Quest Magazine

Hesychasm: A Christian Path of Transcendence

Originally printed in the March-April 2000 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Mitchell B., Liester. "Hesychasm: A Christian Path of Transcendence." Quest 89.2 MARCH-APRIL 2000): 54-59, 65.

By Mitchell B. Liester

Theosophical Society - Mitchell B. Liester, MD, is a psychiatrist in Monument, Colorado. His articles have appeared previously in the Quest, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and Journal of Near-Death Studies An ancient mystical tradition was lost to the Western world nearly a thousand years ago. Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, this profound yet practical path of transcendence is being rediscovered. Its name is hesychasm, from a Greek root meaning "to be still."

Hesychasm's roots extend back almost two thousand years to the beginnings of the Christian church. Today much of what we know about this spiritual path has been gleaned from the writings of mystics who populated the Middle Eastern deserts in the fourth century. These early ascetics are known as the Desert Fathers.

In the eleventh century, the Christian church split into the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Catholicism rejected hesychasm, which encouraged individual experiences of the divine. As a result, hesychasm disappeared from Western culture but survived because the Orthodox church embraced and preserved this tradition of quiet meditation.

For the last millennium, hesychasm has remained shrouded in obscurity in the West. Why? One reason is that hesychastic texts preserved by the Orthodox Church were written in Greek or the languages of various eastern European countries. This made them inaccessible to most Westerners. Only recently have classics such as The Philokalia and The Ladder of Divine Ascent been translated into English. Another factor has been the cultural and political differences that separated Eastern Europe from the West. The fall of these barriers is permitting greater access to, and understanding of, this spiritual path.

Altered States of Consciousness

Practitioners of hesychasm, known as hesychasts, use Christian terminology to describe their experiences. If we permit ourselves the latitude of translating those descriptions into contemporary psychological terminology, we can glimpse the hesychast's inner world.

Hesychasts describe two types of consciousness: ego-centered and ego-transcendent. The former is a state dominated by attachments to the senses, emotions, intellect, and imagination. The latter involves detachment from those faculties.

The shift from ego-centered to ego-transcendent consciousness is called metanoia in Greek. The literal translation of this term is "transformation of the nous," but the English language contains no exact synonym for the word nous. Misleading translations are "intellect," "mind," or "reason." The nous bears no resemblance to the rational intellect (dianoia in Greek). Whereas the rational intellect uses deductive reasoning, the nous relies upon "immediate experience" or intuition. Therefore, the term metanoia is correctly understood as a shift from ego-centered to nous-centered, ego-transcendent, or, in hesychastic terminology, God-centered consciousness.

The ultimate goal for hesychasts is union with God (Greek theosis). Three steps are required to achieve this goal. The first is dispassion (Greek apatheia), which involves detachment from the senses and the emotions. The second is stillness (Greek hesychia), which requires detachment from the discursive intellect and the imagination. The final step is an abiding state of illumination called deification or perfect union with God (Greek theosis).

Hesychasts employ both physical and mental practices to achieve ego-transcendent consciousness. Although it is convenient to describe these practices separately, hesychasts view them as interwoven and inseparable.

Outer Practices

Physical or "outer" practices are designed to help hesychasts detach from the senses and the passions. What are passions? They are intense emotions that attract and hold attention. The Desert Fathers referred to passions as "diseases of the soul" because they anchor us in ego-centered consciousness (Spidlik 268). Despite this characterization, passions are not considered bad. Rather they are viewed as neutral. Passions are "fallen" (bad) only when they are misdirected.

Hesychasts employ a number of outer practices. For example, novices are encouraged to "withdraw from the world." This practice involves both social isolation and detachment from the passions. Fasting may consist of either complete abstinence from food or moderation in eating. Moderation is considered preferable to extreme deprivation, for the latter is said to increase subsequent overindulgence. Prolonged periods of prayer in conjunction with sleep deprivation are known as vigils. The practice of prostrations involves repeatedly bending the knees and prostrating oneself on the floor. These are performed in order to prevent "distracting cares." The term silence, in the context of physical asceticism, refers to the avoidance of unnecessary talking. Hesychasts advocate limiting speech to a bare minimum rather than total muteness. Isaac the Syrian explained the purpose of silence as awakening the mind to God (Cavarnos, Paths 19).

Through the regular practice of such physical or outer techniques, hesychasts experience a state known as apatheia (dispassion or passionlessness). This state is necessary to maintain higher states of consciousness. Maximus the Confessor, a seventh century hesychast, explained (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Early Fathers 297):

As a bird tied by the leg, when it starts to rise upwards is pulled back to earth by the string, so the mind which has not yet attained passionlessness, although rising to the knowledge of heavenly things, is pulled back to earth by the passions.

Despite its great importance, passionlessness is a means, not an end. Once attachments to the senses and passions are transcended, attachments to the intellect and imagination remain. Mental or inner practices are used to release those attachments.

Inner Practices

Hesychasts utilize meditation and prayer to detach from their thoughts. The Greek word nipsis describes a state of focused attention in which the object of attention is the thoughts of the intellect. With time and practice, nipsis facilitates detachment from these thoughts.

Four levels of prayer are experienced by hesychasts: verbal prayer, mental prayer, prayer of the heart, and contemplation. Although these can be described as distinct types of prayer, hesychasts do not experience them that way. Instead, they are experienced as unfolding levels of prayer that occur during the spiritual journey.

Verbal prayer (or physical prayer) consists of reading, chanting, or reciting psalms. This form of prayer is sometimes used by hesychasts when they have difficulty sustaining mental prayer. Mental prayer involves speaking words inwardly with the mind, rather that outwardly with the voice. The most common form of mental prayer is the "Jesus Prayer," which has been described by Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain as follows (Cavarnos, Paths 28):

A person placing his mind within the heart and, without speaking with his mouth, but only with inner words spoken in the heart, [says] this brief and single prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me."

