1: Introduction
3: Problem of "Strange Thoughts"
4: Annihilating Selfhood and Attaining Ecstasy
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Religion consists in the reciprocity of man's quest for God and God's respond to man: "I sought the Lord, and He answered me" (Psalms 34:4). Abraham Joshua Heschel, a modern Jewish philosopher, whose family was one of the most prestigious Hasidic dynasties, and who himself was once expected to become a rebbe (Hasidic master) by his fellow Hasidim, pointed out this reciprocity and said: "If God is unable to listen to us, then we are insane in talking to Him." In the same way, man's effort to maintain devequth, cleaving to God, is not meaningful unless there is at least a moment of inspiration in which man becomes bound up with God. Otherwise, devequth may end in a mere contemplation of God. Religion without inspiring moments of encounter with God is perhaps worse than an addled egg. The latter you can throw into a garbage pail, but the former nowhere.
Faith begins with sensing the subject to believe and reaches its zenith with seeing it with one's own eyes. Devequth begins with the constant thinking of the Divine Presence. It attains its climax at the mystical abiding of God in man. In order to accomplish this goal, a Hasid must annihilate not only all corporeal desires and thoughts but his own self. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady ruled that annihilation of selfhood is the only way to attain the highest goal of religious life:
" The Holy One, blessed be He, dwells only on such things that haveannihilated [batal ] themselves in Him."
"They [the souls] cannot receive enjoyment and pleasure from the Infinite One Himself unless they annihilate themselves [ithbattelu] in their existence and return to their source [above]."
Though the general idea of the annihilation of selfhood was common to those who sincerely desired to attain supreme enlightenment, the terminology bittul ha-yesh (the annihilation of beingness, or of selfhood) was a Hasidic innovation. Earlier, the Hebrew words psht (to strip) or prsh (to seclude) were used by people to express the idea of annihilation. But the Great Maggid and his school adopted the Hebrew word btl (to cancel), which is more emphatic and which is more appropriate to express a thorough ecstasy in Hasidism.
The concept of bittul ha-yesh involves "the soul soaring to God with the ego left behind," as Louis Jacobs pointed out, as well as the annihilation of selfhood. In this chapter we examine how Hasidim achieved bittul ha-yesh in prayer and what the annihilation of selfhood means in Zen Buddhism.
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Bittul Ha-Yesh in Hasidism
For mystics wishing to disciple themselves for perfection, seclusion has traditionally been regarded as ideal. Throughout the generations, the practice of ascetic seclusion had been widespread among the Kabbalists. The Baal Shem Tov practiced rigorous fasting in seclusion in his early days.6 Later, he recognized the inefficacy of excessive asceticism and discouraged others from practicing it. He wrote Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph a letter in which he said:
I received your letter... and saw that in the first two lines, you, sir, said that you must fast. I am deeply upset at your words..., you should not place yourself in this danger. This is the way of melancholy and sadness, and the Shekhinah does not inspire through sadness but only through the happiness of doing mitzvoth.... And you should not, God forbid, fast more than is required and is necessary.
The Besht's opposition to extreme asceticism was also reported by Rabbi Barukh of Medzhibozh (1753-1811), one of his grandsons:
Once, people asked the Besht, "What is the core of worship? Behold, we know, from what our fathers told us, that, in the ancient times, observant people had used to fast from the Shabbath to Shabbath. But you have canceled this practice, and declared that every one, who keeps fasting, shall be given, in future, to the punishment, which is called as 'a sinner who afflicts his own soul.' Therefore, please tell us what is the core of worship. " The Besht answered to them: "I came to this world in order to show a different way so that one will watch to keep on oneself the following three things, they are, the love of God, the love of [the people of] Israel and the love of the Torah. But it is not necessary to perform asceticism." And the Besht supplemented:
"How-ever, this type of person, [who can fulfill these three things], is the people of the higher spiritual rank. It is [indeed] for the great people of the higher level. Yet, for the middle level people, it is [desirable] to see first of all that inside of every corporeal and physical thing there is the divine vitality. And it is desirable for them to direct their kavvanah (concentration of mind) toward the name of God only, to destroy the Evil Impulse and to strip themselves off from all of the desires."
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However, to observe solitude with God for a few hours every day was obviously not rejected by the Besht. He kept a house of seclusion for this purpose throughout his life. His successors followed the tradition of moderate solitude, spending a few hours a day or one day a week to be with God in meditation. The Great Maggid instructed his disciples in the Hanhagoth (Code of Conduct), which was transmitted by Rabbi Samuel Shmelke in the name of the Great Maggid: "Be aware, as much as possible, to seclude yourself one day a week with fasting and with repentance, with the study of Torah and with prayer."
Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772--1810), one of the Besht's great-grandsons had a different opinion.
Nahman of Bratslav was born in 1772 to Rabbi Simhah and his wife, Feiga. Simhah was a son of Rabbi Nahman of Gorodenka, and Feiga was a daughter of Hodel, one of the two daughters of the Besht. Hodel had three sons besides the daughters: Moses Hayyim, Barukh of Medzhibozh, and Israel. Nahman of Bratslav was ascetic from his early years. He visited the Holy Land during 1798-1799. Upon returning to his country, he soon undertook a campaign for the radicalization of Hasidism, by claiming that he was the only paragon of the Zaddik, while other Hasidic leaders were false Zaddikim. This claim aroused great anger from the entire camp of Hasidism and caused the isolation of his group, Bratslav Hasidism, from the main body of Hasidism. Many of his teachings and stories were collected by disciples. Liqqutei Moharan, edited by Nathan Hertz and published in 1808.
