현대인들에게 마음챙김과 집중, 그리고 지혜를 통해 자기 자신에 대한 이해와 사랑을 바탕으로 연인, 가족, 다른 사람들과 올바른 사랑과 관계 맺기를 할 수 있는 방법을 소개한다. 감각적이고 육체적인 사랑이 아닌 정신적으로 교감할 수 있는 진실한 사랑의 의미와 행복에 이르는 길을 따라가 보자.

“진실한 사랑에서 행복이란 각자의 문제가 아니다. 사랑을 하는 사람과 사랑받는 사람을 구별하지 않는다. 당신의 고통은 곧 나의 고통이며 나의 행복이 곧 당신의 행복이다. 사랑하는 사람과 사랑받는 사람은 한 몸이다.”

진실한 사랑
이 책의 저자인 틱낫한 스님은 사랑이 기본적으로 감각적 욕망에 뿌리를 두고 있기 때문에 감각적이고 성적인 욕망에 바탕을 둔 사랑은 오히려 우리의 자유를 손상시키고 고통을 주지만 올바르고 진실한 사랑을 하게 되면 고통이 생겨나지 않고, 휴식, 기쁨, 평화를 즐길 수 있게 만든다.
사람들은 모두 정서적 친밀감을 얻기 위해 사랑을 찾지만 그것들은 대부분 하룻밤 사랑으로 끝나버리고, 이러한 육체적 관계는 외로움과 고통으로 귀결된다. 따라서 영적 친밀감을 얻는 사랑이 필요하다.

인간의 원초적 욕망은 생존이다. 사람들은 죽음과 고독이 두려워 사랑을 찾는다. 이처럼 사랑은 기본적으로 감각적 욕망에 그 뿌리를 두고 있기 때문에 감각적이고 성적인 욕망에 바탕을 둔 사랑은 오히려 우리의 자유를 손상시키고 고통을 준다.
을 갈망하는 마음을 끊으면 두려움이 사라진다. 갈망의 뿌리는 습관의 에너지, 콤플렉스이다. 우리는 자신의 재능과 아름다움을 증명할 사람과 함께 하고 싶어 한다는 사실을 깨달아야 한다.

외로움과 고통의 변화
우리는 사랑의 대상을 찾기 전에 우리 자신을 이해할 시간이 부족하다. 우리는 외로움과 고독감에 소모적인 생활을 한다. 우리는 우리 자신을 이해할 때에만 사랑을 할 수 있다. 우리는 타인이나 외부와 관계를 맺는 것으로 공허함을 채울 수 있다고 생각하지만 우리의 고통이 이미 그곳에 있다. 우리가 감각적인 사랑에 지배당할 때 걱정과 불행이 생긴다. 돈과 권력도 우리를 지켜주지 못한다. 우리는 하나를 얻으면 또 다른 갈망이 생기고, 자신의 존재 영역을 지키려 한다. 이러한 것이 외로움과 고통의 결과를 낳는다.

이해와 용서
자신의 고통을 이해하면 다른 사람들을 이해하는 것은 선물로 주어진다. 이해는 사랑의 다른 이름으로, 상대를 이해하지 않으면 사랑할 수 없다. 부모의 이해와 사랑으로 우리가 존재하게 되었고, 외로움은 이해와 사랑으로 치유될 수 있다. 이해와 사랑이 없다면 성적인 관계는 공허할 뿐이다. 사랑하는 사람을 이해하기 위해서는 경청이 필요하고, 우리의 고통을 이해할 수 있는 사람이 진정한 친구이다. 우리는 다른 사람의 고통을 이해할 수 있는 사람이 되고 싶어 한다. 경청을 통해 이해하고 고독을 제거해야 한다. 그리고 진정한 사과와 용서는 자신과 남을 행복하게 한다.

행복의 세 가지 열쇠
행복은 사물을 보는 우리의 방식에서 유래한다. 행복은 우리의 통찰력에 따라 달라진다. 행복하지 않다고 느껴지는 원인은 외부가 아니라 내면에 있다. 우리가 무엇에 애착을 가지는지 깨달을 필요가 있다. 무언가를 가지고 있거나 하게 되면 행복할 것이라고 느끼지만 그것이 이루어져도 행복하지 않을 수 있다. 행복에는 많은 문이 있다. 하나의 문이 닫히면 다른 문으로 갈 수 있다. 우리가 행복하기 위해서는 마음챙김, 집중, 통찰력이 필요하다. 마음챙김은 기쁨과 행복을 가져다주는 방법이다. 무언가를 염두에 두면 집중할 수 있고, 그 집중도가 높아지면 행복해진다. 통찰력이 있으면 두려움, 갈망, 욕망이 제거되어 행복해진다.

진실한 사랑의 네 가지 요소
진실한 사랑은 우리를 행복하게 하고, 그렇지 않다면 그것은 진실한 사랑이 아니다. 진실한 사랑은 친절, 연민, 기쁨, 평정으로 되어 있다. 자신을 사랑하고 행복하게 하는 법을 모른다면 다른 사람을 행복하게 할 수 없다. 자신의 고통을 이해할 때 다른 사람의 고통을 이해할 수 있다. 사랑은 우리에게 진정한 기쁨과 마음의 평정을 안겨준다.

우리의 진실한 서약
의지나 열망은 우리 마음속에 깊은 욕망과 동기를 부여하고 행동하는 방향을 결정한다. 이것은 긍정적이기도 부정적이기도 하며, 우리 삶을 유지하는 에너지이다. 우리는 의미 있는 일을 하고 싶어 하고, 연민과 진정한 사랑이 동기가 되면 건강한 의지를 갖출 수 있다. 성적 욕망의 에너지를 통찰력으로 관리하고, 감각적인 욕망을 풀고, 깊은 열망을 밝히고, 이원적 사고에서 자신을 해방시켜라.

충실함
어려움을 이겨낼 수 있게 깊이 뿌리를 내리는 것이 필요하고, 먼저 사람에 대한 믿음이 흔들릴 수 있기 때문에 자신과 신에 대한 믿음이 필요하다. 마음챙김, 집중, 통찰력에 대한 연습이 필요하다. 지역사회와 함께 하는 활동이 필요하다. 사람들은 먼저 자신의 정원을 돌봐야 한다. 자신의 마음에 담긴 분노, 두려움, 차별, 질투와 같은 쓰레기를 치워야 한다. 그리고 안전하고 편안한 진정한 자산이 되는 진실한 집을 찾아 우리 안에 만들어야 한다. 접기

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평점분포    8.6
     
사랑에 대한 최고의 정의
일독을 권함  구매
에일라 2016-07-03 공감 (1) 댓글 (0)
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마이리뷰         
                 
     
《틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑》사랑과 욕망에 관한 에세이 
 
《틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑》
스님이 무슨 섹스니 사랑이니 하는 말을 하는 걸까? 언뜻 보면 아마 이런 의문이 들지도 모르겠다. 그러나 승려도 사람이고 싯다르타가 깨달음을 얻어 부처가 되었을 적에도 사랑을 주고받아야만 하는 인간으로서 존재하기를 거부하지 않았다는 것을 생각하면 승려가 이런 말을 하는 것도 이해가 된다. 싯다르타는 스물아홉에 집을 떠나 서른다섯에 깨달음을 얻었으니 이 나이도 아직 젊은 나이고, 대부분의 사람들이 여전히 감각적 욕망을 강하게 느낄 나이기도 하다. 그러나 부처는 사랑과 함께 충분한 정신적 책임감과 깨달음을 지닌 존재였으므로 스스로의 성적에너지를 조절 할 수 있었고 우리도 역시 그럴 수 있다고 틱낫한 스님은 말한다.

