My Kensho Experience of God's Compassion

During the Zen-Ignatian Retreat at Maryridge Retreat House, Tagaytay City, Philippines last March,1988 I have the following experience...

When I began the retreat with Ruben Habito, who was a newly accredited zen teacher at that time I told him of my desire to experience God's love in the course of my 30 day retreat, March 1-30, 1988. He gave me the koan Mu to work on. I then began the strenuous journey of sitting, breathing in and breathing out, plus, of course the lingering aching back and legs, while trying to silence the mind and the tense body.

During daily sitting, the Zen Master provided hints like, "every in-breath is God's self-emptying, and every out-breath is your self-offering to God." During "teisho" (Zen Talk), he reminded us all to be aware of our every act - eating, strolling, sleeping, etc. In the "dokusan" (zen student before zen teacher) room, he kept encouraging us by saying, "Just be yourself" and "Let your senses open".

During one of Ruben Habito's teisho, he talked about God's compassion. I was struck by the presentation of the compassionate God present in every being, in every breath, in every step. The challenge he threw my way was, "Now, show me God's compassion in its concrete form!"

One afternoon, during the latter part of the second week, I went down Maryridge Hill where grasses, trees, benches and a view of Taal Volcano waited. On one of the benches, I saw a moving row of grass worms. I sqatted by a bench and watched the worms slowly and quietly crawling along. Suddenly I felt something on my right leg. My right hand swept down to brush it off. When I looked down, I saw (and felt) a fellow grassworm. It was coiled, aftraid and hurt by my rejection. At that very moment, my own childhood experience of being rejected flashed in my mind. I really felt one with that worm. I tried to comfort it by placing it alongside the row of marching worms, but it remained coiled. Following my natural instinct, I got a dry leaf, slid the worm on top of it, and slowly breathed with compassion on the round stiff mass. With relief and joy, I saw the worm moved. I put it back again with its fellow worms, who made room for it and the line became perfect again. At that moment I also felt the great compassion I had received from my superiors and friends who understood and accepted me as I am.

The next day at dukusan, I told Ruben Habito about the incident, saying there seems to be a fusion of mu, my breath and God's compassion. He nodded and shot another question at me, "What's the other name of God's compassion?" When I failed to respond immediately, he rang the bell for dismissal, but encouraged me by saying that I was close to grasping Mu.

That evening, I sensed one of my fellow retreatants wanted to talk, so I listened to him as had coffee together. At dokusan the next day I told Ruben Habito that I stayed with by brother in his time of need, and so the other name of God's compassion is a loving presence. He did not say I was right or wrong, but told me he wanted a concrete response. I went back to my sitting, to my search and to my awareness of every moment.

Later, during one of our sits, Ruben Habito uttered in a loud voice, "Every breath is full and complete...Every breath is God's compassion received and given." I began anew to put my whole self and whole being into every step of the kinhin (zen meditative walk) that followed. I began to realize the fullness of it all. Every step is as ordinary as myself, and as perfect as myself. At that very moment, I became aware that God's compassion is Bobby doing every act as full, completely full, but at the same time completely empty.

This experience was heightened the next afternoon. I was sitting under a tree when my eye fell on a fallen leaf. Instantaneously, there was complete identification, and I went right to Ruben Habito and told him the other name of God's compassion. He threw out some more koans, and when I responded without hesitation, he confirmed my "kensho" (zen awakening) experience. All creation walked with me the rest of the day. I savored the beauty of that reality.

In subsequent dokusan, I was confronted with the koan about the origin of Mu. It was evening and I was tired, and I did not want even to think about the answer, knowing that a direct concrete grasp of it is the Zen way of getting it. When I turned off the light in my room before retiring, I noticed how bright the moonlight was. I went to the window and there she was smiling at me. I asked her what her origin is. Her answer enveloped me completely. I returned her smile and went to bed.

When I went to dokusan the next day, I let myself be one with the moon and her response, and Ruben Habito joined me in the smile. He did, however, asked me to save one dying child in Africa. And that night as I went to bed again, in the clear moonlight, all the world joined me and I rested fully as I am.

I am most grateful for my experience which I can best describe as one of undifferentiation, as the Zen books say. I am not different from the universe. And in just doing every act as best I can in full awareness, I am receiving and giving God's compassion to all people. - Bobby Sagra

You are My Beloved--Be Still and Know...

You are My Beloved--Be Still and Know...
by Ruben Habito
(Perkins Chapel, Sept. 10, 2003)

Readings:
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 46
Mark 1:9-11

When I was a theological student preparing for ordination in the Roman Catholic priesthood in the 1960’s and 70’s, one of my professors conveyed a point in class that continues to resonate with me today. This was in our class in Introduction to the New Testament, taught by an Austrian-born Jesuit priest who had spent years in China as a missionary, suffered torture and harassment, and was sent to the Philippines to join the Jesuits there after the Chinese government had closed its doors to Christian missionary activity. A diminutive man barely over five feet tall and into his seventies, he would stand on a platform in front of the classroom, and speak to us in a thundering voice with a thick European accent.

