naʊs

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

Don't be led astray; worldly affairs are just a dream-
because of its composite character, all creation is illusory.

Power and wealth are like dewdrops on a blade of grass-
they form in a single night, and evaporate in the morning.

Youth and strength is as transient as a bubble about to burst-
even as it comes into being it begins to disappear.

Nothing whatsoever in life is stable or permanent,
so why be deceived, thinking the ephemeral is enduring?

All that comes together must part in the end-
this is the truth of the nature of things.

Instead, focus on what will carry you to the other shore
and center yourself in Jesus, the Messiah who is deathless.

The Only Real Magic Is The Magic Of The Mind: Prequel

2009-02-19T11:36:00.000-08:00

Why did I embark on this series of posts? There's a lot about the inner life -and in particular my inner life- I do not understand with the clarity that I'd prefer to have. It would an easy thing to consult a few dozen of my favorite sources, like the Bible, the Dogmatic Decress of the Ecumenical Councils (all 8 of them), the writings of the Fathers, and the innumerable other books published in recent centuries which are a numerous as snowflakes. However, then I'd be like a parrot repeating something someone else said, not having actually looked within myself to see for myself.

So, rather than going about it that way, I am trying step by tiny step to build up an explanation of the usefulness of religious thought and practices (everything from the Jesus Prayer to the Mass) in the process of deification (Greek: theosis) through the grace of the Holy Spirit. The parameter I've set myself in that regard is that my reasoning as well as any conclusions I at which I may arrive must be in accord with the historic orthodox teachings of the Church.

The Only Real Magic Is The Magic Of The Mind, Pt 2

2009-02-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

One day, when I was in my early twenties, I went to visit my grandmother in the hospital. Somehow the medications she was being given were interacting in a very interesting way. I came into her room, greeted her and sat down by the bed. My grandmother replied to my greeting in these words, 'I'll be right there, after I get back from having my hair done.' Then she began describing the incredibly beautiful bluebirds which were flying around her hospital room. I thought to myself how wonderful her mind was... even her hallucinations were lovely. But to her right then, at that moment, what I considered hallucinations were absolutely, concretely, real in her perceiving.

God, of course, is the origin and basis of all things, and the Light of Christ illuminates the Nous through the activity of the indwelling Holy Spirit. In the inner life of the individual, Nous itself is the supreme source of experience, the all-creating king of our inner and outer world (see Part 1, of this essay in a previous post). The body, including the brain, receives and mediates perception, both inward flowing and outward flowing, which takes shape within the Nous. Obviously my grandmother's brain was affected by the drug interactions and her Nous's cognizance, mediated through the interpretive organ of her brain (which was malfunctioning) was misunderstanding things as ordinary people thought they really were.

As discussed in my previous posting, I pointed out that Nous is utterly non-physical. Nous isn't something which is subject to identification by the conventional sense organs. It has a no form or precise location which can be pointed out, yet Nous can recognize itself as both a cognizance and a clarity which reflects and refracts its environment. Nous isn't empty like a void space, but like space it has an openness, a spacious quality in which, and through which, phenomena - thoughts, perceptions, emotions - arise, pass, and dissipate like clouds in a clear summer sky. Nous is cognizant, it has an ability to preceive, to know, to experience.

Nous's cognizance and spacious clarity is indivisible. They're in hypostatic union, which means that cognizance and clarity is inseparable yet identifiable, not unlike the two natures of Christ, divine and human. This Nous, unlike everything else in creation, isn't a transient composition like a car, or a tree. This cognizance and clarity of the Nous is really the state which is primordial to all other experience. It exists before we conceptualize anything at all. It exists before the senses record perceptions. Resting in the Nous's preconceptual cognizant spacious clarity is nothing else but what is called Contemplation, or Contemplative Prayer. [More on that in later posts, when I get to the topic of religious practice.]