The Jesus Prayer is not exclusively a mental prayer. It can be spoken aloud or inwardly with the mind, and can also emanate from the heart.

Various psycho-physiological techniques are associated with the Jesus Prayer. Some monks use a prayer-rope to count recitations of the prayer. Others link this prayer to the breath, heartbeat, prostrations, or thoughts of death.

The third level of prayer, known as pure prayer or prayer of the heart, is said to evolve out of mental prayer. Prayer of the heart has been described as follows (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Writings 156-7):

The mind should be in the heart'a distinctive feature of the third method of prayer. It should guard the heart while it prays, revolve, remaining always within, and thence, from the depths of the heart, offer up prayers to God.

The final stage of the hesychastic journey is called theoria or contemplation. This stage involves the cessation of all mental activity, at which point one is able to "see God in everything" (Spidlik 327).

Experiences Associated with Hesychastic Practices

On the path to union with God, hesychasts may encounter extraordinary experiences. These are not viewed as byproducts of spiritual practice, as our Western minds might interpret them. Instead, they are attributed directly to God. These experiences include: hesychia, spiritual gifts, divine light, and agape or love.

Hesychia is a state of detached awareness experienced during regular spiritual practice. Hesychia is not merely a phenomenon of the intellect. Instead, it involves detachment from the ego's faculties (the senses, emotions, imagination, and intellect). It is "a state of inner tranquility or mental quietude and concentration" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 1:365).

Spiritual gifts are said to originate directly from God, yet hesychasts generally distrust these gifts because they are viewed as distractions on the spiritual journey. Saint Paul (1 Cor. 12.4) described nine spiritual gifts, which Kelsey condensed into five categories: healing and miracles, gifts of proclamation, revelations, discernment of spirits, and wisdom or spiritual knowledge.

Hesychastic writers give sparse attention to the gift of healing, a term that refers to the ability to cure diseases. Their writings clearly state, however, that miracles and healings are gifts, not accomplishments. This distinction highlights the fact that miracles are viewed as resulting from the divine acting through the individual, rather than as an accomplishment of the individual.

The gift of proclamation is more commonly known as prophesy. Contemporary use of this term implies a foretelling of the future, but originally this term had a different meaning. The term prophesy described the transmission of information from ego-transcendent consciousness (a revelation of the Holy Spirit), regardless of whether it related to the present, past, or future.

Today, revelation is often misunderstood as well. This confusion can be attributed to our inability to discriminate between related phenomena. Nikitas Stithatos described revelation as a form of trans-sensory awareness that occurs "when the purified and illumined soul is able to contemplate in a way that transcends normal sense-perception" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 4:124). Revelation is different from sensory or intellectual knowledge.

Diakresis or discernment of spirits is the ability to discriminate between different types of thoughts. More specifically, it refers to the ability to distinguish between thoughts originating from the ego and thoughts originating from ego-transcendent consciousness. It is "a kind of eye or lantern of the soul by which man finds his way along the spiritual path without falling into extremes" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 4:429).

Knowledge obtained by the nous is different from knowledge obtained by the ego. The former is referred to as spiritual knowledge (Greek gnosis), whereas the latter is called natural knowledge or theoretical knowledge. Gnosis is nondualistic or intuitive, whereas sensory and intellectual knowledge are dualistic. Maximos the Confessor explained: "Spiritual knowledge unites knower and known, while (natural knowledge) is always a cause of change and self-division" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 2:282).

Divine Light is an inner light described as "spiritual" or "divine" and "the light of the spirit" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 2:39, 280; 3:43). This divine light can be seen with the eyes of the body, the eye of the soul (the nous), or both. Accounts of this light do not reflect an intellectual experience of light, nor are they metaphorical. Instead they describe a direct experience of a suprasensible light which provides knowledge that transcends time, space, and reason.

Agape or spiritual love is the final gift of the spirit. Agape has been described as theocentric as opposed to egocentric love (Sorokin 5). Maximus the Confessor described agape as "that good disposition of the soul in which it prefers nothing that exists to knowledge of God" (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Early Fathers 287).

Progress on the hesychastic path is associated with increasing degrees of agape and decreasing levels of fear. Eventually, fear is completely transcended as it is replaced by what Diadochos of Photiki referred to as "perfect love" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 1:257).

Pitfalls Along the Path

The hesychastic path, like other spiritual journeys, is fraught with pitfalls. These range from relatively minor impediments to serious, life-threatening dangers. Three categories of pitfalls exist, although hesychasts do not group them in this way: early pitfalls, late pitfalls, and pitfalls resulting from interactions with others.

Early pitfalls occur when ego detachment is incomplete. Beginning hesychasts must overcome myriad attachments, so incomplete or partial detachment frequently occurs. For example, hesychasts can detach from thoughts, but not passions. Maximus explained (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Early Fathers 329):

It is one thing to be freed from thoughts and another to be freed from passions. Men are often freed from thoughts when the objects of their passion are not before their eyes. Yet the passions meanwhile lie concealed in the soul and manifest themselves when the objects appear.

Another pitfall is distraction by mental images. This can lead to discouragement and despair. Ego suppression, which differs from ego transcendence, is yet another danger. Hesychasts strive to transfigure or "deify" their egos rather than suppress them.

Late Pitfalls follow some degrees of ego detachment. For example, travel beyond the limits of the ego can be a frightening experience, particularly if one is ill prepared. From the perspective of the ego, inner silence feels like death. Thus, the preparation that precedes ego detachment can influence whether this journey is a terrifying gauntlet into psychosis or an enduring state of transcendence. For this reason, hesychasts advise that the spiritual journey not be undertaken lightly. Symeon the New Theologian warned: "Some have become totally possessed, and in their madness wander from place to place. . . . Some of them have committed suicide" (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Writings 153).

Misconstruing transitory experiences of transcendence for an abiding state of transcendence is another danger. This results in a condition termed laziness. Laziness occurs when an individual experiences ego transcendence, but does not work to maintain ego-detachment.

