From: Journal Editor <[email protected]>
To: Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD <[email protected]>
Subject: JSPR: Editorial Decision RE: Your Submission
Date: Wednesday, 1 December 2021 09:08
Dear Adrian Chan-Wyles,
The Editors have read and discussed your paper and after a careful review it has been decided not to accept your paper for publication in the journal. The content is not quite a match for our audience. We are sorry for any disappointment which this decision causes and wish you luck publishing it elsewhere.
Best wishes,
Tammy
This failure is also indicative of its success, whereby these Editors felt compelled to ‘defend’ their moribund position by preventing any criticism of it. The point I make remains valid, nonetheless, in as much that only ‘emptiness’ remains at the end of any long path of religious purification – as it is empty of any ‘religious’ content – and full of the ‘material’ reality it attempted to escape. If the participant is honest – then even the religion that sustained his inner quest must ultimately give-way to the stark reality of the existence of the material world! There is a ‘wisdom’ tradition – which teaches which way an adherent to reality must traverse the abyss – but it is a ‘wisdom’ tradition that ultimately re-asserts its validity through its redundancy and the rejection of the threat of ‘nihilism’! Monasticism can serve as a fast-track to this reality whilst along the way jettisoning any and all patterns of false consciousness and inverted thinking – but it is a path which must ‘give-up’ (as Joseph McCabe did) any religious garb it was once dressed within! ACW (1.12.2021)
Examining the Claims of ‘Monasticism’ as a Means to Achieve a Permanent Altered Perception That Transcends Manufactured Dissonance, Social Alienation, Self-Doubt and the Maintenance of Dualistic Realities.
Reality is a continuously unfolding event that is far from neutral (Grahame Gardner, 2012) in the world of human affairs. What constitutes reality at any given time, that its viable ‘content’, is fought over by governments, businesses, militaries, State apparatus, medical providers, education establishments and even powerful political or financial figures. To this list must now be added social media platforms. All these controlling factors vie to catch your attention and influence your thinking. This is how models of reality are generated even though the model concerned does not have to reflect the actual reality of the material world or the machinations of the inner world. This type of reality is a construct and a fabrication that goes nowhere and which captures reality in a time-warp. This is because a contending reality is not a reality at all but a conduit for competing forces that may (or may not) become apparent at any given moment of observation (Gary Schwartz, 1997). The ‘control’ of this process decides entirely upon the type of reality that will manifest, and the preferred reality that the hidden controllers would like to see prevailing not only throughout the (external) material environment, but also within the interior of the mind itself. It is a ‘double bind’ process when reality is defined. Moreover, the process of reality defining absorbs the greater degree of material resources to maintain its dominance on the grounds that all realities, regardless of their apparent robust natures, are in fact entirely ‘momentary’ in nature and require a continuous process of rebirth and re-stabilisation so as to maintain the illusion of permanency. The dominant view is not necessarily that which is ‘correct’ or even ‘right’ - but rather that configuration of society which attracts the greater resources in its maintenance. Black will be defined as white – if that inverted configuration of reality is chosen to represent the mainstream viewpoint.
