Brexit - a Europe of the Spirit

A Europe of the Spirit

 

On hearing the Brexit news last week the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales prayed the prayer of the late Cardinal Martini invoking the call for a ‘Europe of the Spirit’ – the Europe of saints and philosophers, artists and reformers. How fragile and vulnerable that spirit seems today. We have witnessed a volte face in the past few days. One correspondent noted that ‘nothing has changed’. She was right, nothing has changed. Yet, as Wittgenstein once said, ‘nothing has changed – yet everything has changed’. The facts have not changed. The fact of widespread, crippling and endemic unemployment has not changed. The fact of the greatest refugee crisis facing Europe since 1945 has not changed. The fact of brutalised people wanting to slaughter innocent citizens has not changed. The facts have not changed. What has changed is our attitude. We have let the genie out of the bottle, and history teaches that once this is done it is harder to squeeze it back in. We have released the toxic dialectic of race into our discourse. The electorate has proposed a racial solution to the facts. We shall resolve these problems through racial lenses – an English solution for an English people. We shall pull up our drawbridge and deal with these problems on our own terms. So be it. However for Christians this is troubling. First and foremost, our Christian response should be, not what we can grab from the EU, but what can we give to the EU. The UK is amongst one of the richest nations on earth, we must be prepared to shoulder our burden for the common good.
Amongst our European saints and philosophers is one who witnessed at first hand the last time these ‘solutions’ were tried out on European soil. Edith Stein (St Teresa Benedicta a Cruce) was a Jewess, atheist, German, Catholic and Carmelite nun. For her, labels are meaningless. Yet during the gravest crisis that Europe faced in the 1930s she recognised that at the heart of human existence was our intimate, fragile and mysterious relationship with the Divine. She also recognised that once that secret relationship was distorted and maimed by unscrupulous voices nothing can stop humans from entering the abyss. Now more than ever do we need her intercession. I have been praying to her constantly since last week. Not to protect us from our outside forces but to protect us from ourselves. We must heed the call to repentance. We must ask ourselves what part our own prejudice and ignorance is playing in the events that are unfolding with terrifying rapidity around us. How have we allowed our own racist fears to creep into our interpretation of the facts? How have we brutalised ourselves from the cries of our fellow human beings drowning and weeping on the shores of Europe? How have we ignored the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit in our dealings with our fellow human beings? Like Edith, we all must now face these difficult questions today, at this hour, if greater catastrophes are to be averted...

 

As Matthew Parris has detailed in the Times last Saturday, this is not a fait accompli. What we have now is a constitutional mess. Two forms of democracy have clashed and the one that has worked more or less successfully for around 500 years (representational democracy) has been trumped by the third experiment  in direct democracy for the whole country in the history of the United Kingdom. The displeasure (and in some cases nausea) of our elected representatives to enact a vaguely kneejerk direct mandate is apparent – as Parris with his inside knowledge of parliament and the Tory party makes clear. It is clear that we must have another general election to secure this new mandate and this will happen within the next 12 months. This is the only way a Brexit mandate could be secured and enacted. The 60 million dollar question is – will the British electorate support such a mandate? This election will be a Brexit Election, it will be the only issue on the table. It is highly likely that such a mandate can be rejected – especially as seems now likely that we have entered into six months of unremitting economic and political chaos. So, now, for all who value freedom and the Europe of the Spirit (especially the young) the way forward is clear. We must prepare ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically for the struggle of the election to come. This will be the only issue we can fight and we must support all candidates who oppose the Brexit. At the same we must be extremely vigilant about our thoughts, actions and reactions.

Edith Stein, St Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, Pray for the United Kingdom, Pray for Europe, Pray for All Suffering Humanity. Amen.

Retreat Association Summer Event, Royal Foundation of St Katharine, Monday 6th June

As promised, here are the details of the Retreat Association Summer Event

Kind regards

Peter

Retreat Association Summer Event

The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, London

6 June 2016, 9:30am - 4:00pm

The day includes:

·         Guest speaker Professor Peter Tyler will be exploring the possibility of mindfulness in the Christian context.