He taught that it is impossible for man to achieve annihilation of selfhood and communion with God without secluding himself from noise and hum of people:
Yet it is impossible fro man to attain the goalﾑthat is, to be incorporated into his root, namely, to return and to be incorporated into the unity of God...without annihilation [bittul], unless he annihilates himself completely.... And it is impossible to carry out the annihilation without seclusion.... Real seclusion comes only at night when the world is free from trouble of this world... because the day people go in search of the worldly life, and this revokes and disturbs a man in his effort to cling and to be incorporated into the Lord, blessed be He.... It is necessary for him to have a special place for seclusion in the outskirts of town... where nobody passes [even in daytime].
[The virtue of] seclusion is the highest and greatest of all. Therefore, a man should fix for him, in any case, one hour or more to seclude himself in a room or in fields, and to spread his conversation between himself and his Creator.
Rabbi Nahman was most concerned about the necessity of obtaining seclusion because it is the best way to talk with God without interference by others. He placed seclusion above everything else and encouraged people to practice it. Unlike the daily Jewish prayer which is offered to God according to the fixed Hebrew text, in seclusion a man can converse with God in any language in which he feels at home. He said:
Prayer and conversation [with God] shall be addressed in the language in which we speak, namely, in Yiddish (in the midst of our sufferings), because in the holy language [in Hebrew] it is difficult to extend all our talk. And also the heart dose not follow after the utterances, because we are not so accustomed to address in the holy language, for it is not our way to speak in the holy language..., while in Yiddish one can stretch his talk as well as pour out all that he has in heart and tell before God, blessed be He.
Prayer in the vernacular is legitimate in Judaism. The Hebrew prayer books contain many prayer texts in Aramaic, which was once the vernacular of the Jews in Middle East. Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, however, insisted that only Hebrew should be used in some prayers. Rabbi Nahman strongly recommended that people talk with God rather than meditate on Him. The private dialogue between man and God in seclusion was characterized by its spontaneity. Through speaking to God according to his own rank of spiritual achievement, everything in man's mindﾑgood or bad, especially sorrows, petitions and penitence ﾑwill eventually be purified and he will achieve annihilation of selfhood in God's presence. Rabbi Nahman taught that it is always worthwhile to practice seclusion even when one cannot find words to express one's own thought, for the essence of seclusion consists in one's willingness to come before the presence of God. With Rabbi Nahman, conversation (sihah) becomes a synonym for prayer. Indeed, "the conversation that man has with the Creator is a new way and a new prayer," Rabbi Nahman's outspoken advocacy for a free style of individual prayer, that is, the conversation with God, was unique even in Hasidism, which came to reaffirm the supreme virtue of prayer. And seclusion becomes a major means to attain the perfection of humanity. He said, "None of the true and renowned Zaddikim attained their [supreme spiritual] rank without seclusion."
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From the standard Hasidic point of view, the way of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav was extreme. For example, although the Besht used to get into an ecstatic trance both in private and public places, he did not seem to regard seclusion as the prime condition for communion with God. No record has thus far been found in the source books of early Hasidism of any direct comment by the Besht on seclusion. The Great Maggid warned his disciples not to totally seclude themselves but to be in the company of another person, if seclusion is necessary, because of the possibility that the practitioner might be possessed by the devil. Seclusion was important for Hasidim as a means of self-reflection and penitence rather than as a condition for bittul ha-yesh. The Besht and his disciples took seclusion for granted as a matter of discipline in their private lives.
In contrast to Nahman of Bratslav, his uncle, Rabbi Moses Hayyim Ephrayim, maintained that group worship is superior to private worship because of the cohesive power of a dynamic group:
It is more desirable to work together with a large number of people either physically or spiritually.... Our ancient Sages said, "When a man studies, the Shekhinah manifests Herself before him." And as with a candle, when a torch stands in front of it, people put out the candle because of the [greater] light of the torch. Similarly, when a man studies and the Shekhinah rests there... surely the Shekhinah, so to speak, must reduce Herself and be embodied [in him] (in the manner of a small torch) so that the candle [that is, the man] shall not be extinguished. This refers to the case of studying or praying individually. But when many people worship the Lord and study together, the light of the torch increases and the light of the Shekhinah spreads over against those who come forward before Her with the Torah and worship.
Though this statement does not say that either communion with God or annihilation of selfhood is achievable during prayer with others, it indicates that more abundant effluence of the divine essence is available to men in communal prayer than in individual prayer. Thus, there is a greater possibility in realizing the spiritual goal in communal prayer because of its greater spiritual energy when it is pooled. Therefore, in Hasidism a great emphasis was placed upon prayer with a congregation rather than in individual seclusion.
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Indeed, prayer is the high point in Hasidic life. Noticing the concentration of the divine emanation at the time of prayer, the founding masters of Hasidism formulated a system to achieve annihilation of selfhood at that time. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak explained the process of prayer as follows: "When a man stands to pray by pouring out his soul and body, he is stripped of his sensation and clings to the life of the Infinite One, blessed be He. Then the light of the Infinite One effuses over him."
That is to say, prayer ideally follows four basic stages:
1. Devotion : to pour one's whole heart before God with one's whole strength and sincerity;
2. Entrancement : to lose one's sensation of the external world;
3. Unio mystica : to cling to God and to be incorporated in Him;
4. Result : to absorb the divine essence and consequently to reflect its effect on the practical aspects of human life for the benefit of of creation.
