The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works (Classic, Modern, Penguin)

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Butcher's translation of the letters are engaging, even friendly and encouraging. Historically, letters like this were between "2 ranks" with not much individuality. The intended audience of letters in general was meant to be very wide, as letters like this were often shared out and read aloud. I am not sure if Butcher, herself, removes the formality of teacher to student/ mentee or if the author-monk chose to make the letters more intimate and less didactic? It is God, and he alone, who can fully satisfy the hunger and longing of our spirit which, transformed by his redeeming grace, is enabled to embrace him by love. A good declaring of certain doubts that may fall in this work, treated by question, in destroying of a man’s own curiosity, of cunning, and of natural wit, and in distinguishing of the degrees and the parts of active living and contemplative

To live a contemplative life is difficult. That is because during contemplative prayer, you must let go. The Cloud of Unknowing is written by an unknown 14th century English contemplative. It, and the Book of Privy Counsel, are directions and advice concerning Christian contemplative prayer. The father continues: “For I tell you this, one loving blind desire for God alone is more valuable in itself, more pleasing to God and to the Saints, more beneficial to your own growth, and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than anything else you could do.” But—“It cannot be explained, only experienced.” Our Master has said: “Judge a tree by its fruit.” There should be some fruits that the objective observer should be able to experience. The father speaks of these: Some contemplatives experience those pleasant feelings regularly. Other contemplatives experience them rarely. Hugh of Balma's division between the illuminative and the unitive phases, although more pronounced than that of Thomas Gallus, can easily be overemphasized. That is, though the intellect ceases to function at the beginning of the unitive stage, it has been instrumental in stimulating love earlier; and the implication seems to be that the love evoked in the illuminative stage finally just takes over. But even Hugh of Balma is so far from being an anti-intellectual that his praise of the knowledge received by the mystic after the final union is somewhat breathtaking - and may have an echo in the Cloud. This experienced sapientia, which is operative in illumination, and for which the purgative stage prepares, achieves a final transformation: it becomes

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When I say "darkness", I mean a privation of knowing, just as whatever you do not know or have forgotten is dark to you, because you do not see it with your spiritual eyes. For this reason, that which is between you and your God is termed, not a cloud of the air, but a cloud of unknowing. First, listen to the audio for each session. Oral transmission is a standard practice of monastic life, with communities of monks gathering for dharma talks or commentaries on scripture reading. Listening to a spiritual teaching, preferably quietly and without distraction, is one of the most effective ways of absorbing a teaching. The monk often references his own "clumsy speech", again making his own voice less definitive. It's almost as if the monk is writing letters to a fictitious student because he is uncertain and developing...maybe this is a monk's own, personal journal? Notice these are not letters to a rank above the Monk asking pointed questions. How these young presumptuous disciples misunderstand this other word up; and of the deceits that follow thereon I have glanced at other translations and am quite impressed with this one, which goes through the text but sense instead of offering a more literal word-for-word translation. Footnotes give you some text in the original and explanation surrounding the connotations being employed in translation.

No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . . Hugh of Balma, thoroughly influenced by Gallus and perhaps the most immediate source of the Cloud, stresses the importance of the intellect in the first two stages of the mystical ascent, like virtually everyone else in the tradition. For both Gallus and Balma, sapientia is the highest achievement of the contemplative (Lees, p. 293), which they both identify with the portion chosen by Mary, the sister of Martha ( Cloud, line 927 ff.). Sapientia for Hugh of Balma is a "loving awareness of God which transcends the discursive knowledge achieved through the intellect" (Lees, p. 294). This wisdom rises in the affectivity, and no intelligence can thoroughly apprehend it. But even here the intellect is by no means excluded entirely, because in Balma's first mystical stage, the mind is in any event disposed to learn this true wisdom (Lees, p. 294). It is an awareness that seems to begin at least in the illuminative stage, when the soul by meditation "begins somewhat to be moved towards [God] by sending forth sparks" (Lees, p. 294, my translation; Cloud, line 385). In the unitive stage, however, he denies any effective initiative to the intellect whatsoever, and differs from Thomas Gallus in this respect. However, the emphasis on affectivity that so characterizes these two writers moves, somewhat paradoxically and surprisingly, to a final celebration of the mind. The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila. St. Teresa of Ávila wrote “The Interior Castle” in 1577 as a guide for spiritual development and mystical prayer. If, on the other hand, the idea of Contemplative Prayer does indeed resonate with you, stay with it. Act upon it.Please note: Your participation in this course entitles you to access, but not to forward, duplicate, or share course content. If you know someone who might benefit from this - or any other The Monk Within Self-Study course - please invite them to register directly. There can be no profitable reflection without previous reading, or hearing…Nor will beginners or proficients come to true prayer without previous reflection. The Living Flame of Love. John of the Cross wrote a book called “The Living Flame of Love.” He was near the end of his life and at the very peak of mystical experi­ence. A good teaching how a man shall flee these deceits, and work more with a listiness of spirit than with any boisterousness of body Which is chaste love; and how in some creatures such sensible comforts be but seldom, and in some right oft

That all writing and feeling of a man’s own being must needs be lost if the perfection of this work shall verily be felt in any soul in this life The content may seem obscure and hypercontextual: contemplative Catholic mysticism discussed in letters written in middle English...how can this possibly apply to humans in 2020? That a man shall not take ensample of Saint Martin and of Saint Stephen, for to strain his imagination bodily upwards in the time of his prayer The Pillar of Cloud and Pillar of Fire. When the LORD God liberated his people from Egypt, he led them with the spectacular Pillar of Cloud and Pillar of Fire.

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In prayer we need both humility and patience. Humility is not just a sense of our sin taken separately ( which is almost never from God, if not simultaneously connected to God's surprising love for us). In real humility we know the extent that we are sordid, sad, weak creatures but no less the object of God's superabundant love, humbled by " the amazing glory and goodness of God." We need patience since " Grace is rarely in a rush! It touches and changes us bu usually not as soon or as suddenly as we like." An important concept in the Cloud - "the sovereinneste pointe" of the spirit or of contemplation (see lines 15; 36-37; 1371) - can suggest the richness of traditional elements present in the work, and can serve to focus both the continuities and the differences in the tradition of contemplation. The concept begins in Stoic philosophy as a reference to the "single faculty of the soul from which all others were held to derive" (Lees, p. 271) - to anotaton meros - the topmost part, the Latin equivalent of which is apex mentis, the summit of the mind. In association with what is considered to be this highest part, the intellectual and affective views of contemplative experience come into focus and interact. But in the main tradition followed by the Cloud, the intellect and the imagination, which initiate the human ascent to God, must be abandoned so that contemplation may proceed by negation, or the apophatic method.

When you first start out in contemplative prayer, you will face distracting thoughts and sinful impulses.How a man may wit when his ghostly work is beneath him or without him and when it is even with him or within him, and when it is above him and under his God How that after the likeness of Moses, of Bezaleel and of Aaron meddling them about the Ark of the Testament, we profit on three manners in this grace of contemplation, for this grace is figured in that Ark As I have said, what seems to me a distinctive characteristic of the Cloud is the way in which the author, in moving towards the spiritual goal of the apophatic way (i.e., the seeking of knowledge of God by way of negation or denial), makes extensive and paradoxical use of bodily imagery - even beyond the uses that John Burrow (p. 144) has noted. This procedure, a key example of the author's humanity and literary skill, not only delineates the possibilities for profound harmony between body and soul, but also renders comprehensible the otherwise prohibitively abstract stages of the apophatic way. Reject any understanding or feeling that is not God. Forget your self and your own accomplishments.