“The Bible,” he would say, “is a love letter, from God, to all of us.”

As a Biblical scholar and teacher, he was no less demanding in walking us through the rigors of Greek conjugation, and historical and form criticism, redaction criticism, and through the different hermeneutical strategies for understanding Biblical passages in their social and historical context. But while teaching us all these sophisticated tools for approaching the Bible, he succeeded in conveying to us a fundamental attitude in its reading, namely, that is not to be read in the way that one would dissect a biological specimen to analyze its contents in a dispassionate way. Rather, we take it, and read it as a beloved would read a letter from a lover.

The passages read today somehow highlight this message I heard from my Jesuit professor of long ago. I would like to invite each and everyone here today to just pause, and let these words resonate within ourselves, each in our own unique way.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine.
“Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”
“Fear not, for I am with you.” (Is. 43: 1, 4)

The words that Jesus heard as he was baptized in the Jordan, inaugurating his ministry, are likewise addressed to each and everyone of us, in a unique way. “You are my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” (Mk.1:11)

I have a well-grounded hunch, that each and everyone of us is where we are today, precisely because we have heard this voice in our lives in a particular way. The call to ministry is a call that is born out of love, and is a call to share that love with all that we have and all that we are. We are here at Perkins community in our respective ways, as students preparing for ministry, as faculty, as staff, as our concrete way of responding to that call of love.

Those of you who are here to prepare yourselves for ministry in the Christian community in different ways, taking up the call to undergo this rigorous and taxing, but sometimes exhilarating journey called the curriculum of studies, are hopefully able to find in one another as well as in the faculty and staff, true companions along the way. The word companion, by the way, is from the Latin, cum, with, and pan, bread---that is, one with whom one takes bread together. We are in the good company of persons who share a fundamental calling, coming out of a hearing of that message: You are my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

Incidentally this weekend, the faculty will meet in our annual conference, to discuss and share with one another about our calling as theological educators, in continuation of the same theme from last year. It is indeed a moving experience to hear one’s colleagues openly share about this very intimate dimension of their lives, and a very heartwarming experience to find resonances with one another on these matters.

We do not need to be reminded of the fact that taking up the call is not always a smooth ride. We inevitably run into situations wherein we are put to the test, not just in Hebrew grammar or Greek conjugations, but with issues that may cast doubt on the whole enterprise we have embarked upon. Do I really have a calling? We may come to a crisis of faith, a crisis of vocation at some point, before, or after graduation from Perkins. We are also not immune from personal tragedies of different kinds. In these situations we may be asking ourselves---where is the love?

As we open our eyes and ears to what is happening in the world around us, the world wherein we are called to witness to that love that we have heard in our hearts and are seeking to embody in our own lives, we cannot help recognize that the words of the Psalm read earlier ring true for us today in our world as it did in the Psalmist’s own time.

The nations are in turmoil, the kingdoms totter…(Ps. 46: 6)

We live in a world marked by tremendous suffering that many of our fellow human beings are bearing. Tomorrow, as we recall, is September 11, and the pain of that tragic event that happened two years ago is still felt by the entire world today. (We will commemorate the event at our liturgy tomorrow, and with a special service in the evening.) Rather than abating and being healed by the passage of time, subsequent actions and reactions by human beings, not excluding ourselves, in response to that tragic event, appear to have deepened the wounds and heightened the divisions in our human family.

We are witness to the continuing violence we humans perpetrate on one another on various levels, in our families, in our schools, in the inner cities, not to mention the more than thirty or so different regions of the world where actual warfare is being waged right at this moment. Looking at another kind of violence, World Health Organization statistics inform us that approximately 35,000 children under the age of five die daily in our world, due to causes related to hunger and malnutrition. We are also made aware of the violence to the Earth and to God’s creation, as we feel the effects of a deteriorating ecological situation. Indeed, in all this, where is the love? Perhaps we may even come to a point where we are led to ask, is there really a God in all this?

Confronted with the woundedness of creation and of our fellow human beings, not excluding our own personal woundedness, our hearts may be led to cry in anguish, “where is the love?”

Perhaps there have been moments when we could identify with Jesus on the Cross, as he cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
In such moments, as we feel most vulnerable, as we feel inundated by the our own personal pain, or by the pain of the whole creation, groaning for justice, crying out for salvation, longing for God, this cry of Jesus becomes our very own. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

In such moments, we can do nothing cry out in our powerlessness, one with the countless fellow creatures of ours who bear the cross of Jesus in their very bodies. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

If we find ourselves in such a dark night of the soul, the Psalmist invites us: let us not try to find some way of turning our attention away from the darkness and the pain, or to seek some kind of false consolation or diversion. We are invited not to succumb to the different weapons of mass distraction that our society provides for us, seeking momentary pleasures, burying ourselves in our work or even in our studies, taking up some mindless computer game that will ease away the pain or anxiety or turmoil we feel coming from within. Instead, we are invited to be still, and stay there in that darkness, and wait, and trust.