The first three stages are main part of prayer itself. The last stage is its aftermath.
To accomplish the first three stages is not easy for the average persons. Prayer will fail if it does not begin with great intensity and devotion in order to eliminate corporeality and distracting thoughts. However, if a person uses up all his strength at this stage, he will not be able to proceed to the higher stages. It was difficult for the average persons to maintain maximum intensity until the stage of unio mystica:
Unio mystica is the technical term for the state of mystical union with God in ecstatic experience, generally considered by mystics as their supreme goal. Gershom G. Scholem distinguished devequth from unio mystica: the former is contemplative, while the latter is conjunctive. I apply the term unio mystica only to the utmost level of devequth in which the dichotomy of the contemplating subject and the contemplated object vanishes because of the union.
Man must proceed [carefully] from one stage of prayer to another so that he will not use up all his strength at the beginning of prayer. Surely he should begin in moderation, and in the midst of prayer he will cleave with a great devequth; then he will be allowed to recite the words of prayer with great speed.
In order to get the maximum effect within a limited capacity, the Great Maggid advised his disciples "to form a habit of praying in an undertone and crying in a whisper" at the lower stage of prayer. By the way, the Hebrew liturgical term tephillah b'lahash (prayer in a whisper), often mistakenly translated as 'prayer in silence,' is not supposed to be totally silent. Rabbi Shneur Zalman ruled: "One should pray not only in the heart but, since the words are [pronounced] on the lips, let them be heard to one's own ears in whispers. However, it should not be so loud as to be heard by other."
The Besht and the Great Maggid proposed to divide the course of prayer into four sections according to the order of the themes found in the text of prayer, and according to the processes of entrancement in the actions of prayer. The Besht's first reference to the four stages of ecstatic prayer was recorded by Rabbi Ya'akov Yoseph in the name of the Besht in Toldoth Ya'akov Yoseph, from which Aaron of Opatow quoted it in Kether Shem Tov. The first reference by the Great Maggid was reported by Levi Yitzhak in Maggid Devarav L'Ya'akov, by Moses Mordecai in Or HaEmeth, and by Meshullam Phoebus in Liqqutim Yeqarim. However, the division of prayer into the four sections was already known in the Book of the Zohar. It seems to me that the Besht learned it from the Zohar and consequently transmitted it to his disciples. Each section symbolizes one of the four mystical ranks of manifestation of worlds in reverse from lower to upper: the World of Making ('Asiyyah), the World of Formation (Yetzirah), the World of Creation (Beryiah), and the World of Emanation (Atziluth).
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The Jews pray three times on weekdays: Shaharith (the morning worship), Minhah (the afternoon worship) and Ma'ariv (the evening worship).
The daily morning worship consists of the following eight sections: (1) Birkath HaShahar (Morning Benediction), (2) Qorbanoth (Sacrifices), (3) Pesukei deZimura (Verses of Hymn), (4) the Shema' and its Benedictions, (5) Tephillah (Prayer), called 'Amidah (Standing) or the Eighteen Benedictions, (6) Tahanun (Petition), (7) the Reading from the Scriptures, and (8) the Concluding Parts.
The Besht's distinction of the four sections is as follows:
1. The World of Making.
From the beginning of the prayer text to the phrase Barukh sheAmar. The theme: Qorbanoth (Sacrifices). At this stage the aspiration to make contact with God and to approach Him is dominant. Much toil and effort is needed to overcome corporeality. A man must invest his full strength in every word of prayer.
2. The World of Formation.
From the phrase Barukh sheAmar through the section Yishtabach. The theme: Zemiroth (Hymns). This is the realm of angels, in which there is less corporeality and more enthusiasm and excitement in praising God as the angels do. Man's thoughts ascend higher and higher. The letters of the prayer text are united and coagulated one after another by his thoughts.
3. The World of Creation.
From the end of Yishtabach to the 'Amidah. The theme: the Creator, the Invocation of the Shema', and the Redemption. This is the realm of the Seraphim, in which a man is enthused so fervently that he no longer hears even what he recites nor feels his own body. He senses only a feeling of being in the utmost upper world.
4. The World of Emanation.
The section of the Eighteen Benedictions, or the so-called 'Amidah (Standing Prayer), which begins at the verse "O Lord, open Thou my lips" (Psalms 51:17). The Besht and his followers regarded the verse as a petition for urging the incarnation of the Shekhinah. At this stage, a Hasid can attain the zenith of prayer in which the true embrace and unity of man and God takes place. He is released from the influence of corporeality. All of his sensations are lost except for a very tiny and faint perception. This is the dimension of Ayin (Nothingness), in other words, the dimension of Hochmah (Wisdom), where a human being penetrates into prophecy and prediction.
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As is shown in the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystics traditionally regarded the dimension of Ayin (Nothingness) as the source of Wisdom, based on the verses "From where [me-ayin] can wisdom be found" (Job 28:12) and "From where [me-ayin] can wisdom come?" (Job 28:20). By replacing the meaning of the Hebrew word me-ayin (from where) with "from nothing," they explained that Wisdom, which was a Demiurge for creation of the universe, emerged from the Nothingness that is the manifestation of God Himself. However, for Hasidim, to contemplate Nothingness meant to contemplate God.