 이 책은 부처의 <애욕망>이라는 경전에 관한 이야기다. 이 경전은 원래 수도승을 위한 것이었지만 우리 모두가 이 경전에서 배울 것이 많다. <애욕망경>에서 말하는 애(愛)는 인류 전체에 대한 사랑이며, 욕(慾)은 갈망, 탐욕, 욕망을 말한다. 틱낫한 스님은 이 책 전체에서 우리가 사랑이라 말하는 것이 과연 진정한 사랑인지 혹시 사랑이라는 이름 뒤에 가려진 욕망, 욕심, 갈망, 탐욕이 아닌지 돌아보게 도와준다.

 왜 우리는 사랑이라 말하면서 나와 상대방을 얽매려 하는 걸까? 육체적 친밀감과 정서적 친밀감은 어떻게 다를까? 우리는 왜 이별, 외로움, 공허함을 두려워하며 살까? 사람을 바뀌면 해결될 것 같았던 문제들이 다른 이들을 만난다고 해서 다 해결이 될까? 혹시 이런 것은 강박관념이나 오랜 과거로부터 내려온 습관은 아닐까? 등 우리가 사랑과 관계 맺기, 혹은 생의 진리와 깨달음 평화를 얻는데 방해를 하는 여러 요소를 돌아보게 해준다. 이런 과정을 거쳐 뒷부분에는 진실한 사랑의 네 가지 요소 자애, 연민, 기쁨, 평온에 이르는 길을 보여주며, 이를 위해 우리가 무엇을 해야 하고 어떤 마음가짐을 가져야 하는지 자세히 알려준다.

스님은 이런 방법으로 한결같이 <마음챙김> 수행을 얘기하고 있다. 책의 마지막에는 <애욕망경>과 <마음챙김>수행법이 부록으로 적혀있어 실제로 생활 속에 실천할 수 있는 구체적인 방법들로 도움이 많이 될 것 같다. 만일 이전에 불교나 명상에 관련된 책을 접해 보았다면 이 책 또한 아주 반갑고 친근하게 느낄 수 있을 것이고, 만일 이 책이 처음 이라 해도 아주 좋은 시작이 될 수 있을 것이다. 불가의 특징은 종교나 교리로써 누구를 믿거나 강제하는 것이 아니라는 것이다. 근본적으로 자신의 본 모습을 들여다보고 스스로 깨달음을 얻으라는 것이며, 부처의 이야기 또한 이를 도와줄 뿐 신앙이나 종교의 그것으로 받아들이지 않아도 된다는 것이기에 이 책 또한 많은 이들에게 좋은 영향을 줄 수 있을 것이라 생각한다. 사랑이나 인간관계에 어려움을 느끼는 사람이나, 자신의 모습을 돌아보고 좀 더 성숙한 모습의 자신을 원하는 사람들에게 아주 좋은 도움이 되어줄 것이라 생각한다. 

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[틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스 그리고 사랑]육체적, 감정적, 영적 친밀감을 위하여!

이 책의 저자는 너무나 유명한 틱낫한 스님이다.

틱낫한.

베트남 출신의 승려이다. 열여섯 살에 출가하여 1961년에 미국 프린스턴 대학에서 비교종교학을 공부했고, 컬럼비아 대학교에서 불교를 가르쳤다. 1963년에 베트남으로 돌아와 비폭력평화운동을 시작했고, 1966년에는 미국과 유럽을 돌며 반전평화운동을 전개했다. 한 때 노벨평화상 후보로 마틴 루터 킹 목사의 추천을 받기도 했다.

1973년에 베트남 정부에 의해 입국 저지를 당한 뒤, 프랑스로 망명하여 평화운동 및 마음 챙김 수행을 하고 있다.

이 책은 스님의 입장에서 사랑과 섹스를 어떻게 말할 지 궁금해서 읽게 된 책이다. 사실 승려의 입장에서 어떻게 말할 지 어느 정도 예상은 할 수 있는 책이다. 하지만 워낙 세계적으로 유명한 분이기에 그저 이분의 글을 읽고 싶었다는 표현이 이 책을 읽게 된 이유로 더 정확할 것이다.

모든 인간의 내면에는 감각적 욕망의 씨앗이 있다. 욕망에 흔들릴 때면 우리는 마음 챙김 연습과 지혜를 발휘하여 욕망을 향해 미소 지을 수 있다. (책에서)

욕망하지 않으면 존재감이 없는 듯 여겨지는 세상이다. 욕망에서 기쁨을 얻는 듯 하지만 고통 역시 따름도 알고 있다. 이론적으로는 알면서도 실천은 어려운 게 인간사다. 그렇기에 욕망이 자신을 옭아매고 상대방을 옭아매는 줄 알면서도 일상에서 욕망의 사슬을 끊기는 쉽지가 않다.

 

자신과 상대방을 옭아매지 않는 방식으로 사랑할 수 있다면, 사랑은 우리에게 행복과 평화를 가져다준다. 올바른 방식으로 사랑한다면 사랑으로 인해 고통 받는 일이 없다. 사랑 때문에 고통 받는다면, 올바르게 사랑하고 있지 못한 것이다. (책에서)

부처는 애욕망경에서 사랑을 부정적 의미로 말했다고 한다. 애욕에 사로잡히는 것은 물고기가 그물에 걸려드는 것과 같다는데. 애(愛)는 두 사람 사이의 낭만적인 사랑이 아닌 인류 전체의 사랑, 집착이 아닌 진실한 사랑이다. 욕(慾)은 갈망과 탐욕, 그리고 욕망이다. 그러니 애욕이란 욕망이 담긴 사랑이다.

저자는 우리의 일상은 늘 성적 갈망을 불러일으키는 이미지와 음악에 쉴 새 없이 노출된다고 한다. 그러니 서로에 대한 이해와 사랑을 바탕으로 한 건강한 성적 관계를 유지하려면 끊임없이 수행해야 한다고 한다.

누군가에게는 사랑이 가장 큰 기쁨이 되기도 하고, 다른 누군가에게는 사랑이 가장 큰 고통이 되기도 한다. 하지만 갈망과 집착이 아닌 이해와 배려가 가득하다면 진정 행복한 사랑을 누릴 수 있으리라. 물론 그리 쉽지 않겠지만 말이다.

저자는 육체적 친밀감과 감정적 친밀감은 떼려야 뗄 수 없는 사이라고 한다.

인간은 성적인 관계가 맺어질 때 감정적 친밀감도 생긴다. 거기에 영적인 친밀감이 가미된다면 육체적·감정적 친밀감마저 건강하고 유쾌한 치유력까지 지니게 된다.

우리가 누군가를 사랑하게 되면 그 사랑의 본질을 깊이 관찰해야 한다. 진실한 사랑에는 고통과 집착이 따리오지 않는다. (책에서)

섹스를 금기시할 필요는 없지만 사랑과 혼동해서는 안 된다. 섹스로 인해 즐거움을 얻을 수도 있고 관계를 깊이 발전시킬 수도 있지만 진실한 사랑에 반드시 섹스가 필요한 것은 아니다. 섹스 없이 완전한 사랑을 나누는 것도, 사랑 없는 섹스도 가능하기 때문이다.

결국 성적 친밀감 이전에 감정적, 영적 수준의 친밀감이 공유되어야 한다.

왜냐하면 섹스가 자신을 치유할 수는 없기에 말이다. 보다 근본적인 대책인 스스로 안정을 찾는 방법, 자기만의 안식처를 만드는 데 집중해야 한다. 자신의 감정을 다스리고 일상의 문제들에 대처할 수 있다면 상대방에게도 친밀함을 베풀 수 있게 된다. 서로가 안정된 상태에서 서로에게 안식처가 될 수 있다면 육체적 친밀감은 더한 행복감을 선사할 것이다.

