Professor Barbara Claire Freeman OLLI, Winter 2017 Weds. 2-4, 41B University Hall

Transcription

1 Professor Barbara Claire Freeman OLLI, Winter 2017 Weds. 2-4, 41B University Hall Great Works of Sacred Literature: Saying the Unsayable Description: This course explores some of the greatest works of sacred literature. Reading classics from Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Taoist religious traditions, we will consider the ways in which these texts respond to the problem of life's meaning: where it is found and how to seek it? Does suffering have a purpose and if so, what can it teach us? What is "mystical experience," and how do mystics envision union with God? Our fundamental emphasis, however, is on how to read sacred literature. Reading sacred texts presents special challenges because what defines the sacred is "unsayable": the truths under consideration cannot be communicated through ordinary language. In sacred literature language confronts the very limits of the "sayable," and literary figures such as metaphor, symbolism, parable, and allegory are fundamental ways in which what is incommunicable is voiced. We will discuss the ways in which each text's form, genre, structure, and style embody (and help to create) its meaning. Our meetings will center around conversation and close reading of particular passages that exemplify each work's central themes and teaching with particular attention to their relevance for our lives. Structure of Each Session: 1. Overview of the work under consideration, discuss central themes and issues. 2. Close readings and student questions and discussion. 3. Preparation for our next reading. We will proceed slowly and feel no pressure to "cover the material." The class will work together as a community to explore the fascinating issues, questions and paradoxes these texts present. Note: With the exception of our selection of Zen Buddhist koans (from The Gateless Gate) I have included a sample of quotations from each work so that you may acquaint 1

2 yourselves with its style and major themes before you begin to read it. I've also written "study questions" for you to ponder before class discussion. Don't feel any need to "answer" them! They're here to stimulate and enhance your reading, and to give you a sense of each work's central issues. Please bring note-taking materials and relevant text to each class. Readings: A Course Reader is available at Instant Copying and Laser, 2138 University Ave., bet. Oxford & Shattuck, phone: Please note: "The Book of Job" (King James version) is widely available and is not included in the reader. Please bring your copy of the text to class, making sure it's the King James translation and bring the Reader to class for all other meetings. "The Book of Job," King James version only St. Teresa of Avila, selections from The Interior Castle (trans. E. Allison Peers) and The Autobiography of St. Teresa (trans. J.M. Cohen) Lao-Tzu, Tao De Ching (trans. Stephen Mitchell) by Ekai, called Mu-mon, selections from The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans, (trans. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps) Simone Weil, "Concerning the Our Father," from Waiting For God, included at the end of the syllabus. Outline of Topics and Readings: March 29: Simone Weil: Waiting For God and Modern Mysticism Our first agenda is to introduce you to the class and to each other. I want briefly to discuss the texts we'll be reading and the general issues they raise. Then we'll explore and interpret "Concerning the Our Father," a nine page commentary on "The Lord's Prayer" (1943) written by Simone Weil a year before her death. Please read "Concerning the Our Father," which is included at the end of this syllabus, before our first meeting and bring it with you to class. It is both a commentary on a prayer and an example of one, and it allows us to consider what is perhaps the most well-known prayer in Christianity in relation to a modern mystic's interpretation and response. Weil was a 2

3 French philosopher and political activist; for Albert Camus she was "the only great spirit of our time." April 5: The Book of Job: Inexplicable Suffering and the Voice in the Wilderness Quotes: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" "If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous." "But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?" "Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: and cold out of the north...then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said..." "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Questions: 1. What argument does the book make regarding the meaning and purpose of suffering? 2. What does it take to make Job finally question and curse God? Why does his curse coincide with the arrival of the three "friends"? 3. Under what circumstances does Job repent? 3

4 4. Where does the text become poetic and metaphoric; what elements of the narrative occasion the transition to poetic language? 5. How is God described? To what is He compared? 6. What is the role of the question in relationship to the Book's plot and structure? April 12: Tao Te Ching: The Book of the Way and the Powers of Emptiness in Taoism Quotes: "The Tao doesn't take sides / it gives birth to both good and evil." "The supreme good is like water." "The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead." "Can you love people and lead them / without imposing your will?" "Throw away holiness and wisdom, / and people will be a hundred times happier." "Whoever can see through all fear / will always be safe." Questions: 1. "Tao Te Ching," the classic manual on the art of living, can be translated as The Book of the Immanence of the Way or The Book of the Way and How It Manifests in the World or, simply, The Book of the Way. As you read, reflect upon how "the way" (Tao) manifests itself, and what similes Lao-tsu chooses to describe it? 4