Ego-inflation is another problem. When the rewards of transcendence (or the Grace of God) are mistakenly viewed as accomplishments of the ego, ego-inflation results. Maximus the Confessor warned: "Knowledge is usually followed by conceit and envy, especially in the beginning" (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Early Fathers 340).

Attachment to spiritual gifts or mystical phenomena is another obstacle. Hesychastic writers teach that such phenomena distract from the ultimate goal of union with god. Therefore, they do not view spiritual gifts as goals to be attained.

Attempts to understand ego-transcendent realms by the rational intellect invariably fail. The ego is incapable of understanding spiritual knowledge. Therefore, attempts at rational depictions of spiritual realms result in incomplete or distorted information.

Pitfalls associated with encountering others who have not yet experienced ego transcendence is the last category. Such encounters can result in criticism, judgment, or even condemnation. Symeon the New Theologian warned: "Those taught by God will be regarded as fools by the disciples of such as are wise in the wisdom of this world" (Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware 4:47).

Contemporary Christian Contemplative Practices

Today the largest community of individuals who follow the classic hesychastic tradition is found on a Greek peninsula known as Mount Athos. This community consists of about two thousand monks of Greek, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Rumanian decent who live in twenty monasteries scattered about the peninsula. The oldest of these monasteries dates back to the tenth century.

Certain restrictions are maintained on Mount Athos. For example, no automobiles, carts, children, dogs, or musical instruments are allowed (Cavarnos, Anchored in God). Also, no women are permitted to visit (Cavarnos, Holy Mountain).

The hesychastic tradition is now surfacing within the Catholic church. In 1975, Father William Menninger developed the practice of centering prayer, which has been described as "A method of refining one's intuitive faculties so that one can enter more easily into contemplative prayer" (Keating, Open Mind 34; Keating, Invitation 1). It involves the repetition of a sacred word, which facilitates inner silence. Keating (Open Mind 40) likens this process to the emptying out of a bathtub:

Emptying the mind of its customary routines of thinking is a process that we can only initiate, like taking the stopper out of a bathtub. The water goes down by itself. You don't have to push the water out of the tub. You simply allow it to run out. You are doing something similar in this prayer. Allow your ordinary train of thoughts to flow out of you.

Summary

Hesychasm is an ancient mystical tradition that offers time-proven methods for detaching from the ego and experiencing transcendent states of consciousness. This tradition is not limited to reclusive monks. Anyone can be a hesychastic. The divine Chrysostom wrote (Cavarnos, Paths 44-5):

Even a man living within a city can imitate the life of monks. Indeed, even a man who has a wife, and who is occupied with the demands of his household, can pray, fast, and learn contrition. . . . Let us cultivate self-mastery and all of the other virtues, and let us bring into our cities the way of life which is sought in the deserts.

One of the unfortunate occurrences regarding the hesychastic tradition has been the mistranslation of ancient Greek terms by individuals who clearly had not themselves experienced transcendent states of consciousness. For example the Greek word hamartia means "to miss the mark." Hesychasts used this word to refer to the state in which one remains attached to the passions. Contemporary versions of the Bible translate hamartia as "sin," which implies a malevolent action deserving punishment. Similarly, the term metanoia, which refers to a shift from ego-centered to trans-egoic consciousness, is translated as "repentance," a term with profoundly different connotations.

Studying the words the hesychasts use to describe their tradition makes it apparent that much of our contemporary Christian terminology has been mistranslated. In this process, the original mystical meanings have been lost. In their place we discover the fingerprints of the Biblical translator's egos and their dualistic judgments (good/bad, right/wrong, etc.), which have left an indelible mark on much of contemporary Christianity, particularly fundamentalist branches, which lean toward literal interpretations of the English Bible. Journeying back to the early Christian writings of the hesychasts, we encounter a much kinder and gentler Christianity. We discover a tradition that provides a rich body of instructions for transcending the ego.

What happens when the Prayer of the Heart is repeated? A shift in consciousness occurs'a shift to a deep abiding peace'a stillness of mind that transcends everyday consciousness. A wellspring is opened from which another mode of being flows. In this state, trans-rational knowledge is acquired. This is the realm of intuition, revelation, and prophecy. This is the realm of ineffable experiences for which metaphors offer only approximate glimpses. This is the realm in which time and space are transcended. This is the realm of inner silence, which is available to each and every one of us, if only we are willing to listen.

References

Cavarnos, Constantine. Anchored in God: An Inside Account of Life, Art, and Thought on the Holy Mountain of Athos. Athens, Greece: Astir Pub. Co., 1959.
'''.
The Holy Mountain. Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1973.
''',
trans. Paths and Means to Holiness. By Bishop Chrsostomos of Oreoi. Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1986.
Kadloubovsky, E., and Gerald E. Palmer, trans. Early Fathers from the Philokalia. London: Faber and Faber, 1976.
''',
trans. Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. London: Faber and Faber, 1979.
Keating, Thomas. Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation. New York: Continuum, 1995.
'''.
Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel. Rockport, MA: Element, 1992.
Kelsey, Morton T. Companions on the Inner Way: The Art of Spiritual Guidance. New York: Crossroad, 1985.
Palmer, Gerald Eustace, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, trans. The Philokalia. 4 vols. London: Faber and Faber, 1983-95.
Sorokin, Pitirim. The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation, Boston: Beacon Press, 1954.
Spidlik, Tomas. The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1986.

Mitchell B. Liester, MD, is a psychiatrist in Monument, Colorado. His articles have appeared previously in the Quest, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and Journal of Near-Death Studies. He can be reached at liester@aol.com.

Icons: Windows to the Divine

Originally printed in the March-April 2000 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation:Luchakova, Olga and Johnson, Kenneth. "Icons: Windows to the Divine." Quest 89.2 MARCH-APRIL 2000): 44-49

By Olga Luchakova and Kenneth Johnson

If the language of icons has become unfamiliar to us and seems "naïve" and "primitive," the reason is not that the icon has outlived or lost its vital power and significance, but that even the knowledge that the human body is capable of spiritual transformation...is lost by men.

