The Way of Affirmation

In religious studies, there are two terms that I think of often though I don’t always remember how to spell them.  One is cataphatic and the second is apophatic.  Cataphatic describes a type of spirituality that relies on “positive” terminology, using symbols and forms.  You might call this the “way of affirmation”.  Apophatic uses is a more “negative” approach that might be called the “way of negation”.  In Christianity, Catholicism is more cataphatic while Protestantism emphasizes the apophatic style.  You can also see the more cataphatic style in Pure Land Buddhism and the apophatic style in Zen Buddhism.  I keep these two terms straight by remembering a little mnemonic: cats have form.

In April 1997, my family and I came to the Orange County Buddhist Church for the first time.  My wife was taking a social diversity class and she had an assignment to experience something outside her cultural boundaries.  We had always been curious about Buddhism and its sense of equanimity so we searched the internet and happened to find OCBC’s Hanamatsuri Festival.  So we went that next weekend.  This was our first contact with Buddhism.

We immediately sensed the warmth and camaraderie of the volunteers.  It was a feeling that was much different than what I was used to.  We ate the food and toured all the displays.  Then we came to the Hondo.  We entered the double doors and in the distance we saw a very large golden altar.  We were the only ones there.  It was quiet.  With incenses sticks burning, the scent gently reached my nose.  I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking at but I knew how it made me feel.  I remember thinking that I wish my life felt the way the naijin looked.

I didn’t know it then but I was looking at the Pure Land or enlightenment itself.  It was like one of those dioramas that children create from a shoe box that depicts a scene for their book report.  The items on the naijin are often called adornments.  That is, the formless (apophatic) is adorning itself with form (cataphatic) in order to make itself known to those who happen to be gazing at it.

It was like seeing a movie that you can’t stop thinking about weeks later.  It creates a tension in the viewer.  I couldn’t shake the contrast between how I was experiencing my life and how I experienced the naijin.  I wanted my life to feel the way the naijin looked. It is interesting but this is all by design.  In the Pure Land tradition, these symbols and forms are meant to awaken an aspiration within us to seek the path.  It was without words but not without form.  It was concrete and immediate.   

I think of this event in my life often especially now that our naijin has been refurbished.  I hope others have the same experience as they enter the Hondo for the first time at our festivals.  The naijin radiates now even more brightly than it did 25 years ago, silently waiting for the next visitor to enter.

With palms together, Rev Jon Turner