A method of changing or altering perception (as the physical world remains the same in structure, content and direction) is that of ‘monasticism’ or ‘monachism’ as the esteemed Indian scholar Sukumar Dutt (1924) referred to it. One way of assessing an established practice is to assess the etymology of the term and see how close current practice reflects the intended meaning of the term. Obviously, the ‘meaning’ and the ‘practice’ of a term can converge or deviate a number of times, particularly if the term is of an ancient origin (Britannia 2021). The modern English term ‘monasticism’ has its historical roots within the ancient Greek language where it is expressed as ‘monachos’ (μοναχός) which is a descriptive term considered a ‘masculine noun’ - although just as many women are drawn to this practice as men, even if they are not as politically, culturally or socially empowered to the same extent. The most obvious contradiction is the inherent ‘patriarchy’ associated with a term that implies an individual voluntarily entering a profound state of psychological and physical isolation defined as being permanently ‘alone’ and living in a state of quiet ‘solitude’. This Greek term is rendered into the Chinese language by the ideogram ‘孤’ (gu1) denoting the state of being alone, solitary, orphaned, widowed and parentless. A person who pursues this path abandons his or her family as the bonds of filial duty are ‘cut’ so that parents lose their child just as the child loses his or her parents, and a spouse loses their significant other, etc. The cohesive forces that hold society together are broken when this model of monasticism involving an individual leaving society in search of higher knowledge is advocated. However, the monastic method does not have to be applied in this ‘conventional’ manner as the example of Vimalakirti demonstrates. Vimalakirti (within the Mahayana tradition) was a contemporary of the historical Buddha and despite having a number of wives, children and a successful business, his practice of ‘monasticism’ (by ‘looking within’ to seek ‘oneness’) was considered superior to many of the Buddha’s monastic disciples who had completely left the world of mundanity (Charles Luk, 1972). Another example can be found in the teachings of the Greek philosopher Plotinus (204–270 CE), who lived in society and taught at his own school. He lived in the mundane world, but everyone who knew him stated that he possessed no real interest in the physical world around him. This is the genuine state of ‘oneness’ with the inner realm that monastics try desperately to attain. A contemporary example that blends the old and the new with regards to monastic practice are the White Robed Monks of St Benedict in the US, which follows a modified ‘Zen Rule of St Benedict’, and which facilitates both lay and cloistered practice whilst profoundly integrating Catholic Christianity with Asian Buddhism. As monasticism is the finding of a new way to correlate and interpret sensory data, then it logically follows that the genuine achievements of monasticism are primarily psychical and psychological rather than physical, and although it is true that humanity exist within a material world that cannot be denied as being dominant and defining throughout human evolution, the inner fruits of monasticism must involve more than merely moving the physical body through the various structures of material society. As ‘awareness’ and ‘experience’ is the key to monastic growth, this paper explores the possibility of genuine monasticism being separate and distinct from the formal religious structures that have in many ways co-opted it and made it their own. Monasticism does not need to be associated with a formal religion to be effective, indeed, it does not need to be associated with religion at all. Through calming the mind and discipling the body (which anyone can do ‘here and now’) the frequency through which the mind and body senses reality and operates within it is thoroughly transformed.
Reality is multifaceted and infinitely layered, and it requires tremendous amounts of directed resources to keep an apparent reality ‘static’ in-front of the human senses. This is partly because the human sense organs are integral to the reality being a) presented and b) artificially preserved. For the same waking-reality to ‘always be there’ requires the marshalling of mind-boggling amounts of productive forces throughout society and is far from what a normal fluid reality should be (Robin Lane Fox, 2006). Humanity has always striven to keep a preferred ‘reality’ static in-front of the perceiving senses (Charles Luk, 1984). This habit is so ingrained that much of humanity barely questions its efficacy today. Conservatism is inherently linked to ‘safety’ and successful ‘procreation’ when in reality the inherent structures of these stable realms of human behaviour and perception are far from ‘safe’ for the majority of those compelled to inhabit their interiors! This phenomenon may be referred to as the ‘tyranny of stability’ and the ‘dictatorship’ of the few over the many, etc. This closed system that defines reality has effectively removed the true nature of ‘unpredictability’ out of the process of reality-selection and into the peripheral fringes of the mind (depicted as a daemonic psychosis), and the proverbial wastelands of the material world of existence. Reality for most people has been reduced to merely a lack of instability, change and rebecoming. In other words, the true nature of human existence has been propagandised out of the normal sphere of human perception and sensory orientation. Limitation has become confused with infinite perception, whilst a mind unable to conceive of any reality other than the wall of perceptual data confronting its senses is mistaken as having realised all there is to be aware of in a world of competing immaterial and material realities.
The mundanity of reality is the foundation from which all other realities emerge, manifest from, and dissolve back into. Although the nature of the human language used, often involves the negation of the transference of deep meaning at the point of contact between participants, nevertheless, words can perform their mission of ‘penetrating’ meaning into the mind and body of the recipient as the user expertly deploys these forces of literature to the greatest possible degree of efficiency. The recipient can be permanently ‘changed’ as a consequence of this experience, but more often than not be influenced to stay exactly the same – as this is a type of inverted or negative ‘change’ - a reality that artificially stays the same whilst folding in upon itself (WY Evans-Wentz, 1960). This process exhibits characteristics commonly encountered within descriptions of the dying process experienced primarily by human-beings (but also animals) which appear to suggest that the facility of human perception literally ‘folding-in’ upon itself – so that the experiencer becomes ‘less’ in the conventional sense, and far-more in the non-conventional sense (an experience commonly recorded throughout the wisdom traditions of the world). The modalities of reality are defined by the psychological frequency of ‘awareness’ required to be cultivated in the mind (and body) of the recipient so that these realities can be successfully ‘accessed’ and ‘viewed.’ Modality, indeed, is the key to human awareness and its development without the need to ‘alter’ and ‘adjust’ the perceptual parameters of human awareness – there will be no discernible ‘shift’ in the central positioning from the ‘point’ through which reality is experienced. Quite often, it is the specific ‘process’ involved in the training of the mind (and body) that facilitates this alteration in the ‘central-point’ from which each individual perceives reality.
