The Meister himself, sage of simplicity.
The sage advice of a medieval mystic came to New Haven Thursday night — in the form of a reminder that being still is hard work, and, when done well, can bring one closer to God.
Such was a key takeaway from an illuminating conversation about the thought and poetry of Meister Eckhart, a 14th century German priest and philosopher, of the Dominican order. The gathering was convened at his eponymous center at Albertus Magnus College.
The event, titled “Living in Simplicity: Discover the Wisdom of Meister Eckhart,” featured Mark Burrows, an Eckhart scholar, poet/translator, and retreat leader, and drew about 40 people to the school’s community room in the Hubert Campus Center near Winchester Avenue.
Eckhart was known as a brilliant, extemporaneous preacher who reached into the hearts of regular people, said Burrows, in part because he specialized in making the sermon form un-stale and fresh, by thinking on his feet, and saying often really radical things that would astonish his listeners and get their (and, centuries later, our) attention, and ultimately that of the Inquisition.
Among them: The eye with which you see God is the same eye with which God sees you.
Mark Burrows: If God is “no thing” and you are “no thing,” then who are you?
Or, as paraphrased by Burrows: Do nothing because God is nothing.
You can see how the inquisitors were troubled by that one — and about 28 other specific statements for which he was called on the papal carpet by inquisitors in Avignon, France, in 1328.
But, Burrows explained, by “nothing,” Eckhart meant “no thing.” And if God is “no thing” and you are “no thing,” who are you? That was designed to get you thinking, to propel the person to the kind of profound self-reflection, often emerging from sustained and cultivated intervals of silence, which is the heart of the contemplative life.
Eckhart Center Director Prof. Edward Dunar, the evening’s interlocutor, asked: “Being still, being silent requires lots of self-work,” especially for us today in our message-assaulting environment, “so he’s implying a process of self-emptying. How do we, per Eckhart, achieve that?”
“You don’t do it, you don’t become, you un-become,” Burrows said, paraphrasing what would have been, he suggested, Eckhart’s answer.
Because he was in a sense discovering new conditions or elusive states of perception or trying to capture qualities for which theological terminology was insufficient, Burrows, with a poet’s eye, noted that Eckhart often invented new words to capture what he was after. With regard to the above, for example, for how you un-become, he neologized that process, in German as Gelassenheit, or “letting-be-ness.”
Eckhart, who became a church administrator and walked the length and breadth of northern Germany and Switzerland supervising more than 600 Dominican monasteries and other institutions, “never criticized sacraments,” said Burrows. “He was a priest, but he said you would never experience God in the sacraments. He would say sacraments are a help, but so is the flowing brook or a piece of wood.”
So is a parking spot or a squabble about a parking spot, but we’ll get to that later.
Then Dunar queried Burrows deeper into Eckhart’s many paradoxes: “If stillness needs to be the start of things,” he asked, “and Eckhart emphasizes stillness and letting-go-ness, so that it’s not your emotional state that’s the measure of things,” how do you as an individual know you’re on the right path?
The real contemplative is so grounded in God all they can do is live a life of service and love, said Burrows, per Eckhart.
“You live into a one-ness that needs be discovered by others, by serving those in greatest need,” he added. “I know it’s not fashionable in the current environment, but it’s true. You do good because, simply, it’s who you are. You do a good deed,” he continued, not because it’s expected, or merit is earned in some fashion, but because of who you are.
“You should not live with a ‘why,’ “ Burrows went on channeling Eckhart’s thought and language, “because there is no ‘why’ in God. God is not going about wondering, and asking why, or is confused. God is God. If you understand that, you are God!”
He really got in trouble for that one, Burrows said, and it was among the propositions he had to defend in Avignon that were considered dubious or heretical. “You would think he’s either been smoking something or confused,” Burrows joked, but Eckhart was serious. “He meant all of God is in you. The question is how to get the YOU out of the way so all of God is you. It’s the letting-be-ness.”
“This is so counter-cultural to our present moment,” responded Dunar.
“Yes,” said Burrows, “it’s not something you can achieve or boast about. Eckhart is so counter-cultural and was in his own day. There is no Why in God, God is why-less love!”
And on the gnarly connection between Eckhart-like contemplation “outside” of the world and taking action, even loving action, in the world, what’s the delicate balance and the relationship?
Burrows replied: “If you focus your whole life on action, it’s only a matter of time before you burn out. You need to find the light from the darkness, and when you find it, you’ll serve others. Not by telling them about the light, but by waiting with them in the darkness until they find the light.”
And now the parking:
Just before Burrows took the stage I asked Sister Anne Kilbride, the assistant to Albertus’s president for Dominican affairs at the school, how she understood Eckhart’s thought and sermons and how they related to life in New Haven today, like parking!
Her big take-away is his continual reminder to self-reflect, she said. When we react, as opposed to respond, she said, making a crucial distinction, “it’s usually a manifestation of the stress and anxiety that are not our best selves,” like in a parking squabble.
“Responding involves being conscious of others. Reacting is all about myself.”
No one, it seems, quite knows if the papal inquisition reacted or responded as Eckhart died shortly after the trial and before a formal verdict was issued. While some of his statements were condemned as heretical after his death, no one knows what happened to him, said Burrows. Times were turbulent, and what he said could indeed have been deemed so dangerous, he could have been killed on the road he walked from Avignon. No one knows.
And yet that mysterious disappearing end seems oddly to fit the paradoxical nature of the man and his thought, Burrows concluded.
For Burrows’s books and upcoming retreats and programs, click here. And here for the three collections of Eckhart poetry/writing translated by Burrows and his collaborator Jon Sweeny.
For the Eckhart Center’s future programs, click here.
Now disappear into yourself!
Mark Burrows and Ed Dunar.