Spiritual Formation of Courage To Be Lee

THE SPIRITUAL FORMATION OF A COURAGE-TO-BE:
THE INTERRELIGIOUS WISDOM OF

TILLICH, BUDDHISM, AND JAZZ
___________________
A Dissertation Presented
To the Doctor of Ministry Program of
The United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
___________________
In Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Ministry
___________________
by Rev. John Chang-Yee Lee
November 11, 2018

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank all those who have been my guides and companions along my
spiritual journey leading to this dissertation. I cannot name everyone, but I am grateful for all of
the great and small ways people have supported and cared for me in living out my curiosity. You
all have led me to the questions that culminated in this project and I am grateful that you will
walk with me further as other queries will be revealed.
For First Presbyterian Church of Evansville, as the congregation that helped raise me,
thank you for being my first spiritual home where I could play and explore what it meant to be
beloved and to belong. I am grateful to my parents, Dr. Bung-Chung Lee and Evelyn I-Yung
Shih, for their audacity and determination to travel to a foreign country and start a new life and
family. You were my first models of what courage felt and looked like. For my friends and
spiritual mentors Rev. Jay van Santen, Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, Rev. Gene Orr, Rev. Chuck
Goodman, and my sister, Rev. Lonna Lee; thank you for all the late evening theological
conversations that were really chances to play together. Thank you to all the students, staff, and
faculty of United Theological Seminary for your support, conversation, and laughter throughout
this process. Thank you to my academic mentors Drs. Barbara Holmes, Demian Wheeler, and
Ayo Yetunde who were readers and esteemed interlocutors for my dissertation. Your wisdom
and challenge have impacted and shaped me immensely.
I am grateful for the patience, wisdom, and humor of my wife, Evelyn, and my children,
Solveig and Soren. You have always listened to me, were honest, and kept me grounded in the
completion of this long passage. Thank you for being home for me, for not allowing me to take
myself too seriously, and for being the first place where love is made real. For the chance to
practice love together, you are where true courage resides.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 1
THESIS ...........................................................................................................................................5
METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................................................6
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LITERATURE FOR MINISTRY .................................................................... 10
Value of The Thesis for Today’s Ministers .......................................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER 2: PAUL TILLICH,EXISTENCE, AND THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD ................................... 12

PREPARATION: PRESUMPTIONS AND TERMS ................................................................................ 12
NARRATIVE .................................................................................................................................. 13
TILLICH’S THEOLOGY .................................................................................................................... 15
Reason Finds Questions Unanswered, Divisions Unhealed from Existence ...................................................... 16
Tillich’s Revelation Answers the Questions and Divisions Within Existence ..................................................... 23
REVELATION IN RELATION TO SPIRITUAL FORMATION .................................................................. 27
The Experience of Revelation ............................................................................................................................. 27
Revelation Produces Faith as the Courage-to-Be ............................................................................................... 30
Our Current Threat of Nonbeing: The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness.......................................... 32
Absolute Faith for a New Courage-to-Be is Needed Now .................................................................................. 33
The Spiritual Formation of the Courage-To-Be from Absolute Faith ............................................... 36
The Source, Norm, and Medium of Spiritual Formation .................................................................................... 37
Spiritual Practices and the Courage-to-Be ......................................................................................................... 38
The Spiritual Community Mediating Symbols and Myth for the Courage-to-Be ............................................... 41
Tillich’s Theology: Methodological and Hermeneutical Considerations .......................................... 43
Correlational Method as Give-and-Take Rather than Monologue .................................................................... 44
Symbols ............................................................................................................................................................... 45
CHAPTER 3: BUDDHISM AND KENSHO AS THE COURAGE-TO-BE ............................................ 47

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 47
Narrative ..................................................................................................................................... 48
Prologue.............................................................................................................................................................. 48
Zen Buddhism and Kensho ................................................................................................................................. 51
Epilogue .............................................................................................................................................................. 54
The Initial Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be ..................................................................... 55
Source, Norm, and Medium of Spiritual Formation ........................................................................................... 57
Spiritual Practices, Symbols, and Courage ......................................................................................................... 60
Mediation of the Symbols and Myth by the Spiritual Community .................................................................... 66
The Threat of Nonbeing................................................................................................................ 67
The Nature of the Revelatory Event: Kensho ................................................................................. 69
Absolute Faith, the Courage-to-Be, and Vitality Towards the Anxiety of Meaninglessness-Emptiness
.................................................................................................................................................... 72
The Courage-to-Be in Addressing the Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness .......................................... 73
Resulting Vitality as Spirituality .......................................................................................................................... 76
Tillich’s Own Engagement with Buddhism ......................................................................................................... 80
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Findings on the Spiritual Formation of a Courage-to-Be from Absolute Faith .................................82
Characteristics of the Initial Spiritual Formation of Courage ............................................................................. 82
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith: Preparing for or Deepening Revelation .................................... 83
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith for Seminarians .......................................................................... 89
CHAPTER 4: JAZZ AND ULTIMATE FLOW AS THE COURAGE-TO-BE ......................................... 92

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 92
