Emptiness and Unknowing: An Essay in Comparative Mysticism

Summary

The article explores parallels in contemplative practices between Buddhism and Christianity, specifically focusing on meditation techniques and the experiences of practitioners. It highlights similarities found in Buddhist texts like the Cūḷa-Suññata-sutta and Christian works such as The Cloud of Unknowing. While acknowledging the debate between perennialists and constructivists regarding mystical experiences, it aims to illustrate commonalities in spiritual development across these two religious traditions.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Over the last fifty years the study of mysticism has been shaped by the debate between ‘perennialists’, who claim that mystical experiences are the same across different cultures, and ‘constructivists’, who claim that mystical experiences are shaped by, and hence specific to, particular religious traditions. The constructivist view is associated with the ‘discursive turn’ that has dominated the humanities for the last half century, emphasising cultural relativism. Nonetheless, the constructivist position is not without problems. Inspired in part by Lance Cousins’ 1989 comparison of Buddhaghosa’s Path of Purification and Teresa of Ávila’s Interior Castle, the present article seeks to bring out parallels in the contemplative exercises and the progress of the ‘spiritual life’ found in Buddhist accounts of meditation (such as the Cūḷa- Suññata-sutta) and Christian apophaticism (as presented in The Cloud of Unknowing). The article seeks to establish specific parallels in the techniques of and approaches to contemplative practice in both traditions, as well as in the phenomenology of the experiences of the meditator (yogāvacara) or contemplative at different stages in the work of meditation and contemplation.