—Archbishop Ignatius Bryanchaninov

They stare at us from their niches in museums and art galleries, the intense ascetic faces lit with an otherworldly glow. Whole cosmograms dance in sweeping circles, lit with Byzantine gold, archaic mandalas of the Western world. These are the icons of Russia, Greece, and Byzantium, avidly sought by art collectors the world over.

But icons are more than works of art. They are the focus of a complex spiritual discipline that has its roots in archaic Christianity.

Mystical Christianity

Primordial Christianity included a system of self-transformation that led to theosis, the dissolution of the individual self in the Godhead. This contemplative system, called hesychasm or "the tradition of inner stillness," consisted of meditative practices designed to calm the mind, purify the passions, and develop skills of absorption. These practices of self-transformation and self-transcendence, such as "wakefulness," "inner stillness," and "the Prayer of the Heart," have been undeservedly forgotten. Though secretly preserved in the Eastern Orthodox Churches of Greece and Russia as an inner, esoteric teaching, they are virtually unknown in the West.

Throughout the centuries, solitary hermits have devoted themselves to prayer and meditation in the cave monasteries of Greece and in retreats amidst the vast Russian forests. Their meditative techniques, passed down solely through direct oral transmission and initiation, could be described as Christian Yoga or, to use the metaphor preferred by the hesychasts themselves, as a ladder by which the individual consciousness ascends from separateness to communion and identity with Godhead. Working with these techniques may help bring contemporary seekers to "recovery" from the "childhood abuse" of a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Reconciliation with Christianity is a healing process for many people, since traumatic childhood memories often have a strong connection with religious archetypes.

Icons and Archetypes

The creation of and meditation on icons are significant parts of this hesychastic tradition. The icon as an art form is derived, in part, from the portrait painting of pre-Christian Rome, the first Christian icons being portraits of the early sages and saints. Eusebius, in his History of the Church, writes: "I have seen a great many portraits of the Savior, of Peter and of Paul, which have been preserved up to our times." According to legend, the Vladimir Mother of God (one of the most famous Eastern Christian icons) is in fact a portrait of the Virgin painted by St. Luke; and though New Testament historical criticism may dismiss the legend as a chronological impossibility, it nevertheless illustrates the belief that icons are genuine portraits of sages and saints.

Such legends and beliefs are important, for they reveal part of the secret of the icons' imaginative power over the worshiper. Icons are, first and foremost, portraits of archetypes. Divine figures and Christian saints may be the ostensible subjects of icons, but icons also show the attributes and archetypal powers of gods and nature spirits that reigned in the sky of the European mind long before the advent of Christianity.

In many cases, worship of the old pagan divinities never entirely died out. As archetypes—powers and potencies inherent in the human soul but not dependent upon ritual or dogma—they merely underwent a transformation, their attributes and even their stories transferred to the saints of the new religion. In Byzantine Greece, St. Catherine took on the nature of Aphrodite, and the people prayed to her for love. St. Nicholas doubled for stormy Poseidon, though in Russia he came more closely to resemble Volos, the pagan god of the dead. St. Elijah's fiery chariot formed a natural link with the ancient lords of thunder; in Greece he became the simulacrum of Zeus, and in Russia of Perun, the Thunder God. In Russia, too, peasants prayed to St. George as the protector of the land and celebrated his feast day by covering one of the local men in leaves and dressing him in green; this Russian St. George evokes memories of one of the most ancient gods of all, the Lord of the Wildwood who was worshiped as long ago as the Neolithic period.

The Magic of Icons

The merging of archetypes from different traditions, which occurs in iconic art, reflects the spiritual processes of both the psyche and the world. Archetypes are fluid and eternal. They transcend cultural boundaries, evoking parallels between religions, yet they sustain their unique flavor as carriers of the energies inherent in different spiritual traditions. An icon is a symbol as well as an image, and each of its separate components carries many different layers of meaning. The major informational charge of an icon, however, lies in its nature as an image, speaking directly to the unconscious through our senses, producing certain inner responses and altered states of consciousness.

Hesychasm deeply influenced the art of the icon. Icons carry the imprint of the states of consciousness attained by the hesychastic artists who made them famous, as well as the vibrations of the energies associated with the saints and gods who are their prototypes. A famous icon is like a painted sutra—a terse capsule containing nonverbal information about the stages leading to the attainment of theosis. "What the word transmits through the ears, the painting shows through the image," said St. Basil the Great.

The iconographer's art—even in its physical details—profoundly resembles that of the Tibetan tanka painters, as Nicholas Roerich noted long ago. The artists are typically meditators who receive powerful initiations before beginning their work; they fast, undergo purification rituals, meditate on the archetype, embody its state of consciousness within themselves, and then infuse their art materials with the uncreated energies of the prototype through meditation and prayer. Icon making is a long, meditative process; sometimes it takes years. The materials themselves become transfigured, carriers of grace. As with old sacred buildings or power spots, spiritual information is encoded in matter, elevating its vibrational level.

Though it has its roots in pre-Christian portrait painting, an icon does not look quite like a realistic portrait. It is, more properly, a portrait of the subtle and invisible (as opposed to the merely physical) body, a terrestrial attempt to convey knowledge of the forms that belong to celestial realms, hence the refined noses, arched eyebrows, halos, and elongated bodies. This refinement of human features illustrates the results of the fasting and asceticism that were frequently undertaken by the Eastern saints. According to the mystical theology of the Orthodox Church, God can incarnate, becoming flesh; and physical matter can be divinized, becoming subtle, close to spirit in its nature.

