RSS

Practice of the Cloud: Emptiness

As taught by the Unknown Author of the Cloud of Unknowing

by Sr. Mary Margaret Funk

As befits the title of his work the author remains anonymous despite much speculation about his identity. Most theories suggest that he was a Cistercian hermit or a Carthusian priest. Regardless of his status, his writing reveals a keen theological mind and a perceptive director of souls.

His teaching reflects the apophatic or negative spiritual tradition which emphasizes that God is beyond our thoughts, concepts and images.
The author is believed to have lived in the East Midlands, a region of central England, during the latter half of the 14th century. He contributed to exceptional wave of spiritual literature which emerged from England at that time, including the works of Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and Julian of Norwich.

In addition to his spiritual teaching, the unknown author is highly regarded for his literary gifts. His work displays remarkable strength and vigor in the original Middle English. Six other anonymous works are attributed to this author; probably the most well known of these is A Letter of Private Direction (often entitled The Book of Privy Counseling). Even though he wrote in Middle English there seems to be an affinity with English speaking readers and this work who report that The Cloud reads like an inspired book of Scripture.

We are all called to Contemplation, resting in God. There are many paths in this journey. This path very specifically taught by the Unknown author of the Cloud of Unknowing is for those attracted to the mystery and not inclined to go through images of Jesus, or Mary or through the life of Jesus Christ as devotion. The attraction is Christ centered, but beyond the images and stories. The Unknown author speaks for those who want the apophatic path (imageless) of us when He says, “ God is a jealous lover we must fix our love on him. Close the doors and windows on imagination because God is beyond our thoughts, concepts and images.”

The teaching of the method is helpful and easy to understand, but hard to do: Practice: lift up your heart to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love, desire Him for his own sake, not for gifts. We must Center all our attention and desire on Him. Let Him be the sole concern of mind and heart. We need to forget all else. Feel nothing else but a kind of darkness about your mind. This is the Cloud of Unknowing.

We can’t will ourselves to feel naked before God, but we can practice a “naked intent” toward God. Just stay with the teaching as present here and the meaning will emerge. This is delicate and subtle but intelligible.

The teaching goes on to say, “In spirit cry out to him whom you love. Place your hope in feeling and seeing God as He is in Himself.” This is a negative path: we unthink what we think about God so that God emerges in our thoughts as God is and not whom we wish or fabricate God to be.

When we cry out to him whom we love we do it often and always in this Cloud, this darkness. We forget all else. This isn’t just a pious recommendation, this is a recommendation to literally forget all thoughts racing in our minds. In exchange we receive God who brings us to deeper levels than ordinary surface consciousness. We come to a deep experience of God himself.

The unknown author gives us a method that was taught 1000 years before this writing in the 14th Century but he places it before those he has in spiritual direction in England. He tells his seekers to choose a single word, one syllable, but it should be meaningful to them. The word might be “God “or “love.” Fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may. Use this word to “beat” upon the cloud of darkness above you (the beat is more like the baton of an orchestra leader…steady beat, soft, measured…not like a baseball bat…). This is how you enter the cloud. Now all of us have thoughts rising from ordinary time, from below, what do we do with them? He recommends that to subdue all distractions…move them (consign) them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you.

Answer with this word alone to anything thought that enters consciousness – think not about the thought – the value lies in its simplicity (oneness).

Contemplation is a way of knowing wherein one turns to God with a burning heart, desire for God alone and rests in blind awareness of his naked being.

We are called to a way of being. This is how I understand this from my study of the Desert Tradition:

We feel inclined to move into the third renunciation, that is renounce even our thought of God because just as we are not our thoughts neither is God our thoughts of Him. So we take our love for God (in secret) as this is interior and whatever level of purity of heart we might have and walk between this Cloud of Unknowing (we can’t know God by thoughts) and the Cloud of Forgetting (we bring all our distractions to that little word of love that carries our intent of love) and repeat over and over the word instead of thinking any particular thoughts.

Love God for His own sake. Another way of saying it using the image of a cloud (which means non-thought). Enter the Cloud of Unknowing by practicing in the cloud of forgetting all else but a naked intent of love using the sacred word.

Like most practices this will make more sense when it is part of your experience. Descriptions fail to capture the simplicity and profundity of this Way of Unknowing. We would also attend to Scripture. We’d do lectio, but sit easily, using the words of Scripture like a mirror. The words reflect God, God’s ways and draw us into mystery. In this path we are particularly attracted to the unitive sense of Scripture in the Gospel of St. John or John’s Epistles. We pray intuitively not analytically; we let what comes arise and stand before it. This is not the study of a scholar. “Let prayer rise, short prayer pierces the heavens.”

During prayer we forget the self. By letting go (or letting thoughts be without accompanying them with another thought) we empty our minds and hearts of everything except God during the time of this “work.” We refrain from other kinds of knowledge and processing other experiences. We want no less than God: treading it all down beneath the cloud of forgetting we forget creatures.

