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Dilatato Corde 5:1
January - June, 2015 
EDMOND PEZET, A PIONEER OF SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE WITH BUDDHISTS When the Catholic priest Edmond Pezet died in December 2008, the French writer Gérard Bessière, who had known him very well, emphasized his importance as a spiritual figure, even though he was relatively unknown during his lifetime. Thanks to their writings and their friends, Fathers Jules Monchanin and Henri Le Saux are remembered in France and in the Church because of their encounter with Hinduism. In his encounter with Buddhism, Father Edmond Pezet was every bit their equal, but because of his simplicity, his modesty, and his very ordinary demeanor, many people were unaware of this exceptional person who was andcontinues to be one of the spiritual giants of our time. How sad it is that the Church’s leaders did not avail themselves of Pezet's experience and competence.[1] Pezet’s life and his views on Buddhism are now available in Edmond Pezet: A Priest among Buddhist Monks in Thailand. In 2012 the Society of Auxiliaries of the Mission published French and English versions of this book, which contains many of his letters and writings. This article is a summary of that book and, unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from it. Pezet’s life Edmond Pezet was born on July 11, 1923, in Larnagol, a small village in the Lot prefecture in France. His father had been a farmhand and after his marriage, cultivated a small plot of land that his wife had inherited: My parents had a tiny farm in Larnagol. Studying meant becoming a teacher or a priest, but entering seminary was less expensive for poor families. The parish priest persuaded my father to make me go (to seminary), but my personal inclination would have been to stay on the farm, or learn a trade such as carpentry (p. 19). His experience in the seminary provided him with a profound understanding of the condition of what he called the “poor slob” (“le pauvre bougre”): the man who, like his father, was condemned to a life of hard toil simply to survive and feed his family. All his life, Pezet lived in great poverty, and the sight of wealth and ambition disgusted him, particularly in the Church. Pezet entered the minor seminary after completing primary school and then went on to the major seminary in Cahors. However, at the end of 1945, before completing the seminary program, he joined the army and in 1946, as part of a French expeditionary corps being sent to Indochina, he set sail from Marseille for Saigon. His unit was engaged in counter-insurgency actions, which meant he witnessed the atrocities committed by his regimental comrades against locals who were suspected of being Viet-Minh. He could only stand by, unable to intervene as his own countrymen tortured Vietnamese with branding irons and then made kneel in a hole, where they were shot in the back of the neck and buried “because it was important that no one discover how [they] had been tortured!” (personal notebook). These experiences made him want to go back to Vietnam as a missionary. Having returned to France in 1946, he continued his studies in theology and grew in his desire to become a missionary. As he put it, “I felt the need to make some atonement that would compensate, in a modest way, for the harm that I had seen being done to the Vietnamese people” (p. 21). Late in 1955, learning of the existence of the Society of Auxiliaries of the Mission, he was delighted to find that this missionary society likewise stressed the recognition of the dignity of people in the countries where they worked. The idea for this society originated with Father Vincent Lebbe (1877-1940), a missionary in China who was the first to advocate for a native hierarchy. After the first Chinese bishops were ordained in 1926, Lebbe then invited young Western men to enter into lifelong service to these bishops as diocesan priests, on an equal footing with the local Chinese priests. A training institute was established, which soon found a physical home in Leuven in Belgium, near the city’s famous university. Following Father Lebbe, the constitution of the S.A.M. says, "[Charity shall be extended] not just to souls and bodies, but also to the thought, art, traditions and customs, way of life and all other components of a civilisation, to the exclusion only of evil or that which cannot be assimilated by Christianity." Those who responded to the call to serve in the missions were sent to China. After Communism came to power, subsequent candidates were sent to dioceses in other mission countries. At the end of 1956, Pezet was sent to north-eastern Thailand, a region inhabited by former refugees from Laos and Vietnam who had converted from animism to Christianity. These people of the northeast therefore thought of themselves as Laotian. Faithful to the objectives of the S.A.M., Pezet wanted to serve the local bishop unconditionally. He therefore conscientiously performed what the bishop and congregation expected from him—celebrating the Eucharist and administering the sacraments. However, he soon became aware of a painful