The division of these four stages of ecstasy initiated by the Besht as a reflection of his own spiritual accession was quite helpful for the laymen, who had no such experience, to understand the process of ecstasy. The Besht was reported to become entranced during the Eighteen Benedictions. To regard the section of 'Amidah as the supreme stage of ecstasy seemed to be based on the personal experience of the Besht. In contrast, Levi Yitzhak was reported to attain the supreme devequth at the Invocation of the Kaddish (Doxology) and looked as if he were out of the world. The division was useful for the novices as a guideline to ecstatic prayer. But there was no specific guarantee of achievement. To achieve the dimension of Nothingness actually depended on the degree of one's devotion.
The first stage of prayer is characterized by the theme of "Sacrifices." One's desire to attain the upper dimension ascends to heaven like the smoke of sacrifices, and he must destroy his corporeality for the higher cause as an animal for sacrifice. In the second stage, he is supposed to be joyful and show enthusiasm because the theme of prayer is praise of God. This is the transitive stage from the effort of annihilating the self to the state of the annihilation. In the third stage, he comes closer to witnessing the Creator and His work and to seeing how He is surrounded by angels and other heavenly creatures, particularly by Seraphim. The section of Shema' was introduced by the benediction of Yotzer, in which a description of the heavenly scene shows angels magnify the Creator. It provokes the worshiper to mysterium tremendum by the vision of Isaiah (6:3) and Ezekiel (3:12-13). A Hasid witnesses a real picture of grandeur here. He is now out of the world. He is astonished to see the Glory, and spontaneously confesses:
I praise Thee and unite with Thee in love.
Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who has chosen Thy people Israel in love.
Shema' Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad!
Hear, O, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Hasidism, following the traditional view of rabbinical commentary and the Kabbalah, did not innovate any particular theology regarding the Shema'. Yet it seems that there was a trend in Hasidism to emphasize the significance of uniting oneself with God rather than the idea of the Oneness of God. Levi Yitzhak commented:
Thus we unify [the Invocation of] Shema' Yisrael..., and, indeed, a man, at stage after stage in which he worships the Creator, blessed be He, must cling to the Name of Omnipresence.... Everybody, in accordance with his [level of] worship, must cleave everything [that is, all of his thoughts] to God, who is the single Unity. Although the orders of worship are divided [into sections], he must [consistently] cleave all of the words [of the prayerbook] to God.
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At the fourth stage, a Hasid is absorbed into the dimension of Nothingness. Evelyn Underhill, an English scholar of mysticism, explained this stage as follows: "In this experience the departmental activities of thought and feeling, the consciousness of I-hood, of space and time" all that belongs to the World of Becoming and our own place therein "are suspended." The annihilation of his beingness is now driven home. At this stage, according to an eyewitness of a Hasid, the face of the Besht was "burning like a torch" and his eyes looked "like those of someone dying." Menahem Mendel of Kotzk was reported to become "motionless, while his face was burning like a torch" during the Eighteen Benedictions. This is the uttermost of bittul ha-yesh and the innermost of devequth.
Although the process of annihilation proceeds gradually from a lower stage to a higher one, the final accomplishment of bittul ha-yesh suddenly comes at the moment when a Hasid literally hands over command of his own self to God. The Great Maggid described how the Shekhinah took over his organs, especially the vocal organs, at the fourth stage:
When a person begins to say [the Eighteen Benedictions], as soon as he utters, "O Lord, open Thou my lips," the Shekhinah is incarnated in him and speaks the words [of prayer] if he has faith that the Shekhinah addresses these words to him, surely fear and awe will descend upon himﾑand the Holy One, blessed be He, so to speak, contracts Himself and rests on him.
In other words, no matter how completely a Hasid has reduced his corporeality and thought, the incarnation of the Shekhinah in him will not take place as long as he retains autonomy over himself. The Great Maggid seemed to have learned this from the Besht. He said:
Rabbi Israel Baal Shem said regarding this act [of speaking through the holy spirit], ﾒWhen I make my thought cleaved to the Creator, blessed be He, I let the mouth speak what it wants because I connect the words to the upper root in the Creator, blessed be He.
Both the Besht and the Great Maggid let their vocal organs utter automatically under guidance of the divine spirit, that is, the Shekhinah.
It is noteworthy that the act of surrender does not occur blindly and unconsciously. Despite being physically entranced, the Besht and the Great Maggid were fully aware of the mental progress of their consciousness and knowingly surrendered their organs to the control of the Shekhinah. The key which enables man to be incorporated in the holy dimension is nothing else but man's voluntary surrender to passivity at the gate of unio mystica.
The passivity of a Hasid in prayer in devequth was explained by the Great Maggid through a simile of the shophar (a ram's horn):
One should be aware that the World of Speech [that is, the Shekhinah] speaks within him, for without It is impossible to speak, as it is written: "O Lord, open Thou my lips" this means the Shekhinah. Also it is impossible to have thought if not through the World of Thought [that is, God]. Man is just like a shophar, because as long as people blow it, it produces sound. And if the blower leaves it behind, it will not produce sound. Similarly, in the case of God's absence from man, man is unable to speak or think.
Man is totally impotent to act in the realm of God unless assisted by Him.
And when one's speech becomes thick before the Lord, blessed be He, he feels that he utters with Him as it were. I wish that people would be able to address in every prayer [at least] a verse or two, three words before God in the above-mentioned manner [of the great devequth].
Although the achievement of the supreme stage of ecstasy and unio mystica was desirable to every Hasid, it is obvious that the highest stage of devequth was apparently not available to everybody.