The canons of iconic art reflect the appearance of those who have been thus transformed by spiritual discipline. The use of gold, of "enliveners" (the white paint strokes that produce an impression of luminosity), of multiple washes of tempera that allow the underlying layers of lighter paint to shine through—all of these techniques reveal the inner luminosity contained in the bodies of the saints, as well as our own true "light nature." To experience this inner light is the very essence of the Christian yogi's practice. Symeon, called the New Theologian, wrote: "The Christian mystic dwells in light," hence the term "illumination" for one of the stages of attainment. When placed in a church, an icon serves as the source of the subtle energy that infuses the sacred space of the church itself. The icon works as an energy window, causing actual changes in the aura and cleansing the psycho-energetic centers of the human body.

Some icons—such as those depicting St. Seraphim of Sarov or Panteleimon the Healer—can be used as "projectors," which radiate the subtle energy that induces both physical and spiritual healing. In Eastern Orthodox terms, they "emanate grace." Other icons may actually serve as embodied states of consciousness, and contemplation of them may lead the devotee to actual knowledge of God through those states. The special nature of the iconographer's art allows him to imprint nonordinary, sacred states of consciousness into the icon, and these states can be absorbed by the meditator centuries after the creation of the icon itself.

The open-minded contemplation of and identification with an especially sacred icon may even be equivalent to receiving a powerful initiation from a living teacher. Hesychia, the "inner silence" identical to the peak spiritual experience cultivated in so many traditions, may be directly transmitted by certain icons of the Mother of God in her aspect of loving-kindness—for example, by the Virgin of Kazan. An icon of Christ the Savior in glory, which once followed the coffins of the czar's family members during Russian state funerals, depicts Christ in the deep absorption of essence and can transmit a state of consciousness beyond ego, the experience of oneness with God. When contemplated correctly, such an icon may present an entire initiation, signifying a new stage of spiritual progress for the seeker. Of course, this direct silent transmission from an icon is possible only if the mind of the seeker is ripe for such appreciation and ready to accept the gift.

Icons may also be used to induce a special kind of centering. In fact, they provide a specific attunement of the chakras or inner psychic centers in the mind, the heart, or (very rarely) in the belly or "center of power," more commonly used in folk healing and magic. The nuances of such centering may sometimes indicate particular ways for the practitioner to concentrate awareness on certain energy centers in the body and attain higher spiritual experiences. St. Xenia, the Vladimir Mother of God, and the Virgin of the Sign, for example, all awaken the heart center and indicate love and devotion or bhakti as the path to the Supreme. Icons of Sophia or of Christ the Pantocrator emphasize transcendental wisdom and insight; they work predominantly upon the sahasrara and ajna chakras, the crown and the so-called third eye. Finally, certain icons may be understood as mandalas, diagrams of an inner cosmos: these include icons of Christ as the Pantocrator and cosmological icons.

Meditating with Icons

If the Orthodox iconographer and Tibetan tanka painter share a particular mode of working, then sometimes so do the Christian contemplative, the practitioner of Tibetan deity yoga, and the Hindu bhakta. In all cases, the power of the sacred archetype is brought deeply and profoundly into the auric sphere of the practitioner, who strives for total identification with the archetype.

But if there are similarities with Eastern practices, there are also notable differences. In icon meditation, it is generally the image rather than the symbol that works upon our minds; hence the position of the body and hands, the gaze, and the over-all energy of the icon are perceived intuitively by the subconscious. This brings Christian practice closer to Hindu bhakti than to the Buddhist path, for such truly symbolic works of art as Tibetan mandalas require an intellectual knowledge of the meanings inherent in the symbols in order to be properly meditated upon and understood.

There are a number of different methods for working with icons, which are defined by the esoteric qualities of the icon itself. As a general rule, meditation on an icon begins by establishing a devotional attitude towards the archetype or saint in question. Visualize the iconic image in front of you and connect with its "embodied sage." After you have established an initial relationship, you may begin the meditative techniques.

First, relax and drop your awareness into your body. Let your eye muscles relax, so that your gaze is slightly out of focus. Let the icon itself guide you; surrender your state of mind to its influence. Turn your body into a relaxed, reflecting medium, thus allowing the icon to make its benevolent imprint within. The icon helps establish the inner current connecting the mind with the divine inside the practitioner's psyche. Awareness of the emotional content of your own dialogue with the archetype helps to integrate alienated and traumatized areas of the mind.

A deepening of this initial practice may lead to identification with the actual physical form of the saint as depicted in the iconic image, though unless the practitioner's consciousness is thoroughly centered in the body, as described above, the desired results will not be obtained. "Becoming the saint" leads to living that individual's inner experience, at least to a degree. The idam practice of Tantric Buddhism, which likewise creates an identification between the deity and the meditator, is very similar. Upon identification with the sage, practitioners open analogous levels of awareness and higher states of consciousness within themselves.

After you have learned to enter into dialogue and identify with the icon—letting it be reflected in your body, centering you and transmitting its state of consciousness—you may learn to meditate upon the icon by contemplating it from the vantage point of the energy structures within your body. For example, if you imagine your physical eyes within your heart chakra and gaze out from that point (opening your physical eyes too, of course), you will notice the subtle energies of the icon—its aura and radiant energies. You may attempt to "relocate" your eyes to the various chakras or energetic centers within the body and contemplate the icon from each one of them, even examining it from the space behind your back. These more sophisticated techniques will allow you to see the invisible and subtle energy content of these mysterious condensates of grace—the icons of the Eastern Christian tradition.

Olga Luchakova, MD, PhD, is a spiritual teacher with a background in Yoga, Vedanta, and Hesychasm; she is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and John F. Kennedy University.

Kenneth Johnson studied Comparative Religion at California State University, Fullerton, and is the author of six books, including Mythic Astrology: Archetypal Powers in the Horoscope, North Star Road, and Jaguar Wisdom.