·         Patrons Fr Christopher Jamison OSB and Rev Graham Sparkes will give their reflections. Liturgist Emily Walker will lead us in song.

·         Chair of Trustees Rev Ian Green and Executive Director Alison MacTier will outline the work of the Charity.

·         Sandwich lunch, morning coffee and afternoon tea.

Join us for a day of talks, discussions and opportunities to network.

A draft programme for the day is also available. Ticket price £48.

Fuengsin Trafford (1936 - 1995) - Pioneer of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue

 

 

Dear Friends

 

Next Monday I will be speaking at the Retreat Association Summer Event at The Royal Foundation of St Katharine (web link: http://www.retreats.org.uk/summer-event.html   I shall also put up a separate posting on this). The theme is ‘Christian Mindfulness?’ and as I was preparing for it over the last few weeks I had a pleasant surprise. Paul Trafford, the son of my first Buddhist teacher, Fuengsin Trafford, has published his account of her life and teachings: Thursday’s Lotus – The Life and Work of Fuengsin Trafford (available on Amazon). The book has been a complete joy for me. Not only has Paul captured the life and spirit of Fuengsin, it is doubly enjoyable for me as it took me back to the Worcestershire of my childhood in the 60s and 70s where Fuengsin and I both lived.

 

Fuengsin Trafford (Fuengsilapa Sarayutpitag) was a remarkable Thai lay Buddhist teacher. Born in 1936 in Thailand she moved to England in the early 1960s to take up a UNESCO fellowship programme at the Institute of Education in London (she was a very skilful teacher) where she met and married Tony Trafford, a Roman Catholic who worked for HM Customs and Revenue. As Paul Trafford writes:

 

‘Brought up as a practising Buddhist, at around the age of 20 she investigated many temples in and around Bangkok for a meditation teacher. After much searching, she found a suitable teacher named Ajahn Gaew, who taught her the practice of Dhammakaya meditation. A few years later, on the day of her departure to a land far away, a large band of monks, as well as friends and colleagues, gathered at Donmuang Airport. In her tribute to Ajahn Gaew, a contribution to a memorial of his life, she relates how he informed her that she would spread the Dhamma in the West. She found this hard to believe, but she was soon gaining experiences in Hampshire and 10 to 15 years later there were developments that made her reflect that the prediction might come true after all…’

 

As a pioneer in the UK she helped create the contemporary Buddhist scene by establishing and helping to form Buddhist groups across the country. As a lay-woman she was always diffident about her ability to teach the Dhamma, however several Abbots and teachers in Thailand gave her special permission to convey the Dhamma which she duly did before her untimely death in 1995 of cancer. Paul Trafford again:

 

'Particularly during her later years, Fuengsin was very actively involved in Inter-Faith Dialogue. She was part of the Multi-Faith Centre, based at Harborne Hall in Birmingham, under the direction of Sister Dr Mary Hall. This centre has been a pioneer in dialogue with a team of representatives from the six major Faiths – Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism – travelling around and sharing aspects of their spiritual journeys. A highlight of their work was a series of lectures in North America, including some at the UN building in New York – Fuengsin was a member of this delegation. Fuengsin worked at a number of other centres, including King Edward’s Sixth Form College in Stourbridge and the federation of colleges in Selly Oak.'

 

In this, the first biography of her, we find out about the range and ability of this remarkable woman. Buddhism, like Christianity (or psychotherapy for that matter) is sometimes riven with disagreements and arguments between the different schools or ‘vehicles’. One of Fuengsin’s most endearing qualities was her ability to transcend these divisions. For her the Buddha (and Buddhism) was greater than any particular sect and in her teachings she often went to the heart of the matter. Here are some quotes of hers from an interview she gave to the County Express and which Paul has placed on his Fuengsin website http://fuengsin.org

 

“Buddhism is all about trying your best – it’s not necessary to crave for perfection, because if you try too hard for anything you don’t achieve it.

“Your behaviour is only a reflection of your mind.