Whether training within a committed group (or ’exclusive’ community), or sat isolated in a cold and dark cave, if the applied method of ‘frequency alteration’ is successful, then the ‘central-point’ from which reality is a) perceived, and b) interpreted is entirely transformed. Whereas many become entrapped upon the thorny hedges of religious methodology and confined within this or that religious-defined modality, the true purpose of these ‘frequency-alteration’ exercises are to change ‘how’ and ‘why’ reality is perceived through the mind and bodily sense-organs. This is the successful process of permanently shifting the ‘central-point’ of awareness from one psycho-physical location to another. Traditionally, this is achieved through the expenditure of physical labour involving the application of spiritual and/or religious methodologies which are designed as ‘door-ways’ through which individuals travel to access and encounter new dimensions of reality. These processes essentially alter the frequency through which the mind (and body) processes the inner and outer data associated with conscious existence, and involve the voluntary ‘limitation’ of how the mind (and body) would usually function in a free-association (or ‘natural’) setting (John Ruskin, 1899). The perceived problem with everyday reality is that it remains more or less ‘the same’ every time an individual opens their eyes in the morning to face a new day! This type of apparently ‘deterministic’ reality appears like an unscalable (monolithic) wall that cannot be conquered or traversed by the rigours associated with normal levels of will-power and self-control. Indeed, passivity in the face of this wall of perception simply strengthens its presence and tells nothing about what ‘might lie beyond’. Of course, the ‘speculation’ of what might lie beyond this wall of perception has given rise to a lavish and highly diverse religious literature that no one trapped ‘this side’ of the perceptual wall can tell is correct or not.
Faith that a certain reality might exist beyond the perceptual wall is quite often a product not of religious ideology (despite its obvious association), but is rather the result of various and certain societal forces that encourage this limited interpretation of reality and which act as a ‘conservative’ straightjacket placed around the mind (and body). This preserves the external status quo ‘this side of the perceptual wall’ whilst hinting that at some later point (probably when the individual's life is over and the death process is entered), what lies beyond the ‘perceptual wall’ will be fully experienced. In the meantime, and before then, the structures of outer society (with all their inherent injustices and limitations of perception) must continue to function ‘unchanged’ and ‘unchallenged’. The device of ‘monasticism’ has been with humanity in one form or another for millennia and should not be limited to the peculiarities of this or that religion. Indeed, anyone who disciplines their body and looks ‘within’ is practicing monasticism. This process of radically reassessing reality can be performed anywhere and by anyone. Although there most definitely does exist the more formal monastic paths associated with Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, etc, there are also the pathways associated with Daoism and Confucianism as well as the ancient Pagans, Picts and Celts, etc, not to mention the myriad forms of indigenous and tribal practices around the world (which might be indicative of humanity’s earliest attempts to ‘see’ beyond the wall of everyday perception). This being the case, then why doesn’t the forces that control society simply ‘proscribe’ monastic practice? The answer is twofold. Firstly, in the West monasticism is usually tucked safely away nowadays within Catholic monasteries that open their Cathedral grounds to the fee-paying public. This conformity to the conservative forces of society tends to negate any genuine ‘revolutionary’ tendencies that the practice of monasticism might imply. Secondly, as monasticism is now ‘permanently’ removed as an institution from the heart of modern society, many younger people perceive it as a strange and bizarre method that is hopelessly out of date and requires of its practitioners the acceptance of unnecessary suffering. In other words, the conservative forces of modern society tolerate a limited form of monasticism in the physical world as it is perceived as a more or less ‘pointless’ and therefore ‘harmless’ practice that possesses no real ability to influence current events or transform society for the better.
