A Small Zen Appreciation of John of the Cross

A Small Zen Appreciation of John of the Cross December 14, 2024

Bodhisattvas ferrying the suffering across to the farther shore

There are many who help to carry us to the farther shore.

Juan de Yepes y Alverez was born into a Converso family near the town of Avila on the 24th of June, 1542. He died in the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Ubeda on the 14th of December in 1591.

We generally know him as John of the Cross, or more properly St John of the Cross. From my Zen perspective a true teacher of the intimate way. And one who has helped ferry many across to the farther shore.

Juan’s father died when he was three and the family struggled to survive. He was able to attend a school dedicated to the poor, where he was given a rudimentary education. Later he worked in a hospital while continuing to study at a Jesuit school. At twenty-one he entered the Carmelite Order.

The order sent him to Salamanca University. And he was ordained a priest in 1567. In the same year he met the Carmelite nun Teresa of Avila.

Teresa invited him to join her in the restoration of a more strict form of the Carmelite rule. One noticeable feature was forgoing shoes, hence “Discalced Carmelites.” After reflection and prayer he joined her. Soon he established the first monastery for friars in the reformed order.

As the reformed order emerged, John became Teresa’s spiritual director and confessor. Although from this distance its hard to say who was the teacher and who the student. I suspect they took turns. What we can see is a powerful collaboration, and a flowering of mystical Christianity. A flowering that has yet to wither.

He worked hard and suffered some persecution, including an imprisonment and torture. H also wrote, becoming one of the world’s great poets of the heart. He and Teresa are among the thirty-six people in Catholic history to be designated doctors of the church.

John is principally remembered as the author of the Spiritual Canticle, the Dark Night of the Soul, and the Ascent of Mount Carmel. The Ascent starts as a commentary on the Dark Night, but quickly becomes one of the great spiritual maps of the intimate way.

As a Zen practitioner I am endlessly informed by both John and Teresa.

As a small example, the Zen teacher Mokurai Cherlin quotes John:

En una noche oscura
con ansias en amores inflamada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
salí sin ser notada
estando ya mi casa sosegada

In a dark night
With longings kindled in love
oh blessed chance
I went forth without being observed
My house already being at rest

And then suggests, “These are not beginners’ koans, but even beginners can see a few steps up the mountain.”

I’m not sure what should count as “beginner” and “advanced” in koan introspection. But, he certainly puts his finger on the richness and difficulty here. And the absolutely koanic quality of his poems.

For me that poem of John’s evoked another poem, one directly from the Zen tradition. It’s the second of the Five Ranks attributed to Dongshan Liangjie. In Robert Aitken’s translation.

An old woman, oversleeping at daybreak, meets the ancient mirror,
And clearly sees a face that is no other than her own.
Don’t wander in your head and validate shadows any more.

The mystery inviting.

No doubt John of the Cross is one of the great gifts to world culture and to anyone who wishes to follow the intimate way.

Endless bows

 

About James Ishmael Ford
James Ishmael Ford's most recent book is the Intimate Way of Zen, available from Shambhala Publications and your local bookstore. You can read more about the author here.
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