Narrative ..................................................................................................................................... 94
Prelude................................................................................................................................................................ 94
Philadelphia and New York: Changing Styles as Growth .................................................................................... 95
Addiction and the Threat of Nonbeing ............................................................................................................... 97
Experimentation from Courage: Monk, Miles, & Modes ................................................................................... 99
Vitality from Revelation: A Love Supreme ....................................................................................................... 100
Postlude ............................................................................................................................................................ 103
The Initial Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be ................................................................... 104
Source, Norm, and Medium of Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be ...................................................... 106
The Source of Spiritual Formation as the Power of Being ............................................................................... 106
The Norm of Spiritual Formation within The Structure of Being ..................................................................... 107
The Medium of Spiritual Formation as the Power of Meaning........................................................................ 109
Spiritual Practices, Symbols, and Courage ....................................................................................................... 110
Mediation of the Symbols and Myth by the Spiritual Community .................................................................. 119
The Threat of Nonbeing.............................................................................................................. 121
The Nature of the Revelatory Event: Ultimate Flow State ............................................................ 123
Absolute Faith, the Courage-to-Be, and Vitality Towards the Anxiety of Meaninglessness-Emptiness
.................................................................................................................................................. 125
Coltrane’s Signs of Personal Transformation as Vitality from Revelation ....................................................... 126
The Courage-to-Be in Addressing the Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness ........................................ 128
An Absolute Faith that Includes and Transcends Mysticism and Personalism ................................................ 129
A Spiritual Community from the God above God ............................................................................................ 132
Tillich’s Own Engagement with Art and Culture .............................................................................................. 134
Findings on the Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be from Absolute Faith ............................ 141
Characteristics of the Initial Spiritual Formation of Courage ........................................................................... 141
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith: Preparing for or Deepening of Revelation .............................. 143
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith for Seminarians ........................................................................ 147
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 150

Summary ................................................................................................................................... 150
Habito’s Narrative and Tillich’s Courage-to-Be ................................................................................................ 150
Coltrane’s Narrative and Tillich’s Courage-to-Be ............................................................................................. 151
Seminary Education and Formation of Students .......................................................................... 153
Traditional Role of Seminaries.......................................................................................................................... 155
United Theological Seminary and Our Students. ............................................................................................. 155
Challenges to Spiritual Formation in the Seminary .......................................................................................... 157
The Spiritual Formation of a Courage-to-Be for United Theological Seminary .............................. 159
Spiritual Formation at UTS Currently ............................................................................................................... 159
Suggestions for Spiritual Formation for Nurturing Initial Courage .................................................................. 161
Suggestions Around Spiritual Formation, Identity, Revelation and the Courage-to-Be .................................. 165
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The Possible Impact on Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be for our Degree Concentrations 182
Social Transformation. ...................................................................................................................................... 182
Theology and the Arts ...................................................................................................................................... 184
Interreligious Chaplaincy .................................................................................................................................. 186
Final Thoughts ........................................................................................................................... 187
Caveat ............................................................................................................................................................... 187
Whole Life Span Spiritual Formation ................................................................................................................ 188
Nonduality of Christian Theology ..................................................................................................................... 188
Lastly ................................................................................................................................................................. 189
Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 191

Appendix A........................................................................................................................................................ 191
Appendix B ........................................................................................................................................................ 191
Appendix C ........................................................................................................................................................ 192
Appendix D ....................................................................................................................................................... 192
Appendix E ........................................................................................................................................................ 193
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 194
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C H A P T E R 1 : I N T R O D U C T I O N
V.U.C.A. is an acronym introduced by the U.S. Army War College to describe a more
volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous Europe resulting from the end of the Cold War. 1
This situation is now even truer of our broader world and raises our distress for any response to
adequately address this unpredictability. Our postmodern context challenges objective truth,
institutional trust, and conformity in light of subjective truth and individual experience within
cultural, historical, and social context.2 Traditional social institutions and customs once secured
us through past uncertainty. But even these standards are being contested, deconstructed or
destroyed as misogyny, racism, and hegemony have emanated from these same establishments.