As the device of monasticism is nothing less than the cultivated ability to communicate with and merge into a hitherto unknown reality, the religious garb that now surrounds the practice is not required. Indeed, one element of contemporary monastic practice is its ‘secular’ nature. This observation does not negate the usual religious vehicle through which the monastic method is communicated into the present, but it does indicate that neither religious faith or religious methodology are required for the monastic method of self-cultivation to be effective. The religious element may or may not be present, and the individual concerned may or may not draw inspiration from religious imagery – even if that individual is otherwise a committed ‘secularist’ through upbringing and inner orientation. A major problem is that religiosity and secularism are judged by their respective content and relation toward religious imagery when a case can be made that the apparently ‘empty’ nature of essential secularism is ‘identical’ to the most profound states of religious absorption that emphasis eternal love and boundless wisdom! Secularism at its deepest point of awareness is ‘empty’ of every conceivable thing and not just the imagery of religiosity. Moreover, many religiously motivated monastics often make the startling (to them) discovery that the essence of the mind, body and environment is thoroughly and completely ‘empty’ of any and all contrived political, social or cultural construction (including that of formal religious structure). For many, the essence of human perception turns-out to be very similar to the bare rock wall of the natural interior of the meditation cave, or the equally bare structured wall of the purpose-built monastic structure! Furthermore, as the developmental constraints of the training methods are gently ‘released’ with the attainment of genuine insight, the mind becomes ‘expansive’ in its awareness and perception – again, just like the spacious interior of a cave or the imposing inner structure of a Cathedral! The major difference being that the mind (and its ‘awareness’ capacity) is no longer limited to such arbitrary physical barriers. Indeed, the very nature of the realised mind (and body) is one of both boundless existential presence – which simultaneously links the past to the future (through the eternal present moment).
The question is whether any of this achievement and perception is ‘real’ and reliable in the sense that it actually exists rather than being ‘imagined’ as existing. Understanding and experiencing the monastic process from ‘within’ as it were, does not necessarily mean that the claims of accomplished monastics are ‘true’ in the sense that they are materially ‘real’. If the ‘mind’ - being the sum-total of the functioning of the ‘brain’ - is nothing but a modern ‘faery -tale’, then how can humanity trust anything that emerges from it as being pertinent to the explanation of reality? Although it is true that religionists gain ‘certainty’ from associating themselves with the inner narratives of their chosen dogmas – this cannot be the case for those humans whose minds (and bodies) are not habitually entrapped within the formal structures of religion. It could be, for instance, that the Buddhist injunction to ‘empty the mind’ of all its contents is in fact an instruction to a) abandon all religious thought, and b) in so doing empty the functioning brain of all notions of the mind! The problem is that even if an all-embracing spatial awareness is realised, how does the individual concerned know if it is real or not? If the brain is able to generate the ‘mind’ as a means to communicate with inner and outer world, then logic dictates that the brain is also capable of generating the ‘illusion’ of all-embracing space, should the practitioner be successful in ‘stilling’ the activity of the surface mind and thereby ‘empty’ it of all intermediary content (which manifests as thoughts, feelings and memories, etc). Whereas in the past an ‘all-embracing space’ has been interpreted as a God-concept – the secular practitioner possesses no reason to ‘protect’ such a notion upon the surface mind as it goes about its many daily machinations. Whereas the ‘ordinary’ and ‘average’ individual goes about their business oblivious to the rigours of monastic training, their mind and body functions quite admirably from birth to death (regardless of the type of society they inhabit) without ever striving for or knowing any other psychological or physical state of being. All participate in the process of ‘living’ but what differentiates each distinct existence is the level of awareness and certainty that is developed within each.