In this kind of prayer brute force has no place. We come more like a child. Our heart waits for the gracious initiative of the Lord. And God comes in prayer like our naked intent as naked, too. There’s usually no experience of consolation or desolation. We find consolation in doing God’s will. If I can name one word that describes the experience of doing this kind of prayer is “subtle.” There’s just hints. We must be alert to receive them but without any expectation. We are letting God be God and letting our faith be faith.

Sometimes when we talk about prayer we use words like “lift up our hearts” or “put our thoughts down” in the Cloud of Forgetting, or “move into contemplation” or “out in gratefulness”. All these words must be erased from an interpetation that limits God. The human side often describes God and conscribes Him as too small, narrow, absent or out there. We refrain from thinking this way in the pracitce of the Cloud. Even the Cloud can’t be taken as a literal image.

Another way of describing this particular prayer method is Emptiness Practice. It’s unthinking but warming our hearts and sending the word as darts of love. The stress on warming the heart is a later tradition and serves as a corrective to being un-relating to others and impersonal since the prayer practice is so impersonal. Formlessness doesn’t mean bereft of a spiritual and full-bodied warmth toward God and others. All words limp before this awesome way of prayer.

All prayers, but particularly the practice of Emptiness, stress desire, not results. We never get there, it’s just a way of being before God. To be there (before God) we discipline the imagination so that we are not mentally someplace else! Our ordinary senses are not up to this level of receptivity so we distrust our senses whenever we fix our minds on an image that represents God.

As we walk from here to there our thoughts can safely pray this prayer: “That which I am I offer to you, O Lord, without looking to any quality of your Being, but only to the fact that you are as you are; this, and nothing more. That which I am, I offer to you, Our Lord, for You are it entirely…That I am…that you are” (from The Book of Privy Counsel). I know of nuns who do this emptiness practice using the mantra, “That I am, That You are.” The author of the Cloud says, “Go no further, but rest in this naked, stark, elemental awareness that you are as you are.”

You must stand at the door of contemplation and practice devotion of heart. Using your word send your naked intent to Our Lord in the Cloud of Unknowing.

Signs:

We said that there are many paths and not everyone is called to walk the same Path. There are signs of this calling to contemplative prayer. And then there are further signs that you are called to Emptiness as a practice of Contemplative Prayer:

The first sign you will notice is a growing desire for contemplation constantly intruding in your daily devotions. A blind longing of the spirit. This longing lingers after your time of prayer, a kind of spiritual sight awakens which both renews the desire and increases it. This desire is blind (comes from underneath and not direct itself) If you are still processing your sins or working out the consequences of our Lord’s passion in your own life you are still just needing the ordinary way of prayer and not a more intense life of grace.

The second sign is exterior. You manifests a certain joyful enthusiasm welling up within you, whenever you hear or read about contemplation. Nothing else satisfies. Your inclination to more of a way of prayer rather than prayers persists. If it diminishes after lectio, then it’s not a sign, but if your contemplative longings capture and intrude in all you do and it’s there when you wake up and go to sleep, then it is a call to contemplative prayer (from The Cloud of Unknowing).

The third sign that I would add from listening to those called to an emptiness practice is that there’s the contemplative bent described above, but also a detachment from any prayer practice that has images or much thinking about anything. For example, the opposite inclination is to be invited to colloquy in which there is a continual conversation with Our Lord. Emptiness practice is wordless. But like all contemplative practices there’s the phase where there is right effort and then Our Lord takes over and it becomes rest!

Bibliography:

The Cloud of Unknowing. Trans. James A. Walsh, S.G. Classics of Western Spirtuality. New York: Paulist Press, 1981.
A modern version with an extensive introduction and many notes.

The Cloud of Unknowing. Ed. Evelyn Underhill. 1912. Rockport, MA: Element, 1997. A literal rendering of the text which keeps close to the original Middle English.

The Cloud of Unknowing and other Works. Trans. Clifton Wolters. London: Penguin Books, 1961, 1978.
A very readable version,. Three other works of the author of The Cloud are included in this single volume.

The Cloud of Unknowing the Book of Privy Counseling. Ed. William Johnston. New York, Image, 1973.
The introduction to these two works includes a clear explanation of the theology behind the practice.

Cooper, Austin, O.M.I. The Cloud: Reflections of Selected Texts. New York: Alba House, 1989.
These meditations place the Cloud of Unknowing in the wider context of biblical and Christian sprirtual tradition.

Gregory of Nyssa. The Life of Moses. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1978.
An account of the soul’s ascent to meet God in the darkness of unknowing.

Johnston, William. The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing. New York: Desclee, 1967.
(I could not find a copy of this book: it is still in print.)

