John (3)–
Manuscripts of the Gods: The Bible and Ancient Cultural Thresholds
by James Whitlark, Ph.D.
Kung—an (Koans)
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This is a hard saying; who can hear it. –John 6.60 |
From one perspective, this development was unique to East Asia.
From another, however, it simply represented a likely next step in manuscript culture.
The proliferation of manuscripts meant that being educated required an ever—more
extensive process. However mocking or ironic Ch’an’s imitation of Confucian bureaucracy
may have been in other aspects, the rigor that they shared was taken seriously by
both. Once a single educational institution has instituted high standards, the others
need to follow suit to maintain credibility. Comparably, with the growth of Occidental
schools, Christianity produced such disciplined figures as Saint Ignatius Loyola,
who found in the Gospels material for harrowing spiritual exercises, exploring a
subjectivity previously opened to him by literacy. Indeed, he said that one of his
mystical experiences consisted of suddenly understanding all the books that he had
ever read.
During ecumenical encounters in China or Japan, Ch’an or Zen teachers,
adapt a kung—an (koan) to the background of a visiting Christian student and
make such a demand as “Show me Jesus!” That command responds to the implications
of the Johannine “Visible Word.” Those into whose life the Light has entered should
demonstrate it. A request of that sort is not easily answered, however, nor is it
expected to be. The purpose of a kung—an is to produce a “Great Doubt,” which
breaks away habitual thought patterns, leaving the Enlightened one in direct communion
with Reality.
Ch’anists spend years on a single kung—an to overcome obsession
with canonical words by carrying that obsession to a chaotic fold and dissolution.
K’anhuach’an is thus the ultimate confrontation with the compulsion to interpret.
As such, it presents in extremis the prolonged contemplation of words typical in
scriptural hermeneutics. Looking at the hard sayings of John’s gospel as kung—an
invites deep reflection on the process by which meaning is assigned to fractal narratives
that try to twist the infinite into the finite.
Consider verse 7.52—53: “They replied, Are you from Galilee too?
Search and you will see that no prophet will rise from Galilee. They went each to
his own house….” Conventionally, one might recall Nathanael’s similar prejudice,
“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (1.46). The ironic structure is obvious.
Nathanael will later regret his words as (in the final) judgment will the Jews who
each “went to his own house”–signifying both their physical separation from the Savior
and from each other in their divisiveness. Despite saying “Search,” they shut themselves
away from evidence.
From the epoch in Church history when gentile communicants outnumbered
Jews converted to Christianity, the proverb of 7.52 has been the opposite of a hard
saying. It has allowed the former outsiders to empathize with the despised Galilean
and condemn the “chief priests and Pharisees” as representative Jews.
Today, the apparent anti—Semitism makes most Christian preachers uncomfortable.
Consequently, sermons often caution against condemning all Jews for the fault of
a few. This limiting of blame is a wonderful improvement over the pogroms of earlier
ages. However well intentioned, nonetheless, even so limited a denunciation spoken
to churches involves Christian denominations in their exclusiveness blaming Jews
for exclusiveness.
To understand how very deep this double bind goes, compare the
Jewish proverb about no Galilean prophets with an analogous kung—an about
regional prejudices: “Why has the [bearded] Western Barbarian [Bodhidharma, the founder
of Ch’an] no beard?” (Wum-man 1966, 64). At first glance, this question seems too
inane even to be an acceptable children’s riddle, let alone the subject for years
of zazen (meditation). Its point, though, is that the founder of Ch’an, a
Chinese sect, is from a “barbarian” area, which Chinese have traditionally sought
to civilize, not emulate. With physical revulsion, Chinese have conventionally depicted
non—Chinese (Bodhidharma among them) as bearded. As a revered teacher, however, Bodhidharma
must be worthy of being Chinese, i.e., metaphorically beardless.
Thomas Cleary comments, “The Figure of the Zen founder is ordinarily used to represent the real self or the essential mind, as understood in Zen experience. This self is called a Foreigner because it is unfamiliar to the culturally conditioned mind.” Wumen 1993, 26). This comment seems to imply that the “culturally conditioned mind” simply needs to become familiar with an unconscious Self. The problem is more complex. As the Johannine Jesus testifies, “a prophet hath no honour in his own country” (4.44). To break through local conventions and prejudices, a prophet must come from outside (e.g., Mohammed and Zoroaster among those visionaries initially rejected by their neighbors).