reality: [Christians and clergy alike practice] a religion with a dreamlike heaven, rose-water-scented, as its goal, and in order to get there without fail, certain “tricks,” recipes, ceremonies and shows accompanied by a goodly number of fancy clothes and decorations, where no one clearly sees any connection [between these various practices, and going to heaven after they die] (p. 179). He was stunned to see the way in which religion was taught to the catechumens. They were required to assimilate dogmatic assertions by memorizing questions and answers, expressed in words borrowed from Sanskrit that no one understood very well. This inadequate education went hand in hand with a lack of any knowledge of Buddhism, sometimes even accompanied by scorn for it: The Christians have been deliberately uprooted from the spiritual riches and religious experience of their race . . . especially the clergy! (kept apart from their people between the ages of 10 and 27!). . . . They were taught to administer after the fashion of a French parish priest of the last century (p. 42). This made him very sad. My father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, my nephews, my nieces, my cousins from the NE of Thailand, how ill at ease I feel in this religion in which we have dressed you: garb both foreign and strange, both too short and too long, like something that was not made for you, in which you are simply decked out rather than properly dressed (p. 59). He opened his heart to the bishop he was assisting, but the latter saw no problem with this situation and advised him to do little more than get used to it. However, for Pezet it soon became unbearable: he especially deplored the real contempt that Christians, clergy and laypeople alike, showed towards Buddhism: Our Western ecclesiastical machine, imported without adaptation, is massacring, raping and looting every traditional religious fibre in the country… none of our local priests, cast in the European mould, realises this (p. 51). What the Church required of Buddhist monks who wanted to convert to Christianity also appalled him: When Buddhists monks ask to convert, the first thing that must be done is to defrock them, to reduce them to lay status. . . . Before [they were clad] with a yellow robe, and afterwards with a wretched, borrowed shirt and shorts. Why this degradation? Why could this monk, this religious, not remain a religious as he came to Christ? What is more, such a convert is required not just to renounce the entire spiritual heritage of the Buddha (which is cast into outer darkness), but to encumber himself with an entire set of Western religious trappings—beliefs and practices that bear the name of the Christian religion—and to stop there, without having really achieved Faith. . . . When will we see the way open for non-Christian religions to enter into the Kingdom together with their spiritual heritage? (p. 184-185). Near the end of 1966, Pezet went on leave to France. It was an opportunity for him to take stock of his first ten years in Thailand, and his sojourn back in France seemed to give him the perspective required to make a bold decision: he would return to Thailand to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to the study of Buddhism, and to the practice of meditation with Buddhist monks. With the knowledge he would thereby gain of Buddhism as seen from the inside—by being a practitioner himself—he would then set about finding ways to help Christians living in prevalently Buddhist countries to come to a more authentic experience of their own Christianity. Back in Thailand, he returned to the same diocese for another few years, and in 1970 he began to study Sanskrit and also attended lectures in Bangkok on the teachings of the Buddha. For three years he lived in a Buddhist wat (monastery), helping the head monk write pamphlets on Buddhism for foreigners. It was at this time that he discovered a world of spiritual riches he had never suspected to find in Buddhism. He learned not a new doctrine presented as absolute truth (the core teachings of Buddhism not being taught in this way), but instead a way of life expressed only in terms of existential values. The teachings were something to be experienced, not simply taught and memorized. Buddhism did not deal with the transcendent, and the principal reason was that it did not engage in speculative discussion. Pezet found that in Buddhism, such transcendence was only perceptible through deepening one’s perception of immanence, of simple presence itself. In a letter dated around this time, noting that his bishop had warned him not to “convert to Buddhism,” he added, Yes, I am “Buddhist,” just as I am Thai at heart, like “them,” and I won’t become any more so . . . but I know what I mean by that: and as a result I am even more consciously feeling connected to Christ. I know that the wisdom of the Buddha is no more outside the Spirit of Christ than any other human spiritual riches. . . . In fact, I believe that a Christian Buddhist must draw on the insights of the Buddha (and of India) to find new treasures in Christ’s message (p.72). Near the end of 1973, he left Bangkok to