5 2. It is clear from his teachings that Lao-Tsu cares deeply about society (here defined as the welfare of one's fellow human beings), and that his book is a treatise on the art of government, whether or a country, a child, or an adult. What sort of community or society might exemplify his spiritual teaching? 3. Lao-Tsu insists on wu wei, literally "doing not-doing," which is often confused with passivity. What kinds of agency and activity might practicing wu wei entail? Why might "non-action" be the purest and most effective forms of action, and what passages in the text elaborate and bespeak it? 4. Why must the doer vanish from the deed? What does Lao-Tsu mean by the word "softness"? 5. One meaning of "tao" is "to express." When Lao-Tsu writes in the first chapter that "the tao that can be told / is not the eternal tao," what does he imply about both the necessity for and the limits of speech? How does his own literary practice demonstrate his precept? 6. How does Lao-Tsu define evil and what response to it does he recommend? April 19: St. Teresa of Avila: Christian Mysticism, Divine Union, and the Powers of Prayer, selections from The Interior Castle and The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself Quotes from The Interior Castle (1577): I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God, or such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that He was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in Him. This was in no sense a vision: I believe it is called mystical theology. The soul is suspended in such a way that it seems to be completely outside itself. The will loves; the memory, I think, is almost lost; while the understanding, I believe, though it is not lost, 5

6 does not reason I mean that it does not work, but is amazed at the extent of all it can understand; for God wills it to realize that it understands nothing of what His Majesty represents to it." "Souls without prayer are like people whose bodies or limbs are paralysed: they possess feet and hands but they cannot control them. Since God has given it (the soul) such great dignity, permitting it to wander at will through the rooms of the castle, from the lowest to the highest. Let it not force itself to remain for very long in the same mansion, even the one of self-knowledge. As to what good qualities there may be in our souls, or Who dwells within them, or how precious they are -- those are things which we seldom consider and so we trouble little about carefully preserving the soul's beauty. All our interest is centered in the rough setting of the diamond, and in the outer wall of the castle -- that is to say, in these bodies of ours. Quotes from The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself, (1565) "I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it. I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. 6

7 The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying." Questions: 1. In the first sentences of The Interior Castle, how does St. Teresa envision the soul and to what does she compare it? 2. What do you make of the venomous creatures and "reptiles" who live outside the castle? What do they symbolize, how do they prevent access to the castle, and why do they "prevent the soul from seeing the light"? 3. In the fourth Mansion, how does the metaphor of water and the parable of the two fountains allow St. Teresa to describe the soul's progress toward God? 4. Consider the central image of The Interior Castle. Let's explore the ways in which "the castle" becomes an allegory for the whole course of mystical life as it moves from the first to the seventh mansion. In what ways does the first mansion mansion differ from the seventh? 5. How does St. Teresa describe her soul's experience of union with God (Autobiography, Chapter 29)? What makes "mystical experience" mystical, and how might it problematize common sense distinctions between the body and the soul and between the metaphoric and the literal? What are we to make of the erotic elements of her experience? April 26: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: The Pedagogy of the Zen Koan, selections from The Gateless Gate What is the sound of one hand clapping? 7

8 May 3: Open day to catch up on readings, have general discussion, and consider the themes of the class. Below is Weil's text, some quotations from her work, and some "study questions" for our first pmeeting. PRAYER: Concerning the Our Father, by Simone Weil "Our Father which art in Heaven He is our Father. There is nothing real in us which does not come from him. We belong to him. He loves us, since he loves himself and we are his. We do not have to search for him, we only have to change the direction in which we are looking. It is for him to search for us. We must be happy in the knowledge that he is infinitely beyond our reach. Thus we can be certain that the evil in us, even if it overwhelms our whole being, in no way sullies the divine purity, bliss, and perfection. Hallowed by thy name God alone has the power to name himself. His name is unpronounceable for human lips. His name is his word. It is the word of God. Man has access to this name, although it also is transcendent. It shines in the beauty and order of the world and it shines in the interior light of the human soul. This name is holiness itself; there is no holiness outside it; it does not therefore have to be hallowed. In asking for its hallowing we are asking for something that exists eternally, with full and complete reality, so that we can neither increase nor diminish it, even by an infinitesimal fraction. To ask for that which exists, that which exists really, infallibly, eternally, quite independently of our prayer, that is the perfect petition. Thy kingdom come This concerns something to be achieved, something not yet here. The kingdom of God means the complete filling of the entire soul of intelligent creatures with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit bloweth where he listeth? We can only invite him. We must not even try to invite him in a definite and special way to visit us or anyone else in particular, or even everybody in general; we must just invite him purely and simply, so that our thought of him is an invitation, a longing cry. It is as when one is in extreme thirst, ill with thirst; then one no longer thinks of the act of drinking in relation to oneself, or even of the act of drinking in a general way. One merely thinks of water, actual water itself, but the image of water is like a cry from our whole being. Thy will be done We are only absolutely, infallibly certain of the will of God 8