Closed behind its wall, traditional China hoped to achieve equilibrium,
but to be stirred to transcendence, it needed a distant presence. Enlightenment is
inherently transcultural, open, and far—from—equilibrium. In psychological terms,
this means that the “culturally conditioned mind” cannot simply settle into that
union of conscious and unconscious that Jung called a “Self.” It must generate that
Self through the catalyst of a radically foreign Other. There is no comfortable easing
into an oceanic, all—inclusive Self. There is always an alien Other–a bifurcation
felt even in experiencing the One. Consequently, even though in a sense L8
has no firm division between conscious and unconscious, there is still enough separation
for a feed-back relationship between the largely integrated parts.
R. H. Blyth comments on the koan about Bodhidharma’s (lack of)
whiskers: “Christ was a man; he was also God. …Christ died for mankind, but is far
from really dead. All this is no different from a beardless bearded barbarian” (Wumen
1966 64). In a way, all paradoxes blend into one. To solve a single kung-an
is to solve all. Nonetheless, “one is not one.” However profound the Enlightenment
after solving a kung—an, to be certified master in Ch’an requires years of
further practice tackling an entire collection, one by one–a training Blythe’s World—War
II capture denied him (“Zen masters have said that in complete perfect enlightenment
there are eighteen major awakenings, and countless minor awakenings.” (Wumen 1993
xxiii).).
hosshin: double bind
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I believe because it is absurd. –Tertullian (Christian theologian, third—century C.E.) |
In Japan, koans of the sort assigned to beginners are called hosshin,
meaning Dharmak—a ya, “the unity of the Buddha with everything existing” (Fischer—Schreiber
377). The expectation is that their double bind will eventually lead the meditator
to a sense of oneness with all existence (but without necessarily the more—advanced
recognition that “one is not one”).
Consider the hosshin—like qualities of John 5. Jesus heals
a man and tells him to take up his bed, walk, yet sin no more. The last of these
commands provides a double bind (fractal morality) for, at that period, walking with
his bed on the Sabbath is itself deemed a transgression (5.10). After waiting thirty
years for that cure, he is told by the Healer both that he should sin and that if
he sins, worse than the disease may happen to him (5.14). Jesus orders a seeming
violation of the Torah, yet is Himself not merely its fulfillment as in Matthew,
but its embodiment, the Word of God.
kikan: further from equilibrium
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… even if you can explain the whole Canon, it is still of no avail. If you can give an answer here, you will bring to life your previous road of death, and kill your previous road of life [or “kill the living, bring the dead to life”] –Wumen, Wumenkuan (Wumen 1993 28; Wumen 1966, 72) |
One of the most famous stories of conflict between the two is that
of the woman taken in adultery (in most modern “New Testaments,” John 8.2-11). It
is among very few biblical passages discussed in J. K. Kadowaki’s Zen and the
Bible (which, despite its title, is mostly about later Catholic, especially Jesuit
works). He begins his extremely brief Bible commentary, “A Zen monk I know told me
he was deeply moved when he read the passage. He added, ‘Don’t you think that we
can infer from the incident in the Bible that Jesus had the same experience that
we have in Zen?’” (47). Followers of Ch’an (Zen) presume kensho (direct viewing
of reality) to be a spontaneous order from chaos, possible without specific training.
Thus, Ch’anists of Tun—huang if told the story (which had entered the Bible by their
time), might have had a similar reaction. (That spiritual awakening might occur anywhere
to any one was a notion fostered in China by various Buddhist doctrines including
“The Teaching of the Three Stages (San—chieh chiao),… [which] pushed the doctrine
of the universality of the Buddha—nature in all beings to the point of obliterating
all distinctions, not only between clerics and laity, but even between Buddhist and
non—Buddhist.” Ebrey and Gregory 17.)
What Kadowaki finds koanlike in the anecdote is (1) Jesus’ ingenuity,
(2) His unexpected yet inspiring silence, (3) His leading the questioners to introspection,
and (4) “His transcend[ing] the dualistic opposition … [between] punishment and non—punishment….”