Speech of the Shekhinah means, in most cases, automatic utterance of the fixed Hebrew text of prayer. A Hasid becomes elevated spirit-ually and his recitation of prayer is greatly accelerated by enthusiastic expression in a tempo beyond his control. According to Heschel, the Great Maggid believed that the Shekhinah spoke through the mouth of Moses by uniting Herself with him, while Shneur Zalman preferred interpreting the idea of speech of the Shekhinah as an account of prophetic perception. The difference reflects that there were two different approaches to ecstasy in early Hasidism: direct ecstasy and introspective ecstasy.
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However, some instances of speech of the Shekhinah were clearly identical with glossolalia, which is an ecstatic utterance of unintelligible speech-like sounds allegedly caused by spirit. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible explains the phenomenon of glossolalia as follows:
Whenever it appeared, the common element was the belief that the spirit of the god worshipped took possession of the devotee, spoke through him, and often produced bodily movements of abnormal character. During such ecstatic states the vocal organs were affected, the tongue moved as if by the separation of a power beyond mental control of the subject, and utterances poured forth which, to the observer, were as impressive as they were incoherent.
The Besht's statement, "I let the mouth speak what it wants," implies that he spoke glossolalia. Although his statement does not tell whether what was spoken by his mouth was intelligible or not, other sources recollect that the Besht could not converse with people after prayer because of continuing intensity of devequth: "He used to utter out of order." " His eyes bulged and he sounded like a slaughtered bull. He kept this up to about two hours." The phenomenon of glossolalia looks crazy and insane to observers. Glossolalia sounded noisy and frenzied, like drunkenness according to the reports in the New Testament (Acts 2:12-18 and I Corinthians 13:1). Hasidim admitted the speech of the Shekhinah sounded like the cry of mad people possessed by the evil spirit:
Sometimes the divine sparks of the Shekhinah which dwells in one's soul spreads, and then She really speaks words out of this mouth. It looks as if he does not speak, for the words come out of his mouth by themselves. This is a higher stage [of devequth]. To the contrary, we see a [similar] situation caused by the Other Side among insane persons.
Weiss declined to recognize glossolalia in Hasidism. He thought that glossolalia was a message of sorts given by God to be interpreted for the congregation. It may be so. But, for the mystic it is not necessarily essential whether glossolalia could be interpreted or not. Generally, the mystics were interested mainly in unio mystica itself, and rather indifferent to its attendant circumstances or its interpretation, unless they themselves read some sort of social-historical revelation out of the experience of unio mystica. Paul the Apostle, one of the early experts in glossolalia, ruled, ﾒOne who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spiritﾓ (I Corinthians 14:2). Weiss was wrong to identify glossolalia with prophecy. The characteristic of glossolalia is its unintelligibility, and the Besht's abnormal utterance falls within the purview of glossolalia.
In any event, either in the automatic utterance of the Hebrew text of prayer or in the so-called glossolalia, a Hasid at the fourth stage of ecstasy has no control of his own vocal organs and is subject to the supremacy of God.
We have seen how Hasidim surrendered themselves to the power of the Shekhinah at the peak of devequth although they were physically entranced earlier. To be sure, mystical ecstasy involves neither mental torpidity nor self-oblivion. A person in perfect ecstasy does not sense the external world for the reason that his entire consciousness has withdrawn from the circumference to the center. This most perfect state of ecstasy is technically called "complete mono-ideism," in which "the attention to one thing and the inattention to all else is so entire that the subject is entranced."
This raises the question of what a Hasid should concentrate on. Obviously, attention to the Hebrew text of worship is onerous and even distracting, as Rabbi Meshullam Phoebus confessed, for it contains too many subjects to contemplate:
In the case of utterances like prayer, there are so many subjects of the contemplation to direct the heart for the utterance that it is almost impossible to utter without great toil. Therefore, how can one move from the literal meaning of the words to contemplation?
Instead, he suggested contemplating God as much as possible. Needless to say, the manner of contemplating God in order to achieve perfect ecstasy must be more intensified and concentrated than a mere thinking of God. The intensified contemplation of God in Hasidism involves a deeply ethical reflection, which brings a person to a sense of his nothingness: "The more a person clings to the Lord, blessed be He, the more he feels his meanness and poverty, until he becomes nothing at all." The sense of man's meanness is simultaneously accompanied by fear and awe of the grandeur of God:
When a person looks at the grandeur of the Creator, blessed be He, ... immediately awe and fear reach him from Him, blessed be His Name, and the person becomes extremely humble [like King David (II Samuel 6:22)] and he is humbled in his own eyes.
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The concept of God without the notion of His grandeur and majesty was simply unthinkable to the traditional Jews. The Great Maggid said, "None of creation can bear His greatness." The Bible is rich with the idea of God's greatness: "For Thou art great and doest wondrous things, Thou alone art God" (Psalms 86:10). Judaism grasps God's greatness not as a matter of mere conception but as a matter of reality through historical, social and natural events. The Jewish approach to God's greatness has found its best expression in the formula of the Kaddish, which begins with the phrase "Magnified and sanctified be His great Name in the world...." For the Jews, to think of God means to think about His greatness, which consequently reminds them of the triviality of human beings. This chain reaction of thought is Hasidism's method of annihilating selfhood. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak formulated it as follows: "The annihilation of beingness in the midst of reality and the lack of feeling of selfhood because of the grandeur and mightiness of the Creator, blessed be He."