Llewelyn, Robert. All Shall Be Well. New York: Paulist Press, 1982.
Includes a clear and practical discussion of the Cloud of Unknowing as a spiritual path.

Pseudo-Dionysius. The Complete Works. Trans. Colm Luibheid. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.
This scholarly volume contains a primary source of apophatic of “negative theology.”

The Pursuit of Wisdom and other works by the Author of the Cloud of Unknowing. Trans. James A. Walsh, S.J. Classics of Western Spirtuality. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.
The remaining known works of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, translated by James A. Walsh, S.J. (see above).

Emptiness Practice: Would use The Cloud of Unknowing. And the Book of Privy Counseling. Edit. William Johnston. Doubleday: New York. 1973.

Scripture:

1) Ex. 34.14. Because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

“God is a jealous lover” (p. 47)

2) Song of Solomon 5.1 I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking.

“I am thinking of those who feel the mysterious action of the Spirit in their inmost being stirring them to love. I do not say that they continually feel this stirring, as experienced contemplatives do, but now and again they taste something of contemplative love in the very core of their being” (p. 44). “I discern his call to you in the desire for him that burns in your heart.” (p.45)

3) Matt. 6.6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Close the doors and windows of your spirit against the onslaught of pests and foes and prayerfully seek his strength; for if you do so, he will keep you safe from them.” (p. 47)

4) Jn. 1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

“No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge, but each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love.” (p. 50) “Though we cannot know him we can love him, By love he may be touched and embraced, never by thought.” (p.54)

5) Luke 8.46,48. “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me…..Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

“A naked intent toward God, the desire for him alone, is enough.” P. 56)
“The most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.” (p. 139)
“When you go apart to be alone for prayer, put from your mind everything….see that nothing remains in your conscious mind save a naked intent stretching out toward God. Leave it stripped of every particular idea about God and keep only the simple awareness that he is as he is.” (p. 150)

6) Luke 10.41 “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

“But only one thing is necessary. And what do you suppose this one thing is? Surely he was referring to the work of loving and praising God for his own sake.” (p.75)

7) Mark 9.2 And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them….Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” listen to him.”

“For beyond them (thoughts)—over their shoulder, as it were-as if you were looking for something else, which of course you are. For beyond them, God is hidden in the dark cloud of unknowing…..in reality it amounts to a yearning for God, a longing to see and taste him as much as is possible in this life. And desire like this is actually love, which always brings peace.” (p. 88)
“Contemplatives rarely pray in words but if they do, their words are few. The fewer the better, as a matter of fact: yes, and a word of one syllable is more suited to the spiritual nature of this work than longer ones.” (p. 95)

8) John 15.9 “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”

“He alone feels authentic sorrow who realizes not only what he is, but that he is.” (p. 103)
“And so, go down to the deepest point of your mind and think of yourself in this simple, elemental way. In any case, do not think what you are but that you are.” (p 152)
“And so you may confidently rely on this gentle stirring of love in your heart and follow wherever it leads you, for it is your sure guide in this life and will bring you to the glory of the next. This little love is the essence of a good life and without no good work is possible. Basically, love means a radical personal commitment to God. This implies that your will is harmoniously attuned to his in an abiding contentedness and enthusiasm for all he does.” (p. 111)
“For with your attention centered on the blind awareness of your naked being united to God’s you will go about your daily rounds, eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, going and coming, speaking and listening, lying down and rising up, standing and kneeling, running and riding, working and resting. In the midst of it all, you will be offering to God continually each day the most precious gift you can make. This work will be at the heart of everything you do, whether active or contemplative.” (p. 163)

9) John 15.9 “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has he world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”
Jeremiah 23.12. “Therefore their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness, into which they shall be driven and fall;”
“I warn you that a person who fails in vigilance and control of his thoughts, even though they are not sinful in their first movements, will eventually grow careless about small sins.” (p. 63).

10) Philippians 3.7 “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

“The Cloud of unknowing, the secret love planted deep in an undivided heart, The Ark of the Covenant. It is Denis’ mystical theology, what he calls his wisdom and his treasure, his luminous darkness, and his unknown knowing. It is what leads you to a silence beyond thought and words and what makes your prayer simple and brief.” (p. 170)
“I told you to forget everything save the blind awareness of your naked being, I intended all along to lead you eventually to the point where you would forget even this, so as to experience only the being of God…God is your being.” (p. 171)

11) Rev. 3.20 “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”

“He goes well to go on standing at the door, for up to now he has lived a crude sort of existence according to the flesh, and his spirit is corroded with a great rust. It is fitting that he waits at the door until his conscience and his spiritual father agree that this rust has been largely rubbed away. But most of all, he must learn to be sensitive to the Spirit guiding him secretly in the depths of his heart and with until the Spirit himself stirs and bacons him within.” (p. 177)