Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Experience and Beliefs: Teresa of Avila and Ikkyu Sojun

        Teresa was a lukewarm nun for many years when she returned to the convent after overcoming her illness. She would spend hours meditating, and each time, she would count the hours waiting for it to be over. But, through practice and faith, her prayer deepened, and she became a devout Roman Catholic. Because of her faith, she was rewarded with vision, levitation, and healing abilities and was able to talk to God. She began to experience visions and raptures, which was when she was taken into the realm of the divine, and at the age of forty, they began to testify. Since she was experiencing these supernatural things, it caused her to be under suspension for being a fraud or being possessed. Yet there were still some who believed what she was seeing and hearing was true. Because of this, her superiors would order her to write detailed accounts of her life and her mystical experiences under the supervision of the Inquisition. This was when she wrote her autobiography "La Vida." During her mystical rapture experiences, she would be taken to the realms of the divine, where she would see what it was like. There was one time when she was taken into hell, and she described it as, "The entrance seemed to be by a long narrow pass, like a furnace, very low, dark, and close. The ground seemed to be saturated with water and mere mud, exceedingly foul, sending forth pestilential odours, and covered with loathsome vermin. At the end was a hollow place in the wall, like a closet, and in that I saw myself confined." (Avila, Ch 33). Yet, when she experienced raptures, they would sometimes be accompanied by her body being affected intensely and violently through feelings of deprivation and paralysis. It felt as if she was close to death since her pulse would slow down, and she would experience extreme joint pain. She would lose sensory input, which would cause her body to cease to function as she could not hear or see. Her body would stay in the same position it was in at the start of her raptures, and it would not move until her raptures finished. Because of this, many would happen to witness seeing her go into raptures and would often mistake her raptures for cataleptic seizures. In one of her most famous visions, she experienced a mystical union with God, and it got so strong that she saw an angel at her side who would pierce her in the heart with an arrow of God's love. During her visions and raptures, she would sometimes experience levitations. Yet, Teresa hated it when she experienced levitations, as there were witnesses who claimed to see Teresa cling to something so she wouldn't levitate.
    She also could talk to God/Jesus, and one of her most famous conversations with Jesus was after she was discouraged when she heard that rumors began to spread of her visions through the convent, and this made her the subject of gossip and mockery. She then complains to Jesus about this, to which Jesus tells her, "Teresa, that's how I treat my friends." she responds with, "No wonder you have so few!" (Ullmann, R). Teresa would also have healing abilities, and one of her most famous healings was when her nephew was crushed by a wall that had fallen onto him. He was apparently dead and was then brought to his aunt Teresa who held him in her arms and prayed deeply. after a few minutes of prayer, her nephew came back to life. (St. Teresa of Avila, n.d.). Even though Teresa was able to do amazing things with her mystical abilities, she was not fond of having them. This is because most of her mystical experiences would cause her to experience uncomfortable things or be in uncomfortable situations, as previously discussed. But her mystical experiences would allow her to develop virtues that were necessary for prayer. In her book, The Way of Perfection, she wrote three virtues that were necessary for prayer which are love of neighbor, detachment, and humility. Love for your neighbor will allow you to overcome egoism and self-seeking, while detachment will help with distraction and enslavement. With humility, the delusions about ourselves will vanquish. 
    Ikkyū Sōjun experienced enlightenment in 1420 at the age of 26 while he was on a small boat during a late summer's night. In the Buddhist religion, enlightenment means when a person awakens, when they escape the reincarnation cycle, and when they reach nirvana. Reaching nirvana means that the person is freed from the three poisons which are greed, ill will, and delusion. When Ikkyū Sōjun was presented with his certification of enlightenment by his master Kaso, it was reported that instead of receiving the certificate, he threw it into the fire and watched it burn. The reason why he didn't receive his certification of enlightenment is because, he had witnessed how many undeserving Zen masters received their certification due to the fact that they had paid for it rather than reaching enlightenment. Like many Zen Buddhists, Ikkyū believed in reincarnation and practiced meditation. However, he believed that a person can experience enlightenment when they are doing everyday life scenarios, like drinking tea. This is why he helped contribute to the Tea Ceremony because he wanted others to be able to experience enlightenment while doing something that they found relaxing. Even though he had similar beliefs to other Zen Buddhists, he also had conflicting beliefs with the religion. Such as not following the celibacy rule and participating in immoral behaviors like drinking and eating meat. His way of mediating was to go to brothels rather than going to temples. He also criticized the Buddhist religion and one of his biggest critiques was how he criticized how Zen Buddhists would teach about detachment but would follow and implement the rigorist disciplines and rules to follow the Buddhist religion. Ikkyū argued that those who followed the discipline and rules of being a Buddhist monk were actually not detached from earthly desires as they were too focused on keeping the image of being the perfect monk causing them to become attached to earthly desires. 
    Even though Ikkyū was not a typical Zen master, he did show he had a lot of spirituality, especially through his poems. In his poem titled "A Fisherman," he talks about the difficulty of the tension that happens between the solitary pursuit of knowledge and the nexus of life. The first line of his poem hammers this in, "Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind." (Ikkyū) It shows that knowledge can make you lose your identity. In another poem, "After They Die", Ikkyū critiques how people are called Buddhas after they die when all they did when they were alive was conforming to societal expectations rather than achieve spiritual enlightenment. This poem shows how Ikkyu was more interested in growing his spirituality than conforming to the expectations that were set on him. In the poem titled "My Hovel," Ikkyū discusses his longing for a deeper spiritual connection while living in a world of harsh realities. Within the first line, he discusses the wasted potential that he is writing, "The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me." Instead of living a life full of spirituality, he lives in a world full of negativity, which makes him become a worse version of himself. Ikkyū made it clear that he wanted to focus on growing his spirituality, and this meant that he would be seen as an unconventional monk. Yet he did not care and argued that his thoughts were able to help him become more spiritual rather than follow the organized religion. 
    Both Teresa of Ávila and Ikkyū Sōjun experienced spiritual transformations and encounters within their respective divines. Teresa's journey from a lukewarm nun to a devout Roman Catholic nun involved deepening her prayer life through practice and faith, leading to mystical experiences such as visions, levitation, and healing abilities. Similarly, Ikkyū attained enlightenment in the Buddhist tradition through a moment of awakening while on a boat, rejecting formal certification due to his disillusionment with the perceived commercialization of enlightenment. Both figures challenged the norms of their respective religious institutions, with Teresa facing suspicion and scrutiny from superiors and the Inquisition over her mystical experiences, while Ikkyū critiqued the rigidity and hypocrisy he experienced within Zen Buddhism. Despite their unconventional paths, both Teresa and Ikkyū emphasized the importance of spiritual growth and humility. Teresa advocated her three virtues, and Ikkyū expressed his longing for a deeper spiritual connection through his poetry. Ultimately, both figures exemplify the transformative power of spiritual devotion and the pursuit of enlightenment beyond the confines of tradition and orthodox.


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Quotes

  -Sheldrake   1. "Mystical experiences can lead to a radical transformation of consciousness, challenging conventional notions of real...