Levels of Communication

Levels of Communication

"Enough now with teaching what only with difficulty I reached.
This Dhamma is not easily realized by those overcome
with aversion & passion.

What is abstruse, subtle, deep, hard to see,
going against the flow --
those delighting in passion,
cloaked in the mass of darkness,
won't see."

-Ayacana Sutra

The problem with any form of mysticism is that you wind up wanting to talk about something that you cannot talk about. A longstanding solution to this problem is very simple: don't try. Write some poetry maybe, like the Sufi saints, and just leave it at that.

As related in the Ayacana Sutra, Gautama Siddhartha hit this problem like immediately after the experience he described as his enlightenment. Basically, he thought that what he had discovered was far too difficult to even attempt to teach, so he was about to just blow it off. So, no Buddhism, just one Buddha enlightened all on his lonesome. The End. Brahma Sahampati managed to talk him out of taking that course of action, telling him that some would listen, even if most would not.

Adding to the inherent difficulty of the whole enterprise, is that mysticism pretty well excludes being too wrapped up in worldly priorities. There is the classic story of Mary and Martha, a story that is at the very core of Christian mysticism. The anonymous 14th Century monk who authored The Cloud of Unknowing makes mention of this story early on. For anyone unfamiliar with the tale in Luke, here it is:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

-Luke 10:38-42

Basically, Mary has chosen to focus on God, whereas Martha is more concerned with feeding her guests. The implication is, it is more or less impossible to do both things at once. The Cloud author says that while even Martha is doing her part, as worldly people in general play a needed role, obviously it is preferable to be Mary.

The problem with this scenario is a fundamental inequity of the two roles. To take an example from the 14th Century when the Cloud author was alive: ordinary people paid lots of money to the church to support monks like the Cloud author, who was afforded the opportunity to bliss out on God and write books. ;) It's a pretty nice gig for the 14th Century, but definitely not equal. The mass of ordinary people would never have read his books, even if they could read. They weren't in contact with him, he was in a monastery. He wasn't doing any evident benefit to them, except for giving them a warm fuzzy for supporting holy men.

It is easy to see that Mary needs Martha. Without Martha, Mary doesn't get dinner. What is less easy to see is that Martha needs Mary. In the parable, it is also clear that Martha herself doesn't see any benefit. In her mind she is pulling all the weight, getting the real work done, while Mary is lying around, spacing out on Jesus. ;)

The problem with not talking to Martha is, the World needs the Sacred. Without it, everything begins to fall apart. Practical knowledge is not enough. Practical people need the Sacred, even if they themselves do not always think so. One example of this need is the practice of many hospitals to hire medical ethicists: people whose job it is to think about ethics. They realize that normal medicine is not equipped to handle these issues, which are both more numerous and more difficult than many people ever have to think about. Ethics sort of stands in between the purely sacred and purely mundane: it isn't mysticism, but there are more than simply practical matters involved.

In ethics, the environment, human and animal rights, living and working conditions and many other issues, Martha needs Mary, but Mary has kinda fallen down on the job. In many circles, talking about spiritual matters is considered to be in bad taste, or even casts doubt on your general character as a human being. And when you ask whose fault that is, a big part of the answer is "our fault". It is Mary's fault. For starters, the recognized spiritual traditions we already have are pretty moribund or even diseased. The stuff that is going on these days in many organized religions makes you want to projectile-puke. The would-be Marys there have dropped the ball, if they ever in fact had it. Between the failure of organized religion to actually be spiritual, and the incessant unavoidable onslaught of materialist values, the path for Mary is very difficult and full of potential wrong turns. Meanwhile Martha sinks further and further into consumerism, and doubts more and more that there actually is anything else.

So, while we cannot talk about everything to everyone, the spiritual things we can talk about we ought to talk about. Things like ethics (the way we treat humans, animals and the world) are reasonably accessible to the thinking process of almost everyone. Even for those things that perhaps only Mary knows, and perhaps only Mary cares about, we have to assert a claim to their importance. These things too have their place in the overall order too, every bit as much as the practical work of practical people does.

Mary can't fall down on the job, and can't opt out of engaging Martha. If Mary fails, eventually Martha will fail.