Han de Wit 0104
Question: Would you agree that interfaith dialogue cannot work at the level of surface structures? And could mysticism, as deep structure, play a bigger role in this?
de Wit: I think that the "study of mysticism" is actually a contradiction in terms. What matters more in mysticism is the practice, not the study. When we study something we end up on a conceptual level. While Libbrecht talks about surface structures and deep structures, I rather prefer to talk about the conceptual level, meaning the surface structure, and the experiential level, meaning the deep structure. It is in deep structure, or on the experiential level, that you can meet each other. It is not a matter of study but rather of inquiry... inquiry in the form of meditation, the wordless prayer, or whatever you want to call it. But this is the basis of practice, and working with our mind, and seeing how it constantly colours our experiences in one direction or another, closer to or further away from what a spiritual tradition is all about. That is how we should do it.
And this is why those of us who were engaged in interreligious dialogue at Naropa Institute – that’s what Naropa University was called in those days – practised all together. Everybody practised there. Many traditions were represented: Greek-Orthodox, Zen teachers, catholic... we all practised alongside each other. And this gave us a kind of common platform from which we could start talking with each other. And it was much more on the level of experience. Therefore I would say that it is good to study mysticism, but then in the concrete sense of practising it.
<<< back