Though science advances technology and improves efficiency, it is also adept at increasing the
consumption of natural resources while keeping us alienated from our world and one another.
Globalization has brought us contact with other cultures and religions via mass migration from
environmental changes and rapid technological innovations. While offering new possibilities,
this situation may also heighten anxiety where other people and their values are viewed as a
threat to our way of life and beliefs.
Many people are seeking a new way to address this rapid deluge of change in order to
synthesize and respond beyond resignation, tribalism, or objectification of the other that are the
bases for destruction of our world and ourselves. Underlying this quest is our own existential
anxiety that gives rise to the ambiguity we experience and the resolution we seek. Existential
anxiety is the embodied realization of our mortality and how fragile life is. 3 This realization leads
1Judith Hicks Stiehm and Nicholas W. Townsend. The U.S. Army War College: Military Education in a Democracy.
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002) p. 6. &, Bob Johansen. Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the
Present. (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2007), 51–53.
2 Diana Butler Bass, Grounded, Reprint edition. (New York, New York: HarperOne, 2017).
3 Earnest Becker’s The Denial of Death and Sheldon Solomon’s The Worm at the Core explore the underlying death anxiety and
its terror in our daily life. This anxiety has far reaching impacts both consciously and unconsciously. Both authors explore ways
we manage this terror through politics, religion and culture as a way to blunt the full force of this anxiety from consuming us.
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us to ask what is the meaning of our life and how can we actualize the fullest potential of this
purpose. Because not every answer is decisive, anxiety threatens to bring about despair as it is
rooted in the loss of existence or potential as nonbeing. As a seminary that prepares spiritual
leaders to guide others in the midst of this environment, are we preparing them properly to deal
with the people that are seeking clarity amidst ambiguity? Have we assisted them in seeking
clarity through their own existential anxiety?
Traditionally, religious beliefs and spiritual practices directed toward a revelation of God
have been an effective response in times of insecurity. Union with a transcendent source of truth
can buffer the terror of our anxiety. Our theology and spiritual practices, which lead to an
encounter with the divine, have previously helped formulate and actualize an answer to these
questions of existence.
Christianity’s beliefs and practices that address existential anxiety have historically been
part of the dominant societal narrative in the U.S. Yet the numerical population and influence of
the church has waned over the last 30 years. We are in a period of great upheaval for the future
of Christianity. A Christian, dualistic orientation of a fixed state of separation between humanity
and a supranatural God that is a being among other beings is ontologically and scientifically
problematic for many contemporary Christians and non-Christians. The rise of the “nones”
(spiritual but not religious), the stationary number of declared atheists, and the simultaneous
decline of Christianity points to these movements and a remaining hunger for some sort of
continued spiritual searching outside of historical norms.4 Conversely, these trends have
produced fear from those who still fundamentally trust in the vehicles of courage outlined in
4 Michael Lipka, “Religious ‘Nones’ Are Not Only Growing, They’re Becoming More Secular.” Pew Research Center.
November 11, 2015, accessed June 26, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/11/religious-nones-are-not-only-
growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular/
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classical Christian conceptions. New and foreign exposure may heighten our anxiety as a threat
of nonbeing to our certainty.