특히 영적 수행은 내면의 고통을 포용하고 감정들을 다스려 일상의 안정감을 줄 것이다.

부처는 당신이 두려워하는 이유가 계속해서 갈망하기 때문이라고 얘기한다. 갈망하는 대상을 놓아버리면 더 이상 두려움이 없을 것이다. 두려움이 없으면 평화로워진다. (책에서)

욕망은 두려움과 연결되어 있다. 스스로 할 수 없다는 태아적 공포, 유전자적 공포가 기억되어 있기에 인간의 사랑은 시작과 동시에 두려움을 몰고 올 것이다. 이별, 외로움, 공허감, 배신, 소멸의 두려움이 사랑과 함께 등장하는 것들이다.

진실한 사랑은 내면의 충만한 상태에서 서로에게 행복을 선물하는 것이리라.

저자는 갈망의 근원은 습관의 힘에서 온다고 한다. 갈망에서 벗어나려면 육체적 욕망의 뿌리인 강박관념을 버리면 갈망의 사슬에서 헤어나게 된다. 습관의 힘은 내면의 강박관념과 욕망에서 비롯된 것이다.

외로움과 공허감을 달래려고 술이나 음식을 탐닉하는 것은 일시적인 해결책이다. 그러니 성관계를 가진다고 채울 수 있는 것은 아닐 것이다.

외로움도 욕망과 번민의 결과일 것이다. 그러니 스스로의 감정에 늘 관심 갖고 스스로의 정서와 기분을 돌아보는 일은 중요할 것이다. 모든 번뇌의 원인은 자기 안에 있음을 생각한다. 그런 감정들을 마주보며 끌어안을 수 있다면 평화와 행복이 가까이 다가와 주겠지. 행복에 이르는 비결의 열쇠란 놓아주는 것에서 시작해서, 스스로의 마음을 다스리는 것, 무언가에 집중하는 것으로 이어짐을 생각한다.

이 책을 읽는 동안, 행복과 사랑의 의미를 되새기며 마음 챙김을 생각할 수 있는 시간이었다.

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봄덕 2014-02-20 공감(2) 댓글(0)
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틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스, 그리고 사랑

쉽게 만나고 쉽게 헤어지는 인스턴트 사랑에서 진정한 사랑을 찾을 수 있을까? 현대사회에서 진실하고 참된 사랑이란 무엇일까?

진실한 사랑은 우리를 행복하게 하고, 기쁨과 평화를 주며, 고통을 줄여준다. 진실한 사랑은 친절, 연민, 기쁨, 평안으로 되어 있다. 자신을 사랑하고 행복하게 하는 법을 모른다면 다른 사람을 행복하게 할 수 없다. 자신의 고통을 이해할 때 다른 사람의 고통을 이해할 수 있다. 사랑은 우리에게 진정한 기쁨과 마음의 평안을 안겨준다.

이 책은 베트남 출신의 불교 승려이자 평화운동가, 시인인 틱낫한 스님이 점점 진실한 사랑을 잃어가고 있는 현대인들에게 마음 챙김과 집중, 그리고 지혜를 통해 자기 자신에 대한 이해와 사랑을 바탕으로 연인, 가족, 다른 사람들과 올바른 사랑과 관계 맺기를 할 수 있는 방법을 소개한다.

나는 책의 제목을 보고 스님이 섹스에 대해서 어떤 얘기를 할 지 궁금했다. 왠지 그런 주제로 할 얘기가 별로 없을 것 같기 때문이다. 결혼도 하지 않고 섹스도 하지 않고 혼자 수행을 하는 스님이 중생의 마음을 어찌 알까 싶어서였다.

이 책은 사랑을 실천하는 수행 방법을 통해 감각적 욕망을 사랑으로 승화시키는 길을 안내한다. 사랑하고 있지만 행복하지 않다면, 그것은 사랑이 아니라고 저자는 강조한다. 사랑으로 행복하려면 상대방의 고통과 기쁨을 함께 나누며, 이를 통해 마음의 평정을 얻을 수 있어야 한다. 또한 상대방을 옭아매서도 안 된다.

이 책은 모두 9장으로 구성되어 있다. 즉, 진실한 사랑, 친밀감, 욕망의 근원, 외로움과 고통 변화시키기, 이해와 용서, 행복에 이르는 세 가지 열쇠, 진실한 사랑의 네 가지 요소, 진실한 맹세, 신의 등이다.

책의 말미에는 부록으로 ‘애욕망경’과 ‘마음챙김 수행법’을 수록했다. 진정한 사랑이란 무엇인가, 욕망의 근원은 무엇인가, 행복에 이르기 위해서는 어떠해야 하는지 등의 내용을 포함하고 있다. 저자는 인간의 내면에는 감각적 욕망의 씨앗이 있기 마련이고, 욕망에 흔들릴 때 필요한 것이 마음 챙김의 연습과 지혜를 발휘하여 욕망에 압도당하거나 얽매이지 않아야 한다고 말한다. 감각적 욕망 자체가 나쁜 게 아니라, 그것에 압도되어 얽매이는 게 문제라는 것이다.

저자는 또 섹스를 금기시할 필요는 없다고 지적한다. 섹스로 인해 즐거움을 얻을 수 있고 관계를 깊이 발전시킬 수도 있기 때문이다. 그러나 섹스를 사랑과 혼동해서도 안 된다. 진실한 사랑에 반드시 섹스가 필요한 것은 아니다. 섹스 없이도 완전한 사랑을 나눌 수 있고, 사랑 없는 섹스도 가능해서다. 저자는 “건강한 성적 관계를 유지하려면 끊임없는 수행이 필요하다”고 설명한다.

이 책은 감각적이고 육체적인 사랑이 아닌 정신적으로 교감하는 진실한 사랑의 의미와 행복에 이르는 길을 제시한다. 인스턴스 사랑이 난무하는 시대에 진정한 사랑을 원하는 모든 분들에게 이 책을 읽으라고 권하고 싶다.

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다윗 2014-04-10 공감(1) 댓글(0)
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틱낫한 스님이 말하는 섹스 그리고 사랑

베트남 출신의 승려이자 많은 사람들의 존경과 사랑을 받고, 멘토이기도 한 '틱낫한 스님'이 젊은이들에게 '섹스와 사랑'에 대한 말씀을 하신다. 스님이 생각하는 '섹스와 사랑'은 어떤 것일까? 세속적인 사랑을 정신적 사랑과 육체적 사랑으로 구분하는 것이 아닌, 사랑과 욕망을 구분하려고 한다.
사랑의 가치가 떨어지고 욕망만 남아 사랑이라고 착각하는 요즘 젊은이들에게 사랑의 가치를 똑바로 알려주고자 한다. 그들이 사랑이라고 믿는 것이 오히려 욕망에 가깝고 욕망에 휩쓸려 자기자신을 갉아먹고 있다는 것을 일깨운다.

사람은 누구나 사랑을 하고 육체적 사랑 역시 사랑의 한 단면이다. 그렇지만 욕망과 사랑을 구분해야 하며, 욕망과 갈망의 단계에 도달해 애욕의 삶을 살아가는 사람들도 있다. 그들이 잘못된 것이 아니다. 사람은 누구나 사랑하고 사랑받길 원한다. 그런 원초적인 감정을 조절하지 못하고 습관처럼 욕망을 가지다보면 욕망에 사로잡힌 삶을 살아가게 되는 것이다.