(48). The fourth similarity is the kind of insight inspired by a hosshin,
while Jesus’ injunction to sin no more implies that despite going beyond dualism
there is still distinction between good and evil.
The story, however, significantly diverges from most koans in that
it is so very pleasant. Kadowaki’s similarities one to three are all praise of Jesus,
hardly disquieting to a Christian audience. Nonetheless, he compares the story to
that of Gutei, who cut off a boy’s finger to bring the latter Enlightenment–a very
hard saying for Buddhists who expect ahimsa, not-hurting, as a practice of
monks. However difficult for the vengeful, the biblical lesson contains nothing as
shocking as that child abuse. A Jesuit and priest as well as a Zennist, Kadowaki
in this and his other sparse examples from the Bible refrains from distressing Christian
piety, yet the distress of spiritual “chaos” is a sine qua non of an effective
kung—an, which, seen somewhat differently, the story of the adulteress is.
Scholarship strongly suggests that the passage is an addition to
John, perhaps centuries after the latter’s composition. The oldest manuscripts do
not contain the tale nor do early patristic writings show any knowledge of it. When
it begins to appear in manuscripts, it does so not only in John but also in Luke,
suggesting that it was a story floating in the tradition–so charming that scribes
wanted to moor it somewhere but could not at first decide where. If there is anything
ultimately disturbing about the story, this is it. Seen as an official part of the
canon (i.e, nondistinct from it), but with no clear place therein (distinguished
from it), the story becomes as enigmatic as the writing on the ground by which Jesus
drove the judgmental away in confusion.
gonsen: deconstruction
During the fourth century B. C., it began to occur to the Chinese that words move
in a world of their own, a region connected only in the most casual and precarious
way with the world of reality.
–Arthur Waley (1958, 59)
Where hermeneutics looks for meaning in language, Ch’an (following the lead of fourth—century
Taoism) inspects for signs of linguistic collapse. Those koans that best display
this aporia came to be called gonsen (“pondering words”). For instance, since
in Chinese, ideograms for name and nature had an almost identical pronunciation,
Ch’anists played punningly with them, deconstructing the assumption that name and
nature have a definable relationship–a particularly problematic assumption in terms
of Buddha—nature (or Christ’s Nature).
Intermittently, a chaos may slip closer to equilibrium and such
patterns as the soliton dissipate, showing how their boundaries were maintained only
at constant cost of energy. Such a deconstructive (gonsen) moment in John
is 3.14: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of man be lifted up….” Some of this analogy is clear. Both the serpent and Jesus
saved God’s people and both were lifted to do so. Why, though, are Jesus and a serpent
treated as if a parity existed between them? Certainly, they are both paradoxical
figures. God commanded forging the metal serpent even though that violated his own
commandment against graven images; and his sacrificing his own Son shattered the
commandment Abraham would have transgressed if he had killed Isaac. Consequently,
both liftings follow God’s commands that are contrary to His commandments. In anthropological
terms, both events are apotropaic images of disorder (an ophic idol, a slain God),
used to create new order. This, also, is not a very pious thought. The very comparison
of Jesus to a snake is so upsetting it may be intended as such. Thus, it may shock
one into realizing the aporia in any analogy to the Divine. This deconstructive wariness,
however, is only part of a complex process.
nant—o : even further
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This Teacher of mine, this Teacher of mine–he passes judgment on the ten thousand things but he doesn’t think himself righteous; his bounty extends to ten thousand generations but he doesn’t think himself benevolent. He is older than the highest antiquity but he doesn’t think himself long—lived; he covers heaven, bears up the earth, carves and fashions countless forms, but he doesn’t think himself skilled. It is with him alone I wander. –Chuang Tzu, chap 6 (translated by Burton Watson) |
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Resign yourself to what cannot be avoided and nourish what is within you–this is best. What more do you have to do to fulfill your mission? Nothing is as good as following orders [chih ming]–that’s how difficult it is! –Chuang Tzu, chap. 4 (1968, 61) |
(1) The lowest level of a go—i is Sho—chu—hen, the
relative amid the absolute. At this stage, the student still feels caught in the
analyzable, material world yet realizes it to be a manifestation of the unifying
absolute beyond. Comparably, a sustained metaphor of Christ as divine vine dominates
John 15. As branches thereof, the disciples are to be aware of supernal unity, but
they are very much in a divisive world, where they may fall away or be pruned from
oneness–thereby momentarily diminishing the vine. To be united in mutual love (15.12—15.17),
they have been chosen from the world (15.18), but have not yet accomplished their
task.