Those who are not so tied to these Christian notions are exploring other avenues of
spirituality and practices as experienced reality rather than by cognitive assent to theological
claims. Many of these non-Christian practices propose a nondualist transcendence and
immanence of God or Ultimate reality - where subjective experience and objective truth are in
union rather than opposition. Dualism is the state of being divided into two opposite poles.
Nondualism asserts the undivided unity of all aspects.5
All of this speaks again to the underlying yearning for liberation from these anxieties.
The desire for union with a source of truth that gives clarity is still relevant and persistent, which
points to a need to develop new paths of courage in the face of our current threats of nonbeing
and subsequent existential anxieties.
The motivation for this project is derived from my roles at United Theological Seminary
of the Twin Cities. After having been Chaplain for three years here, I began my new role as
Director of Formation in April of 2018. Our students will be entering into this complex
environment as pastors, chaplains, artists and social transformation advocates. Traditionally,
Protestant seminaries perceived their role in preparing students to enter the ministry by teaching
the theological material that would deepen a student’s already undergoing spiritual formation
that began in their local church. The end goal was preparing students to proclaim the gospel
when they re-entered the congregation after graduation. Additionally, the professional skills
related to being a congregational pastor (i.e. administration, financial, and leadership
competencies) were added to the curriculum. What has been overshadowed with the emphasis of
5 Thatamanil, John J. The Immanent Divine: God, Creation and the Human Predicament. Kindle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2006, location 75
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these two important components is the foundation for all faith and religion: spiritual practices
that lead to the revelation and experience of God. This important and personal experience
undergirds all other efforts in spiritual leadership. Have we equipped seminary students to
experience and discern what revelation is? Have we guided them in understanding their own
personal search for this communion through their own spiritual formation? Are they empowered
to be spiritual leaders in guiding others in understanding or experiencing a phenomenon that will
change their encounter with the world and themselves amidst the backdrop of V.U.C.A.?
This dissertation is written for the context of United Theological Seminary of the Twin
Cities (UTS) and the importance of spiritual practices and revelation in the formation of
seminary students. The United Church of Christ founded UTS as a liberal seminary built upon
ecumenism. As such, the exploration and preparation to receive revelation through spiritual
practices in this context has been limited in opposition to a more conservative, evangelical
Christianity that over-emphasizes a particular revelatory experience as a demarcation of
faithfulness and piety. The seminary has undergone shifts in emphasis with the waning
predominance of Christianity and their churches within the social context. As such, UTS is
experiencing a new diversity of students who have not been raised in church or have been
formed by another tradition other than Christianity. As we prepare students for their vocational
goals of chaplaincy, social justice, or congregational ministry, we can no longer assume certain
aspects of their spiritual formation have taken place before they arrive. Spiritual formation is an
ongoing, life-long endeavor. A student’s formation is vital for their own spiritual leadership. If a
student has not grappled with their own existential anxiety and the intersection of this with the
context of the practices of their spiritual traditions and vocational calling, can they effectively
address the possible depths of those they will serve and work with? Will they be prepared to
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address this within themselves when situations provoke this anxiety within themselves as
leaders? This project is a theological construction for ministry that will begin to address spiritual
formation through the lens of existential anxiety and spiritual practices that confront it. These
spiritual practices amid this context are proposed as preparation for revelation.