9 concerning the past. Everything that has happened, whatever it may be, is in accordance with the will of the almighty Father. That is implied by the notion of almighty power. The future also, whatever it may contain, once it has come about, will have come about in conformity with the will of God. We can neither add to nor take from this conformity. In this clause, therefore, after an upsurging of our desire toward the possible, we are once again asking for that which is. Here, however, we are not concerned with an eternal reality such as the holiness of the word, but with what happens in the time order. Nevertheless we are asking for the infallible and eternal conformity of everything in time with the will of God. We have to desire that everything that has happened should have happened, and nothing else. We have to do so, not because what has happened is good in our eyes, but because God has permitted it, and because the obedience of the course of events to God is in itself an absolute good. On Earth as it is in Heaven The association of our desire with the almighty will of God should be extended to spiritual things. Our own spiritual ascents and falls, and those of the beings we love, have to do with the other world, but they are also events that take place here below, in time. On that account they are details in the immense sea of events and are tossed about with the ocean in a way conforming to the will of God. Since our failures of the past have come about, we have to desire that they should have come about. We have to extend this desire into the future, for the day when it will have become the past. It is a necessary correction of the petition that the kingdom of God should come. We have to cast aside all other desires for the sake of our desire for eternal life, but we should desire eternal life itself with renunciation. We must not even become attached to detachment. Give us this day our daily bread the bread which is supernatural. Christ is our bread. We can only ask to have him now. Actually he is always there at the door of our souls, wanting to enter in, though he does not force our consent. If we agree to his entry, he enters; directly we cease to want him, he is gone. We cannot bind our will today for tomorrow; we cannot make a pact with him that tomorrow he will be within us, even in spite of ourselves. Our consent to his presence is the same as his presence. Consent is an act; it can only be actual, that is to say in the present. We have not been given a will that can be applied to the future. Bread is a necessity for us. We are beings who continually draw our energy from outside, for as we receive it we use it up in effort. If our energy is not 9

10 daily renewed, we become feeble and incapable of movement. Besides actual food, in the literal sense of the word, all incentives are sources of energy for us. Money, ambition, consideration, decorations, celebrity, power, our loved ones, everything that puts into us the capacity for action is like bread. All these objects of attachment go together with food, in the ordinary sense of the word, to make up the daily bread of this world. There is a transcendent energy whose source is in Heaven, and this flows into us as soon as we wish for it. It is a real energy; it performs actions through the agency of our souls and of our bodies. We should ask for this food. At the moment of asking, and by the very fact that we ask for it, we know that God will give it to us. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors At the moment of saying these words we must have already remitted everything that is owing to us. This not only includes reparation for any wrongs we think we have suffered, but also gratitude for the good we think we have done, and it applies in a quite general way to all we expect from people and things, to all we consider as our due and without which we should feel ourselves to have been frustrated. All these are the rights that we think the past has given us over the future. That is the claim we have to renounce. To have forgiven our debtors is to have renounced the whole of the past in a lump. It is to accept that the future should still be virgin and intact, strictly united to the past by bonds of which we are ignorant, but quite free from the bonds our imagination thought to impose upon it. It means that we accept the possibility that this will happen, and that it may happen to us in particular; it means that we are prepared for the future to render all our past life sterile and vain. In renouncing at one stroke all the fruits of the past without exception, we can ask of God that our past sins may not bear their miserable fruits of evil and error. The forgiveness of debts is spiritual poverty, spiritual nakedness, death. If we accept death completely, we can ask God to make us live again, purified from the evil in us. For to ask him to forgive us our debts is to ask him to wipe out the evil in us. Pardon is purification. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil After having contemplated the name, the kingdom, and the will of God, after having received the supernatural bread and having been purified from evil, the soul is ready for that true humility which crowns all virtues. Humility consists of knowing that in this world the whole soul, not only what we term the ego in its totality, but also the supernatural part of the soul, which is God present in 10

11 it, is subject to time and to the vicissitudes of change. There must be absolute acceptance. The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity. It is impossible to say it once through, giving the fullest possible attention to each word, without a change, infinitesimal perhaps but real, taking place in the soul." Questions about "Concerning the Our Father": 1. How does Weil interpret the precept that "God's will be done"? Is she saying that we should endeavor to will what God wills, to make this "want" the one that defines our identity and orders all other wants? 2. Why is God's distance from us necessary? 3. What metaphors recur throughout the commentary? Why might the symbolism of water, oceans, and thirst be contrasted with those of food, bread, and eating? 4. Is Weil's commentary on the "Our Father" also itself a kind of prayer? For what, if anything, does Weil petition? Quotes: The quotations below are from Weil's Waiting for God, included to give you a sample of her general themes, style, and pre-occupations. "The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment... is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating. At the same time he is the only man who has not deserved the punishment. But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God." We cannot take a step toward the heavens. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If, however, we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up. 11

12 The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from his dear ones, and from everything he loves and is accustomed to, he walks on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether he is really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening him. For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting to eat him. Later he will go out again, but he will be changed, he will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God. Afterward he will stay near the entrance so that he can gently push all those who come near into the opening. I had never read any of the mystics, because I have never felt called to read them. In reading, as in other things, I always attempt practical obedience. There is nothing more favorable to intellectual progress, for as far as possible I do not read anything except for that which I am hungry in the moment, when I am hungry for it, and then I do not read I eat." "The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we that sometimes ships are wrecked in it." "The infinity of time and space separates us from God. How are we to seek form him? Even if we were to walk for hundreds of years, we should do no more than go round and round the world. We cannot take step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us." 12

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