Text study is the koan study of Judaism. Koan study is a part of Zen Buddhism which involves long hours of meditation over paradoxical statements. At some point, the student has a moment of insight and gives the teacher the answer to the Koan. Jews spend long hours in a room filled with books pouring over texts looking for contradictions, and then trying to work on the text some more until the contradiction is resolved. Usually this involves either a deeper reading of the text which may reveal how the seeming contradiction isn’t really a contradiction, or bringing in a midrash or other idea that is not in the text to propose a solution.
Text koan study leads to two things: really, really good critical thinking and/or mystical insight. The former is the result of really close text study and learning to link other pieces of the texts together to form a solution. The second is when there is no solution and after thinking hard on the text, a flash of insight comes that explains the contradiction. Sometimes, when one has the answer, one can go back and find the proof in the text. Sometimes there is no proof, just the insight.
My experience of studying the texts is more the later, the flashes of insight. What seems unusual to me about it is that I often feel the presence of a soul or tzaddik guiding me through the text. When I studied about Jacob and the rape of Dina, Jacob came to me and explained the story to me. I didn’t find the textual proof for what he told me, but it sure made sense.
A shaman is a person who interacts with the spirit world for healing. I have spent the last eight years of my life learning about how to do that and it led me back into Judaism. I’ve just begun my text koan study, and I want to write about the shamanic in Judaism. I see a lot of similarities between my shamanic study and what I am learning in Judaism, and I think the shamanic way of looking at things can help to explain a lot of what it often puzzling to me in Judaism. I don’t know where this will lead me, or why I’ve been led on this path, but I hope that writing about it will give me insight into my studies and maybe help you understand both shamanism and Judaism a little better.
I am also going to see if I can come up with some Jewish Koans. Things like: God is everything. God is Ayn Sof, without limit, so God can not have any boundaries, but as soon as God is everything in the world, there are lots of boundaries and limits. So God is both everything and not-everything.
Mull that one over for awhile.
Showing posts with label Koans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Koans. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Saturday, November 24, 2007
a line of light
Tonight I went to Morgenstern's and had a very interesting and intense experience. I have started to take a class with him on Wednesday nights on Hayyim Vital's Otzarot Hayyim. I've only gone to two classes so far, but it's very interesting. The class is supposed to be in English, but I think only 50% or less in actually in English. The rest is in either Yiddish or Heavily Yiddish accented Hebrew. Many of the words he uses have multiple meanings, or they are used to refer to concepts (which I only sometimes know) so it's been very challenging to follow what he's saying.
I've been studying the book on my own before class and reading all the commentaries in the edition I own, so I think I'm keeping up! Fortunately, I live in the 21st century and all the classes are digitally recorded as MP3's. In the next week or so, the classes will be posted on a website and I can listen to them again to make sure I'm understanding what he's saying.
The first lines of the book (we've only covered two or three paragraphs so far) is about the creation of the world. God, who is called אור אין סוף (ohr ayn-sof) or light without end, created the world by a process of contraction. In the middle of the light, God contracted himself and created a ball of חלול (meaning both hollow space and desecration against God). Into this ball, God inserted a קו (straight line of light) or צינור (pipe) and filled the ball with his light. Thus all of the worlds were created.
The rebbe interpreted this to mean that outside of the ball, there are no borders, but within the ball there are. There is a division between inside and outside that is still a border, and the pipe is also a border, but within the pipe, it's still light ayn-sof. If there were no borders, the world would return to pre-contraction state. But this pipe remains open so God can send his light into the world. How an infinite light can exist in a finite pipe is a good Koan.
When I first read the book, I wrote in the margins: This is just like a shamanic tunnel. Shamans always talk about going through a tunnel to get to the spirit world, and we have a tunnel that lead to God. Thus, if one can access this pipe, one can use it as a shamanic portal into the spirit world.
Tonight, at the Rebbe's Tish, I was flowing with the energy of the room and as he began to talk, I found myself wondering about this pipe. And, as happens with these things, the picture of the pipe in the book came to me. As I focused on the pipe within the circle, there it was in front of me. I went towards it, and as I looked up it's length, it twisted and turned. I kept moving forward through the wall of the pipe and was inside it. It was like nothing I've felt before. I felt like I was completely immersed in a heavy liquid, but felt no pressure anywhere. When I looked up, I could see the pipe going straight above me to Ayn-Sof. And then there was no up or down anymore.
