Living From the Divine Ground: Meister Eckhart's Praxis of Detachment

Radler, Charlotte

doi:10.1353/scs.2006.0045

Spiritus

2006

DOI: 10.1353/scs.2006.0045

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Living From the Divine Ground: Meister Eckhart's Praxis of Detachment

Charlotte Radler¹

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Cited by 2 publications

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“…And the solipsism renders the soul "containing nothing but Himself alone, and looks to nothing and nobody but Him," in which the self manifests an ultimate egocentric possessiveness of God. According to Meister Eckhart, the attachment to the self will obscure our ultimate transparent existence in God, so we have to relinquish all forms of attachment, 7 in which the negation of the images as the embodiment of the self and God is a crucial step. In particular, the two quoted passages both adopt kataphatic approaches, such as words, images, symbols, and ideas, in order to demonstrate the residence of God (or Buddha) in the soul.…”

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Images of Mind, Images of God: Mirror as Metaphor in Chinese Buddhism and Early Mysticism

Fan¹

2018

Buddhist-Christian Studies

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In ancient China, Zen Buddhism undergoes three stages of transformation: from advocating "contemplating the heart" and "maintaining quiet," into "absence of thought" and "see one's nature," then into "ordinary mind is the way," which corresponds to Meister Eckhart's three stages concerning the relation between human beings and God: man created according to the image of God, man as creature flowing out of the God of nothingness, and detachment from the concept of God. In this article, we will discuss the mirror as an indispensable metaphor in the process of Zen Buddhism's and German Mysticism's transformation, as a mediator between man and God, sometimes even discarded as an obstacle to discern Godhead as nothingness or to act in quotidian life with a detached ordinary mind. The essay will discuss the different functions of mirror image in Mysticism and Zen Buddhism, and how the apophatic approach facilitates pure mystic experience to access the non-embodied or even Godhead reduced to nothingness, as well as Buddha-nature, through "'emptying' out of other conscious content in order to 'make room' for the apprehension of God, who is beyond our discursive, sensual natures." Therefore, nothing and nobody, through apophasis, should replace Him and God, which not only is discussed in Meister Eckhart's later sermons, but also is unfolding in the conflict between two eminent ancient Chinese Zen masters, Huineng (the Sixth Patriarch) and Shenxiu. The "ordinary mind is the way" in Zen Buddhism, resonating profoundly with Mystic detachment, indicates the different emphasis on vita contemplativa and vita activa in different periods, as well as diverting beings gradually from attachment to the heart and divinity to leading a spontaneous life guided by detachment and ordinary mind.

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confidence: 99%

Images of Mind, Images of God: Mirror as Metaphor in Chinese Buddhism and Early Mysticism

Fan¹

2018

Buddhist-Christian Studies

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Immanence, Transcendence and Thinking Life with Deleuze and Eckhart

Haynes

2013

Medieval Mystical Theology

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This paper questions the post-Nietzschean, materialist assumption that divine transcendence is necessarily inimical to life. In light of Eugene Thacker’s distinction between Life and the living, this paper explores the concept of life in the works of Meister Eckhart and Gilles Deleuze, two thinkers who, when read alongside each other, reveal how the notions of absolute transcendence and absolute immanence invert into each other. One consequence of such inversion is that both thinkers face the question of how to think life in relation to nothingness. While it might seem that Eckhart’s negative theology confirms the Nietzschean suspicion that divine transcendence is anti-life, the paper seeks to forestall such a conclusion by showing how Eckhart’s apophaticism is better able to uphold the integrity of this-worldly life than Deleuze’s immanentism. However, the paper ultimately criticises both thinkers for failing to affirm the value of finite, creaturely life in itself

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Living From the Divine Ground: Meister Eckhart's Praxis of Detachment

Cited by 2 publications

References 15 publications

Images of Mind, Images of God: Mirror as Metaphor in Chinese Buddhism and Early Mysticism

Images of Mind, Images of God: Mirror as Metaphor in Chinese Buddhism and Early Mysticism

Immanence, Transcendence and Thinking Life with Deleuze and Eckhart

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