“When you meditate you become single-minded – that doesn’t mean narrow-minded, merely that your mind is opening up and you are more capable of appreciating and understanding things.

“The key words are compassion, kindness and love.

“Buddhism can change your life if you follow it – it has certainly given me strength to cope with things over the years. Based on the four [noble] truths of Buddha, life certainly becomes richer.”

 

In his book Paul also relates an extraordinary incident which affected the course of my life. As a Jesuit novice in Birmingham our enlightened novice master allowed us to attend the Interfaith Course at Harborne Hall mentioned above. The highlight of the course for me was Fuengsin’s teaching. I had had an on-off relationship with Buddhism for many years and as well as reading widely around the subject I had visited Buddhist viharas such as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (now Triratna) in Bethnal Green. Fuengsin, however, was the first Eastern Buddhist I had encountered at close quarters who was able to answer (or at least try to answer) some of the many questions I had had about Buddhism. She dealt with my (what were probably very stupid) questions admirably. But we also struck up a deal. For my private Buddhist tuition I would teach her Western philosophy which I had studied at Oxford University. I was very happy to do this and we found all sorts of resonances between philosophers such as Kant, Hume and Wittgenstein and the teachings of Lord Buddha. Our conversations continued for over 2 years, at the end of which I decided that the Jesuit life was not for me (here I was helped by the sage words of Fr Gerry Hughes SJ, an appreciation of whom I have posted on another part of this blog). However, even after I had left the Order, Fuengsin and I continued to meet and debate. During this difficult part of my life she was a great pastoral help as well as an intellectual help. I remember very vividly when during this time I asked her if I should consider taking refuge as a Buddhist. Her reply, quick as a flash, was pure Fuengsin: Best way for you to be Buddhist is to be good Roman Catholic. Wow! Here was a woman ‘sent to the West’ to spread the Dhamma urging me to remain a Roman Catholic! She was of course right as the subsequent 20 years have shown. I think what I sought in Buddhism then – especially mindfulness, contemplation and the way of peace– can be found equally upon the Christian path. Consequently when the Retreat Association asked me to give the address next week I was delighted to accept and perhaps tease out again some of those wonderful synergies between Buddhism and Christianity that Fuengsin has first revealed to me. In the words of Francis Vineeth CMI ( see other blog post on him),  Lord Jesus remains my ‘sat-guru’ – my highest guru. However, I have enormous respect also for the teachings of Lord Buddha who offers extraordinary insights into the human condition. Let us continue to work then for dialogue and harmony between our two wonderful religions, very much in the loving spirit of Fuengsin – a remarkable and much missed pioneer of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue.

Durham University - Spirituality, Theology and Health Seminar

Here are the details for this Thursday's seminar,

Best wishes

Peter

 

Pentecost and Christian Mindfulness

Dear All

First of all, apologies for not posting anything on here for a month or so. I seem to have been busier than ever with university work and have just returned from a wonderful pilgrimage to Assisi - more on that anon.
For now I attach part of a talk I shall be giving at Durham University this Thursday for Prof Chris Cook's excellent spirituality and psychology seminar. More details on his website. I also attach a picture from Fr Vineeth's ashram of the season of Pentecost which we are about to enter. I pray that the Spirit of Truth will fill your hearts and minds in the coming weeks and months.

best wishes

Peter

Contemporary Mindfulness

When the molecular biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn first developed his mindfulness courses at the University of Massachusetts in the late 1970s he was not so concerned with the metaphysical implications of Buddhist meditation practices as their clinical and medical efficacy. This novel notion of giving mindfulness meditation a sound clinical and experimental basis is what proved the essential catalyst for the subsequent explosion of mindfulness (See Boyce 2011, xii- xiii). Thirty years later the clinical evidence for the efficacy of these methods in treating illnesses as diverse as depression, cancer and eating disorders is overwhelming (even though latterly there is the inevitable counter-movement expressing the ‘dangers’ inherent in mindfulness). This, alongside courses such Kabat-Zinn’s own Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme (MBSR) the eight week forerunner for many of the later mindfulness courses and the Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) developed at Oxford by Prof Mark Williams and colleagues have contributed to the success of mindfulness as we know it today.

