Chapter 2 The God is No-Thing An Apophatic Assertion: An Introduction for Humankind’s Transpersonal Actualization– revised -. Copyright Rodger Ricketts Psy.D.,2023. All rights reserved. Protected by international copyright conventions. No part of this chapter may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, without express permission of the Authorpublisher, except in case of brief quotations with due acknowledgement. Publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Chapter 2
Via Negativa and Via Positiva
In this chapter, I will highlight what more I learned about apophatic theology or apophaticism. Those new readings introduced me to Western and other apophatic writers, resulting in my defining the Buddha’s teachings as an example of an apophatic perspective. There are clear similarities between the Buddha’s writing and those of Angelus Silesius and other apophatic theologists. While there is already some scholarship about this similarity, it is, unfortunately, rarely discussed in mainstream Buddhist or theistic literature. This lack of discussion prompted me to integrate relevant aspects of my previous writings on the Buddha’s teachings with fascinating apophatic perspectives and to highlight what I believe are important parallels. In the past, I read some works of Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart and the book The Cloud of Unknowing, but I was never specifically introduced to the apophatic tradition. This past year, as I read the apophatic works of Angelus Silesius and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, I realized that the Buddha’s teachings could be correctly considered apophatic. This realization opened a new dimension of comprehension and relevance for me about what I had written in my previous books and essays on the Buddha’s teachings. First, let us understand the differences between cataphatic and apophatic theology or via positiva and via negativa–
While Apophatic theology was often in the past regarded as heretical, blasphemy, and unorthodox, we have seen in the previous chapters that now the sciences including physics, cosmology, psychology, biology, ecology, linguistics, as well as meditation, all provide a secure platform for the non-dualistic Apophatic convictions and practice. Apophatic teachings and analysis clearly provide an alternative to the dominant Dualistic Cataphatic dogma. This acceptance and application of the non-dualist perspective is not just an academic survey but a way of living that has crucial truths that benefit the individual, interpersonal, biological, psychological, sociological, spiritual, societal, and ecological levels.
This revised book published on Amazon on June 11, 2022, explores what the Buddha and other apophatic teachers have consistently taught, and what is now clear through scientific investigation, that living beings, the environment, and even the universe are deeply enmeshed and are All. This is one existence and actions by all living and non-living forces interact with and alters the previous reality- some more than others. Therefore, once we become awakened to, inspired, and apply the truths that the Buddha and others have discovered, there is a real possibility for a Heaven on Earth without the distraction of seeking supernatural intervention. Heaven on Earth can briefly be described in a biocentric way as a world of humans acting through wisdom and empathy and compassion, This book is an exciting exploration of the Reality of Apophatic teachings, helping to point to the Truths they teach.
We are all Interconnected even with the Universe 