Contemplation isn't somehow getting the Nous into a state of 'empty emptiness', or mental blankness. That's a deluded state no better (and maybe even worse) than negative emotions, which at least have the advantage of being obviously something of which a person can recognize, often avoid, and can of which be repented. The Nous has a quality akin to clear light, which is something everyone perceives and recognizes in the physical realm. It's harder to recognize the Nous, though one way of doing so is having it pointed out to you by someone who is similarly inclined, spiritually, and who is travelling the same contemplative path, if a bit farther along. We normally experience light as it is refracted as form and color, but in fact it has form or color only in our perceptions as mediated and organized in the brain. In saying this I'm not implying the absolute unreality of what what we conventionally call the real world.

How does coming to an unobstructed recognition of the Nous help us who struggle here on earth? In a practical, pragmatic sense, experiential recognition of the Nous helps us understand that nothing which is experienced as phenomena (mental and physical) is permanent, and lack as certain overwhelming substantiality. Everything that we experience isn't simply impermanent in an exterior sense, which is to say that everything that comes together to to causes and conditions also comes apart. What we experience is also impermanent interiorly, if you don't hold on to it and get completely stuck, if you understand that the experience of what you're perceiving naturally arises and and dissipates in the cognizant clarity of the Nous.

It's like this: thoughts or perceptions (including emotions) come and go, so to speak. If they are really pleasurable or really unpleasant I tend to replay those particular tapes. So does almost everybody else. Then, when I encounter a similar situation, my brain automatically retrieves those tapes, that data, from stored memories and combine them with current experience to form an evalutation of the current perceptual phenomenon. But in doing so I'm making a generalization based on past experience, which can differs disasterously from current experience!

Memories? Are they real? Well, of course not, though you can allow them to condition present perceptions and conceptions. Is the data retained in your computer's memory 'real'? In one sense yes, but in another sense no. It's merely stored data! It is up to you to decide what to do with the data.

One very long-term friend has quirky brain chemistry. From time to time his chemistry initiates neurobiological phenomena, which in his case manifests (among other symptoms) as unusual modes of perceiving and thinking. When he gets like that, the data stored in his memory is being retrieved and combined in his brain with current perceptions in what other people would consider a confused manner, causing delusory/hallucinatory experiences. Or, as I once put it to him, 'The difference between me and you is that when you're in that state you believe what the voices in your head tell you. I don't believe what my voices say.'

But that's really not a correct statement to make, in the least. I do, in fact, believe a lot of what the voices in my head say, and maybe I ought to believe them less. Data stored in my brain's memory banks is retrieved and combined with current perceptions and projected into the Nous. So, instead of actually observing phenomena as it is, I'm actually pre-interpreting phenomena arising in the Nous based on generalizations deriving retrieved data stored in the brain. That can be a helpful short-cut for interpreting what's going on, but if there is a mismatch between the data you're using to interpret and the phenomena which you're interpreting you've got a BIG problem! You and I both know that happens to all of us constantly.

As well as the data which actually derives from current sense functions (perceived as mental phenomena), a lot of my mental phenomena is merely thoughts cyclically arising and dissipating in the sky-like Nous. And, I almost refixively believe those supposed voices which are conditioned by past events! But, I'm learning to not give them too much credence, and certainly struggle to not allow them run my life.

A helpful traditional exercise for you to try is this: sit down someplace quiet and first make yourself sad by recalling past events which caused you grief. Then, retrieve the happiest data you can recall from your memory banks and make yourself really happy. Then consider this important key point and make it an intrinsic part of your continuing way of thinking: 'If I can do this for myself, why do I let these thoughts push me around.' In other words, who's in charge here? You, or the data stored in your brain?

Holy Wisdom Speaks...

2009-01-20T22:30:00.001-08:00

Doth not wisdom cry?

and understanding put forth her voice?
She standeth in the top of high places,

by the way in the places of the paths.
She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city,

at the coming in at the doors.

Unto you, O men, I call;

and my voice is to the sons of man.
O ye simple, understand wisdom:

and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
Hear; for I will speak of excellent things;

and the opening of my lips shall be right things.