March - April 2000

VOLUME 88, NUMBER 2

Contents

Icons: Windows to the Divine
By Olga Luchakova and Kenneth Johnson

Beauty Is a Verb
By Eric Booth

Hesychasm: A Christian Path of Transcendence
By Mitchell B. Liester

A Poem in a Brushstroke
By J. L. Walker

Thinking Aloud: 300,000 to 1
By Lance Hardie

Viewpoint: Waking to Spring Lilacs
By John Algeo

A Poem in a Brushstroke

By J. L. Walker

The ink-stone, receiving

The dew of the chrysanthemum—

The life of it!

—Buson

On a hot afternoon some years ago, I found myself in a small museum dedicated to traditional Chinese painting. It was one of those days in Taipei when there is no air to breathe, when one feels like a fish moistly inhaling water and air together.

As I slowly revived in the cool, quiet rooms of the gallery, I stood for a long time before a simple painting of a chrysanthemum--bold strokes limned a full red blossom atop a tangle of black ink leaves and stems. I closed one eye and looked. I advanced, retreated. I tried a kind of not-looking with eyes almost closed. The space around the flower spoke as trenchantly as the form itself. I remembered suddenly, Zen began with a flower held up and a smile. After a while, my teacher appeared at my elbow. "What is it," I asked, "that makes this beautiful?" He was silent a moment. "Ah," he replied, "you must learn to see the poem in the brushstroke."

What gives a painting its zen? Is it perhaps a picture created by one who practices Zen Buddhism, some Zen master or monastic? Or does its content reflect a person or place famous in the history of the Zen tradition, which spans Asia from its roots in Indian Buddhism, across the vastness of China and Southeast Asia, to Korea and Japan and now in the West? Or is a zen work of art one that arises from deep insights into the nature of self and the world--a work imbued with the quality of direct seeing, with both the fullness and emptiness characteristic of this aesthetic experience?

Many works are of the first two types. But the chrysanthemum painting was "zen" in the third sense. It was a painting that manifested this direct seeing, the essence of the poem in the brushstroke, regardless of the artist's religious or philosophical outlook. Such immediate perception of the nature of reality begets both fear and courage.

Individual strokes of a soft brush surrounded by space may look a bit unfinished, with no elaboration of background or suggestion of a setting, just some simple marks on blank paper. In Western art we have a horror of empty space that reflects our inability to tolerate any form of solitude, of undefined spaciousness in our lives. We have been trained only to see and value objects and never the space between.

Learning to draw gave me experience in making pictures of the areas between the things I saw before me. Learning to meditate taught me to see the spaces between my thoughts, and to penetrate more and more deeply into the openness or transparency of both mind and the world. When every moment of our lives is planned and filled, then all trace of this boundless quality of our being disappears. The missing dimension of openness to the unexpected, to suggestion rather than explanation, when consigned to the shadow, becomes a barrier of fear, even panic, obscuring the confidence we might find in the profound interconnectedness of our world.

Robert Frost wrote, "Like a piece of ice on a hot stove, the poem must ride its own melting." Most of us are terrified of this melting, and yet we recognize this quality in a great work of art--poem or painting--as a dimension of openness that reaches out to us as life itself. This melting into the spaces between vivifies thought, art, and all our relationships. It unifies and integrates all the states of our being. This openness cannot be separated from the work itself, but every such poem or painting embodies its own particular mode of melting in some mysterious way that is more a not-doing than a doing, more a gesture than a form, and the joy of it transports us beyond fear into a larger being, even if only for a moment. It is a thrill both unnerving and exhilarating, and it is above all a recognition of our genuine, if temporarily forgotten, freedom.

In Buddhist writings, the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) sutras are chiefly concerned with the emptiness or spaciousness that is the true nature of mind and everything that exists. That which exists, by definition, stands out from something, from a background. It is that dance of background and form that beckons to us here in the poetry of a Chinese ink painting. Objects are usually experienced as an obstacle between us and the bright clear light of emptiness. Yet in this form of art, objects point to it, not as symbols, but as fingers pointing at the moon.

In the Heart Sutra, the great Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara says, "Because [those who abide in the Perfection of Wisdom] are without obscurations of mind, they have no fear." A special kind of courage is engendered in them because they know experientially that all things and this empty nature are one. A commentary to Saraha's Dohas says, "Although one may be frightened by the voice of the ineffable, when one understands that which cannot be expressed in words one knows it is the source of everything that benefits sentient beings. . . . The sphere of that which is not a content of ordinary mind cannot be expressed in words" (Guenther 121). Perhaps a zen painting comes closest to capturing something of this feeling of the inexpressible, in that it must be experienced to be known.

In Zen meditation, feelings of fear are regarded as a good sign that some progress is being made toward an inward unfolding of the experience of openness. The transformation we long for cannot proceed without opening to the spaces in our lives. It has been said that right fright is the greatest gift we can be given. When we study and practice the Path, we reach a point when, in spite of the fact that we want to see emptiness, we become deeply afraid. Therefore, meditation must be balanced by action. That is, we cannot move beyond this fear if we do not possess the qualities that we develop by compassionate deeds in the world, making offerings of our resources and services. In this way we overcome the tendencies that contribute to disturbances in our meditative concentration or samadhi.

The Chinese Zen Master Nan Huai-chin (176) writes that if we want to cultivate the path to enlightenment, we must first "hold firm to loneliness. The highest form of cultivation in human life is to be able to hold firm to loneliness, and be able to appreciate solitude. When a person really cultivating the Path is faced with a realm of solitude, they can feel very comfortable. If you cannot bear loneliness, if you cannot hold firm in solitude, then you cannot accomplish anything. . . . If you move far beyond the fear of emptiness this is true forbearance." This forbearance means that the power of concentration is very firm, steadfast, and patient. "Those of us without the experience of genuine cultivation of practice," he continues (209), "do not know that when people work hard and really arrive at the realm of emptiness, they can really become afraid." We are advised then to pursue our meditation work gradually by an intensified practice of diligent hard work. Without this persevering dedication we will not even achieve fear, much less enlightenment!