The annihilation of beingness in Hasidism is, thus, essentially based on man's humility before God's magnitude. The beingness of a Hasid is immediately reduced and annihilated at the manifestation of God's great Beingness. In order to stir the sense of humility Hasidim find it helpful to pray according to the division of the fixed text, while in order to gain strength to attain bittul ha-yesh they prefer praying with a large number of friends in deep devotion, which can only be expressed as "crying in whisper":
Let one contemplate that there is only the Holy One, blessed be He, in all of the worlds, for the whole earth is full of His Glory. The real contemplation is that a man should regard himself as nothing and nil, for his essence is only the soul which is within him, and which is a part of God from above. It is that only the Holy One, blessed be He, is there in all of the worlds.
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So what is bittul ha-yesh? According to Hasidic understanding, it is the complete domination of the Creator, blessed be He.
Rabbi Dov Baer of Lubavich (1773-1827), son of Shneur Zalman of Lyady and known as ﾒthe Mitteler Rebbeﾓ among the Lubavich Hasidim, presented a discourse on ecstasy from a totally different point of view. He had a cool head, like his father, and through his prolific writings, systematically exposed the theology of Hasidism. In his days, there was much confusion between true and false ecstasies. Many Hasidim thought of ecstasy as emotional excitement and became frenzied during worship. Dov Baer of Lubavich was critical of their sham ecstasy:
We observe the majority of masses moved to ecstasy in their prayer with an external ecstasy... an external cry.
Even though people call this, too, by the name of 'cleaving' [devequth] or 'enthusiasm' [hithlahabuth ] it is, in fact, an entirely false 'cleaving,' the exact opposite of that true 'cleaving' called... 'divine ecstasy' [hithpa'aluth elohah].... This is called 'Self-worship' and not at all God worship.
It is no more than a laying bare of heart and flesh with inflammatory sparks of fire, by which a man warms himself in order to sense the category of ecstasy. This is a most excessive error.
Ecstasy which is produced through impure motivation is essentially a corporeal one, he argued. A true and divine ecstasy must be an internal and unconscious one, which results from one's perception (ha-shemi'ah, lit., the listening) and understanding of God's words. Dov Baer of Lubavich denounced such false ecstasy and said, "There is no category of ha-shemi'ah (the listening)." He used the term shemi'ah (listening) as a measure to determine the degree of comprehension of the words of God. In physical ecstasy one's being is occupied by the external cry without hearing God's words. In apathetic ecstasy one hears them from a distance without being involved in them. But in the transition of ecstasy, one desires to be near to God after hearing from a distance, and one gradually steps forward to a higher stage of ecstasy. Dov Baer of Lubavich classified five stages of ecstasy in accordance with five categories of human soul:
1. Nephesh (Life). People in this stage "listen" God's words and understand their meaning. But they keep themselves far from God despite recognizing the preciousness of God's words.
2. Ruach (Spirit). This is the stage of "ecstasy of good thoughts" in which people not only "listen" and understand God's words but also desire to come closer to God despite their remoteness. This stage is like "a person who receives good news about a business project in which he is personally concerned, the whole power of his mind becomes engaged and he is thoroughly attached in an ecstasy of thought known as 'attachment [devequth ] of thought'."
3. Neshamah (Soul). This is the stage of illumination in which one's heart is immediately moved in ecstasy through the joy of being in "the nearness of God," and in which one conducts oneself in fear and love because of the sense of the Divine Presence. And the song accompanied by the melody proceed from the heart in ecstasy. Yet the man in ecstasy is completely unconscious of the ecstasy. He is like "a son, whose heart is moved in ecstasy out of longing for his father, does not sense that he is moved in ecstasy and the extent of his feeling is known to him because there is utmost degree of essence and naturalness."
4. Hayyah (Spirit of Life). This is the stage of "ecstasy of mind" in which one's heart and mind are totally concentrated on the divine light, and "all is nothing before God." It is as when "a person concentrates in the essence of his heart, with the full depth of his mind, on the importance of a good business project after which his whole soul is drawn..., his whole heart and mind are absorbed in the nature of that good thing itself, alone." There is no longer a division between one's comprehension and the divine subject at this stage. It is as a song without words: the melody itself expresses the inner pure ecstasy. This stage is regarded as identical with the dimension of Wisdom in the Kabbalah, from which a person eventually receives the power of creativity and vitality. However, "because this is so much more inward and essential, it comes all the more without consciousness or self-awareness, as is well known from actual experience to all who have tasted the essential flavor and delight of profound comprehension of the divine in prayer" as in the Invocation of the Shema'.
5. Yehidah (Singleness). This is the supreme stage that is beyond reason and intellect. The whole being of the man is so absorbed that nothing remains, and he has no self-consciousness whatsoever. This is called "simple song," namely, the "essence" ascending in song which is not yet detailed either in words or in melody. The ecstasy of Yehidah is ineffable and inexplicable. It is a paradox that "the learned and the ignorant are truly equalﾓ in this matter because its highest stage is beyond the average intellect. Yet "in every Jew it shines in concealment. This is why we observe that the divine soul of every Jew becomes attached and attracted, involuntarily and on his own accord, when he hears an exposition of the divine subject, even if he does not understand it at all. This is only because the category of yehidah shines in him, in concealment at least."
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In these five categories of ecstasy, the stage of Hayyah is virtually identical with the practical goal of the annihilation of selfhood, while to fully realize the stage of Yehidah remains an ideal.