The light in the pipe was moving, but it felt very random until I realized that I no longer had any sense of directionality. There was no up or down or left or right. Everything was exactly the same in all directions. Except that I knew that if I backed up, I would be back through the wall. There wasn't anything except the substance surrounding me.
Morgenstern had talked about using the line to go up through the worlds and for God to emanate light into our world, but inside the line, there was no movement in any particular direction. I backed out of it and found handles on the outside of the pipe. I grabbed hold of them and before I knew it, I was flying upward through the worlds. When it stopped moving, I don't know where I was, but it felt pretty high and far from where I'd started.
I have always wanted to know what the sephirot feel like, and when I asked at this point to feel them or feel the worlds, I was told to wait, one thing at a time.
I used my time at this high point, to check in with some old and current patients and see how they felt from this vantage. One of them in particular felt very rough and, as I'm writing this entry, I received an email from her with some bad news.
We'll see what the coming weeks bring, but it's amazing to read something and get an intellectual understanding of it and then get an experiential feel as well!
I've been studying the book on my own before class and reading all the commentaries in the edition I own, so I think I'm keeping up! Fortunately, I live in the 21st century and all the classes are digitally recorded as MP3's. In the next week or so, the classes will be posted on a website and I can listen to them again to make sure I'm understanding what he's saying.
The first lines of the book (we've only covered two or three paragraphs so far) is about the creation of the world. God, who is called אור אין סוף (ohr ayn-sof) or light without end, created the world by a process of contraction. In the middle of the light, God contracted himself and created a ball of חלול (meaning both hollow space and desecration against God). Into this ball, God inserted a קו (straight line of light) or צינור (pipe) and filled the ball with his light. Thus all of the worlds were created.
The rebbe interpreted this to mean that outside of the ball, there are no borders, but within the ball there are. There is a division between inside and outside that is still a border, and the pipe is also a border, but within the pipe, it's still light ayn-sof. If there were no borders, the world would return to pre-contraction state. But this pipe remains open so God can send his light into the world. How an infinite light can exist in a finite pipe is a good Koan.
When I first read the book, I wrote in the margins: This is just like a shamanic tunnel. Shamans always talk about going through a tunnel to get to the spirit world, and we have a tunnel that lead to God. Thus, if one can access this pipe, one can use it as a shamanic portal into the spirit world.
Tonight, at the Rebbe's Tish, I was flowing with the energy of the room and as he began to talk, I found myself wondering about this pipe. And, as happens with these things, the picture of the pipe in the book came to me. As I focused on the pipe within the circle, there it was in front of me. I went towards it, and as I looked up it's length, it twisted and turned. I kept moving forward through the wall of the pipe and was inside it. It was like nothing I've felt before. I felt like I was completely immersed in a heavy liquid, but felt no pressure anywhere. When I looked up, I could see the pipe going straight above me to Ayn-Sof. And then there was no up or down anymore.
The light in the pipe was moving, but it felt very random until I realized that I no longer had any sense of directionality. There was no up or down or left or right. Everything was exactly the same in all directions. Except that I knew that if I backed up, I would be back through the wall. There wasn't anything except the substance surrounding me.
Morgenstern had talked about using the line to go up through the worlds and for God to emanate light into our world, but inside the line, there was no movement in any particular direction. I backed out of it and found handles on the outside of the pipe. I grabbed hold of them and before I knew it, I was flying upward through the worlds. When it stopped moving, I don't know where I was, but it felt pretty high and far from where I'd started.
I have always wanted to know what the sephirot feel like, and when I asked at this point to feel them or feel the worlds, I was told to wait, one thing at a time.
I used my time at this high point, to check in with some old and current patients and see how they felt from this vantage. One of them in particular felt very rough and, as I'm writing this entry, I received an email from her with some bad news.
We'll see what the coming weeks bring, but it's amazing to read something and get an intellectual understanding of it and then get an experiential feel as well!
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