join the Buddhist “forest monks” who, true to their original teachings, were devoting themselves to exacting meditation exercises in complete fidelity to the very strict instructions of the Buddha. Pezet, who had always led a life of poverty, nevertheless found in them a hitherto unsuspected dimension of renunciation: an abandoning of attempts to characterize ultimate reality in any way whatsoever, together with an admission that no human pronouncements can claim to represent absolute truth. This was a stance that, during the entire history of Christianity, only a few Christian mystics had had the courage to adopt. The articles he wrote at that time are the fruits of a lifestyle nourished by the meditation he was doing in the company of these monks. Through his writings, he wanted to present this radical Buddhism, which was something quite different from the Buddhism found in the ornate temples of the capital, with their wealthy monks and their faithful believers attached to a sentimental piety rooted in animistic beliefs. In December 1976, some Christians built him a hut on the outskirts of their village. It was their expression of the traditional way of inviting a forest monk to come and live beside them: What I had dared not hope for has actually happened. . . . It is remarkable how they rediscovered their Buddhist heritage in this way (which I had believed forever lost to them), of a community of loyal “householders” who have founded “their” own monastery for a monk of their choice, who has accepted their invitation, and who will become “their” monk, as he awaits the arrival of volunteers to be disciples and form a monastic community (p. 95). Pezet saw a recognition of the importance of the contemplative life to be a vital condition for a fully-established Thai Church, which would possess true appeal for the people of the country. Unfortunately, when he himself began to live such a life, he found no understanding from his local superiors. Finally, the Cardinal of Bangkok issued a Cessat (“He should stop this”), and Pezet’s only option was to return home. After 1989, he led a modest life back in France as the parish priest of a little village near his hometown. In 2004, he finally retired to a nursing home, where he lived out his remaining days until his death in 2008. Pezet’s major insights about Buddhism The Indian Zen master Ama Samy, SJ, after reading some extracts of Pezet’s writings, wrote: [This] is really remarkable, the best I have ever read in interreligious dialogue. He is so sensitive and understanding. One or two points which particularly struck me: “Buddha's teaching and doctrine are not a matter of dogma or belief. They point to the spiritual Way.” “We cannot really define or explain ultimate reality; only symbols and silence can be used. Western logic and its mind-set will never be able to grasp this.” “Only Buddhists can really understand Buddhism.” All this is great stuff. Going beyond “God-language” Through his writings, Pezet sought to clarify common misunderstandings regarding some of Buddhism’s fundamental themes. He also invited Christians to recognize the importance of the way of the Buddha in order to live out the message of Jesus more fully in their own lives. Westerners who visit Buddhist temples in Thailand often see ordinary people praying and making offerings in front of images of the Buddha in order to obtain merit. These Westerners may hear or read that Buddhists believe in reincarnation and karma, and that they do not believe in God. Consequently they think of Buddhism not as a religion but as a human teaching. To them, Buddhism may perhaps have a little life-wisdom to share, but nonetheless, it is simply a human fabrication rather than a divinely revealed religion. It is true that Buddhists do not speak of God, but such tourists rarely learn why they do not do so. For Pezet, this silence was a sign of genuine spirituality and humility: Buddhists reject the term “religion” as a description of Buddhism, because they see what is taught in other religions: “truths” that “must” be believed, a “God” that the listener understands as personalized, in time and space (always present everywhere, especially in heaven, with the angels), with a mind like ours, and then, a soul that can be detached from the body, carrying the mind with it. . . . This can only give [the Buddhist] the impression of a return to the popular religion which “knows things" (In “Is Buddhism a religion?”, unpublished, 1971). He added that Buddhists keep silent about God because the Absolute is beyond representation with any image. They do not allow themselves to become attached to intellectual or emotional fabrications about a Supreme Being. The Buddha's Way of spiritual fulfilment is not theistic: this is affirmed so clearly that no one can doubt it. To the Buddhist, gods and divinities naturally call to mind mythological characters (especially Hindu ones) and the more or less imaginary inhabitants of the heavenly regions, of which the creator God, Brahma, is the chief, as it were. The Buddha is a man, the model of perfect human fulfilment: he is not a divinity. For the true Buddhist, as for us, this