          Kabat-Zinn himself defines mindfulness as ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally’ (1994:4). This ‘bare’ definition is supplemented by many practitioners with wider values drawing upon something closer to the Buddhist notions we began with. Thus Chozen Bays (2011) suggests that it is ‘deliberately paying attention, being fully aware of what is happening both inside yourself – in your body, heart and mind – and outside yourself in the environment... it is awareness without judgement or criticism’ (Boyce 2011: 3). She goes further to state that ‘when we are mindful, we are not comparing or judging. We are simply witnessing the many sensations, thoughts and emotions that come up as we engage in the ordinary activities of daily life.’ We could continue multiplying these varying definitions yet, following Mace, what becomes clear when we analyse these contemporary understandings of mindfulness is that there seem to be two directions in current usage. First, the desire, as Mace himself puts it, to concentrate on the ‘bare attention’ to observe, Buddha-like, the passing show of sensations, thoughts and emotion with no sticky entanglement. As neuro-biologists and scientists have become interested in the subject this ‘pure bare mindfulness’ (difficult as it is to isolate) has become the main source of their study. On the other hand, writers such as Chozen Bays above or Shapiro (2006) link the practice with wider connotations of ‘heartfulness’ (see above), compassion and the general teleological development of character.

          Esoteric though these debates sound I think they go right to the heart of the subject we are considering today: ‘How far, if at all, can mindfulness be accommodated into an established religious practice such as Christianity?’ And I think the answer will be (in typical philosophical fashion) – ‘it depends what sort of mindfulness you are talking about’. Let me explain further...

 

About Soul

I am delighted to announce that my friend and colleague, Tim Wainwright's 'About Soul' weblink is now live:

http://www.aboutsoul.org/


He writes:

'This project is a consideration of soul in the everyday lives of Londoners.

I will be uploading videos regularly over the next eighteen months, and versions of the work will be exhibited in various London venues starting in September 2016.

This is the last in a quartet of projects begun in 1993; the others were concerned with mind, body and heart.'

We shall be showing a video made from material collected for this project at our 'soul seminar' on 6th September at St Mary's and launching both the project and my 'Pursuit of the Soul'...

best wishes

Peter 

The Return of the Soul

Finally, I am pleased to announce that after three years of waiting 'The Pursuit of the Soul' will be published on 25th February by T & T Clark. I want to thank all at T & T Clark and Bloomsbury for working so hard to make this happen. We shall be having an official book-launch on 6th September at St Mary's including a presentation from the renowned Australian analyst and critic, David Tacey. However, in the meantime, I shall be presenting a seminar at the Marylebone Centre for Health and Healing this Wednesday evening on some of the main themes of the book. Details of this are on an earlier post. By way of a taster here are some of the key elements of 'soul language' with which I conclude both my book and the talk on Wednesday...

 

1. A Way of Seeing

Following Wittgenstein, soul-work can be described as a ‘way of seeing’ that releases liberating perspectives in our day-to-day existence. In Hillman’s words:

 

By soul, I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint towards things rather than a thing itself. (RVP:x)

 

What I learn from Wittgenstein is that our grammar suggests that ‘the soul’ is an object, a little furry beast if you like, that we are all on the hunt to get. Philosophy, he writes (PI 109) is ‘a battle against the bewitchment of our understanding through the medium of our language’ (ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache). Rather than an entity soul is a perspective. Essentially a transcendental perspective on our selves.

