A cloud formation in Cyrus. Photo: Peter Hancock.
The way to enlightenment
Peter Hancock reflects on the infinity of experience
The great German polymath Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote: ‘Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen…’ – ‘Who struggles ever striving, him we can redeem…’
Those who know me well know that I am firmly rooted in the physical world. I regard what many think of as the spiritual as a hangover from our primitive past, deriving from all sorts of very real fears.
When people speak of their spirituality they come perilously close to a certain social type, mentioned by Jesus in the New Testament, who ‘stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are…’
I am also comfortable with mystical experience and have no difficulty in seeing it as arising entirely within our neurological and endocrine ‘signaling systems’. The phenomenal, quotidian, objective, empirical world that we can access via the senses – also aided by the intellect and scientific processes – is unutterably, exquisitely sublime and bountiful. It is full of delight and riches.
When a man stops staring at the formless shadows on the cave wall and turns toward the light of reality he cannot then help but be grateful for the infinity of experience in the mundane physical world. Why would anyone want anything more?
Decades ago, reading an item in the letters pages of The Listener, I found this: ‘There is no short, quick way to enlightenment. It is a lifelong, arduous task of learning about our every reaction and response in alert awareness and observation.’
To turn the sword-motto of one of our armed services into the ploughshare of our struggle for enlightenment: Per ardua ad astra! – ‘Through adversity to the stars’.
Comments
Plenty to take issue with here!
Firstly, “When people speak of their spirituality they come perilously close to a certain social type [i.e. Pharisees]”; maybe so if people speak of *their* spirituality, but not so if people speak about spirituality in general. It’s a useful word.
You say, “Why would anyone want anything more [than the infinity of experience in the mundane physical world]?” Because we are questioning beings! We may have a burning question such as ‘Who am I?’, which all the infinity of experience in the physical world cannot answer in a satisfactory way; nor will it give us insight into the timeless realm of being. We need to look inwards as well as outwards.
And finally, it’s really not clear what you mean by enlightenment! I like the quote you give from The Listener, which is all about self-study; but in the first part of your article you seem to be saying that we should simply be satisfied with the wonders of the external world. If I have misunderstood you, no doubt you will explain!
By JohnE on 23rd February 2017 - 23:29
Two profound quotations might help make my stumbling meaning clearer:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.
Peter H
By PETERHANCOCK on 24th February 2017 - 12:02
Peter - Thanks for your response. But I still have no sense of where you really stand, because in the very first paragraph of your article you seem to be denying the validity of what people call ‘spirituality’:
“Those who know me well know that I am firmly rooted in the physical world. I regard what many think of as the spiritual as a hangover from our primitive past, deriving from all sorts of very real fears.”
This wouldn’t pass muster at any Zen temple!! You would be whacked across the shoulders by the master and told to get back to your meditation. How can you quote the famous Zen saying about mountains being mountains etc, and at the same time write off the whole spiritual search/journey as being essentially childish?! It doesn’t make any sense to me.
John Elford
By JohnE on 24th February 2017 - 12:35
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