means that the Buddha is greater than all the divinities, because they are all more or less mythical. He is even greater than the God of the monotheists, who is envisaged as the First or Father of the other heavenly beings (as “Jupiter” and “Zeus-pater”) (p. 254). We might imagine that our understanding of God contains no such mythical characterizations and thus escapes such criticism. Believing that we have gone beyond such “primitive” ideas about God, we may attach true value to our pure concepts and abstract representations of Him instead. However, the moment we begin to speak of Him,we immediately start using anthropomorphic terms (such as the male pronoun above, for example). In practice, no major problems may be incurred by this,but we must constantly remain aware of the limited nature of this way of speaking: Whatever the word used to refer to the Inexpressible, the Inexpressible is not communicated. It is above all names! Knowing this, it is not illegitimate to talk, like the Bible or Christ himself, in an anthropomorphic way about God, if it is [done so] humbly, without any pretence, aware of our limitations. Faith is always humble; it is rational speculation which is always in danger of not being humble (in “Is Buddhism a religion?,” unpublished, 1971). For the Buddhists there is a far more important task: to lead one’s life in accordance with the way of the Buddha. Buddhism is essentially praxis. In the Buddhism that is faithful to the attitude of the Teacher, the Ultimate Reality must never be named or objectified. One must not yield to the temptation of escaping from life into philosophical speculation or religious beliefs (p. 255). Faith as trusting in a way of life In Christianity, besides belief in God, the acceptance of certain doctrinal statements is also considered to be an essential part of religion. Pezet discovered that in Buddhism, however, this was not the case; there are no articles of faith to believe: The body of religious beliefs formed by Indian cosmology, which was universally accepted by his compatriots, was rejected by the Buddha as beliefs, as was their cosmogony; the cosmology, once it had been demystified as a belief in the literal sense, was used by the Buddha as a means of expression, as a language (p. 204). The Buddha’s Doctrine is not intended to be a theoretical conceptualization of [ultimate reality]—a kind of philosophical wisdom—but a teaching of the path which leads to its concrete actualization, its true integration into the daily life of mankind (p. 303). A Christian is defined as being a believer, as someone who has faith, which may mean either that he generally believes in Jesus and in his teachings, or specifically that he adopts a creed which lists in detail the truths he is required to believe in. (Depending on the individual, more importance is assigned to either the first or the second part of the above definition.) Pezet was distressed when he saw the Christians in the northeast of Thailand displaying a shallow religiosity. He was sad that people did not have what he called a “living faith”: The existence of God and the immortality of the soul—the conclusions of speculative reasoning—have become basic beliefs of religion, instead of Faith, a personal response to the Lord’s call to enter into the work of the coming Kingdom (p. 182). It is worrying to see Faith give way to religiosity, with its more or less ill-assorted set of beliefs, practices, interdictions and rites passing itself off as Faith (p. 184). He considered true faith to be a complete surrender of oneself to the Way shown and taught by Jesus. As for those who would seek to assign to their Christian doctrines the value of absolute truth, he denied the validity of this approach, supported by his reading of the Gospels: . . . while Jesus was wandering around Palestine, followed by his disciples, he was teaching. He had a doctrine; he was called “Teacher.” But was it not a Way that he was teaching? A spiritual path, rather than a collection of dogmas, a body of systematised doctrines or a codified symbol of faith? (p. 281). Based on his understanding of what was meant by “faith,” Pezet was then able to affirm that this word could also be used in reference to Buddhism. In stark contrast to the blind adherence to “revealed, unquestionable truths,” true faith consisted of an existential attitude which had not been objectivised into a calcified belief system: it simply consisted of trusting that the Way of the Buddha was worth following. The true disciple of the Buddha had to accept that his Teacher's message offered him neither a speculative theory of the universe, nor even inspired answers to questions about a reality outside the here and now. Pezet added that Buddhists were even able to remind us of how to live as true followers of Christ: Allow me to attempt, provisionally, to define what it means to be a disciple of Christ, from a Buddhist viewpoint: irrespective of ancestral beliefs or customary rites, it involves a faith in and adherence to Christ and his Path. That faith must be mature, based on the lived experience of the spiritually and supremely liberating validity of evangelical