For my mouth shall speak truth;

and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are in righteousness;

there is nothing froward or perverse in them.
They are all plain to him that understandeth,

and right to them that find knowledge.

Receive my instruction, and not silver;

and knowledge rather than choice gold.
For wisdom is better than rubies;

and all the things that may be desired

are not to be compared to it.

- Proverbs 8:1-11 King James Version

Proverbs 8:1-11

The Only Real Magic Is The Magic Of The Mind, Part 1

2009-01-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine said to me yesterday that this blog isn't about religion, it's about philosophy. Maybe so, since I'm not really all that religious. Religion is a context for living out one's life in Christ, but it shouldn't be seen as being the heart of the matter. Religion is something which colors the Nous, and directs it (or redirects) in a path toward communion with the Divine. Religion is method. Spirituality is relationship (more on that, later).

At the moment, perhaps, this blog is a way for me to come to a better understanding of certain points which are still a bit unclear or fuzzy around the edges for me. Commenters like Romanos are especially helpful! Over the years my various psychological profiles have consistently reported that I think in pictures, not words, and that for me to come to understand something which requires words I've got to write it or talk about it. That's what this blog is really for, I guess.

Nous is pronounced in proper modern academic Greek as 'noose', but in England among certain groups of people who use it in everyday speech it's pronounced 'naowss'. I prefer the latter pronunciation, for a reason which will become clear in this post, eventually!

The term Nous designates the limpid primordial lucidity which prexists sense impressions or intellection. The Nous is like a perfectly pure crystal, which has no color of its own, but within which the color and shapes of the surrounding environment appear. In a temporal sense it's mediated by the brain and receives information from the senses.

The sense of a separate 'I' isn't really an aspect of the Nous itself, but rather it's an organizing function of the intellect utilized to effectively marshall sense perceptions into a coherent pragmatic structure. In other words, your sense of a discrete and separate self is a key function which enables you to eat, walk around, not run into walls, and so forth. However, it's merely a function like any other. The sense of self is not the be-all and end all of life which some people mistake it for.

To repeat: the sense of an I is a merely a function like sight, sound, taste, touch, hearing, perhaps intuition, and the like. The sense of self is important, as is any of the body's sensing functions. But to think that the I is the whole point of living is to make the most serious of mistakes. Then the I becomes something to be protected and defended at all costs, and everything outside of the I's ambit becomes a potential but necessary casualty of the I's wars of conquest and defense. The death of the body then becomes the ultimate outrage, and something to be avoided at all costs. I sometimes see this problem crop up in the lives of people who have a terminal illness and no real faith in something beyond themselves.

It's all based on a trick of the light, so to speak. You mistake the sense of an I as being the essence or core of who you are, but it's not!

In much of traditional fourth and fifth century Christian spirituality much of the objective of spiritual practice, like subjection of the will to the Abba, one's chosen spiritual teacher, was to reduce as much as possible the I to a more manageable level, so it stopped running wild. The passions engendered by the interaction between the I and the senses were also to be brought into a state subjection (or even nullification) through aescetic practices such as fasting, vigils, psalmody, and manual labor leading to apatheia, or passionlessness. Detaching the I from the passions' rule is the point of classical aesceticism.

The objective of aescetic practice is not mere self-torture or punishment or self pay-back for sinning. If it is, it's a misunderstanding which results in a perversion of aescetism's intent, and not only won't do any good, but instead much harm will result.

I like to read the life stories which, among other things, set forth the austerities of the ancient hermits of the Sinai and Palestine, and the biographies of some of the modern saints of Mount Athos. When I think about them, however, it sort of seems that part of the objective of their aescetical practice was to reduce the body to such a low level of physical energy and heath that apatheia which inevitably results from sheer physical exhaustion!

Today, on the other hand, most people live austerity-free lives, and tiredness is a result of overwork or over indulgence, not spiritual practice.

Today the word apathy is understood as a state of listlessness, but it doesn't have the same meaning as apatheia. Modern apathy is close to the Greek term accedia, or absence of caring. Apatheia is the state of not being ruled by one's passions, which arise from a misplaced love, the interactive eros of the I and sense perceptions.