(2) The next go—i is the absolute amid the relative, Henchusho.
It designates an increasing awareness of unity. Comparably, John 16 contains several
promises of greater connection to the divine. First mentioned is the arrival of the
Comforter (parakletos), traditionally interpreted as a Person of God, experienced
directly amid earthly vicissitudes (16.7). Then, Jesus prophesies His own death and
return in glory (16.14). Finally, He explains that He previously spoke in similitudes
but now speaks in plain Truth.
3) Sho—chu—rai means coming from the absolute–an experience
of undivided oneness. In John 17, Jesus announces, “now I am no more in the world”
(17.11). A high concentration of the paradoxes of unity come from this chapter, e.g.,
“all mine are thine, and thine are mine” (17.10); “they may be one, even as we are
one” (17.11); “That they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in
thee, that they also may be in us” (17.21); “that they may be one, even as we are
one” (17.22); “that thou may be made perfectly one” (17.23); “that the love with
which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (17.26).
(4) After the euphoria of undivided unity comes its opposite, Ken—chu—shi,
“entering between the two” (Fischer-Schreiber 107)–a heightened sense of the separateness
of everything. In Ch’an tradition, this is not always a harrowing experience. In
narrative terms, however, a spiritual story becomes more dramatic if agonizing dissolution
precedes the final triumph.
Certainly, Jesus’ betrayal, capture, trial, and crucifixion show
the previous joyous sense of community fractured. His claims of universal kingship
and divinity are mocked. Previously, he did not seem to have ordinary human need
of nourishment but might be sustained by the heavenly (4.31). Previously, he promised,
““whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him will never thirst” (4.14).
Now, he cries, “I thirst” (19.28). That this and other details of the crucifixion
fulfill scripture, implicates scripture–the Word--in the Word’s agony.
The sorrow is so intense that the Passion may not at first have
been as popular as it became. Various kinds of evidence suggest that, before the
gospels, Christians read collections of Jesus’ sayings, emphasizing His teachings
rather than His death. Thus, Robert J. Miller hypothesizes that a source of Matthew
and Luke lacked “stories or even sayings dealing with Jesus’ death and resurrection”
(19). Again, as Christianity spread East, the narrative of the crucifixion was initially
tempered. In a Parthian version of a Manichean description of Christ’s crucifixion,
for example, it is described as His “Parinirv—a.n a,” a term denoting the more peaceful
death of the Buddha (Klimkeit 72). An early Nestorean monument in China, despite
relative orthodoxy otherwise, lacks mention of the Crucifixion. The closest it comes
is, “He hung up [hu] the shining sun in order to triumph over the empire of
darkness.” Thereby, it hides the passion within John’s imagery of Light versus darkness
(Cary Elwes 35). The Crucifixion has been a “hard saying,” but its dramatic power
eventually endeared it to a wide audience.
(5) Ken—chu—to, meaning “having already arrived in the middle
of both,” constitutes a vision of the world as having definable order and beyond
such order, i.e., chaosmos. At least metaphorically, final attainment is miraculous,
as in a Ch’an poem where the Enlightened “touches, and lo! the dead trees come into
full bloom.”
The anomalous condition has traits of the magic realism with which
the Johannine gospel concludes, mingling the prosaic doings of the disciples with
Christ’s mysterious appearances. He is the same person, yet at first unrecognizable.
He enters closed rooms, but has a definite, tangible body as Thomas discovers. The
gospel twice deems this Christ beyond its own scope, by referring to additional,
unlisted miracles: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence ofthe disciples,
which are not written in this book” (20.30); “But there are also many other things
which Jesus did; were every one of them written, I suppose that the world itself
could not contain the books that would be written” (21.25). These two similar statements
make the gospel seem to end twice, arousing scholarly suspicion of interpolation,
especially since 21.24 mentions an unidentified “we” who know John’s testimony to
be true. As usual, the text is not merely complex in subject but in form as well.
Continue to Revelation 1
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