matutinum

This simulacrum loft in France

Matins, organ baseline, night

Dwelling Christ unknowing

aspire to be, born, at least, once

Om 

    mane 

        padre hum

Behold 

    the jewel     

        in the lotus

Behold 

    what is 

        within without

Behold that 

    which is Christ 

        within what is here.

works and words are windows on something that remains somehow unspeakable

At times the Christian metaphor feels like, in Weil's words, affliction and humiliation. 

There's so much I do not understand. 

INTRODUCTION 

 

“Kenosis” refers to a way of entering the mystery of Christ that is

anchored into a contemplation of the descending movement leading

from God’s glory to Jesus’ coming into the world, then from Incarnation

to the death on a cross, and from the Cross to the depths of the

underworld. The text of reference is of course a passage of the letter to

the Philippians that has become central to all Christological exegeses

(Phil 2: 7-11). Commentators of the Pauline writings have often noted

that this text does not stand as a mere theological proclamation but

comes after an exhortation to show to each other “the feelings that were

in Christ Jesus”: “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in

Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not

regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself,

taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of

men.”(Phil. 2:4-7) In other words, Kenosis, before being constructed as

a concept, is first a lived experience the one of feeling and sharing the

humility of Christ. Some artistic masterworks express in a special way

such lived spiritual experience. The “Mass in B moll” of J.S. Bach

comes to mind, with the melodic and rhythmic continuity which links

into one and the same piece the “Et incarnatus” and the “Crucifxus.” The

“last breath” on which the “Crucifixus” finishes is followed—in one of

the most startling contrasts offered by music—by the vital dynamics of

the “Et resurrexit.” This part of the “Credo” of Bach’s Mass can

certainly be read as a musical meditation on the Kenosis Hymn.

 ...   ...   ...

CONCLUSION 

 

Simone Weil’s thinking on affliction (malheur) cannot be

separated from her stress on humiliation. Particularly noteworthy is her

often-repeated assertion that the experience of humiliation is associated

with the enactment of truth—only those people who are being forcibly

deprived of human dignity are capable of telling the truth, for only they

understand both the roots of human condition and the mechanisms on

which social reality relies for its existence. Weil is certainly one of the

thinkers who has renewed the understanding of the lived experience of

kenosis, and this is certainly through endeavors similar to hers that we

can integrate the lived experience of individuals and communities into

the Christology found in the Philippians, giving it new meaning for our

time.

The works of Chinese artists as well as the stories told by Chinese

Christians are all part of such Christological deepening. By essence,

these works and stories cannot be fully articulated, narrated and

analyzed: they keep open within themselves the wound, the Void that

the experience of affliction and humiliation digs into the one subjected 

 

26 See notably ibid., pp. 124sq.

27 Ibid., p. 168.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., p. 209.Humility and Humiliation in Modern Chinese Painting 101 

 

to it. Works and words are windows on something that remains

somehow unspeakable. The fragments of testimonies emerging from

such kenotic experiences are made much more precious when one

realizes the depths from which, against all odds, they have been

eventually uttered. 

 

School of Philosophy

Fudan University

Shanghai, China 

 

CHAPTER V

HUMILITY AND HUMILIATION: KENOTIC EXPERIENCE IN MODERN CHINESE PAINTING,

AND IN THE HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE OF CHINESE CHRISTIANS

BENOIT VERMANDER, SJ

in Chinese Spirituality & Christian Communities

A Kenotic Perspective

Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXXI

Christian Philosophical Studies, XVII

Edited by

Vincent Shen 2015, https://www.crvp.org/publications/Series-VIII/17-Disjunctions-shen.pdf

Self-emptying, words easily pronounced, nevertheless remain unspeakable across the millennia from old villages in what has come to be called 'the holy land.'

Could it have been that this one man contained all of existence in his being? Emptied it. Then found a way to resurrect, rehabilitate, reincarnate into a new essence of what it means to-be-here? 

our brothers in arms

 Then, there’s this:

Israel’s parliament approved a one-sided death penalty measure to execute Palestinians. It’s one of the most extreme laws in the nation’s history, and will exacerbate the far-right government’s illegal system of apartheid.

Some members of the Knesset, including ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, were seen wearing noose pins in the Knesset on Monday, and celebrating with drinks on live TV after the bill passed. Ben-Gvir said hanging is “one of the options,” as is execution by the electric chair or euthanasia. 

The bill drew international condemnation ahead of its passage, including from the European Union, UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and Amnesty International. Human rights groups have vowed to challenge the bill in Israel’s supreme court.

 https://zeteo.com/p/israel-approves-death-penalty-law-palestinians

I’m listening for America’s response. 

the difficulty of empathy

In prison this morning conversation about AI, evil and good, craving and aversion, truth and illusion, and the fact that “withholding” or secrecy seems to be the practice of everyone, from each of us in the room to every government and corporation in the world.

One man felt there is a dome in the outer atmosphere and no one has travelled to the moon. Another referred to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva as close cousins to Father, Son, and Spirit. The Native American man emphasized walking in peace.

Returning home, I look into a NYRB article "Indecorous Decorations", by Lauren Kane, (Medieval ideas about sex and love, both rowdy and reverent, are recorded on objects meant for everyday use. March 28, 2026.)

