The Transfiguration of Christ - Commentary

There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light. Oddly enough it might be a Tibetan, reading the account of the Transfiguration in todays gospel, who has no problem seeing it as a real event, while a scientifically minded Christian would see it as symbolic. Either way, the meaning is clear. There was more to Jesus than met the eye. That more, that transfiguring light, could however be seen with another eye, another kind of perception. Blake said that if our perception was clear we would be able to see everything as it really is infinite. It is impossible to imagine seeing something that is unbounded. Boundaries create the shape of objects. But purify your mind and you will be surprised what you can see. Forty days is enough to start and if Lent isnt surprising us, it isnt working." Laurence Freeman OSB From: leonardo@wccm.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Donna, Thank you. Very interesting passage on, I presume, 'Jesuit' meditation. Almost Zen like! Yes 'spiritual' seeing is different from 'worldly' seeing! This is what the Buddha (by the way the Buddha is not God, he is only a 'teacher' of spiritual meditation, despite what Albert tells you about Buddhists; I am a Jesuit Catholic but I also practise Zen meditation every day) said to Ananda in the Surangama Sutra "Therefore, Ananda, you should know that when you see the light, your seeing is not clear; when you see the darkness, your seeing is not obscure; when you see the void, it is not empty; and when you see obstruction, it is not obstructed. After you have understood these four states, you should also know that when your (absolute) seeing perceives the Essence of Seeing, the former is not the latter, which still differs from it; how can your (false) seeing reach that (absolute) seeing" Zen Master Han Shan translated this dictum as When seeing (perceives) seeing, seeing is not seeing, (for) seeing strays from seeing; seeing cannot reach it. So if Zen meditation is so obtuse or abstruse, even to Zen practitioners with a 'clear' mind, imagine Christians who do not practise 'Jesuit' meditation? How are they to understand Jesus' parables? What sort of 'seeing' is it that the Buddha is speaking of, that when you see 'light' it is 'unclear', that when you see 'darkness' it is 'clear', that when you see 'emptiness' it is a sort of 'form', and when you see 'form' it is a form of 'emptiness'? This is what Jesus said in Matthew 13:13 - "Therefore I speak to them in parables, because (worldly) seeing they do not (spiritually) see, and (worldly) hearing they do not (spiritually) hear, nor do they (spiritually) understand." and that "For (spiritual) judgment I have come into this world, that

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those who do not (spiritually) see may see, and those who (worldly) see may be made blind." [John 9:39] So very difficult to explain don't you think, that when we are 'worldly seeing' (with our false worldly self-ego and self-righteousness), that we are not really 'spiritually seeing'. The 'spiritual seeing' is in the 'experiencing' and 'understanding' from the 'experiencing'. Until we have fallen in love and have our hearts broken or have been loved and then rejected or hurt or cheated, we can never really know what love is and should really be, and then really love someone else or others truly and faithfully. It is only then, we can appreciate what Guanyin says - that "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form". For when we realise that life is empty because it (the form of our life) is never to our personal satisfaction, and then when we are awakened with spiritual insight we will then realise that because it is 'empty' that we can change the form of our life for the better, or at the minimum cope with or accommodate ourselves to the vagaries and uncertainties of life. If life were not empty of a permanent or unchangeable immutable form, how can we make amends, how can we repent, how can we redeem ourselves, how can we seek forgiveness, how can we forgive others, how can we turn over a new leaf, how can we mend our broken heart, how can we get over our broken dreams, how can we fall in love again? How can we be 'once blind but now see' and 'once lost and am now found'? How can we truly 'see' rather than 'hope' for eternity beyond mortality? How can we really understand the faith and amazing grace between Spirit Father and his spirit Lost Prodigal Son, the father's undying faith in his errant son's eventual awakening to filial piety, and the repentant son's faith in grace in his father's unconditional love to accept him back home however much he had sinned? Vince 17/3/14

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