I am reminded of the story of someone who accidentally slipped walking by a steep cliff, and was about to fall into a ravine, but luckily was able to hang on to a branch that stuck out a rock near the top. Looking up to heaven, this person cries out, “O God, help me! Are you there? Help me!” A voice thunders from the heavens, saying, “I am your God. Have no fear. Trust in me. Let go.” The person hesitates for a moment, and looking up, cries out, “Is there anybody else out there?”

On a serious note, I am also reminded of a person dear to my heart, whose picture I always carry in my wallet. Her name is Simone Weil, a woman born of Jewish parentage, who joined those resisting tyranny as a nurse’s aide, and died at the age of 32 before the end of the Second World War. There are many things I could say about her, but here let allow me to justrecall two or three points.

She was a person extremely sensitive to the sufferings of her fellow humans, and sought a way of life that would help in the alleviation of this suffering.

She was a person who relentlessly asked the big questions about human existence. Her own life was a continuing religious search, and its motif was summed up in the title given to a collection of her letters and essays published after her death: Waiting on God. (The French, Attente de Dieu, invites the resonance not just of “waiting,” but also of “being attentive,” “paying attention,” “attending to.”

I was very inspired and thrilled the other day when, sitting in at a class in Interpretation of the New Testament of Professor Jaime Clark-Soles, I noted that one of her essays was on the required reading list. This is an essay entitled “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.” This class became an occasion for me to read her essay once again after a lapse of more than twenty years. What does a person like Simone Weil have to say to us today, which also relates to a fundamental attitude in the Interpretation of the New Testament?

This essay conveys one central point: the development of the faculty of attention. Simone points out that studies “…are extremely effective in increasing the power of attention which will be available at the time of prayer, on condition that they be carried out for this purpose, and this purpose alone.” (Waiting on God, p.66) In other words, it is this same attentiveness that we are invited to give to our studies, as we are to give to God in prayer, as well as to our neighbor in seeking to know how to love them.

As we go through our dark night of the soul, Simone Weil suggests: stay there in all attentiveness, and listen. If we are patient enough to stay there and truly listen in that silence, perhaps we may hear a gentle, reassuring voice, addressing us, in the middle of our darkness and pain. These are the same words that Jesus heard throughout his life, including those bleakest moments as he hung on the Cross.
“You are My Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

As we are able to hear this voice addressed to us personally, in a most intimate way to ourself, we are also able to hear it as being addressed to each and everyone of our fellow human beings, fellow creatures of the Divine Grace that brought us out of nothingness into being.
You are my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

The Psalmist invites us to the same stance.
“…though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult…the nations are in turmoil, the kingdoms totter…
yet…God’s voice is uttered, the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come, behold the works of God. See what desolations have been wrought upon the earth. God makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. God breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, burns the shields with fire.
Be still, and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am God, exalted among the nations, exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” (Ps. 46)

I close with this image of Jacob, whom we all know is a person who wrestled with God. As we go through the ups and downs, the twists and turns of our daily tasks, seeking to be faithful to our calling, seeking guidance on the concrete ways we are called to minister to this wounded world, we may sometimes get hemmed in and feel trapped by the minutiae of issues put on our way, and find ourselves in the midst of a struggle. The figure of Jacob reminds us with Whom it is that we are struggling, with Whom it is that we are wrestling. In the midst of this struggle, the words of the Psalmist again address us at the deepest layers of our being.

“Be still, and know, that I am God.” And in that stillness, we might hear once more, in a more resounding way: “You are my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

Personal Comments: Ruben Habito is one of the significant persons in my spiritual formation. I first met him in Maryridge Retreat House in Tagaytay City in March 1988when I participated in a 30 Day Zen-Ignatian Retreat conducted by him aided by Rosario Battung and another religious sister whose name I forgot. The last time I met Ruben was in Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, Texas in February 2006 and I had the grace of going for Dokusan on the Koan Mu before him and confirmed by him. His last words for me before I headed back to Pecos Benedictine Monastery in Pecos, New Mexico was, "Be the compassion of God for others." In these few words he summarized his whole teaching of what living zen is all about - just living God's compassion, wherever I am, whatever I do. For me the key to this is that verse in Psalm 46, "Be still and know that I am God." Every day I have the sheer delight of looking at the stillness of the white mountain here, right from the window of my McCloud River apartment. Each time I take a glance my heart is lifted up to great amazement and wonder. The mountain takes everything, the changes of the season, the clouds, the rains, the sunshine, yet it stays still, calm and majestic. I remember a Koan that Ruben Habito used to ask us during that 30 day retreat in Tagaytay. How can you make the mountain in the middle of the lake move? It was on that retreat that I myself discovered and realized God as compassion and experienced a deep enlightenment of my soul. It was around the third week of the retreat. I was sitting on a bench outside while looking at the lake below. A worm came by crawling over my skin. I brushed it off and it fell to the ground. I felt sorry for the worm and took it back and let it rest on the palm of my hand. I comforted it and breathed onto it. Life was ignited in the worm and in me as I entered into "just being one" with it. Then I knew what love is, what compassion is all about and who God is! Today, that is also my stance for life, my vision for living and joy of being - to be the embodiment of God's compassion in the world. - Bobby Sagra