Practicing Negation and Negating Practice: Christian
and Buddhist approaches to Silence and Buddha-nature
Thursday, 5 Sept 2013, 5.00-6.30pm
Venue: Seminar Room, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, 8th floor, Building H, Caulfield Campus, Monash University.
Hosted by Prof. Constant Mews and Dr Salih Yucel, Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology, School of Philosophical,
Historical and International Studies, Monash University.
Samuel Baudinette will be presenting a paper in
preparation for his confirmation of MA candidature for
his project Silence as Praise of God: Dominican
practice of negation in the 13th-14th centuries. Sam is an
active member of the Centre for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies and is currently preparing a paper
on Maimonides, Thomas and Eckhart’s attitudes
towards silence for a roundtable at the Monash Prato
Centre in Italy. His academic interests include
mysticism, the development of apophatic theology, the
interaction between Jewish, Christian and Islamic
philosophy in the Middle Ages, and the history of the
Mendicant Orders and Medieval Schools.
Abstract: The current understanding of 13th century
Dominican spirituality thus far has been mediated by
an excessive privileging of the Order’s preaching
vocation. My thesis will argue, however, that scholastic
discourse on silence also informs the Dominican
spiritual practice of the 13th century. Such a study
requires an historical approach, but one that needs to
be sensitive to the nuances of changing philosophical
and theological trends in the study of silence. I argue
that the Dominican theologians Albert the Great (d.
1280), Thomas Aquinas (1225- 1274) and Meister
Eckhart (c. 1260- 1328) demonstrate a new
understanding of the ineffability of God that represents
an attempt to redefine the need for silence in the
spiritual life. This is accomplished through a close
reading of the theological treatises and commentaries
composed by Albert, Thomas and Eckhart in which
silence or apophatic theology are the principal concern.
Partly the result of their readings of Pseudo-Dionysius
and the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, these
discussions about silence are also an attempt to
redefine (or re-articulate) the contemplative dimension
of the life of the Order of Preachers.
RSVP: John D’Alton jdal13@student.monash.edu.au
Gidi Ifergan recently completed a PhD thesis titled The
Man from Samyé: Longchenpa on Praxis, its Negation
and Liberation’ and is an adjunct fellow researcher at
the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology,
Monash University. He is currently working on a
dialogue between Yoga, Dzogchen and Psychology
focusing on subliminal impressions ( Saṃskāras) and
inner-conflicts towards their possible effective
dissolution.
Abstract: Far away from Europe, in 14th century
Tibet, Longchen Rabjampa (kLong chen rab 'byams
pa 1308–1364), one of Tibet’s greatest thinkers,
demonstrated a fresh approach within the context of
what I refer to as the ”rhetoric of negation” which is the
focused and intense critique of philosophical views and
spiritual practices pointing to their incapability of directly
causing liberation. Like that of his predecessors,
Longchenpa’s rhetoric of negation aimed to dismantle
compulsive conceptualising mental processes, creating
absence, a vacuity. But, I argue, Longchenpa goes one
step further, overcoming the problem of the futility of
spiritual practices in relation to liberation, by creatively
transforming his rhetoric of negation into a pedagogy
that is claimed to be completely capable of facilitating
the experience of natural awareness, Buddha mind or
liberation. It is because such experience transcends the
means–ends and subject-object dichotomies inherent in
general goal-oriented practices and is compatible with
the notion of non-duality. Longchenpa’s rhetoric of
negation will be presented with the emphasis on him
primarily as a teacher of liberation. This is significantly
different from most academic research dedicated to
Longchenpa to date, which has focused on his literary
abilities, his epistemology and logic, his doxography, his
poetry, and existential interpretations of his philosophy.