Fingers Pointing at the Moon

"Believe me, if a contemplative had the tongue and the language to express what he experiences, all the scholars in Christendom would be struck dumb before his wisdom. Yes, for by comparison the entire compendium of human knolwedge would appear as sheer ignorance. Do not be surprised, then, if my awkward, human tongues fails to explain its value adequately...Whatever we may say of it is not it, but only about it."
--Privy Counsel Ch. 11

A thoughtful comment offered in reply to Wednesday's post pointed out the parallels between Buddhist meditation and the form of contemplative Christian prayer described by the author of Privy Counsel. The techniques are indeed nearly the same, but sometimes a slightly different vocabulary is used, reflecting the different theological/philosophical traditions that underpin each method.

My own experience is probably not unlike that of many others who have discovered the contemplative tradition within Christianity. Ironically, I explored Buddhist meditation first, and only later found this rich mystical practice in my "original" path of Christianity. My interest in Thomas Merton led me not only into a more serious look at Buddhism, but also introduced me to modern Christian writers like Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating, who revived the ancient spiritual disciplines of the Desert Fathers, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counsel, and all the others who later entered that stream like Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich and St. Teresa of Avila.

If the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches paid more attention to this mystical path in their own religion, it would probably be unnecessary for so many young seekers to abandon the church in favor of Buddhist, Hindu and other non-Christian paths. But I don't think it's a bad thing that so many of us have, because I have certainly been nourished and grown exponentially as a result of my ongoing practice and work with Buddhist teachers, and their perspective gives me an even richer understanding of contemplative Christian practice.

The methodologies of Buddhist and Christian contemplation are indeed nearly the same. Where they differ is mostly in the language used to describe what is happening. But even here, both traditions acknowledge that really there is only one experience, and that the language differences are relative and not absolute. As the author of Privy Counsel is saying in Chapter 11, language is by definition dualistic and cannot convey the actual experience of union/non-duality. As the Buddhists say, all of this technique, all of this teaching, all of this talk is simply a "finger pointing at the moon." The point is to see the moon itself, which takes you to a wordless experience beyond seeing, beyond me, beyond the moon.