practice. I can call myself a disciple of Christ, and others must defer to my claim, if I have really had spiritual experience of the supreme validity of the commands of the Gospel, or in other words, of life according to or in the Spirit of Christ, or of Charity in all its aspects (p. 273). Plurality of levels for following the Way Pezet discovered that, in applying themselves to very demanding spiritual exercises in order to make the insight of the Buddha their own, Buddhists considered that worship, prayers, devotions and belief-structures could actually become hindrances to spiritual inner liberty and perfect detachment. They considered “materialistic”—meaning “non-spiritual”—those who gave paramount importance to such “religious” elements. In spite of the fact that many people later became attached to such expressions of devotion, the Buddha’s original teaching was neither theistic, nor even “religious.” Worship, rites, prayers, devotions and observances were never to be taken as essential, but rather simply permitted as first steps on the way toward deeper understanding and practice. Buddhism . . . permits belief in divine beings and associated religious practices and customs: it tolerates them rather than fighting against them. With people who need religion, much of Buddhism can be expressed in religious categories: the Buddha himself did this, as one only has to read the scriptures to see (the second “Basket”). To an extent, simple folk cannot do otherwise than take this language at face value. But even among simple folk there are those who are able to go beyond the literal meaning and gain access to the spiritual meaning (p. 246). Pezet added that the same approach was necessary when reading the Bible: it needed to be interpreted, with the quality of each person’s interpretation reflecting his or her degree of spiritual advancement. In Pezet's experience, Buddhist membership seemed to allow for an infinity of degrees, with no “line” that one had to cross in order to “qualify.” There were so many ways of “being Buddhist,” and he thought a similar variety of membership styles should be allowed for Christians as well: My Church reserves Catholic affiliation to those who accept and “profess” dogmatic formulas, with all their objective content and weightiness. . . . Personally, I believe in a Christian mission . . . which no longer makes full membership in the Church its objective (while leaving that possibility open to anyone who requests it) (p. 233-234). Non-self and kenosis Pezet saw that Buddhism stressed the importance of being fully aware of Reality, as it appears at every moment. In order to be able to recognize each situation as it is and adopt wholesome attitudes and responses, we had to be awake, free from all preoccupations and preconceived ideas. In a word, we had to forget ourselves. Called by Buddhists the state of “non-self” (anatta), this had often been misunderstood in the West as an outright denial of the importance of personality. Pezet, however, understood that the expression in fact had no such philosophical overtones. It was simply an invitation to a personal experience of the emptiness of the self. Pezet expressed it in the following way: The most radical, non-theistic Buddhism, the “path of non-self,” of “emptiness,” which seems to dispense with any “personal” value, in theory at least, in fact only seeks to “empty out” the inappropriate and egocentric attachment to one’s individual “self,” as elevated into an absolute value (p. 349-350). This insight into “non-self” was therefore a powerful meditation practice recommended bythe Awakened One to his followers. However, for Pezet, a similar practice had also been expressed in the Christian tradition with the Greek word kenosis, which not only perfectly described Jesus’ own way of living, but was also the way of life He required from his followers as well: "He said to them all: 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it'" (Luke 9:23-24, New International Version). This way of “non-self” invited the Buddhist to a concern for the welfare of others, and meant a letting go, at a fundamental level, of one's concern for oneself, as well as a renunciation of the pretension that Reality could be completely grasped by the human mind. At every moment, we are immersed in a Reality that our mind is unable to comprehend fully, and we have to be willing to admit this fact: What is essential is faith in the Buddha, in his teaching, in the validity of his teaching, of his Path. . . . Fundamentally, it is faith in a way of living in which the absolute manifests itself: an absolute that can actually be lived, by me, here and now, an existential Ultimate, Nirvana; this is the ultimate, absolute reality for me, which is only known to the person who lives it, as it is indescribable. Here I come up against the inexpressible; my power to say anything falters; what folly to claim to say anything beyond the Absolute “in itself”! (p. 247). Buddhist meditation Besides believing in divine punishments and rewards, the Christians Pezet encountered also attached great importance to prayer, understood as a dialogue with God. At its