Rabbi Dov Baer of Lubavich repeatedly emphasized that one's pure concern with the divine subject is the decisive factor for divine ecstasy. What is important is to devote oneself for the sake of God and not for one's own benefit. In other words, divine ecstasy ceases as soon as the devotee is aware that he is in ecstasy. Or, if he intends to taste thrill and excitement in ecstasy, his ecstasy becomes a dross, even if he was in the stage of Hayyah. Dov Baer of Lubavich objectively observed the experience of ecstasy: "This is an important principle. The more profound the essential ecstasy..., the less one senses it." He was extremely zealous about the principle of ecstasy. He criticized those people who abused the phenomenon, calling their tendency "the malady of the natural soul," and said, "He who truly desires the nearness of God in his soul should see to it that he is neither impressed by ecstasy of the heart, nor indeed aware of it at all."
Essentially, this warning issued by Dov Baer of Lubavich is the same as the Zen teaching of being unattached. Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, said, "Sitting in meditation does not concern the mind nor does it concern the purity; we do not talk of steadfastness." The authenticity of ecstasy becomes stained either in Hasidic devequth or in Zen meditation at the very moment self-reflection occurs in the mind of the devotee.
Rabbi Dov Baer of Lubavich reminds his followers again and again that ecstasy must not be sought for one's own benefit but must based from the outset on pure intention and humility. True devotion must begin with repentance and with brokenheartedness. Only repentance produces the cry in prayer. He called true humility nishkeit (nothingness). Those who achieved the highest degree of bittul ha-yesh, in fact, regarded themselves as nothing and unworthy in essence. Their nishkeit was truly natural and not a pretense. To live humbly without pretentiousness was the daily goal of man. According to Dov Baer of Lubavich, this simple but ultimate goal was more frequently achieved by "the common people rather than the sophisticated and the sages." This was indeed a lesson for the religious leaders of his generation.
Hasidism attempted to end the apathy toward worship by introducing enthusiasm and the ecstasy of devequth into it. But when ecstatic prayer became a sort of religious behaviorism in Hasidism, Dov Baer of Lubavich stood up to point out its error and reaffirmed the great principle that the authenticity of ecstasy must be maintained by all means, and that the spontaneity of the desire to be near to God and the humility of the brokenheartedness, namely, nishkeit, are the sole condition for divine ecstasy: "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit" (Psalms 34:18).
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The Annihilation of Selfhood in Zen Buddhism
There is in Zen Buddhism no concept equivalent to the Hasidic concept of bittul ha-yesh, although a phenomenon similar to bittul ha-yesh often happens to Zen disciples at the moment of satori (enlightenment). For example, Hakuin, the reviver of the Japanese Rinzai school in the eighteenth century, attained the ecstatic state of enlightenment several times. In his memoirs Hakuin recollected:
The spring of my twenty-fourth year found me in the monk's quarters of the Eiganji Temple in Echigo, pursuing my strenuous studies. Night and day I did not sleep; I forgot to eat and rest. Suddenly a great doubt manifested itself before me. It was as though I were frozen solid in the midst of an ice sheet extending tens of thousands of miles. A purity filled my breast and I could neither go forward nor retreat. To all intents and purposes I was out of my mind and the Mu [Nothingness] alone remained. Although I sat in the Lecture Hall and listened to the Master's lecture, it was as though I were hearing a discussion from a distance outside the hall. At times it felt as though I were floating through the air. This state lasted for several days. Then I chanced to hear the sound of the temple bell and I was suddenly transformed. It was as if a sheet of ice had been smashed or a jade tower fallen with a crash. Suddenly I returned to my senses.
After this I set out on a pilgrimage. One day when I was passing through southern Ise, I ran into a downpour and the water reached to my knees. Suddenly I gained an even deeper understanding of the verse on the Roundness of the Lotus Leaf by Ta-hui. I was unable to contain my joy. I lost all awareness of my body, fell headlong into the water, and forgotten completely to get up again. My bundles and clothing were soaked through. Fortunately a passerby, seeing my predicament, helped me to get up. I roared with laughter and everyone there thought I was mad.
The ecstasy of Zen at the moment of satori abruptly and irresistibly seizes the practitioner, when in his normal state of consciousness, unlike bittul ha-yesh in Hasidism, which develops gradually through intensive contemplation. The ecstasy of Zen is called "rapture." And Zen Buddhism places no stress on rapture, although it is deeply concerned with enlightenment. Instead, Zen Buddhism teaches the doctrine of wu-nien (no activation of thought), or wu-hsin (no-mindness), which is the Zen version of the annihilation of selfhood. The state of wu-nien is neither trance nor mental torpidity. It is transcendence rather than mere detachment from circumstances. It is a state of freedom despite one's abiding in circumstances. The Sixth Patriarch explained it as follows:
What is no thought [wu-nien]? The Dharma of no-thought means: even though you see all things, you do not attach to them, but, always keeping your own nature pure, cause the six thieves [that is, the six senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and discerning] to exit through the six gates [that is, the six sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind]. Even though your are in the midst of the six dusts [that is, the six external objects: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and idea], you do not stand apart from them, yet are not stained by them, and are free to come and go. This is the prajna samadhi, and being free and having achieved release is known as the practice of no-thought.
We must not overlook the fact that wu-nien is essentially active and practical and not quietistic. If anyone seeks the state of wu-nien in a quiet sitting of meditation, his wu-nien, even if achieved, is invalid, for he is attached to the idea of quietude. The Sixth Patriarch said:
If the mind does not abide in things the Tao circulates freely; if the mind abides in things, it becomes entangled. If sitting in meditation without moving is good, why did Vimalakirti scold Sariputra for sitting in meditation in the forest?