욕망을 이기기 위해서는 '마음챙김'이라는 수행으로 자신의 마음의 원인을 파악하고 자신의 행동의 본질을 깨닫는 것이다. 그래서 성적인 에너지를 긍정적인 곳으로 도릴 수 있고, 삶을 긍정적으로 변화시킬 수 있게 된다. 그리고 마음챙김을 통해 행복한 삶 역시 가질 수 있다.

틱낫한 스님은 진정한 사랑이 행복을 만들고, 그 행복을 만들기 위해 자신을 사랑하는 자애, 연민, 기쁨, 그리고 평온을 가지라고 한다. 자애는 친구를 사랑하는 우정을 뜻하며, 연민은 사랑하는 사람의 고통을 덜어주는 능력이고, 기쁨은 상대방을 기쁘게 만드는 것이고, 평온은 상대의 기쁨과 슬픔, 고통까지도 구별하지 않고 함께 하는 것이다. 이런 요소들이 모이면 행복의 삶이 되는 것이다.

자신의 욕망과 사랑을 조절하고 행복한 삶을 살아가기 위해서는 지혜를 가져야 한다고 한다. 지혜는 깨달음을 얻는 것이도 그 깨달음을 활용하여 자신의 성적 욕망을 다스릴 수 있다는 것이다. 자신의 욕망을 더 커지지 않게 하며 다스릴 수 있는 것이 깨달음을 얻은 자가 할 수 있는 사랑의 방법이다. 마음챙김과 명상이라는 수행 방법을 통해 자신과 자신이 사랑하는 사람들을 행복하게 만들 수 있다. 욕망을 다스릴 수 있을 때에 비로소 진정한 사랑을 살 수 있게 되는 것이다.   

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리나 2014-02-20 공감(0) 댓글(0)
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스님의 생각을 통해서 보는 사랑

섹스 그리고 사랑이라는 책은 불교의 시각입장에서 진정한 사랑의 의미를 찾아가보는 책의 내용을 담고 있다. 우리는 연애와 사랑을 통해서 서로간의 교감을 하고 진지함을 느끼곤 한다. 채우지 못하는 것에 대해서 하나둘씩 채워가는 과정이 있는데 사랑에 대해서도 우리는 조금씩 더 배워가는 시간을 가진다. 사랑에 대해서 가지고 있는 개별적인 욕망에 대해서 우리들이 가지고 있는 생각에 대해서 스님께서는 조금 더 넓은 마음으로 바라보면서 사랑에 대한 방법에 대해서 다양하게 이야기를 해준다. 사랑에 대해서 고통을 받는 사람이 있을것이고 또 이를 통해서 행복을 얻어가는 사람들도 많이 있을것이다. 서로간의 마음이 편안한 사람이 되어야 하는것이 당연한데 그렇지 못할때는 내가 가고 있는 사랑의 방향에 대해서도 다시 한번 생각을 해봐야 할 것 같다.

 누군가를 살아하기 위해서는 자신에 대해서 잘 알아야 하고 그 사람과 나의 관계를 편안한 안식처로 이끌수 있어야 할 것이다. 내면을 어지럽히지 않고 스스로 정결한 마음가짐으로 다른 사람을 바라볼수 있다고 하면 사랑의 관계가 다른 사람에게 있어서도 더 편안한 존재로 다가갈수가 있을것이다. 책에서 자주 등장하는 애욕망경이라는 단어도 욕망에 관련된 사랑을 알려주는 내용인데 마음의 수양법에서 최근에는 남녀간의 사랑에 대한 느낌을 이해할수 있는 내용들이 많다. 겉으로 들어난 것에 대해서 관심이 많아지고 우리들은 외적인 부분에 대해서 많이 이끌림을 가지게 된다. 하지만 진정으로 중요한 것은 서로간의 진실한 사랑을 얻어가는 과정이라고 생각을 한다. 사랑하는 관계라고 한다면 서로간의 마음 깊이 뿌리 내려서 공유하는 것들이 많아져야 한다. 그러면서 같은 방향으로 시각으로 보면서 살아갈수가 있을 것이다.

 욕망에 대해서 수행을 통해서 마음을 편안하게 하면서 이에 관련된 에너지를 다른곳으로 발산시키면서 더욱 활력있는 생활을 할 수 있는 부분도 참으로 많을 것이다. 그렇기 때문에 책에 나오는 마음챙김 수행법을 통해서 우리가 스스로 느껴야 할 부분이 더 많을것 같다. 욕망의 꽃의 향기가 어디로 흘러가는지에 따라서 자신 뿐만 아니라 다른 사람의 만족과 행복을 함께 가지고 갈수 있기에 우리는 스스로에 대해서 돌아보는 연습을 어느정도는 필요로 할 것 같다. 진실한 사랑을 통해서 사랑하는 사람과 하나의 몸이 되어가는 과정을 통해서 우리는 진정한 사랑의 의미를 제대로 느낄수 있을것 같다. 다양성을 추구하는 많은 사람들에게도 사랑은 궁극적으로 하나의 사람과 만나게 된다. 그 속에서 느끼는 참 사랑을 느낄수 있도록 많은 사람들과 진실되고 이야기 하고 사랑하는 사람에게 최선을 다하고 싶다.

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오반장 2014-10-04 공감(0) 댓글(0)
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Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts Hardcover – August 21, 2007
by Thich Nhat Hanh (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 75 ratings

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What does healthy intimacy look like? How we do we keep the energy and passion alive in long-term relationships? What practices can help us forgive our partner when he or she has hurt us? How can we get a new relationship off to a strong and stable start? What do we do if we feel restless in a relationship or attracted to someone outside of our partner? These are just some of the questions Zen master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh has been asked by practitioners and readers alike. Deeply moved by the suffering that can be caused by these issues, he offers concrete guidance in his first ever writings on intimacy and healthy sexuality.

Fidelity guides the reader to an understanding about how we can maintain our relationships; keep them fresh, and accepting and loving our partner for who they are. Fidelity gives concrete advice on how to stay attentive and nourishing of each other amidst the many responsibilities and pressures of daily life. Readers will learn how to foster open communication, dealing with anger and other strong emotions, learning to forgive, and practicing gratitude and appreciation.

Fidelity is written for both couples in a committed relationship wanting to further develop a spiritual dimension in their lives together, and for those where infidelity or hurt may have occurred, and there is a need for best practices to re-weave the net of love and understanding. In addition to addressing everyday occurrences and challenges, Thich Nhat Hanh shows how traditional Buddhist teachings on attachment, deep listening, and loving speech can help energize and restore our relationships. Written in a clear and accessible style, and filled with personal stories, simple practices and exercises,Fidelity is for couples at all stage of relationships. It the guide book for anyone looking to create long-lasting and healthy intimacy.
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Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts Hardcover – August 21, 2007
by Thich Nhat Hanh  (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars    75 ratings
See all formats and editions
Kindle
from $8.99
Read with Our Free App
 
Hardcover
$7.31 
32 Used from $2.23
17 New from $9.94
What does healthy intimacy look like? How we do we keep the energy and passion alive in long-term relationships? What practices can help us forgive our partner when he or she has hurt us? How can we get a new relationship off to a strong and stable start? What do we do if we feel restless in a relationship or attracted to someone outside of our partner? These are just some of the questions Zen master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh has been asked by practitioners and readers alike. Deeply moved by the suffering that can be caused by these issues, he offers concrete guidance in his first ever writings on intimacy and healthy sexuality.

Fidelity guides the reader to an understanding about how we can maintain our relationships; keep them fresh, and accepting and loving our partner for who they are. Fidelity gives concrete advice on how to stay attentive and nourishing of each other amidst the many responsibilities and pressures of daily life. Readers will learn how to foster open communication, dealing with anger and other strong emotions, learning to forgive, and practicing gratitude and appreciation.