The fear of emptiness moves in and captures our minds because we are habituated to grasping whatever appears in our experience. Contemplation of a zen painting can help us to use this grasping itself to bring ourselves out of our discomfort and fear. Making paintings is even better. Many months of both painting and meditation passed before I began to understand what my old teacher meant by "the poem in the brushstroke." I had to learn to melt my own preconceptions and to observe the way the movement of the brush reflects the passage of the painter's mind. At first glance, every stroke looks the same. The more we look and stop our usual processes of judging and objectifying, the more the subtle variations in dryness or moisture and the speed or pressure in each stroke begin to speak.

Observing the mind in meditation, one at first feels that it is an impenetrable stream of thoughts and impressions, but with practice, one finds gaps, and through the gaps more subtle realms of thought, and then further gaps, and worlds of thought still more refined and transparent. Without removing them or doing anything to "empty" the mind, one arrives at the place of emptiness, that placeless place where the mind is perfectly at rest even in the midst of activity. This unaffected, unlabored expression is the very essence of the practice and appreciation of both Zen and traditional Chinese or Japanese ink painting. Looking at such a picture, one may observe both the content and the nature of mind together. Making a painting, we make our own nature visible.

The artist who created the particular chrysanthemum I saw in Taipei, redolent with the direct, terse fragrance of Zen, was not a Buddhist but a Confucian. Qi Baishi (1864-1957) would perhaps object to ascribing the label zen to his art, yet it is just the zen qualities that make his paintings so unforgettable. In Chinese, tao is sometimes used to describe this quality. Its power is like that of a Tang Dynasty poem or a Japanese haiku—nothing pretty about it, and yet its beauty and the self-so-ness it embodies pierce straight to the heart of things.

Qi Baishi's pictures never suggest a call to some etherial realm far from the mundane world, but instead propel us into the very inmost truth of the ordinary. Setting is eliminated, inviting the viewer to participate in the work of art, to complete the picture within his or her mind. His chrysanthemum gives us emptiness (shunyata) as an object of knowledge, something tangible and fully present that we can put on our table, still fresh with dew.

The Ch'an monk Xugu (1823-1896) gives us the chrysanthemum with a different flavor. In his painting we have the flower of mind, or enlightenment, before our eyes. The picture gives us not an upright formal portrait of the plant, but the shaggy blooms at home in a corner of an autumn garden. Author and connoisseur Jung Ying Tsao (149) describes it in these words:

Just as the composition and configuration of the parts are taken to the extreme of informality, the brush technique in this work replaces Xugu's previous calligraphic idiom with a wholly leisurely, spontaneous method that can hardly be classified as a method or style. This painting thus presents a semi-abstract image that conveys not an illusion of concrete reality but rather a subtle suggestion of the underlying forces of growth and decay in nature. And to Xugu, an important aspect of these natural processes was the creative act itself. Here, nature, art and artist are one, and distinctions between concrete and abstract, tangible and spiritual, dissolve, with the very evanescence of the flowers evoking eternity.

Engaging the painting thoroughly, stopping and looking deeply, we can imagine the contemplative process of making the image. The artist has first carefully selected his materials and arranged the things on his table just so: a simple ink stone, fine brushes, smooth beautiful river pebbles to hold his paper in place. Perhaps someone has brought him a blossom from the garden, still fresh with the morning dew, and he shakes the petals so as to use this pure liquid to prepare his ink. With this living water moistening his ink stone, he composes his breath and begins slowly and mindfully to rub the solid ink stick round and round on the surface of the stone. This is a meditation in itself. Only when he is ready, when he cannot hold back another moment, does he pick up his bamboo brush. From the white paper, suddenly objects appear, unhurried and effortless, their form and inherent spirit perfectly integrated.

It is in this "spirit resonance" that the poetry of the brushstrokes resides. It is the invisible painting within the visible one that reveals itself in the momentum that unites the various components into a living, harmonious whole, and in the dynamism of the surrounding space. Each stroke of Qi Baishi's brush moves like the chisel of a sculptor, carving the strokes into the paper. Xugu's brush dances with a firm but fleeting touch over the paper, revealing the qualities of impermanence and illusion that make the appearances we know as life.

"The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence....We make our discoveries while in that state because then we are clear sighted" (Henri quoted by Edwards 163). This is as true for the maker as for the observer. To portray truthfully the inner nature of a flower or any thing requires that an artist confront that thing without concept, with our being extended to it just as it offers itself simply and plainly to us. Only so can one enter into the picture, experiencing it not as a sentimental commentary but directly, just as it is. Each object, every brushstroke, recognizes and affirms its universal, intrinsic nature.

When a work of art brings us into this state of clarity, of direct contact with its subject in such a way that we disappear for a time, we approach the clear light of emptiness, or what Master Nan calls "holding firm to loneliness." It may seem a thing in the realm of impossibility to cultivate, yet we all know these moments--fearless, delighted, vibrant, and free. It brings us up into the present moment, the genuineness of now. The Sixth Patriarch of Zen said, "The Buddha Dharma is in the world. Awakening is not apart from the world."

The poem in the brushstroke points the way, not to another reality, but as a true mirror of our own. The mirror is not its reflections, yet both are necessary and by nature inseparable. This chrysanthemum offers us a path both simple and straightforward into this very moment where alone we face our fears of our own intrinsically indefinable nature, our own unwritten page of possibilities. The empty space of the picture, the moment when there is no step ahead of our feet to take, is the moment of life.

References

Edwards, Betty. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. New York: Putnam's, 1989.
Guenther, Herbert V., trans. The Royal Song of Saraha: A Study in the History of Buddhist Thought. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1973.
Henri, Robert. The Art Spirit. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincot, 1923.
Jung Ying Tsao. The Paintings of Xugu and Qi Baishi. San Francisco and Seattle: Far East Fine Arts and University of Washington Press, 1994.
Nan Huai-chin. To Realize Enlightenment: Practice of the Cultivation Path. York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1994.

