The Temple of the Text

3 November 2023

The Temple of the Text

1.  I am fortunate to have travelled to religious sites in Korea and Japan many years ago when I was studying Buddhism.  Some of these sites were Temples, some were Monasteries, and in one case I visited the site that stored the Korean Tripitaka at Haeinsa.  It was an overwhelming experience to see these tens of thousands of large woodblocks, stored on row upon endless row of shelves, containing the entire Chinese Buddhist Canon.  The energy and dedication and time it took to carve all those woodblocks and the value placed upon preserving these Buddhist scriptures spoke to me of a world and culture that placed a high value on spiritual practice.

2.  I often recall a visit to a mountain Temple in Korea that looked like an ancient Chinese watercolor; pine trees framed the view of the valley below and a river tumbled down the mountain in the summer sunlight.

3.  There are many beautiful places (Cathedrals, Temples, Shrines, and so forth) throughout the world.  They are designed to create an atmosphere that turns people away from their material circumstances to something beyond those circumstances, however the tradition understands the nature of the ‘beyond.’

4.  I find I have a similar experience when I read the Enneads of Plotinus.  I feel like I am entering a great Temple or Shrine that is dedicated to the transcendental.  Every word is carefully placed to support the ultimate purpose of our human lives; that purpose being to leave the cave of suffering and ignorance and ascend into the light of the Good and the One. 

5.  In some Japanese traditions, such as Shugendo, the practitioner trains to walk briskly along a mountain path.  Along this path are altars and places that have spiritual significance where the practitioner stops and enters into a spiritual practice associated with that particular location.  There are many such places along these mountain paths.  I see the Enneads as a whole as like the path that the mountain ascetic walks when engaged with this kind of practice.  I see the individual Enneads as resembling the specific locations where practitioners pause to concentrate their minds on a particular facet of their spiritual training and journey.  Or you could say that each Ennead is like an altar in the great Temple of the Text. 

6.  Shugendo practitioners have to train for years to become agile and secure in their practice.  They have to learn the routes of the mountain paths, they have to learn where to pause on those routes and what to do at those locations.  And these mountain paths have many ups and downs; it’s not a smooth or easy path so the practitioner has to develop endurance over time.  In a similar way, readers of the Enneads have to become acquainted over time with the focus of each individual Ennead and how they all work towards the common purpose of transcendence.  And it takes stamina to read the Enneads; the first reading can bring forth confusion and some misunderstandings.  With repeated readings these confusions are clarified.  But it is always possible to deepen one’s understanding of what the Enneads offer.