Look into yourself, deeper than your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, deeper than your sense of self, to the basic awareness which prexists those functions. Mental phenomena seem to spontaneously arise in this clear empty sky. Observing it carefully, thoughts and perceptions appear out of nowhere, float about for a while like clouds, and dissipate like clouds, getting whispier and whispier before vanishing altogether. Pleasure, pain, sweet, sour, sounds, emotions, ideas, conceptions, seem to spontaneously appear. But looking beyond the clouds directly at the Nous itself you can't find anything at all. It's more like space itself - an expanse with no center or edge.

St. Paul understands the human person to be composed of pneuma (breath of life... some people call this Spirit), sarx (body... the physical form), and psyche.

The dictionaries I've consulted seem to define Psyche as:

1. The spirit or soul.

2. The mind functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior and consciously or unconsciously adjusting or mediating the body's responses to the social and physical environment.

This is a REALLY confusing definition! Now, some interpreters think the psyche is the 'soul', whatever that means. Others identify it as the intellect. But surely that second definition can't be right, unless the intellect is something other than that part of the mind which is ideational. If both of the definitions above are simultaneously the case, if the soul and the intellect are the same, some people would have better, more effective souls than other people, which is obviously absurd and contrary to everything every religion teaches.

I am taking a big leap here, friends, but I am thinking that Soul, Psyche and Nous are terms which point to the same experiential phenomenon. Here's the aside which links Nous and Naus. In Greek, Naus is the word for 'boat' or 'ship'. It's where we get the word Navy or Naval from. You see, the Nous is our Naus to God, to the present experience of the Divine in this life.

Simplifying this to an almost heretical extent.... Religion is method. It's how we surround the Nous with the Holy so that the Holy appears within it, together with Christ filling the Nous by God's grace through the power of the Holy Spirit, instead of filling it with a World which is seemingly empty.

Of course God could just fill the Nous spontaneously, but He doesn't seem to work that way very often. We need to do something as well. There's generally (but not invariably) a synergy which exists in the spiritual life.

Some simple notes on the soul:

Plato, who it goes without saying is a vastly greater thinker than I could ever be, considers the Psyche as the essence of who we are, but separates it into three parts:

1. Logos, understood as Nous, mind, or reason (though that's odd, since reason is a brain function)

2. Thymos, emotion

3. Eros, the appetites

Aristotle expanded on Plato's definition of the soul, and split it up differently:

A. Rational

1. Calculative

2. Scientific

B. Irrational

1. Appetitive

2. Vegetative

He also disagreed with his teacher's view that it has a separate existence.

Avicenna, the great Muslim Aristotelian philosopher, set forth the principle that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, but not a goal to be achieved. I recall that Bishop Francis Eric Bloy, Episcopal Church bishop of Los Angeles once told me that what he called 'consciousness' or the soul is something like the other elements which make up who we are, which is to say calcium, phosphorous, iron, oxygen, and so forth. When the body dies, the elements separate from their temporary agglomeration, including our God-given consciousness soul-element.

I'll continue my musings on this subject in next week's Nous/Naus post.

2009-01-13T23:28:00.001-08:00

This is a photo of a page from my great grandfather Lewellyn Christopher Seal's Bible. He was born the year the Civil War started, and died the year World War II began. According to family lore, he wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box, but was a good man, and a devout Christian. He wrote religious poetry in his Bible in his beautiful script. I'm amazed that it's not only so neat, but that he made so few mistakes!

The page entitled 'Ask Believe Receive' suggests that the idea behind that recent boffo best-seller The Secret is hardly unique. Not fair! My great grandpa ought to sue for a part of those enormous royalties! *Just kidding*

I also have a bunch of letters he wrote to a native African missionary he supported in what was then the Belgian Congo, and I also have the missionary's responses, as well as a photo of the guy. Looking at that picture taken so long ago, and knowing what Africa is like at first hand, I wonder not whether that missionary's work was effective, but more basic things, like whether or not the village exists, or if any any of his descendants survive.