The name Tuchman and the word ‘renunciation’ caught my attention. She mentions the "misapprehension that medieval people were prudish simply because they existed in the past.” I was reminded of a priest back in 1971 dressed in his thirteenth century brown habit who, when asked if he considered a woman we knew from Paraguay to be attractive, responded “Father is lustless” as he sipped a Tom Collins two blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

In A Distant Mirror, her influential 1978 book about daily life in fourteenth-century France, the historian Barbara W. Tuchman warns against the “difficulty of empathy” that results from this misunderstanding:

The main barrier is, I believe, the Christian religion as it then was: the matrix and law of medieval life, omnipresent, indeed compulsory. Its insistent principle that the life of the spirit and of the afterworld was superior to the here and now, to material life on earth, is one that the modern world does not share…. What compounds the problem is that medieval society, while professing belief in renunciation of the life of the senses, did not renounce it in practice, and no part of it less so than the Church itself. Many tried, a few succeeded, but the generality of mankind is not made for renunciation. There never was a time when more attention was given to money and possessions than in the fourteenth century, and its concern with the flesh was the same as at any other time. Economic man and sensual man are not suppressible.  

                                  https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/03/28/indecorous-decorations-medieval-sexuality/

 Everything is simply itself until you want it.

Desire and craving create objects of attention. Money becomes said object. Material things too. As well as women and men. Then they are no longer ‘itself', they are objects for your possession.

For something to be itself, 自体 Jitai, it requires a corresponding manifestation of each one of us to also be itself, 自体 Jitai.

It is oftentimes difficult to read or speak about renunciation or consider a world free of craving and desire as a way of being-in-the-world. To understand insubstantiality, to not fabricate a culture of accumulation, representative objectivication, and accretion, to practice the poverty of 13th century mendicancy without feeling the need to impose the same upon anyone else -- this is a keen activity.

Ours is a societal culture of reaching for wealth, reaching for sexual conquests, a plague of pedophilia, an orgy of infidelity and criminal acquisition by means of grift and graft, greed and grotesque acts of dominance. Our oligarchs and authoritarians have taken control of liquid assets, mineral and material resources, and our authentic satisfaction in living an authentic life.

There’s a lot of withholding going on. Secrecy, unshared wealth, human and other sentient or natural deprivation. There is a cadre of elite top-percenters hoarding and sequestering their booty.

The three poisons (Sanskrit: triviṣa; Tibetan: dug gsum) in the Mahayana tradition or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: akuśala-mūla; Pāli: akusala-mūla) in the Theravada tradition are a Buddhist term that refers to the three root kleshas that lead to all negative states. These three states are delusion, also known as ignorance; greed or sensual attachment; and hatred or aversion.^[1][2]  

 

In the Buddhist teachings, the three poisons (of ignorance, attachment, and aversion) are the primary causes that keep sentient beings trapped in samsara. These three poisons are said to be the root of all of the other kleshas.^[6][7] The three poisons are represented in the hub of the wheel of life as a pig, a bird, and a snake (representing ignorance, attachment, and aversion, respectively). As shown in the wheel of life (Sanskrit: bhavacakra), the three poisons lead to the creation of karma, which leads to rebirth in the six realms of samsara.^[1][8][9]   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_poisons

This morning: ‘Let’s talk about trees. It’s time to leaf and watch what leaves.’ (The man smiled at his pun.)

Walk, walk away, leave what no longer serves the well-being of each and all!

nothing without nothing within, behold

 No palms

No Eucharist

Just walking sticks

And cups of tea

Circling the field

A tired mantra

Om mane

Padme hum

vibhava-taṅhā

Two out of three ain’t bad.

From the Dīgha Nikāya: 

 

“Desire is threefold: namely, desire for sense pleasures, desire for becoming and desire for non-being.” 

 

So we have kama-taṅhā, bhava-taṅhā, and vibhava-taṅhā. Kama-taṅhā is the desire for sense pleasures. The second, bhava-taṅhā, is the desire for being or becoming, whilst vibhava-taṅhā is the desire for non-being, or not becoming.

(--from Mindfulness and the Cognitive Process, by John Peacock, Barre Center for Buddhist Studies) 

Its a haiku with my name on it:

Sense pleasure 

becoming 

non-being

 Don’t ask me where I’ve been in my life. After reflection I’d probably respond “It has been my pleasure to become non-being.”

Where would that leave me?

Probably right 

where 

I am . . . 

 

Is

somewhere 

unaware 

 

Without 

knowing

how or why

to life, do we even remember what that means

"Sometimes, with a little imagination, you have the chance to see what’s right in front of your face.”

 ( --Sheldon Whitehouse, US Senator, D-RI)

 

 I could be in France.

What does virtual even mean?

Their Palm Sunday mass

I could be in Augusta Maine

What does satori even mean?

They practice shikantaza

I could be in Senate chamber, 5mar.26

An intelligent and sober floor speech 

Sheldon Whitehouse reveals sanity

But I am in my window chair

early spring shuddering sunny air

pussy-willows on cold branches

Don’t call it multi-tasking

my multiple personalities head shake

I love you each and all, L'Chaim" (לַחַיִּים) ...

Oh Israel! we want to love you

but your cruel killing destruction in Gaza

makes it very, very, difficult

I could be in a confused mind

What even does peace and sanity mean?

I hide my face, I dissolve, I disappear