Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 66

29 September 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 66

1.  Wisdom, Negation, and the Ineffable

Last week I posted about the Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite.  I wrote a little about its impact on Christianity, particularly Christian Mysticism.

When I first encountered Mystical Theology it was shortly after I decided to leave Buddhism behind.  I had been practicing Buddhism for about thirty years, but, for various reasons, the well of Buddhism had gone dry.  This didn’t mean that I rejected Buddhism as a whole; in particular I retained a great fondness for the Perfection of Wisdom discourses such as the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra.

What immediately struck me when I read Mystical Theology was the manner in which the negations of the mystical ascent outlined in Mystical Theology resembled the negations found in the Heart Sutra.  In particular what I am getting at is how both of these works, about midway through their text, negate the primary collection of ideas that define their respective traditions.

For example, in Chapter 5 of the Mystical Theology the author writes, “It [the ultimate] is not kingship.  It is not wisdom.  It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness.  Nor is it a spirit, in the sense in which we understand that term.  It is not sonship or fatherhood and it is nothing known to us or to any other being.”

(Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, translated by Colm Luidheid, Paulist Press, New York, 1987, Page 141, ISBN: 9780809128389)

Notice that in this quote there is embedded a negation of the trinity: Nor is it spirit, it is not sonship or fatherhood.  This means that the three persons of the trinity, father, son, and spirit, are transcended in the divine ascent that the author describes.

Many other significant philosophical and theological categories are similarly negated such as: number, soul, mind, power, light, and so forth.  The author deftly places these realities beneath the ineffable which is reached at the end of this mystical ascent.

In The Heart Sutra the reader encounters a similar rejection of foundational categories of the Buddhist tradition.  For example, the five aggregates, the foundation of Buddhist psychology is dismissed as follows: “Therefore in emptiness no form, no feelings, perception, impulses, consciousness.”  Later the Heart Sutra rejects the Four Noble Truths as follows: “. . . no suffering, no origination, no stopping (cessation), and no path.”  As in the Mystical Theology many other basic categories of the Buddhist tradition are also similarly dismissed (not dismissed as in arguing for their non-existence, dismissed in the sense that in the opening to ultimacy, which in a Buddhist context is emptiness, these categories need to be left behind).

There is even a striking similarity in the closing statements of both documents.  In both documents there is an emphasis on the idea that the practitioner must move “beyond” the kind of analysis that these categories lead to.  For example, the conclusion of Mystical Theology says, “It is beyond assertion and denial.  We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfection and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simply and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial.”

(Ibid)

In the Heart Sutra the closing says, “Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond beyond, Bodhi Savaha.”  This is a mantra which is as follows: “Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!”  (‘Gate’ is pronounced ‘gah-tay’). 

This closing emphasis on going beyond all the foundational categories of the respective spiritual systems of their respective tradition is what I recognized as, to my mind, intimately connecting the two documents even though there is no evidence of any historical connection.  I don’t think there is an historical connection; but I think there is a spiritual connection. 

For a Platonist it is gratifying to find the use of negations, as are found in the dialogue Parmenides, in these two documents.  And what I came to understand is that this kind of teaching is a signal that I am dealing with a Wisdom Tradition when I find this kind of teaching. 

I often say that Wisdom is discrimination that is done in the service of transcendence; it is not just analysis for the sake of analysis.  When Wisdom serves transcendence it leads us to that which is beyond any affirmation or negation, it transcends time and space, it is neither that which is changeless nor that which is in process.  It is eternal peace.

2.  This last week was exceptionally busy and complicated.  For that reason, my post today is short.  I hope to return to a normal pace of living this week.

Best wishes,

Xenocrates