Scott Kellermann, one of my very dearest friends, works in a place not unlike so many other out of the way corners of Africa. The people are poor, very poor. There isn't much for people to eat apart from baked bananas, potatos, millet, and a few fruits and vegetables. It's on the edge of the Worst Place In The World, the Eastern Congo.

When I was in Buhoma, SW Uganda this past August, looking at the hospital I wondered, 'Will all this be here in ten years?' No one knows. Africa is a strange, unforgiving place, and the human effort and money which would raise up an enduring insititution in other places counts for nothing there.

What's the point then, if chances are that nothing will survive very long? I guess it's about trying to do what is right by someone who needs your help, and not expecting any more than that.

When I walk home from work at the end of the day I often turn around and look at the lovely front of Trinity Church. It's East Coast Gothic Revivial style, I suppose. It's pretty much a copy of Trinity Church, Sonora (except the tower is on the opposite side), which together with Emmanuel Church, Grass Valley are the oldest Episcopal churches in California. It's been standing there since 1872. But it's made out of wood, unlike my parish churches of Etton and Helpston in England, which were built in the 10th century on foundations even earlier than that. And they are stone buildings, with walls two to three feet thick at least.

Someday, beyond doubt, even those wonderful enduring walls will crumble, though they may last much longer than Trinity, Nevada City's wood construction. Human beings often struggle to find meaning in the face of the impermanence of all their efforts, so they assume what is will go on forever. I guess the recent fnancial/economic meltdown put paid to that illusion!

This afternoon I took a walk in the Pioneer Cemetery which is on a knoll just west of Nevada City. It's so beautiful, in part, because of its lonely, abandoned atmosphere. No neatly mown grass sward, just a carpet of pine needles underneath the trees covering up our inevitably clay soil underneath. There are lots of wobbly little wooden plaques stuck upright in the earth, cut in a coffin-like shape, without lettering, marking the grave of someone unknown. A lot of those fragile memorials to nameless people have rotted in the ground and already toppled over. And then there are a few marble headstones, their incised letters gradually melting in the weather and the years.

I have no doubt that some day -and may it be long, long years- Trinity Church will vanish, whether by fire or termites or dry rot, or redevelopment. And then, what will all I -we- tried to do mean? The lovely interior, the beautiful stone wall, the stained glass windows. Is that the reason why I -we- do all this, make all this effort?

Of course not. But, it's good to have a backdrop for our worship, for people's seeking and finding God. And it's a Mitzvah (http://www.chabad.org/search/keyword_cdo/kid/1533/jewish/Mitzvah.htm) - a part of our spiritual practice - to make where we worship beautiful, in a human sense, for God.The Jews call it 'adorning the Mitzvah'. Doing a Mitzvah isn't just obeying a commandment, it's a way of drawing closer to God. Doing your best on the Mitzvah is a way of honoring the Eternal (as some orthodox Jews call Him, avoiding even a hint of the Name). The church is a microcosm of the traditional Christian cosmology, but like everything that comes together in time and space, it comes apart just as easily as it came together, and maybe even easier.

On a somewhat regular basis I take delivery of the cremated remains of people. The box is always surprisingly heavy for a little thing. And I always ask myself as I feel its heft, 'So it all comes down to this does it?'

This evening, when I was driving to Lori and Scott Leaman's house to anoint, lay hands on, and pray for her and the family before she and Scott and Becca go to Stanford tomorrow for her surgery, this went through my mind suddenly and powerfully: 'In exchange for this fleeting world we are given Eternity.' And even while we're in this world we're given the scent of Eternity. Sometimes we glimpse it, or recall it, if for just a moment.

Psalm 56:8 'My wandering You have Yourself counted; place my tears in Your flask, are they not in Your record?'

Indeed, nothing is forgotten, nothing is overlooked. The transience we experience and find so painful at times is part of the picture, a necessary part. But what is done is not lost, and God has counted all our tears. They are in His flask, and in time will turn to joy.