My personal interest in this topic also stems from my own spiritual formation as a pastor,
chaplain, musician, and member of a marginalized racial ethnic group in the U.S. I am ordained
as a Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacrament yet I practice sitting meditation. As a second
generation Chinese American, my cultural heritage contains collective Daoist, Confucian, and
Buddhist elements that impacts my interaction with a dominant, Northern European, individual-
centered social location in the U.S. I do not fit solely into any camp nor has there been one
epistemology that has created a shift in consciousness by itself. An epiphany from my own
experience is that my multiple belonging has offered a gift as to how each strand has contributed
and continues to shape my ongoing spiritual formation and transformation. The integration of
spiritual practices in relation to my context and diverse identity amid existential anxiety has
awakened a search for unity and led to a revelatory encounter. This revelation, which arose from
non-Christian practices, has shaken the foundations of my understanding of God, my identity,
my purpose, and how I am to live this out. This experience has not destroyed my Christian
conceptions of God, but has expanded and deepened them to offer more clarity to my own
presence in this world and, thus, my own leadership.
THESIS
In this age of technology, globalization, and rapid change, we are faced with new
situations that raise the universal question of what it means to be human in the face of our
existential anxiety - anxiety that is rooted in our being and cannot be removed. Theologian Paul
Tillich surmised that the anxiety of meaninglessness and emptiness is most pressing in our
5
current situation as exemplified by the earlier illustrations of searches for meaning and the
unsatisfactory nature of traditional pathways. He concluded that a new courage-to-be arising
from an absolute faith that includes and transcends a mystical and personal encounter with God
is needed to address this new context.
This thesis intends to explore how mystical, non-Christian spiritual practices embedded
within a personal, Christian framework could impact the spiritual formation of a contemporary
courage-to-be from Tillich’s concept of absolute faith. To do this, this project will explore the
phenomenological and theological aspects of the narratives of two people who integrated non-
Christian, mystical spiritual practices into their original Christian spiritual formation amid their
own manifestations of existential anxiety: Dr. Ruben Habito and the practice of Zen Buddhist
sitting meditation and John Coltrane’s Jazz improvisation. Both narratives contain each person’s
formation through these spiritual practices along with a revelatory event - Buddhism’s kensho
and Jazz’ Ultimate Flow state. Each narrative will be explored as conversation with theologian
Paul Tillich’s theological concept of the courage-to-be arising from revelation in addressing
existential anxiety. The implications of this conversation will be applied toward a theological
construct of spiritual formation for United Theological Seminary and its students in the
exploration of their own existential anxiety as it relates to their formation.
In light of these considerations, I will argue that a trans-religious engagement between
each mystical spiritual practice and a Christian background is one effective way for an absolute
faith to meet the existential anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness. This will have
implications on the formation of the students of United and their own spiritual leadership.
METHODOLOGY
This project is employing different narratives and theological frameworks in conversation
with one another to discover the uniting thread in relation to spiritual formation and revelation
6
that addresses existential anxiety. Though each may seem dissimilar to one another, placing them
in conversation together around the issue of formation of seminary students will illumine a
gestalt in the conceptualization of applying this to my context.
The work and life of Paul Tillich will be utilized as a hermeneutical frame for this
conversation with the narratives of Ruben Habito and John Coltrane. In chapter 2, I will examine
the life and spiritual formation of Christian theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965). His theology
utilized existential inquiry and incorporated many aspects of nondualism. Tillich’s theology
employs a method of correlation with the “questions implied in the situation with the answers
implied in the message (of Christianity).”6 This involves an answering theology that “addresses
the questions of the modern, secular person who finds it difficult to believe in God after the
Enlightenment had undermined the traditional basis of Christian faith.”7 Tillich’s theology is
often considered a philosophical theology as it incorporates these existential questions with a
theological answer. Tillich uses the notion of existential anxiety within the human condition as a
key component in his theology. But this use of anxiety stems from a primarily philosophical
analysis rather than a psychological or therapeutic framework and will only be employed as such
for this project.
