Rhetoric and the Sacred_ Sharon Avital

Fleas, lice

The horse pissing

Near my pillow.

-Basho

The distinction between the sacred to the profane derives from a Judeo-Christian worldview. In the dualistic framework that divides things into subject-object, center-background, self and other, body and mind; the sacred is differentiated from the profane. In a world created by a God, religion can be defined and the sacred receives a particular meaning determined by the relevant authorities: God, Church, the scriptures.

The Western rhetoric of religion deals with defining the power structures in these institutions and persuading others as to the moral/scientific and other legitimacy of their belief system. Once a concept of a scared is accepted on that religious system other texts can replicate that formal structure. Thus, homological texts even if not dealing with God or religion, deal with the rhetoric of the sacred. In the West, the sacred has been constructed as sublimity. The sacred is an ineffable, transcendent and perfect beyond. This framework of thinking is saturated with an ontotheological worldview and ‘metaphysics of presence’ (to borrow Derrida’s term.) Even as negative dialectics according to which God lacks any attributes is adopted, the presence of A God is nevertheless asserted. The play of presence and absence constructs the Western perception of a mysterious and transcendent God.

Kenneth Burke discusses the ultimate mystery manifests in the “symbol as enigma, as both classification and obfuscation, speech and silence, publicity and secrecy, for it simultaneously expresses and conceals the thing symbolized[i].” An aspect of the mystery created in the dialectics between presence and absence is expressed by Gaston Bachelard, who in his classic La Poetic de l’espace developed a theory on the phenomenology of poetic imagination . At one point in the book he discusses the poetic image of doors and the possibilities afforded by it for the poet and reader.

But how many daydreams should we analyze under the simple heading of Doors! For the door is an entire cosmos of the Half-open. In fact, it is one of its primal images, the very origin of daydream that accumulates desires and temptations: the temptation to open up the ultimate depths of being, and the desire to conquer all reticent beings. The door schematizes two strong possibilities, which sharply classify two types of daydream. At times, it is closed, bolted, padlocked. At others, it is open, that is to say, wide open[ii].”

Bachelard distinguishes between reve (dream) and reverie (daydreaming). Reve is equated with pure negation of reality and is equated for Bachelard with simple dreams of escapism. Reverie, on the other hand, designates imagination and constant recreation of reality and the emergence of being. The poetic image of doors, according to Bachelard is appealing because they embody a promise of being and becoming. They can be either open or closed and as he would go on saying, they can be just barely open. It is the possibility afforded by the image of a door and the ways in which it enables the reader to daydream that lures us. The undetermined door thus exists as a possibility and it functions as the mystified sign that guarantees human creativity. This would be especially relevant to the image of awakening or persona as something that promises to be in the future but is already there.

The symbol as enigma, revealing and hiding is a convention not only in religion but also in another realm that is often considered to be ineffable- art. The aesthetic of shadows and the unfinished becomes especially important in renaissance art since some of its greatest masterpieces are either unfinished or in a very bad shape. Michelangelo finished only very few of his projects and sculptures. Six statues of prisoners meant for the tomb of Pope Julius II, four in Florence, two in Paris, are all unfinished, some barely started. Michelangelo said that to him, the figure was already inside the marble and all he did was remove the unnecessary bits of stone around it. For this reason it is said that these prisoners are imprisoned inside the block of stone and what we see them struggling to liberate themselves. The audience then participates in the creation of the new piece of art by adding their own imagination. Rodin’s statue Venus of an armless torso is considered to have evocative power especially because it is incomplete yet perfect in its passing beyond the possibility of being and even of imagination. For Rodin himself it is the tension of presence and absence made possible through interplay of light and shadows that makes Venus beautiful.

Religious rhetoric in the West has thus adopted a luring format of presence in absence to construct an impossible God, an unreachable beyond. It can only be gestured to but cannot be comprehended. It reinforces the desire for self presence and an experience of the ‘real’ in Jesus Christ, or in God the Father, or in Allah.

The rhetoric of the sacred does not need to deal with God for it can create a homology and using the rhetorical foundations stated above to replicate a similar discourse. In the following TV ad for a new Nintendo game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CkxYrmLd0E) an eerie and mysterious feeling is manufactured without words. The white room, sharp angles, and the immediacy of perplexing transfiguration suggest that the game is other worldly, sublime and ‘more’ than what are familiar with. Appropriately, it invites the viewers to ‘play beyond.’ In another ad for a cd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WRUNyQiNtQ) the concept of evolution is explicitly evoked through image and words, suggesting that a threshold to a new world will be crossed thanks to the new product advertized. In both cases, the rhetoric of the sacred as presence and absence, a mysterious something to be longed for—is utilized for commercial reasons.