best, prayer was thought to permit a mystical union with the divine Absolute, experienced as a personal God. Pezet recognized that this was indeed a high degree of purification and spiritual advancement, but added: But even when this point is reached, religion is not the supreme value: neither deism, the religion of a God of morality, nor theism, the religion of a God of mystical communion, leads to the pinnacle of spiritual realization, for they are simply crutches which are used as one scales the mountain—crutches which one builds for oneself to an extent, since the considerable role of the imagination and of the emotions comes into play here. The God of the Christians is not proof against these limitations. . . . And in this context, the Buddhists refer us to our great names in the via negativa and apophatic theology (Dionysius [the Areopagite] . . .), above all to Meister Eckhart, and to a small number of our “mystics” or rather “spiritual masters”: to their understanding of “darkness” and “emptiness” (p. 245). Pezet stressed that meditation was designed to lead to a way of seeing which released the meditator from attachment to his or her individual self, and overcame a dualistic view of reality. It was only by the faithful practice of meditation unattached to any thoughts, even the most valuable ones, that we would be able to discover true Reality in all of its mystery. It is to this depth that our dialogue with a “Thou”—the supreme Other with whom the “I” was communicating—finally was designed to lead. Pezet discovered that Buddhist meditation consisted of spiritual exercises in which one endeavoured not to be distracted by any ideas that came to mind. In practice, after adjusting the position of the body, one concentrated on one’s breathing, and for this purpose, one could mentally accompany each exhalation with a short word. Such practice was not present in the daily lives of most Christians, and was not encouraged by Church authorities, but is nevertheless one of the hidden treasures of Christianity. Since ancient times, many Christian contemplatives had practiced in a way that even Buddhist meditation masters might have found congenial. Evagrius Ponticus (†399), for example, wrote in his Chapters on Prayer: When you are praying, do not shape within yourself any image of the Deity, and do not let your intellect be stamped with the impress of any form; but approach the Immaterial in an immaterial manner, and you will understand. . . . prayer means the shedding of thoughts. . . . Blessed is the intellect which is completely free from forms during prayer.[2] Likewise, in The Cloud of Unknowing, a work by an anonymous 14th-century mystic, we find the following: Contemplatives rarely pray in words but if they do, their words are few. The fewer the better, as a matter of fact; yes, and a word of one syllable is more suited to the spiritual nature of this work than longer ones.[3] In 1974, Pezet stayed for six months in the Byzantine monastery of Chevetogne in Belgium, but he seems not to have been particularly impressed. About his stay, only a single sentence can be found in his correspondence: “No news here. I am carefully working through Evagrius Ponticus! Is he from this planet?” Having already spent quite a bit of time with the forest monks in Thailand, he may have felt disappointed at not finding a similar simplicity and depth of meditation practice in a Christian monastery. Neither did he seem to feel it necessary to attempt to describe in his writings the similarities between the views of Christian contemplatives and Buddhist meditators. One day, one of Pezet's superiors in the S.A.M. wrote in a bulletin that he had tried to “get a feel” for Buddhism. Pezet's reaction was immediate and strong. He pointed out that, on the contrary, Buddhist spirituality was much more down to earth, that meditation practice wasn't about “feeling” as such: “Get a feel for.”. . . this is what the Western poet does. The great poets of the West are highly “sentimental” (a misnomer for “sensitive”), imaginative, visionary. . . . “I live” . . . “I” “feel” the “profound” “life” “in me.” . . . This is very Indian [as well], very Hindu. . . . Radical Buddhism is radically “realistic,” anti-visionary, “anti-mystical” (with the word being taken in the Western sense), anti-“I,” anti-“I live,” anti-“I feel.” . . . Anti-escaping from reality into “interiority” (in the Western sense), feet planted firmly on the ground, in reality. . . . If you take the opposite path, you give the impression of running away from reality. . . . (This is how “Buddhism” is usually interpreted by Westerners: [as] “escaping from reality.”) In fact it is precisely the contrary! (p. 118-119). Those who practise radical renunciation, abstaining from the desire to define that which cannot be defined, become able to live every moment in wonder and gratitude. Gérard Bessière conveys the experience of this state of mind very well: The Unknown, the Ineffable—how can I put it?