Fidelity is written for both couples in a committed relationship wanting to further develop a spiritual dimension in their lives together, and for those where infidelity or hurt may have occurred, and there is a need for best practices to re-weave the net of love and understanding. In addition to addressing everyday occurrences and challenges, Thich Nhat Hanh shows how traditional Buddhist teachings on attachment, deep listening, and loving speech can help energize and restore our relationships. Written in a clear and accessible style, and filled with personal stories, simple practices and exercises,Fidelity is for couples at all stage of relationships. It the guide book for anyone looking to create long-lasting and healthy intimacy.
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Top reviews from the United States
christofir
5.0 out of 5 stars The only Thich Nhat Hanh book that really resonated with me
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2012
Verified Purchase
Perhaps it's because of the content (namely our relationship with sex, our romantic relationships, and ourselves) and my age (Single, young-professional), but Fidelty is the only Thich Nhat Hanh book out of the over 10 I have read that really resonated with me. His step-by step walk-through of the sutras on sexuality are complemented by deep wisdom that has the potential to heal. In my view, Fidelity has two goals. 1.) To become aware of the roots of our sexual desires and attachments (without judgement) 2.) To help readers understand how to cultivate loving relationships. It's an honest work, not taking a religious and/or holier than though view on sex, but rather really exploring with the reader in a gentle way to consider how we think and act in our sexual and romantic relationships and how we might learn to create more freedom and love in ourselves and others. Bravo, Thay and a big thank you for all your insights!
17 people found this helpful
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Steve Bar Ner
5.0 out of 5 stars Mindful
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2020
Verified Purchase
The great teacher has penetrated my blocks and once again entered my soul to awaken all the Love within me. Namaste!
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Alexandra Lizardo
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightenment all the way through
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2020
Verified Purchase
Eye opening. Great read. Highly recommended.
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Effie
5.0 out of 5 stars An important read for a healthy lifestyle
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018
Verified Purchase
One at first may think that this book is unreasonable or too restrictive, given the mindset we have in the west regarding sex and relationships. But, give it a chance, and ponder the content. Best wishes to you in your life!
One person found this helpful
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DW
4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely and practical
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2013
Verified Purchase
Simple teachings that can have a powerfully positive impact on any relationship. As a therapist I frequently use these principals and guided breathing meditations with my clients.
One person found this helpful
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Jolan
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book. The wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh is ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2016
Verified Purchase
Excellent Book. The wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh is hard to improve on.
One person found this helpful
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Christie Macias
5.0 out of 5 stars Important
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2015
Verified Purchase
All people should read this before they start to date- this is being added to our high school curriculum list.
One person found this helpful
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Prime Member
5.0 out of 5 stars Touching
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2013
Verified Purchase
I finished it and then read it again..this time I kept a notebook
Nearby to write down a few of many amazing, beautiful and most importantly, effective quotes.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries
simon
5.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a repeat of other works...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2019
Verified Purchase
But amazing all the same. if you like his other works and teachings, then, you'll love this. As ever everything NH writes is to be recommended.
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Chantel
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
I purchased this book to help me deal with my anger in my relationship with my partner. I have had an extremely leisurely journey with Buddhism. I found this book very helpful. It made realise I need to develop loving kindness towards myself and use kinder skilfull speech when I communicate with my partner. As well as so many other things.
2 people found this helpful
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Jodro
2.0 out of 5 stars Badly edited patchwork of sections Thich Nhat Hanh's talks
Reviewed in France on March 19, 2015
Verified Purchase
Thich Nhat Hanh is arguably the greatest Buddhist teacher alive. There are many great books by him available, but sadly this isn't one of them. The editor has stitched together sections of TNH's talks without taking the context into account. It seems like some of the contents are aimed at monastics or at least people who are celibate, or perhaps with a very traditional Vietnamese outlook on marriage, making sections of this book almost irrelevant to Westerners in a loving relationship or wanting to be in a loving relationship. The whole book seems rather haphazardly thrown together by someone who does not really have a deep understanding of what TNH's teachings are about, is lacking in flow and a cohesive narrative. 

Sure, there also are many wonderful things to read in this book, but there are many other books great books by TNH available that are far far better and more relevant to lay people.

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 Average rating4.22  ·  Rating details ·  430 ratings  ·  45 reviews
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Jokoloyo
Dec 15, 2016Jokoloyo rated it really liked it
Please don't get mad if I don't rate it 5 star. The message/teaching itself is beyond my capacity to judge. It is a matter of taste of writing style, maybe it can be improved by explaining more about building lasting relationships, after not succumb to sensual love. I understand the foundation of the teaching is correct, but I was hoping some Q & A for unenlightened persons. I realized I could understand this book because I have some background knowledge prior of reading this book. I read this book with some background in meditation practices and Buddhism philosophy. Of course as a beginner, I can't say that I am proficient. Far far from it. There are some GR friends that I believe have much deeper understanding in Buddhism.

For example, there are many 'mindfulness' word on this book, but I didn't find description of this word. Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean that I am too lazy to check in dictionary. I had a glimpse of understanding of 'mindfulness' after attended a workshop. I could easily lost if I read this book three years ago.

It is a great book, with great benefit when we practice the teachings. but maybe for general people who don't have background in Buddhism, it could be a challenging read. I hope I was wrong and overstate the issue. (less)
flag32 likes · Like  · 7 comments · see review


Surya
Apr 19, 2019Surya rated it it was amazing
Such a beautiful book it is.
Under practices 'Beginning Anew' was the most beautiful of it all.
Hope not just as couples, but as families or even at work places or schools or colleges people practice such beautiful things and lead a happy life. (less)
flag5 likes · Like  · 3 comments · see review


Katrina Sark
Feb 25, 2016Katrina Sark rated it really liked it
p.10 – We can tell the correct way to love because, when we love correctly, we don’t create more suffering.

p.18 – When we’re lonely and cut off, when we suffer and need healing, that is the time to come home to ourselves. We may also need to be close to another person. But if, right away, we’re sexually intimate with someone we’ve just met, that relationship won’t heal or warm us. It will just be a distraction.
You have to learn how to be comfortable with yourself and focus on making your own home within.

p.19 – Once you can deal with your emotions and handle the difficulties of your daily life, then you have something to offer to another person. The other person has to do the same thing. Both people have to heal on their own so they feel at ease in themselves; then they can become a home for each other. Otherwise, all that we share in physical intimacy is our loneliness and suffering.
Spirituality doesn’t mean a belief in a specific spiritual teaching. Everyone needs a spiritual dimension in his or her life. Without a spiritual dimension, we can’t deal with the daily difficulties we encounter. Mindfulness can be an important aspect of your spiritual path, whether or not you are a religious practitioner. Your spiritual practice can help you deals with your strong emotions. It can help you to listen and embrace your own suffering, and help you to recognize and embrace the suffering of your partner and loved ones.

p.21 – Every human being wants to love and be loved. This is very natural. But often love, desire, need, and fear get wrapped up all together.

p.33 – To love, in the true sense of the word, is to feel no discrimination. We should have the element of equanimity, so that we can love without boundaries. Equanimity is the absence of the three complexes – better, worse, equal. We no longer discriminate. We are able to embrace everything and we no longer suffer. When there is love without discrimination, there is also an absence of suffering.

p.50 – Most of us live in environments where we have numerous opportunities to become busy and burdened. We go from event to event, from person to person, and the environment quickly pulls us away from mindfulness practice. We may have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, a partner, or a spouse, yet we still have unfulfilled sensual desires. It compels us to leave that person to follow another. The monkey swings from branch to branch in search of fruit. It eats one first, but it still craves another. Without delusion and craving, we wouldn’t be caught by desire.