As well as his critique of the ‘over-spiritualization’ of the self, Hillman, was an equally trenchant critic of the over-scientism and reductionism within contemporary approaches to the psyche. The past few decades, since Hillman started his writing, have seen a marked reduction in the significance of the spiritual and religious content of the psychological therapies. The same cannot be said for the empirical and pseudo-scientific approach. Indeed, in many respects, with the rise of quasi-neurological ‘explanations’ and ‘interpretations’ of the mind it seems as though this approach may have reached its zenith in recent years. Along with Wittgenstein, Hillman had a justifiable and deep-seated suspicion of the over-idolisation of psychology as a ‘science of the mind’ and was every bit as trenchant as Wittgenstein in challenging the unquestioning acceptance of this position. His own approach was to advocate a ‘third path’ between reductionism and idealism, theology and science, which gave him, he believed, the right to challenge scientific and medical models of psychology, especially psycho-pathology, for:

The science fantasy with its reliance upon objectivity, technology, verification, measurement, and progress – in short, its necessary literalism – is less a means for examining the psyche than for examining science. (RVP:169)

Thus the work of the analyst, pastor or care-worker, is to cultivate the ‘third position’ of the soul/ From this alert ambiguity the soul-maker helps us attune ourselves to the transcendent by drawing attention to our responses to the immanent. Uniquely, the soul-maker recognises the human person as the locus of intersection of the transcendent and immanent.

 

2. The Path of Unknowing

At the heart of the soul-project lies an essential unknowing. Hillman termed the Freudian desire to replace ‘It’ with ‘I’ the ‘strip mining of the psyche’ (IV:46) and his counter-move suggests an approach to the ‘unknown thing’ that gives space for the unconscious to breathe. In this respect the apophatic unknowing of the soul is simply letting the conscious know its place while the unconscious figurations reassert themselves. ‘Maybe’, suggests Hillman, ‘they know best what is relevant to the conscious personality, rather than the conscious personality’ (IV:46). Therefore contemporary soul-making will require as much ‘unknowing’ as it does ‘knowing’. This, of course, is nothing new to the Christian mystical tradition which has always placed ‘unknowing’ at the centre of its search for the self.

          Adopting a phrase of the 19^th Century English poet, John Keats, some recent commentators in the tradition of psychotherapy and counselling talk of this attribute as the need for ‘negative capablility’ in our pastoral interactions with others. Keats used the term to specify a key attribute of the poet which makes a person: ‘capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ (Keats 1970:43).Robert French, a contemporary commentator, writes:

 

‘Thus, Keats’s poet is ‘related’ to the therapist, and indeed to many other ‘family members’: mother, teacher, priest, consultant, manager – anyone, perhaps, whose role involves responsibility for others. What links them is this ‘disposition of indifference’, which Pines called ‘aeolian’ after the aeolian harp: ‘ to show how the therapist’s mind can be stirred by the communication of the patient, and how, unselfconsciously, the therapist finds himself responding in depth to the patient’s hidden meanings’’ (French 2000:3)

 

This attitude of ‘unknowing’ opens up new possibilities in our engagements with the people we care for. The British Object Relations analyst, Wilfred Bion, was aware of Keats’s dictum and tried to put it into practice in his interactions with clients saying:

 

‘Discard your memory; discard the future tense of our desire; forget them both, both what you knew and what you want, to leave space for a new idea.’ (Bion 1980:11)

 

He suggested we must have the courage and humility to step into this ‘space of unknowing’ when we engage with others. A place that requires us to put aside our memories, our need to control, our need to define – all the whirring chatter of the ‘monkey mind’ – and allow ourselves to be present for the other before us:

 

‘When we are in the office with a patient we have to dare to rest. It is difficult to see what is at all frightening about that, but it is. It is difficult to remain quiet and let the patient have a chance to say  whatever he or she has to say. It is frightening for the patient – and the patient hates it. We are under constant pressure to say something, to admit that we are doctors or psychoanalysts or social workers to supply some box into which we can be put complete with a label.’ (Bion 1980:11)

 

As professional carers there is a pressure to be ‘the expert’ or the ‘wise one’ whereas often what is required is for us to have the humility to divest ourselves of our power position. To do this may challenge our very selves as well as our roles and make us question again why we do the work we do.