Perhaps the most interesting example in my opinion, and the one I would like us to analyze during the workshop is the testimonial given by the neurologist Jill Bolte on her “stroke of insight” (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html ).

In her talk, Jill describes the amazing experiences during and after a stroke. The story is told in retrospect with much conviction and faith in the importance of her mission. Jill adopts the rhetoric of evangelical ministers as she falls to her knees, looks up to the sky, cries and shares her story of transformation.

It is not my intention to be cynical. As Jill adopts a particular structure of conversion stories and a distinct style of evangelical preachers she also shares a very intimate, painful and inspiring part of her life. She dares to share our human pain, fear of death and desire for liberation. She is human and in her scientific-religious lingua she inspires us, the audience. Her story has much to say about human consciousness and the connection between language, experience and the ability to live life in the present moment. Suggesting that in spite of obvious differences, poets, scientists and mystics have nevertheless much in common.

I have so far talked about the West and the rhetoric of the sacred as gesturing towards a certain beyond, a threshold that needs to be crossed. However, Jill Botler’s testimonial provides us with an interesting bridge to the Eastern rhetoric of the sacred. Here, the sacred is not determined by external attributes but by a change in perception.

Satori is referred to in Zen writings as “the realization of the original mind” – as it is in itself, “the universal ground of consciousness, concealed beneath the temporal conditioning that forces people to experience life through outlooks arbitrarily limited by their cultural, social, and personal histories[iii].” In satori, the habitually distorted perception where one constantly mistakes their cognitive schema for reality (in Buddhist terms it is referred to as samasara, or delusive appearance) drops and one can see reality for what it is. It is pure and nondual awareness of the empty nature of all things (often referred to as thatness or suchness[iv].) “When this kind of knowing is directed inwardly, it becomes what is called in Zen: ‘directly seeing into one’s own nature.’ In this case, one’s own nature is not an object of thought, observation or reflection[v].”

An evocative articulation of Realization in Zen came from Master Weihsin of Ch’ing-yuan Mountain who said to his disciples: “Thirty years ago before I underwent training, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. After I had called on enlightened persons, I managed to enter Ch’an [Zen] and saw mountains were not mountain and rivers were not rivers. Now that I have stopped [my false thinking], I see mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.’ And so the most famous lines of realization are these: “Before Enlightenment, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. During Enlightenment, mountains are not mountains, rivers are not rivers. After Enlightenment, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers[vi].” Master Ama Sami explains, In unawakened state that is based on ego centric delusion, realities are substantial and distinct from one another: I am me, rivers are rivers, mountains are mountains. In the first state of awakening where mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers, one realizes the emptiness of all things including the Ego-Self. There arises the understanding that the previous dualistic view of the world as Subject-Object; I-God, identity and was based on separation and projection. In this stage, previous understanding collapses and one feels as if the ground has been swept from under one’s feet. This is the affirmation stated in the beginning of the chapter: ’I alone am the only one.’ In the next stage, one realizes that there is no ground even within oneself to stand upon. There is nothing to stand upon. It is nothing but what it is: suchness: mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.

The rhetoric of suchness is the one operating also in the haiku quoted in the beginning of this paper. Many people mistake haiku to be a sequence of short sentences but this is not true. In haiku there should not be any mediation between the artistic inspiration and the mind perceiving it so that the author becomes an instrument for giving an expression to the experience. As in Zen, haiku wants to be devoid of any ulterior motive. Haiku does not express ideas but puts forward images that reflect intuitions. Since an intuition itself is too intimate and personal to be communicated to others, it calls forth images that can be shared. Suzuki explains that to those who never had such a direct experience of reality it is difficult to enjoy the haikus. As a result attempts are made to explain them by applying cognitive interpretation (i.e., the bird represents youth, the night stands for the impending death.) But the haikus want to go beyond symbols and dualities into the realm of the unthinkable and the timelessness. It is there that that the distinction between the artist and the object of inspiration, signifier and the signified, form and content are fused. In fact, ‘fusing’ would still be dualistic because it implies two that are coming together into one. Haiku, however, wants to go beyond that, to the experience itself beyond mediation—to be just that. So in the haiku cited at the onset of this paper, a combination of un holy things such as flies, lice and a horse’ urine are given. There is nothing neither transcendent nor mysterious about this experience. It is not alluring, it does evoke longing, it is just ‘that,’ as it is. Yet, there is a sense of accuracy and wholeness in the brief moment that was captured by Haiku.

In sum, Rhetoric of the sacred in the East and the West provide us with different texts, challenges and philosophical questions. In the West, the sacred implies ‘transcendental signifier standing outside and beyond the text.’ In Zen, the sacred implies a change of perception, presence and attention to reality, as it is from moment to moment. Ultimately however, all religious and sacred rhetoric deals with the most fundamental human questions: the meaning of life and death, self presence and the fear of annihilation.