The understanding that the content of the human mind is only a facsimile of reality should be a ubiquitous realisation, but is this the reality? A ‘thought’ cannot be ‘isolated’ and then ‘extracted’ from the mind-flow so that it can be ‘weighed’ and ‘measured’. Although it is true that mind-activity can be observed as electronic impulses on a TV monitor – this is far from the associating each electronic pulse with the inner content of an individual thought – should such an entity exist. Indeed, why should such a thing exist at all? Certainly not on the grounds that humanity finds such an idea comforting and would like it replicated throughout the material world. An idea can only be ‘projected’ onto (and ‘into’) the physical environment providing that it has first established itself as an ‘unquestioned’ habit within the brain-mind nexus that produces it. Obviously, the more people who think this thought (and relate to its ideological appearance in the material world), appear to add credibility to a) the presence and reality of the thought, and b) its apparent ‘independent’ existence from the mind that originally gave birth to it as a distinct and separate psychical entity. Once such a thought becomes a natural ‘currency’ in the human world of culture and apparent self-determination, the inherent ‘inverted’ nature of the situation is not recognised and becomes something of a ‘taboo’ subject (as its recognition and acknowledgement tends to ‘undermine’ the socio-economic structures that have become established throughout the material world, and which privileges a certain class of human-being). Generally speaking, such an ‘inverted’ arrangement implies that a single human thought quite literally ‘thinks’ the human-mind that produces it. To be clear, the chain of observable events suggests that a) a single thought (regardless of content) pre-exists the mind from b) it originally emerged. In other words, the entire edifice that a certain aspect of human religious and philosophical thought stems from an inversion of reality which possesses the illogical ontological and epistemological foundation which oddly suggests that a single thought (and a set of related thoughts) existed independently – and then (for reasons unexplained) - gave-rise to and emitted the ‘human-brain’ into ‘existence’ that first experienced this thought (or corresponding set of thoughts). This is such an ancient misalignment of logic and reason in the realm of human culture that its antiquity is taken as ‘proof’ of its efficacy. Every single ancient human grouping has exercised this inversion of the logical chain of events and built the often substantial and massive constructs of religious representation upon it! Although religions are diverse and multitudinous in nature, and given that human-beings have been prepared to kill one another in the millions for whose idea of the divine is ‘correct’ or should be ‘dominant’ - the foundation of each and every religious and spiritual structure is premised upon the inverted idea that places the cart before the horse. How can a single ‘thought’ (or group of related ‘thoughts’) generate the mind from which they originally emerge? A single human thought cannot pre-exist the human-mind from which it emerges. Forevermore, at no time in human history has it been materially demonstrated that the human-brain has emerged from within the thoughts it produces.
Evolutionary theory, of course, regardless of its incomplete narrative regarding the origins and development of physical humanity, is premised upon a non-inverted and logical view of the development of humanity. In this model of the unfolding evolution of humanity, the development of the physical brain precedes the manifestation of the human-mind - from which ALL human ‘thought’ subsequently ‘emits’. This contradicts the human (cultural) habit of assuming that human sentiment, emotion and thought precede all physical development of the human – being on the material plane. If the agency of ‘monasticism’ is to be taken seriously, then it must satisfactorily engage, reconcile and transcend both of these narratives – that is the ‘inverted’ and the ‘non-inverted’ - narratives that humanity has used to describe its own machinations! The main problem appears to be the lack of genuine knowledge within mundane human society of what ‘exactly’ monasticism ‘is’ and ‘is not’. Certainly, off the bat it must be said that monasticism ‘is not’ necessarily ‘religiosity’ despite its very close association with religious thought and religious convention over the passing millennia. The religious garb of monasticism may be viewed as a relatively ‘late’ development in its own evolution. It may also be interpreted as something of a misnomer to associate the presence and purpose of monastic practice with religiosity in the world, particularly as the most likely ‘outcome’ of such a long-term exposure of such training for the human mind and body is that ALL inverted thought is a) understood as such, and b) thoroughly abandoned and ‘given-up’ as a legitimate means to express the essential nature of the human existential and historical experience. Forms of structured monasticism that are designed to support the ‘inverted’ view of a particular religion, however, sells the developmental procedure short and cheats its human practitioners of the FULL benefits monasticism which although ironically often involving the sitting in a cell – also corresponds with an observable (and thoroughly ‘profound’) realignment of how the individual cellular-biology of the individual monastic manifests! This emergence of a renewed biological (and psychical) reality has no relationship with the maintenance of any inverted world-view. This often means that an individual clearly ‘succeeds’ at being a monastic – whilst simultaneously failing at being a religionist (as he or she clearly outgrows the supporting religious structure).
