From: osan@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X)
Subject: Re: Well, well... (last)
Organization: Twilight Zone
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 18:29:27 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.121745.7150@sei.cmu.edu> psc@sei.cmu.edu (Peter Capell) writes:
>
>My comment here was that Christianity (the west) has no analogous activity to
>eastern meditation to derive meaning.  It is an essential distinction.  It
>could not possibly "sound familiar" that people might spend hours meditating
>on a single Bible phrase for example, because it doesn't happen at all in the
>same way.  There is no analogous activity.

	Eeek!!  I'm not a Christian (despite the best attempts of many persons
	to turn me into one, as a child :)) but I have studied the mystical
	Christian traditions and I can assure you that there most certainly
	are analogs.  

	Read "The Journey of a Pilgrim" (I may not have that title quite right)
	Anonymous author: it is the supposed biographical account of a late
	18th century Russian who, due to some seemingly awful turns of fortune,
	becomes a wandering beggar insearch of the meaning of the term
	"ceaseless prayer".  If you an read ths book and come away with the
	feelin that this person did not become a true mystic and did not indeed
	engage in deep meditative practices, then I'd be at a loss.

	Other readings could include the many varied texts of Gnostic
	Christianity including the writings of Valentinus, Hippolytus,
	St. Augustine, the scrolls of Nag Hammadi Library (a cave :)),
	the Apochryphon of St John the Divine, Thomas Aquinas (who spent 9
	years of his life as a Manichaean), etc.  Many of these texts (eg, 
	Aquinas, Valentinus) are refutations of the many varied gnostic sects 
	of Christianity, but they do much to point out the mystical aspects
	of not only the Gnostic sects, which were declared as heresy, but also
	of the early Cathlic church.

	Basically, read anything up to about the 5th century CE and you will
	find that the flavors of early Christianity have a remarkably strong
	similarity that of the far east.  And for that matter you can read 
	about other Western traditions such as the Bogomils, Cathars, 
	Cabalistic Judaism, Sufism ("Whirling Dervishes").  These very Western
	traditions have meditative/mystical analogs up the gazoo.  The fact
	that the modern day Christian churches have thoroughly condemned
	these aspects which were FUNDAMENTAL to the very fabric of them in
	the earliest days and centuries (except the Protestants, of course)
	is IMO, only evidence of said churches paranoid need to render its
	individual constituents incapable of attaining any meaningful
	experiences without the "guidance" of mother church.  Ths gave them
	great power over the "flock", since the members could not "find" God
	without the churches mediation.  Some scam.  But, as usual, I digress.

>
>By all means, cite a bunch of eastern masters who advocate book learning as
>being essential to enlightment.  Further, document that this is the real
>character of eastern thinking on the subject of enlightenment.  I believe that
>you will find that most eastern religions find that book knowledge is an
>option for dialectical scholars of religion--quite a separate concern from
>true enlightenment.

	Well, as far as Ch'an goes, this is certainly not so.  Intellectualism
	is considered essential although by no means sufficient.  Read a book
	on Ch'an and you will see that development of intellect is every bit as 
	important as the other aspects.  I feel that development of all 
	faculties, each in harmony with the others (to get all mushy) is
	essential to the proper and healthy development of each person.  I also
	believe that this is the basic approach of many eastern philosophies.
	The main exception I may see to this is Confucianism, which IMO is as
	nearly useless a philosophy as any I have ever encountered, given that
	it bases itself in moralism, which is, IMO, one of the worse methods
	upon which to base any religion/philosophy.

	I believe that what you take as anti-intellectualism is really the
	recognition of what intellect is and is not.  It is a means, a tool,
	not an end in itself.  It is not a thing to be necessarily lived for,
	but a means to aid in the living.  As such it must be recognized as
	for what it is and must not be mistaken as the terrain.

	Without intellect, life would be nearly impossible.  When intellect
	is given an unwarranted emphasis, life also becomes problematic.  A
	balance must be found, and I believe this is one of the main goals
	of philosophies such as ch'an.

	Intellect has its place as does practice.  I believe intellect
	is needed for certain types of awareness.  Practice turns this
	intellectual awareness into one that is deeper (I guess you
	might call it spiritual awareness, but I'm not sure).  For
	example, you can become aware of the martial arts intellectually.
	And you can actually learn quite a bit about them through
	intellectual pursuit.  But at some point, actual application
	of the intellectualizing must take place or no advances are
	likely to take place.

	-Andy V.