p.51 – It’s not other people who confine us; we confine ourselves. If we feel trapped, it’s due to our own actions. No one is forcing us to tie ourselves up.

p.55 – Understanding is the other name of love. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.
To offer understanding means to offer love. Without understanding, the more we “love,” the more we make ourselves and others suffer.

p.57 – Understanding another person isn’t possible until we have practised looking deeply at ourselves.

p.59 – Someone who can understand our suffering is our best friend.

p.65 – We tend to think that in order to be happy, we need certain outside conditions; we must have this or that before happiness can arrive. But happiness comes from our way of looking at things. We’re not happy, but other people under the same conditions are happy.
Our happiness depends on our insight.

p.67 – Releasing our cows – The cows represent the things to which we are attached. So the practice is to learn to release our cows. Sit down and breathe in and out in mindfulness and concentration, and identify your cows. Call your cows by their true names, and see whether you have the ability to release any of them. The more you release, the happier you become.

p.68 – Many of us caught in our ideas of how we can be truly happy. We are attached to a number of things that we think are crucial for out well-being. We may have suffered a lot because of our attachment to those things, but we don’t have the courage to release them; it doesn’t feel safe to do so. But it may be that we continue to suffer because of our attachment to those things. It may be a person, a material object, a position in society, anything. We think that without that person or thing we will not be safe, and that is why we’re caught by it.

p.69 – Happiness depends first of all on having the deep desire for happiness, and then on having a spiritual path to follow. Every day, do some little thing on that path, and you will be happy. Don’t try to do big things. Do small things to make yourself happier, to make your friends happier.

p.75 – True love makes us happy. If love doesn’t make us happy, it’s not love, it’s something else.
True love of maitri (loving-kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (joy), and upeska (equanimity and non-discrimination). True love brings joy and peace, and relieves suffering. You don’t need another person to practice love. Practice love on yourself. When you succeed, loving another person becomes natural. Your love will be like a lamp that shines; it will make many, many people happy.
The holy spirit is made of mindfulness, concentration, and insight. When you practice the four qualities of true love, your love is healing and transformative.

p.76 – Love is friendship, and that friendship should bring about happiness. To be a friend means to offer happiness. If love doesn’t offer happiness, if it makes the other person cry all the time, then it’s not love; it’s the opposite.
Self-love is the foundation for loving another person. If you don’t know how to love and offer happiness to yourself, how can you love and offer happiness to another person? If you don’t know anything about happiness, how can you offer it? Live in a way that brings you joy and happiness, and then you’ll be able to offer it to another person.

p.78 – COMPASSION: We need to not only recognize the suffering, pain, and difficulties within us, we need to devote time to dealing with them and transforming them. Using mindfulness and concentration, we can nurture our own feelings of joy and happiness.
The word “compassion” does not reflect the true meaning of karuna. The prefix “com” means “together” and “passion” means “to suffer.” So to be compassionate means to suffer together with the other person. But karuna doesn’t require suffering. Karuna is the capacity to relieve suffering. It’s the capacity to relive suffering in you and in the other person. When you know the practice of mindful breathing; of tenderly holding your pain and sorrow; of looking deeply into the nature of suffering; then you can transform that suffering and bring relief. You don’t have to suffer, and you don’t have to suffer with the other person.

p.79 – We have to distinguish between the willingness to love and the capacity to love. You may be motivated by the willingness to love, but if that is your only motivation, the other person will suffer. So the willingness to love is not yet love. Many parents love their children. Yet they make them suffering a lot in the name of love. They’re often not capable of understanding their children’s suffering, difficulties, hopes, and aspirations. We have to ask ourselves, “Am I really loving the other person by understanding them or am I just projecting my own needs?”
Love doesn’t just mean the intention or willingness to make someone happy, but the capacity to do so. That capacity to love is something you have to learn and cultivate. Look into yourself and recognize the suffering in yourself. If you recognize, embrace, and transform your suffering and difficulties, then you are loving yourself. Based on that experience, you will succeed in helping another person to do the same, bringing a feeling of joy and happiness.

p.80 – EQUANIMITY: In true love, there is no distinction between the one who loves and the one who is loved. Your suffering is my suffering. My happiness is your happiness. Lover and beloved are one. There’s no longer any barrier. True love has this element of the abolishing of self. Happiness is no longer an individual matter. Suffering is also no longer an individual matter. There’s no distinction between us.

p.88 – We need to practice mindfulness daily in order to fulfill our aspiration. We need to patiently pursue our aspiration, but we don’t lose the present moment – we enjoy the present moment and we use it to realize our deepest desire.
Inside each of us is a great being, someone peaceful, fill of light, understanding, and compassion. This person carries a sword of understanding that cuts through the bonds of suffering. With great understanding, we see the way out of our bondage.

p.89 – The name Buddha mean “one who is awake.” When Siddhartha woke up to the reality of the world all around him and made his vow to love fully in each moment, he was thirty-five years old.

p.90 – Becoming a Buddha is not so difficult. A Buddha is someone who is enlightened, capable of loving and forgiving. You know that at times you’re like that. So enjoy being a Buddha when you can.
When we behave as if we don’t believe in our inherent goodness and that of others, then we blame ourselves and others for our suffering and we lose our happiness. You can use the goodness in yourself to transform your suffering and the tendency to be angry, cruel, and afraid. But don’t throw your suffering away. Use it. Your suffering is the compost that gives you the understanding to nourish your happiness and the happiness of your loved ones.

p.93 – When you first commit to someone, you have a beautiful image of them and you commit to that image rather than the person. When you live with the person twenty-four hours a day, you begin to discover the reality of the other person doesn’t quite correspond with the image you have of him or her. Sometimes you’re disappointed.

p.94 – Many of us feel unworthy. We’re thirsty for truth, goodness, compassion, spiritual beauty, and we’re sure these things don’t exist within us, so we go looking outside. Sometimes we thing we’ve found the ideal partner who embodies all that is good, beautiful, and true. That person may be a romantic partner, a friend, or a spiritual teacher. We see all the good in that person and we fall in love. After a time, we usually discover that we’ve had a wrong perception of that person, and we become disappointed.

p.95 – Beauty and goodness are there in each of us. A true spiritual partner is one who encourages you to look deep inside yourself for the beauty and love you’ve been seeking. A true teacher is someone who helps you discover the teacher in yourself.

p.97 – PRACTICE: Happiness is made up of our mindfulness, concentration, and insight. Each time we practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, awareness of breathing, loving speech, deep listening, or any other mindfulness practice, our roots are growing stronger and deeper and we are gaining more solidity and strength.
When we see that the practice works, slowly our faith in it grows. Our faith is always based on empirical evidence. We do not believe it just because it has been repeated many times by others.

p.100 – You have two gardens: your own garden and that of your beloved. First, you have to take care of your own garden and master the art of gardening. In each one of us there are flowers and garbage. The garbage is the anger, fear, discrimination, and jealousy within us. If you water the garbage, you will strengthen the negative seeds. If you water the flowers of compassion, understanding, and love, you will strengthen the positive seeds. What you grow is up to you. If you don’t know how to practice selective watering in your own garden, then you won’t have enough wisdom to help water the flowers in the garden of your beloved. In cultivating your own garden well, you also help to cultivate their garden.
When we commit to another person, we make a promise to grow together, sharing the fruit and progress of practice. It is our responsibility to take care of each other. Every time the other person does something in the direction of change and growth, we should show our appreciation.

p.103 – HOME: In our true home together there is only relaxation, liberation, and joy.

p.115 – Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.
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Rouchswalwe
Nov 29, 2020Rouchswalwe rated it it was amazing
Shelves: non-fiction, thich-nhat-hanh
Another fantastic volume from this teacher. He is so engaged and I learn much from his writings.
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Amy
Jan 19, 2013Amy rated it really liked it
Thich Nhat Hahn writes from the most lovely place of peace and love. This book is one that every person that is in a relationship, or would like to be in one that is healthy at some point, could benefit from. Some much of this book is about loving yourself. Loving enough to be accepting of yourself, see your feelings clearly and finding a way to nurture whatever it is that you do feel. There is no "wrong" feeling, but you must find the reason for them and the clarity in what they tell you about your own issues.