—is present and active everywhere. Here, it seems to pop out from the question of a child; there, it flashes out in someone’s laugh; all of a sudden, it is conveyed by the humour of a biblical episode; somewhere else it seethes in the anger of the masses; everywhere it blossoms in generosity, in joy, in courage. . . . We live in immanence. But transcendence crops up everywhere.[4] This amazement, this sudden perception of a deeper Mystery, can be experienced at every encounter with Reality. This immanence of transcendence was expressed by Saint Augustine as “God is more intimate to me than I am to myself.” By discovering the Infinite at the depths of one’s own being and integrating this experience into our daily living, we can, like Moses, come out of the "Cloud of Unknowing,” unwittingly transfigured: The spiritual man has been the amazed witness to an unveiling. To him was given to see, suddenly, the truth (the meaning) of the things in human life. After that, one cannot remain the same as before. However, after all, everything is still as it was, because the spiritual person is not separated from the simple acts of daily life. . . . The Absolute retains its mystery whole. What it reveals is the meaning of things, their Ultimate Meaning, and their Ultimate Truth for us. . . . This is the meaning of the Absolute as experienced by us. The Ultimate Way consists of integrating the Absolute into our daily lives. . . . This is already bringing the Divine to life in our lives: its existential reflection is shown by our living in accordance with it, which means we also participate in it. This may be all that can be done in our present situation, but is this not enough?” (In “Is Buddhism a religion?,” unpublished, 1971). This last excerpt shows how Pezet believed that Buddhism was able to help us to free ourselves from our tendency to consider our views as absolute truth. If we could understand what the way of the Buddha really meant, our spiritual life would be enriched and strengthened. Beliefs, wrote Pezet, desecrate the mystery of the Ultimate. The purification and self-denial recommended by the Buddhists can allow us not only to perceive Reality “un-covered”—simply there in the nakedness of its mystery—but also even help us to more faithfully follow the way of Jesus: For humankind today, the “vertical dimension” is now found at the deepest levels in the very midst of our “horizontality.” The dimension of the Absolute is discovered in the depths of the spiritual meaning of our daily lives themselves. The Mystery of the Wholly Other is found in the mystery of the other [person]. It is in the “brethren”, Jesus and all others in Him, that “one can see the Father.” (God, that is to say, the others). For Buddhists, too, the Absolute is not “outside” or “beyond” horizontality, but consists of a completeness and fullness of the horizontal in our daily lives. (p. 259-260; new translation from the original French version). Beyond interreligious dialogue According to Pezet, a “religious dialogue” between Buddhism and Christianity is impossible, for the simple reason that a dialogue can only take place between beings that are basically of the same kind. However, whereas Christianity teaches that to be a Christian one must believe certain truths, must hold to certain articles of faith, Buddhism imposes no such membership requirements: If it is true that enriching encounter and dialogue is only possible between groups which already have a lot in common, and not between utterly different ones, it must seem obvious that there is nothing to be gained from attempts at dialogue with Buddhism, whether on the basis of our religious beliefs, or of our dogmatic canons, or of our theories in systematic theology or scholastic –for the simple reason that, from the viewpoint of our Buddhist counterparts, all these things are of little or no interest or importance (p. 304). However, he added that Buddhists and Christians are indeed able to practice together, and even find spiritual convergence, by faithfully pursuing their respective paths of self-emptying (anatta, kenosis). True dialogue has to be situated at the level of spiritual praxis: our quest for final truth can only be based on a life in accordance with our deepest nature. Pezet concluded by underlining the importance of the contemplative life as the ideal place for a true encounter between practitioners of the Way of the Buddha and the Way of Christ. For him, this is the only context in which true mutual understanding, interreligious dialogue and communion can take place. Notes [1] http://edmondpezet.org/index_en.html, edited. [2]G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware, trans., The Philokalia, Faber and Faber, 1983, pp. 63, 68. [3]The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counseling, ed. William Johnston (Image Books, 1996). p. 95. [4]Gérard Bessière, Sentiers (La Riche: Diabase, 2014), p. 46-47.Translation ours. |
 Henri Huysegoms, a priest of the Society of Auxiliaries of the Missions, came to Japan in 1967 and, following language study, began his service to the Catholic diocese of Nigata. In 1971 he was introduced to Zen by F. Enomiya Lasalle SJ and has continued training under the direction of Buddhist Zen masters. He lives in community with three physically handi-capped people and three able-bodied people. |