In this respect, the 1960s phenomenon of The Beatles can be said to be ‘monastic’, in as much as a group of ordinary and non-descript young men traversed the summits of immense musical and lyrical creativity (as an expression of the four’s collective conscious and unconscious minds), whilst simultaneously embracing the hippie-enhanced notions of ‘love’ and ‘sharing’. This pathway included an apparent rejection of the conventional religiosity of the West, and saw The Beatles (no longer viewed as just ‘four ordinary young men’) travel to India and literally ‘embrace’ the Hindu teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Together with experimentation involving recreational drug-taking – The Beatles embraced the transformation of the mind and body that is a prime indicator of the monastic path – before finally rejecting religiosity (and monasticism) and collectively settling for the conventional life of accumulating immense material wealth (harvested from their commercial success) upon the physical plane. Of course, the eventual outcome of the monastic journey does not negate the inherent ‘value’ of the journey itself. Four working-class young men from Liverpool experienced a monumental shift out of the psychical and physical world they were born into. No one else in the history of their families had ever experienced such a profound or sustained material change in their life-circumstances, and it is interesting to observe that this transformation in fortunes was primarily one of finance with an enhanced income granting a greater ‘choice’ movement on the physical (and psychological) plane. This, in-turn, initiated a growth in psychological awareness that explored new avenues of ‘being’ and ‘expression’. Whereas in the traditional (or conventional set-up) a monastic does not have to work for a wage in the physical sense, all his or her physical needs are taken care of – although not necessarily in a lavish sense. In-short, for the regular monastic attached to a conventional religion, the need to perform regular ‘work’ is negated by the communal set-up of continuous material support (usually provided free of charge by the guiding Church and the supportive laity). After writing their initial ‘hits’, of course The Beatles gained so much money that ‘working’ for them ceased to have any real connection to the mundane world. They quite literally became their own ‘Church’ and this is how millions of people still perceive their creative out-put today! The Beatles led an individual from the mundanity of ordinary existence to the heights of transcendent creativity – before finally dumping the traveller firmly back in the material world... Whatever ‘growth’ has been gained from following this process is very much a matter for personal interpretation. Most, if not all, is merely a ‘Revolution in the Head’ as Ian McDonald (2008) explained, and yet something ‘tangible’ does appear to be happening.
An intriguing example of the monastic life succeeding in transforming the individual to new heights of being, also serves as a paradoxical example of monasticism ‘failing’ to support the very conventional religious structure within which it is preserved. Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was the Chesire-born son of Irish-Catholic parents. In 1883 (aged-15-years-old) John McCabe was placed by his parents (and without his consent) into the (Franciscan) Gorton Monastery situated in Manchester, UK. This is where he trained as a committed Franciscan monk for twelve-years and eventually mastered the contemplative lifestyle and the entire academic syllabus. At this time, Joseph McCabe mentions in his biography, it never crossed his mind to question the decisions of those adults around him or protest against the lifestyle – as he was brought up to dutifully ‘accept’ and ‘do’ without question, comment or complaint (Joseph McCabe, 1897). He was thrust into the ‘straightjacket’ of formal (religious) monastic self-limitation that saw his mind and body squeezed into a very narrow expression of cloistered existence. This is because the hermit’s cell demands that the realisation of inner ‘oneness’ is pursued on one’s own and requires the outer ‘oneness’ of isolation even if those who seek it live collectively within a monastic community. Inner oneness and outer oneness (monos) are intrinsically linked and arise from within a common root of mind-body coordination and interaction. Although Joseph McCabe writes with a persistent vitriol against religion in general – and monasticism in particular – he arrived at this point of multitudinous ‘freedom of thought’, that is ‘unlimited’ thought, through the restrictions imposed upon his mind and body during his formulative years, that were the consequence of formal monastic training. In this instance, this formal monasticism required isolation, privilege, education, self-limitation, (discipline), and a commitment to the realisation of the idea that one particular religious view is absolutely and uniquely ‘correct’, and yet Joseph McCabe describes a certain ‘decadence’ existing at the heart of the training of what should have been the ‘poor friars.’ For instance, the faithful laity and Church Authorities provided the monastery with ample (and excessive) amounts of food and (alcoholic) drink. Mead, beer, port, sherry, wine and even champagne would be available (but not water) with each meal. Fish were allowed to be eaten – as were fowl (because, like ‘fish’ they lived in ‘water’). If one main meal was had during fast times at 12pm midday – the monks would ensure that it lasted until 4pm – with a partial meal added in the evening! Joseph McCabe explains how a corrupt ‘gluttony’ had become a manifestation in the monastery of what the Church culture now believed that ‘humility’ and ‘simplicity’ represented. Eating more became representative of ‘eating less’ by the Church Authorities (although this distortion has nothing to do with the principle of ‘monasticism’ in and off itself). There is also the ‘slippage’ of meaning within Joseph McCabe’s text where the post of ‘priest’ is continuously conflated with that of a ‘monk’, when they are two different roles. Originally, religious monastics owned nothing and where pious lay men and women living in isolation or communion in the search for inner and outer meaning. A ‘priest’ by comparison, is formally ‘ordained’ and is permitted to live within lay society whilst being qualified to perform the ‘sacraments’ to the lay community. For many centuries, priests were considered superior to the lowly monastic, and were even required to grant the ‘sacraments’ to the monastics themselves. As the monastic communities tended to develop in remote areas, priests were not always available to administer the ‘sacraments’ and so it was decided that the monastics themselves would receive an ‘ordination’ similar to that of the priest to solve this problem (with the ‘priest’ still holding a superior position with regards to dominance within the lay community. As matters transpired, the problem for the Catholic Church is that although Joseph McCabe’s developing mind and body was intensely subject to the strictures of formal monasticism, and despite him benefitting tremendously from the corresponding (intellectual) education, the agency of ‘monasticism’ developed the mind and body of Joseph McCabe to the point where he ‘transcended’ the need to be ‘controlled’ by a formal religion. Just as his mind left the Catholic Church through its development beyond theology – his physical body was soon to follow – and he left the Catholic Church completely. Despite his continuous attitude of disrespect and denigration of the monastic tradition, the argument can be made that the monastic lifestyle as applied to Joseph McCabe’s mind and body, performed its intended task admirably by generating a permanent sense of ‘transcendence’ within his character Transcendence, once attained, cannot be limited to the auspices of convention. Transcendence is itself an act of destructive creation. Whatever has followed in the past dissolves like the fuel that drives a machine forever onward. The non-certainty of reality is the heart of the genuine monastic experience.
In 2009, the Western media reported the story of an ethnic Spanish boy who broke-away from and rejected the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism as espoused by the 14th Dalai Lama in the West (Guardian, 2009). Today, ‘Osel Hita Torres’ is 24-years-old and laments what he views as being a ‘wasted’ upbringing deprived of all the normal sensory stimulation associated with a normal childhood experienced within the modern world. Admittedly, there are disturbing undertones of emotional, psychological and physical child abuse attached to this story but no one from the Western Pro-Tibetan Movement has yet been arrested or charged (this includes the actor – Richard Gere who used to live in a hut next to this imprisoned child but did nothing to interfere). Osel Hita Torres is a European born in the West with no physical connection to Asia in general or Tibet specifically, and yet the Dalai Lama – who placed him on a throne to be ‘worshipped’ as a toddler – had him transported from his home in Granada to a Buddhist monastery in Southern India. As a grown man, Osel Hita Torres explains that none of this culture had any meaning to him and that he most definitely was NOT an incarnated lama as decreed by the Dalai Lama! Osel Hita Torres does not believe in the concept of reincarnation as preserved within Tibetan Lamaism (but which was rejected by the historical Buddha and distinguished from the limited concept of Buddhism that he preferred). Indeed, the Foundation to Preserve the Mahayana Tradition, which spends its time raising funds in the West possesses around 130 centres around the world, as of 2009, still published texts online ignoring the ‘suffering’ that Osel Hita Torres experienced and still eulogising him under the fabricated name of ‘Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche’. He was ‘enthroned’ at just 14-months-old by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, and lived next to Richard Gere at six-years-old. Although having no association with the Tibetan Buddhism extant within China today, the type of Tibetan Buddhism propagated in the West is highly Christianised to gain converts (and influence) in the West and is dominated by a form of ‘extreme’ devotionalism that is not present (or applicable) in the East (Liu Li, 2015). As he was so young when placed into this predicament, why was he not merely ‘conditioned’ into accepting the new situation? Indeed, Osel Hita Torres was so young that it is remarkable that he managed to remember his old life and understand that what was happening to him was not ‘correct’. Is it the case that the monastic structures within which he was trapped facilitated the development of his high-mind above and beyond that which would have been expected if Osel Hita Torres had ‘conformed’ to the conditions of his abusive imprisonment? Again, the straightjacket of religious dogma was left behind as the aspirant was able to transcend the situation he was in, and follow-up this psychological (and ‘psychical’) freedom with the physical body following suit by literally ‘extracting’ itself from the material situation at hand. Such is the murky world of religiosity and monastic endeavour. Freedom is not always what ‘others’ think it might be. A proposed ‘freedom’ into religiosity can just as well turn-out to be a ‘freedom’ from (or ‘outside’) of religiosity.