 

3. Ambiguity and Paradox

The contemporary soul-maker must live in the realm of ambiguity that is the soul’s true home. Whether with a client, facing a dream or working on the self, the demands of the soul require an openness to the ambiguity that lies at the heart of the human personality. Imagination, for Hillman, becomes the place where we uniquely play with the self in its efforts to overcome the straightjacket of the post-Cartesian ‘I’. For him, the world of Cartesian dualism allows ‘no space for the intermediate, ambiguous and metaphorical’ (RVP:xii). Rather it is the place inhabited by living subjects and dead objects. All affect is removed from the world around us. In Hillman’s writing, following as we have seen Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, this place of ambiguity will become populated by the world of ‘archetype’ and ‘daemones’. For Christian writers such as Stein (following Augustine and Aquinas) the ambiguity of the self is held in the tension of the Trinity, where Christ becomes the unity of apperception for the individual believer. The paradox of the Trinitarian vision thus reflects the paradox that lies at the heart of human personhood.

 

4. The Symbolic, Creative and Artistic

With Rank we saw that creativity must play a decisive role in any future ‘soul-psychology’. Likewise, with Hillman we see the importance he attached, as a post-Jungian, to the role of imagination and the symbolic. As he puts it in Revisioning Psychology:

 

Psychological faith begins in the love of images, and it flows mainly through the shapes of persons in reveries, fantasies, reflections and imaginations... (the ego’s) trust is in the imagination as the only uncontrovertible reality, directly presented, immediately felt. (RVP:50)

 

For analysis goes on in the soul’s imagination and not just in the clinic for we let imagination speak for itself without interpretation. Or as my training analyst, Hymie Wyse, used to put it, in analysis the analyst must pray: ‘Lead us not into interpretation!’ The soul/psyche for Hillman is at root imaginal and myth is in the natural discourse of the soul. In an earlier work (Tyler 2013a) I stressed the links between the postmodern Jungian view of the symbolic with the premodern medieval understanding of the symbol. As a great medievalist/renaissance man, Hillman, like his mentor Jung, recognises the symbolic nature of the psyche and how the psyche really lives in the realm of the symbolic and mythic, for ‘the imaginal does not explain, myths are not explanations’. As such the symbolic utterings of the soul ‘are bound to ritual happenings; they are stories, as our fantasies are, which project us into participation with the phenomena they tell about so that the need for explanation falls away’ (MA:202). Hillman is here, I believe, pointing out an essential quality of ‘soul-language’ – that is, that it is a ‘performative’ rather than an ‘informative’ language (Tyler 2011).

For Hillman the symbolic is indicative of that mode of consciousness that ‘recognises all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical’ experienced through ‘reflective speculation, dream, image and fantasy’ (RVP:x). The symbolic sources of the soul thus lie very close to the sources of creative and artistic endeavour and thus the pursuit of the soul will often manifest itself through these means.

 

5. The Relational and Libidinal

Soul-making is at heart a relational process. In Rank’s words, analysis is ‘an art of love’ and the relationship between the soul-seeker and soul-maker is at the heart of the matter. The Platonic tradition always emphasised the role of eros in this relationship. In contrast to Hillman, who sees the Christian tradition as suppressing the role of eros, I would rather argue that thinkers as diverse as Merton, Stein and Wittgenstein present an embodied Christian view of the self that maintains the transcendent through relationship with the bodily and libidinal. The soul is found not in flight from the body but in the very embrace of its ambiguity and libido. This is not surprising. For, despite Augustine’s famous suspicion of ‘concupiscence’, there were sufficient alternative (neo-Platonic) strands of early Christian anthropology in writers such as Evagrius and Origen to preserve alternative narratives of the soul in the Christian tradition. As I have demonstrated elsewhere (Tyler 2011), the medieval traditions of the theologia mystica with their Dionysian emphasis were sufficient to keep this tradition alive. Despite Hillman’s caricature of Christianity as a life-denying and anti-libidinal locus (and he is of course not alone here) I would argue that this is far from the case and there are sufficient traces of this alternative relational and libidinal anthropology in the Christian tradition to allow a future Christian anthropology, open to the possibilities of the libidinal, to flourish. The future of the soul lies in the libidinal and relational.