Even in pre-Sixth Patriarch Zen Buddhism, the ultimate goal of zazen was to attain non-attachment. The difference between the pre- and the post-Sixth Patriarch Zen Buddhism is that the former sought non-attachment in the quietude of zazen, while the latter demonstrated it in all circumstances. In a sense, Zen's no-mindness is to be understood as the dispersion of attention rather than the dismissal of attachment. Takuan, a distinguished Zen master who became an adviser to the Shogun Iemitsu (d. 1651), expounded the essence of Zen Buddhism by comparing it to the secret of Japanese swordsmanship in his discourse Fudochi Shinmyo-roku. He maintained this view:
A mind unconscious of itself is a mind that is not at all disturbed by affects of any kind. It is the original mind and not the delusive one that is chock-full of affects. It is always flowing, it never halts, nor does it turn into a solid. As it has no discrimination to make, no affective preference to follow, it fills the whole body, pervading every part of the body, and nowhere standing still.... If it should find a resting place anywhere, it is not a mind of no-mind. A no-mind keeps nothing in it. It is also called munen [no-thought or wu-nien]. Mushin [no-mind] and munen are synonymous. When mushin or munen is attained, the mind moves from one object to another, flowing like a stream of water, filling every function required of it. But when the flowing is stopped at one point, all the other points will get nothing of it, and the result will be a general stiffness and obduracy. The wheel revolves when it is not too tightly attached to the axle. When it is too tight, it will never move on. If the mind has something in it, it stops functioning, it cannot hear, it cannot see, even when a sound enters the ears or a light flashes before the eyes. To have something in mind means that it is preoccupied and has no time for anything else.
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The ideal Zen practice is to act without attachment. The state of samadhi is supposed to be maintained "at all times, walking, staying, sitting, or lying on." A man in the perfect stage of Zen practice is free from everything, including time. Huang-po said:
At this time, there is no distinction of oneself and others, and one is not disturbed by all circumstances, even though one has not departed from them all day long. Such a man can really be called a free man. Furthermore, he does not see any of the forms that pass from moment to moment, and he pays no attention to the past, present or future. The past does not depart, the present does not stay, and the future does not come. To sit upright in peace and to entrust oneself completely to things as they are is called emancipation.
Zen urges man to practice the annihilation of the self in all aspects of daily life, not only in zazen meditation. This means the annihilation of attachment. It is unlike the Hasidic concept of bittul ha-yesh, which is ecstasy under the limited situation during prayer and which is ravishment of attachment to God. The Hasidic version of the annihilation of selfhood is like peeling an onion: it is literally annihilating the self, sensation and thoughts. The self will ultimately be absorbed by the dimension of Nothingness, and there will be nothing corporeal in the peak of devequth. The Zen version of the annihilation of selfhood is like peeling a bur of a chestnut: it is annihilating superficial thoughts and passions. The external self will drop out and the internal true self, namely, one's own nature, will manifest itself as the "formless yet real person.
Tsung-mi (780ﾐ841), a Chinese Zen scholar, suggested that "the True Self exists in the reality of no-self." In other words, the effort of Zen is focused on removing all kinds of biases and prejudices that compose the external self in order to restore the original nature which has been concealed by those external forces. Tsung-mi studied Confucianism and the teaching of the Three Treaties school in his early years. In his twenty-fifth years he became a monk under a Zen master from the southern school. His devotion to the study of the Yuan-chueh Sutra brought him, further, to master the doctrine of the Hua-yen school. Three of his works, The Commentaries on the Yuan-chueh Sutra, Ch'an-yuan Chu-chuan-chi Tu-hsu (Zengen Shosenshu Tojo), and Ch'an-men Shih-tzu Ch'eng-hsi-t'u, were important for the survey of Zen Buddhism in China in the early ninth century. He was unique in the history of Zen Buddhism because of his universal background and his advocacy for the unity of the conceptual study of Buddhism and the meditative approach of Zen Buddhism.
Lin-chi (d. 866), the heir of Huang-po and the founder of the Lin-chi (Rinzai) school, was slapped three times by his master, because he had been attached to seeking the way of Buddhism in external conceptions rather than in internal enlightenment. As the result, he eventually changed his approach and finally achieved an enlightenment. Lin-chi warned his disciples in the following manner:
Wherever I am, I have nothing further to seek. Circumstances could not change me. If students come to seek, I go out to look at them. They do not see me. So I put on all kinds of robes. The students at once start speculating about them, taken in by my words. It is all very sad. Blind shaven ones, men who have no eyes, they lay hold of the robes I am wearingﾑblue, yellow, red or white. When I take those off and put on the robe of purity, the students cast one glance and are beside themselves with joy. And when I take it off, they are disappointed and shocked, run about frantically and complain that I go naked. So I say to them: ﾒDo you know me who puts on all these robes?" And suddenly they turn their heads and recognize me.
It must be noticed that the very original nature has been continuingly active in the individual since his birth despite domination of his external ego in the worldly life. It is the ultimate source which provides personality to all acts which the individual performs in his everyday life. Without the original nature one's daily life collapses instantly. When the external ego is removed, all artificial, superficial and delusive elements vanish and he returns to his original reality. The annihilation of the self in Zen Buddhism is, after all, to drive "the original mind" (or "everyday-mindedness") home without discretion and judgment. It is virtually an effort to live genuinely "as it is," and not create any extraordinary situation such as bittul ha-yesh in Hasidism.
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