Father Andre Louf (1929-2010) was an eminent (French-born) Trappist monk, prominent theologian and Retreat Master. He also wrote widely in the French language about all areas of the spiritual path. Father Louf represents something of an enigma to the modern mind. This man was both deeply religious and profoundly spiritual, and yet when he marshalled groups of committed young men through his meditation and contemplation hall during intense periods of spiritual retreat, one of the markers of his method was to ‘reject’ every notion of ‘God’ each of these men held regardless of the corresponding depth of commitment to the ‘belief’ involved. Indeed, Father Andre Louf was a firm believer that virtually ALL notions of God held in the minds of all those who came to train with him were nothing but culturally conditioned ‘false-constructs’. In other words, this type of ‘worship’ was not ‘worship’ at all but merely an ‘internalised’ snapshot of the particular ‘externality’ of the mundane society that had produced them. Working upon the assumption that ‘God’ is not a ‘reflection’ of mundane society – Father Andre Louf demanded that each of the monks under his care ‘discard’ the notion of ‘God’ entirely brought in from the outside world and start their search again for an entirely ‘new’ grasp of what ‘God’ may or may not be. In this regard Father Andre Louf demanded that each retreatant firmly cultivate an unassailable attitude of ‘atheism’ in their training as a means of completely uprooting and discarding the pious deluded ideas and notions they had arrived carrying in the very fabric of their minds and bodies. Without this extreme measure, there was no way of knowing what was and was not a glimpse of true grace as one went about their daily activities. Within this Catholic monastic structure – a Retreat Master was making use of the very ‘atheism’ that was said to be rampant throughout society, and which was making the Catholic Church struggle for converts. This suggests that ‘atheists’ are not exempt from the positive effects of a genuine monastic experience. The crux of this matter is that human psychical development should not and cannot be limited to the boundaries defined by infantile dualisms. Just because God might exist it does not necessarily follow that God does not exist. Equally true is the idea that even if God is proven as ‘not existing’ this does not have to mean that for humanity no God exists at all. Indeed, reality, even one with or without a divine essence, does not have to fit-in to the current level or standard of human (collective) knowledge and understanding. Truth, whatever this beast may or may not be, requires a mind and body trajectory that cuts-through all the baggage of cultural conditioning. Indeed, ‘truth’ in the transcendent sense may not exist at all just as some scientists and philosophers are of the opinion that the concept of the human ‘mind’ is nothing more than a modern reinterpretation of the religious notion of the ‘soul’ (or ‘psyche’). A proposed spiritual essence free of the tyranny of the association with established religion. As such, the ‘mind’ is nothing more than a contemporary ‘faery-tale’ told by adults to frighten children in their cribs! At least this is the position of the ‘eliminativists’. In other words, any state that appears to manifest within the interior of mind is until proven otherwise – an ‘illusion’ of perception – a phantom standing in the dark or lurking around the corner. The vestige of a far-off and far more profound primitive state of human existence. It is interesting that this often ‘extreme’ position of ‘materially’ understanding the mind does appear to reflect a certain transcendent theme central to virtually all hermitic traditions. This is because ‘emptiness’ (as opposed to ‘nothingness’) is often mentioned as being indicative of ‘advancing’ upon the monastic path, primarily for the reason that the aspirant is now considered to have realised the underlying ‘void=essence’ of all reality – whilst remaining ‘non-attached’ to the still existing phenomena indicative of the material world which appears unhindered within this ‘new’ and ‘all-embracing’ emptiness which seems as infinite as it is boundless. Of course, the language of the mystic is not the same language as used by the scientist – even if each is attempting to understand and discuss exactly the same reality.
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