Comparative mysticism: Bonaventure and the Clarity and Stillness Classic:
Today while translating the Clarity and Stillness Pictorial Annotation for class this Saturday (this has been one of the funnest classes of the year btw) I came across a passage that very much reminded me of a certain Christian mystic I love named Bonaventura da Bagnoregio who lived in the 1200s and wrote a wonderful text called The Soul’s Journey Into God. The text consists of six lessons of contemplation including:
Contemplating God through the vestiges in the universe: this is a contemplation of external things which we know to be transient but ultimately come from and return to God,
Contemplating God through the image stamped on our natural powers: turning inward to observe how God’s eternal light shines through our senses
Contemplating God in the image reformed by grace: looking at the same inner self, but reflecting on how qualities like grace, love, and hope transform our human selves to become godly,
Passing over: beginning to contemplate God as a spiritual entity rather than something of the world,
Contemplating God as God: realizing that God is truly all being and all being is God, so in all places at all times there is only God, thus unifying with God’s grace and consciousness,
The Sabbath of Rest: a state of silent rest with God which causes the awakening of the heart.
Boneaventure’s writings are beautiful and timeless as well as being lovingly crafted in a non-mysterious way which is easy for readers to apprehend and put into practice.
I like to study Christian Mysticism since it hinges on Platonic notions about pure being rather than non-being, so it serves as excellent counterpoint for East Asian traditions which derive being from non-being.
The return from the contemplation of outer forms to the ultimate very much reminds me of this interpretation of the Clarity and Stillness Classic saying:
”远观其物者，是瞑目远视，天地、日月、星辰、山河、林屋都没有了，看他身又生于何处也？
Observing something far away: darking the eyes and looking far afield, heaven and earth, sun and moon, stars and constallations, mountains and rivers, trees and houses, none of them are present, looking at the body of another, where does it come from?”
We observe the physical and material forms of the world and yet when the mind is returned to ultimate rest they have no discrete form in our awareness. All things become one, or maybe none, but even though the sayings are different, the inner journey proposed by Bonaventure and the Qing Jing Jing are essentially the same.
Just thought I’d share in case you are into these kind of things :)