Last Words

2009-01-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

[These are my 'last words' which, God willing, will be read at my funeral, though if time permits, they might change a bit. In Japan, it's a tradition that a person should have what is called a 'death poem' ready to say as one departs this world, condensing what the author understands the most important aspects of the meaning of life to be. It doesn't have to be self-consciously profound, since genuine depth in daily life is discovered in the living, not in congitating. Just write what you feel is true in your heart. The ordinary is extraordinary, and vice versa. It's sort of like the truth that spending real 'quality time' with people isn't about going to Disneyland or Hawaii on vacation, but rather hanging out at home with your family and friends. What's most important is generally right there in front of you, not someplace else. I'll be posting a couplet by couplet commentary on the following....]

Now we are beyond meeting or parting,

Beyond sorrow or regret,

Keep in mind

What I have to say-

If religious teachings and practice is the Basis,

you're missing the point.

The inner life is not about remembering God;

It's about not forgetting.

Traversing the spiritual path does not mean

becoming what you are not;

Arriving at the goal does not mean

you have gone anywhere at all.

Measuring self and other is not the objective,

neither is it striving to obtain what you already have.

The reach and range of the nature of things cannot be grasped -

without center or edge, it is comprehended in an instant.

As for thoughts and emotions, let them be; they arise & dissipate

of their own accord, like clouds passing through an empty sky.

Be who you are

and the supreme secret is displayed for all to see.

Take your ease in the ageless cycle

of day and night;

Eagerly fulfill the compassionate intent of Messiah Jesus

toward this this thing of beauty, this passing world.

Appreciate what you have in the palm of your hand;

You have nothing more: it is all that you need.

“Commit your way to the LORD,

put your trust in Him, and He will bring it to pass.” - Psalm 37:5

Christopher Seal 16 DEC 02 – 31 DEC 08 All Applicable Rights Reserved

What is Nous (or Naus)?

2008-12-24T09:52:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia (yes, some people are snobbish about it, but Wikipedia is remarkably accurate in most cases): Nous in Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the eye of the soul. Just as the soul of man, is created by God, man's soul is intelligent and noetic. St Thalassios wrote that God created beings "with a capacity to receive the Spirit and to attain knowledge of Himself; He has brought into existence the senses and sensory perception to serve such beings". Eastern Orthodox Christians hold that God did this by creating mankind with intelligence and noetic faculties. Angels have intelligence and nous, whereas men have reason, nous and sensory perception. This follows the idea that man is a microcosm and an expression of the whole creation or macrocosmos; it is through the healed and corrected nous and the intelligence that man knows and experiences God.

In this belief, soul is created in the image of God. Since God is Trinitarian, Mankind is Nous, Word and Spirit. The same is held true of the soul (or heart): it has nous, word and spirit. To understand this better first an understanding of St Gregory Palamas's teaching that man is a representation of the trinitarian mystery should be addressed. This holds that God is not meant in the sense that the Trinity should be understood anthropomorphically, but man is to be understood in a triune way. Or, that the Trinitarian God is not to be interpreted from the point of view of individual man, but man is interpreted on the basis of the Trinitarian God. And this interpretation is revelatory not merely psychological and human. This means that it is only when a person is within the revelation, as all the saints lived, that he can grasp this understanding completely (see theoria). The second presupposition is that mankind has and is composed of nous, word and spirit like the trinitarian mode of being. Man's nous, word and spirit are not hypostases or individual existences or realities, but activities or energies of the soul. Were as in the case with God or the Persons of the Holy Trinity each are indeed hypostases. So these three components of each individual man are `inseparable from one another' but they do not have a personal character" when in speaking of the being that is mankind.

The nous as the eye of the soul, which some Fathers also call the heart, is the center of man and is where true (spiritual) knowledge is validated. This is seen as true knowledge which is "implanted in the nous as always co-existing with it" (Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos)

The Revelatory Present Moment

2008-12-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

Adlestrop

by Edward Thomas

Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.