J. L. Walker has done Chinese ink painting in Taiwan and America for twenty-five years. Her paintings are in collections in Taiwan, the United States, and Europe. She is co-translator of Grass Mountain by Master Nan (Weiser, 1986) and assistant editor of The Paintings of Xugu and Qi Baishi by Jung Ying Tsao (University of Washington Press, 1994). She is currently in her sixth year of solitary retreat in the Tibetan Drikung Kagyud tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism. Her writings have previously appeared in Parabola magazine.

Thinking Aloud: 300,000 to 1

By Lance Hardie

Theosophical Society - Lance Hardie is a freelance writer and public radio host in Arcata, California. A student of mythology, religion, and the classics, he is currently working on a collection of essays on those subjects. Those are the odds. Approximately three hundred thousand sperm cells take off from the starting gate. With few exceptions, only one will unite with the egg cell at the end of the tunnel. And the one that wins over the other 299,999 may very well be an inferior individual.

Let's face it: with odds like that, there is bound to be a better one in the bunch. As a metaphor, here is an argument for the randomness of achievement. You may accept, more or less as a religious belief, the propaganda notions that education, hard work, influential friends, a favorable horoscope, or a bit of good luck now and then is the magic formula for success. In reality there is no evidence to support this superstition. All analyses of how successful people achieve their ends are made up after the fact, and there are no scientific studies to show the effects of following particular systems.

Taking all individuals as a whole, there are no consistently successful ways of achieving anything—business prowess, musical genius, athletic performance, good teeth, healthy hair, freedom from warts, or the impregnation of an egg. You are pretty much on your own. And, when all is said and done, prayer might work as well as anything. As with almost everything in life, there are no guarantees.

Now, having said that, let me give you a few rules guaranteed to guarantee nothing beyond the feeling that, whether there is a God, or even a small "g" god, or a goddess with any size "G," less stress is better than more, and sleeping well at night is better than not. If it were part of a workshop or even as the title of a best-selling self-help package (you know—the book, the tapes, the video, the newsletter, maybe even a hotline) the following list might carry a timely, catchy name like "Lance Hardie's Thirteen Steps to a Vibrant, Joyful Life with No Effort, No Exercises, and No Responsibilities." Well, something like that—maybe shorter. In reality, what follows is not quite a list, and certainly not a series of steps, which, if it were, would never add up to thirteen. Consider it more like a set of partial views of a whole body that cannot be seen all at once. If this were a cubist painting, you might turn it sideways to look at it, or stand on your head. Which is not a bad idea in itself when you want to look at your situation in a new light.

Always tell the truth as soon as you know it—to yourself and to everyone else.
Make commitments only to yourself, then keep them. If you must make commitments to others, deliver on time. If you can't, say so as soon as you know it.
Learn from the great sages about the world, about human nature, about self-knowledge. It will save you much pain and suffering, not to say time. The great sages are not hard to find. They are on the shelves of most bookstores and libraries. And of course on the Internet.
Learn from experience, then let the past go. Don't punish yourself. If you insist on punishing yourself, others will join you.
No one owns you. Do what you love. If you believe you can't, you believe someone owns you. That's called slavery. From time to time you may try to run away. It's a sure way to create suffering.
You have a natural rhythm and a natural style. When you fight them you deform yourself. If you deform yourself long enough you will end up hating yourself.
To thrive in society, adapt gracefully to the foolishness of others. This is not to contradict the previous item, only to say that if you don't want to make enemies out of the fools it's better not to rattle their cages.
Accept no guilt for being yourself. It's okay to say no.
Most people can't read your mind. When you need something, ask for it.
Exception: most people can read your mind when you lie.

While most of this little homily may seem quite sensible to you, if not simple-minded, there is a good chance your nervous system won't be ready to carry out all of it when you are just out of high school. You have to live in the world for some time—with the near-nuts and the out-and-out crazies—just to get your bearing. The world of work and relationship and money will give you plenty to chew on for years. You have to make mistakes, which is another way of saying you have to suffer. The great secret to learn is that some things are likely to fail because the odds are against you—and you're standing at the wrong angle. While it may seem simple enough, some of us take longer than others to figure out that it's better not to bet against the house.

At some point in your life you reach an age at which you can stand to read the words of the great sages. Then you realize you are not alone—someone has been there before, and it's a great relief to discover that. No, they didn't have faxes and frequent-flyer miles, and it doesn't matter because that's just window-dressing. The virtues and the vices, the principles and the nonsense—all that stays the same because we are all still just barely out of monkeyhood. And, for all we know, not even very permanently.

One in 300,000 is not very good odds, and that's not counting all the other times when impregnation doesn't even occur. I have a feeling that this number applies to more than just sperm. I have a feeling that many opportunities in nature and in human behavior have similarly large odds against particular results. Telling the truth and doing what you love may not increase your odds of success in the world of those near-nuts and out-and-out crazies unless you become a great actor who is really good at humoring their foolishness. Acting and humoring depend to a large extent on a mastery of timing. Unfortunately, not everyone who won the race against the other 299,999 can convert that kind of timing success into the other kind. How much work is worth doing in order to learn this great art has a lot to do with the question of how important it is to you. More critically, it has to do with how important it is to that part of you which is authentic. And it may take a lifetime or more to find that out.

Telling the truth and doing what you love puts you in the company of poets and prophets and other brave people whose success is not measured by the foolishness of the world. It is measured by the standards of their own strength and their own convictions, which are recognized by others like them. And sometimes they are even recognized by the world, on a ratio of about one in 300,000. If you are one of the unsung heroes, well, guess what—you may have to sing for yourself. Only be sure that your songs are of joy and of triumph. Because the last rule is "Never complain."

Lance Hardie is a freelance writer and public radio host in Arcata, California. A student of mythology, religion, and the classics, he is currently working on a collection of essays on those subjects.

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Hesychasm: A Christian Path of Transcendence

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March - April 2000

A Poem in a Brushstroke

Thinking Aloud: 300,000 to 1

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