Love has no attachment. This is a hard one for western minds to hear. I've tried to explain it, but it is so foreign. We've all heard the saying were if you love someone, set them free- if they return it was meant to be, if not, then it wasn't. It is sort of like that, but there is never any ownership of any kind at any point. There is just love. Not need. Not that you aren't there for your loved ones and that they aren't there for you, but it is not an obligation. It is an honest decision from love. If you love, you will be there. If you are loved, they will be too. It is so very simple.

The only reason I can't give it 5 stars (I'd do 4.5 if I could!) is because there is more buddhist influence and more monk influence than suits me at certain points (the end, mainly). Monks are humans with sexual feelings too, but not allowed to express that, so I would say that the nurturing those feelings into something other than passion is the goal for the author, whereas a healthy adult with a sexual appetite might opt to manifest that sexual energy in a way that is acceptable rather than changing those feelings. It wasn't a pervasive message, but one that was there and didn't ring as true for me. That being said, it is a wonderful book and I feel that it has helped me grow in many ways. My husband (not a reader) read it too and felt very much the same. (less)
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Alec
May 01, 2013Alec rated it it was amazing
"You have to learn how to be comfortable with yourself and focus on making your own home within. Once you have a spiritual path, you have a home. Once you can deal with your emotions and handle the difficulties of your daily life, then you have something to offer to another person. The other person has to do the same thing. Both people have to heal on their own so they feel at ease in themselves; then they can become a home for each other." - beautiful, simple truths that take a long time to learn how to live by, too long. (less)
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Bradley
Dec 05, 2015Bradley rated it it was amazing
Although this book comes from a Buddhist teacher, and although there are mentions of the Buddha and the sutras, this book has excellent advice for all people on how to cultivate a romantic relationship that is successful and long-lasting. Anyone of any belief system could benefit from this work that was written with peace.
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A. Breeze Harper
Nov 05, 2016A. Breeze Harper rated it really liked it
Really enjoyed this book. Just simple and thoughtful ways to understanding the deep meaning of fidelity.
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Namees Shaeb
Feb 18, 2020Namees Shaeb rated it really liked it
But fidelity is not a question of survival. It is one of vitality
OK it's intended to be read many times (less)
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Suraj Kumar
Oct 05, 2021Suraj Kumar rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
Shelves: owned
Anyone who has been regularly following my reading updates would know that I am not the type of person who reads self help and motivational books. Yet I was interested in this latest publication by Aleph Book Company. This was primarily because of the brand name of the author- Thich Nhat Hanh. I have not read any book by him but I wanted to give this one a try. Having finished this rather short book, I am quite happy with my experience.

The book is subtitled ‘How to create a loving relationship that lasts’. So that is what you can expect from this book. The book manages to fulfil what it promises, without being preachy at any moment. And this is what I believe is the strength of this book. The reason why I don’t like reading self-help books is that they tend to be instructive and dogmatic. But this book was different in that respect, and therefore I cherished my experience of reading it.

The book does not straightaway begin with its proposed theme; it progresses gradually towards that topic, beginning first with some of the basic principles of the practice of Zen Buddhism. I found it to be a great strategy, and I also feel that what ultimately emerges as the major takeaway from this book are those very principles only, and not the advice concerning fidelity in a relationship. This is not to say that the passages on fidelity aren’t that good, because as I have mentioned earlier the book does succeed in fulfilling what it promises.

For those who haven’t read anything by Thich Nhat Hanh, I feel, this book is a great starting point. Not only is it very short in length, but it also presents the arguments very convincingly so that the reader is never lost in abstract ideas. However those who have read the earlier works of the author might find certain ideas being repeated in this one. I say this just on the basis of my reading of this book. So I might be wrong. As a final word I would say that this one is definitely recommended.
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My Rating: **** (4.25/5) (less)
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Tabbie Elliott
Apr 18, 2020Tabbie Elliott rated it really liked it
“Every single person contains the seeds of goodness, kindness, and enlightenment... When we act as if people have these seeds inside them, it gives us and them the strength and energy to help these seeds grow and flower.”

“If your love is true love, it will benefit not only humans, but also animals, plants, and minerals.”

“First we develop the capacity of letting go. Then we develop the capacity of being mindful. Then we can see that happiness is already available.”

“Such concentration increases the quality of our happiness. Suppose you have a cup of tea. When you’re mindful and concentrated, your tea becomes something very real and the time of tea drinking makes you so happy. Your mind is not disturbed. It’s not dwelling in the past, in the future, or on your current projects. Your mind is focused entirely on the tea.”

“If we see an image and are seduced by it, it is because we don’t know how to contemplate impermanence. Ignorant, we think that that form is wholesome and beautiful. We don’t know that appearance doesn’t contain anything real and long-lasting within it.” (less)
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David Poltorak
Dec 27, 2021David Poltorak rated it liked it
3.8/5

Picked this one randomly out of interest off the shelf at the library. A quick read on relationships, spirituality, and intimacy from a well-known Vietnamese monk's perspective.

Quotes:

We can tell the correct way to love because, when we love correctly, we don’t create more suffering.


We are all motivated by love. Love can be our greatest joy or – when it gets confused with craving and attachment – our greatest suffering.


Many young people don’t accept who they are, and yet they want to be a home for someone else. But how can they be if they’re not yet a home for themselves?


Nothing is lost; nothing is created; everything is transformed [quoting French chemist Antoine Lavoisier]


Understanding is the other name of love. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.


The most precious inheritance parents can leave their children is their own happiness. Parents’ happiness is the most valuable gift they can give their children.


A human being is a universe to discover. What we see is often just the shell; the truth isn’t easy to know.


Loneliness can only be healed by understanding and love.


Someone who can understand our suffering is our best friend.


Live in a way that brings you joy and happiness, and then you’ll be able to offer it to another person.


Understanding suffering is the very foundation of happiness. If you don’t know how to handle a painful feeling in you, how can you help another person to do so?


Of course you still have your freedom, and your partner still has her freedom intact. Love is not a kind of prison. True love gives us a lot of space.


A true spiritual partner is one who encourages you to look deep inside yourself for the beauty and love you’ve been seeking. A true teacher is someone who helps you discover the teacher in yourself.


Hearing something, we should examine it closely, comprehend it, and apply it. If, when we apply it, there is a result, then we can have faith in it. If there is no result, then we should not have faith in it just because of custom, scripture, or some spiritual teacher … our faith is always based on empirical evidence. We do not believe it just because it has been repeated many times by others.


When the three roots of faith, practice, and community support have fed us deeply, then we will be solid both alone and in our relationships.


The problem is not one of being wrong or right, but one of being more or less skillful. Living together is an art.


1. We are aware that all generations of our ancestors and all future generations are present with us.
2. We are aware of the expectations that our ancestors, our children, and their children have of us.
3. We are aware that our joy, peace, freedom, and harmony are the joy, peace, freedom, and harmony of our ancestors, our children, and their children.
4. We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love.
5. We are aware that blaming and arguing can never help us and only create a wider gap between us; that only understanding, trust, and love can help us change and grow.

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Selina Streahorn
Jul 01, 2019Selina Streahorn added it
Lovely quick read, taking a buddhist approach to love and the seperation of sensual love from true love. In today's perceptions its very hard to remove the idea of attachment to something or someone, and he pushes this point strongly, that true love is one without attachment. He also goes into depth on how to cultivate a healthy love, through meditative practices and mindfulness. If you're like me and already interested in the meditative and mindfulness practice and wish to apply it to your partnership/love life this book might be something to look into reading. (less)
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Vishnu
Oct 06, 2017Vishnu rated it it was amazing
Shelves: buddhism, moc-writers
Another lovely little book by Thich Nhat Hanh. I heartily recommend it to all, with the following caveat: the book is mostly about sensual desire. Maybe that would not have made for a catchy title for people to read, at least not as catchy as "Fidelity." Still, this book is like, entirely, 100% about sensual desire, and Buddhist views on sensual desire. So keep that in mind! (less)
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Michelle
Nov 13, 2016Michelle rated it liked it
This short book is full of wisdom and I'd like to read it again someday. At the time of this reading, I needed something more practical, that could directly be put into practice. The principles espoused felt way too spiritually abstruse and out of reach. (less)
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Amanda Oakz
Jul 10, 2020Amanda Oakz rated it liked it
As always, Thich Nhat Hanh delivers a beautiful message that asks us to reflect inward, be accountable, and reduce the suffering of those around us. I loved the last 10 or so pages.

3 stars because it lacked the poetic writing style that I've grown to expect from Thich Nhat Hahn. (less)
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Eduardo
Jul 31, 2018Eduardo rated it it was amazing
Shelves: read-zen-and-mindfulness
"In life there are many worries and sorrows, but there's no greater sorrow than that brought by sensual love." P. 105. (less)
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Meeko1971
Apr 18, 2019Meeko1971 rated it really liked it
I struggled a bit with some of the teachings of this book, but others went straight to the core of what I needed..
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Jesse Sommeling
Mar 06, 2017Jesse Sommeling rated it it was amazing
Shelves: favorites
Thich Nhat Hanh (or 'Thay' as he his called by his friends) is known for his very unique and intimate style of writing. He makes you feel at ease just by reading his words.
I bought his book at Plum Village, his monastery in the South of France during a one-month retreat. This rather smallbooklet has become somewhat precious to me as it reminds me of some basic -but easily forgotten- wisdom for daily life.

The title refers to 'How to Create a Loving Relationship'. While this book is certainly about relationships, there is much more to it. It is about noting the difference between 'true love' and 'sensual love'. Which can be applied in any relationship as well as daily life. He writes that we are continuously exposed to a wide range of desires. Whether it be a new watch, a pair of shoes or engaging into sexual relationships. The author states that getting lost into sensual love in absence of true love could create suffering in the relationship with yourself and the relationship with your partner. Learning to love oneself is just as important as learning to love another.

Learning the difference between true love and sensual love, you can also learn to truly appreciate and love your partner. The writer states that it is important to note on what values your love for your partner is based on. Without being aware, our love for another can be driven by the need for sexual activity, the need for attention, affirmation, our own insecurities etc. This is a rather unstable source of love and happiness within our relationship, as once our partner is not able to fulfill our desires, what happens to our love for this person?

Thay portraits a deep understanding on the question as well as his own answer. Although written from a buddhist's perspective, I can recommend this book to anyone regardless of age, sex, religion or background who is interested how to deepen the relationship with oneself and his/her partner. Food for thought it is! (less)
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Serena Long ﺕ
Dec 23, 2017Serena Long ﺕ rated it really liked it
Shelves: thich-nhat-hanh, spirituality
Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama. Thank you Thay for bringing so much joy into our lives. I agree wholeheartedly... it seems simple to say that love is made of understanding but it is not easy to practice.
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Jesse
Jan 05, 2020Jesse rated it it was amazing
Thich Nhat Hanh (or 'Thay' as he his called by his friends) is known for his very unique and intimate style of writing. He makes you feel at ease just by reading his words.
I bought his book at Plum Village, his monastery in the South of France during a one-month retreat. This rather smallbooklet has become somewhat precious to me as it reminds me of some basic -but easily forgotten- wisdom for daily life.

The title refers to 'How to Create a Loving Relationship'. While this book is certainly about relationships, there is much more to it. It is about noting the difference between 'true love' and 'sensual love'. Which can be applied in any relationship as well as daily life. He writes that we are continuously exposed to a wide range of desires. Whether it be a new watch, a pair of shoes or engaging into sexual relationships. The author states that getting lost into sensual love in absence of true love could create suffering in the relationship with yourself and the relationship with your partner. Learning to love oneself is just as important as learning to love another.

Learning the difference between true love and sensual love, you can also learn to truly appreciate and love your partner. The writer states that it is important to note on what values your love for your partner is based on. Without being aware, our love for another can be driven by the need for sexual activity, the need for attention, affirmation, our own insecurities etc. This is a rather unstable source of love and happiness within our relationship, as once our partner is not able to fulfill our desires, what happens to our love for this person?

Thay portraits a deep understanding on the question as well as his own answer. Although written from a buddhist's perspective, I can recommend this book to anyone regardless of age, sex, religion or background who is interested how to deepen the relationship with oneself and his/her partner. Food for thought it is! (less)
flagLike  · comment · see review


Marc
Jul 05, 2013Marc rated it liked it
Shelves: z_chaos-reading-treasure-hunt
Good, basic, relationship advice (learn to love and take care of yourself first and then you can take care of others) with an interesting Buddhist mix (the usual, stay in the moment, practice mindfulness and loving kindness), especially about sensual love being a kind attachment trap. I never quite fully understood the middle ground this book seemed to be advocating (i.e., a healthy, loving relationship that includes physical intimacy but doesn't fall prey to "sensual love", which I read more as lust/objectification/sexual-selfishness). (less)


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Jen (bookscoffeedogs)
Sep 27, 2011Jen (bookscoffeedogs) rated it really liked it
i only give it three compared to his other books. ok i bumped it to four. this was a fast read, which is good and bad i suppose. i wish it had a bit more about keeping love together after the long haul, and a bit less focus on sensual love, but it had a lot of great stuff he mentioned on retreat like watering the good seeds in your partner. of course, we should be doing that with everyone. i underlined a lot in this book.
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Sarah
Aug 27, 2015Sarah rated it it was amazing
Shelves: relationships
This was an incredible read. In Thich Nhat Hanh's gentle way, he explains simply what is required to have nurturing intimate relationships. If you aren't already familiar with basic Buddhist concepts, I think it could be a slightly more difficult read. It has plenty of secular application, but some of the Buddhist psychological concepts at work are easier to understand if you have prior knowledge. Overall an awesome read, and I hope to implement some of the loving practices within. (less)


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Fidelity
How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh with spiritual tips for safeguarding an intimate relationship.

A Book Excerpt on Attention

The Five Awarenesses

"These verses can be used by anyone at anytime as a practice to help safeguard our relationships. Many people have used them in weddings and commitment ceremonies and some couples like to recite them together weekly. If you have a bell, you can invite it to sound after you recite each verse. Breathe in and out a few times in silence before going on to the next one.

"1. We are aware that all generations of our ancestors and all future generations are present in us.

"2. We are aware of the expectations that our ancestors, our children, and their children have of us.

"3. We are aware that our joy, peace, freedom, and harmony are the joy, peace, freedom, and harmony of our ancestors, our children, and their children.

"4. We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love.

"5. We are aware that blaming and arguing can never help us and only create a wider gap between us; that only understanding, trust, and love can help us change and grow."
= ==
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