Tillich’s book, The Courage to Be, outlines the three existential anxieties arising from the
questions of our existence: (1) Death and Fate, (2) Emptiness and Meaninglessness, and (3) Guilt
and Condemnation. Existential anxiety is rooted in nonbeing as either the loss of being or the
loss of potential. For Tillich, existential anxiety is universal, part and parcel of existence. Each
anxiety has been present throughout the history of Western civilization, but one rises to the
foreground when the normative framework of meaning and order disintegrated. Tillich foretells
6 Paul Tillich. Systematic Theology. Vol. 1. (Evanston: University of Chicago Press 1967), 6.
7 Paul Capetz, United Theological Seminary, lecture on Paul Tillich in “Introduction to Theology”, June 23, 2016.
7
the issues of our postmodern context by proposing that the anxiety of meaninglessness is most
pressing currently and that the development of courage in light of this is a spiritual endeavor. 8
Courage, for Tillich, is confronting existential anxiety by self-affirmation in spite of the
threat of non-being – not by denying or removing the anxiety, but by taking nonbeing into
oneself by the power of being. The courage-to-be is not willed but arises from revelation as
union with God as the source of being that also contains nonbeing. Tillich posits that the
development of a new courage-to-be to confront our current anxiety must come from revelation
as an absolute faith and that includes yet transcends mysticism and personalism. Yet Tillich does
not give any examples of an absolute faith, describe how this might be formed, or what spiritual
practices could be used in moving towards this direction. Using Tillich’s theology, I will
construct a theoretical frame of the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be from absolute faith that
addresses the existential anxiety of meaninglessness and emptiness. I will apply this to the
narratives of two spiritual practices in chapter 3 (Ruben Habito and Zen) and chapter 4 (John
Coltrane and Jazz) to glean an idea of spiritual practices that would form an absolute faith and
the revelations that could result.
In chapter 3, I will examine Buddhist sitting meditation (zazen) through the Zen tradition
and its corresponding revelatory event (kensho) by Dr. Ruben Habito’s narrative. Habito was a
Jesuit priest when he began the practice of Zen Buddhism. His practice of zazen and the
experience of kensho is documented in his book Living Zen, Loving God as well as in different
interviews. Dr. Habito’s narrative exemplifies a merging of a personal and mystical experience
of God, which differs from Tillich’s western conception of mysticism that informed his theology.
8 Ibid., 61.
8
Through saxophonist John Coltrane’s narrative in chapter 4, I will explore Jazz and its
practice of improvisation as flow state. Coltrane’s revelatory event in correspondence to
existential anxiety and his art was evidenced in the album A Love Supreme. Jazz originated as an
African American musical genre from the Spirituals, Gospel, and the Blues. Jazz is not a religion
but Tillich expands the awareness of any cultural expression as a yearning for the answer to our
existential situation as a “latent Spiritual Community,” or latent church. The inclusion of Jazz in
this project is meant to explore a merging of a personal and mystical experience of God that
differs from traditional religious symbols.
Each narrative will be analyzed in terms of its potential for developing spiritual formation
that utilizes both Christian and non-Christian traditions. The relation of spiritual practices and
revelation to threats of nonbeing and existential anxiety will be studied. The phenomenon of
each subject’s formation and revelatory event will then be explored in conversation with the
rubrics of the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be from Tillich’s theology.
In chapter 5, I will conclude with an expansion of the findings from the previous
chapters. Implications on the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be for seminarians and future
religious leaders at United will be explored. The ramifications, dangers, and benefits of
incorporating other tradition’s spiritual practices and multiple-belonging into one’s spiritual
formation will be included.
The two mystical, spiritual practices of Buddhist sitting meditation and Jazz
improvisation are not meant to be exclusively representative of either tradition. These two
narratives are but two possibilities of encountering God that includes yet transcends the
traditional mystical and personal paths of an absolute faith that Tillich believes is necessary for a
contemporary courage-to-be.
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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE LITERATURE FOR MINISTRY
By examining the universal condition of existential anxiety in relation to spiritual
practices and revelation, this thesis will lay the groundwork for a conception of spiritual,
theological, and ethical formation beyond one tradition. This project aligns with John
Thatamanil’s idea of trans-religious theology as a quest for interreligious wisdom.9 Yet, this
project is just the initial stage of a formulation of a comprehensive trans-religious theology, as it
is not focusing on a complete comparison of two theological systems. Within the idea of lex
orandi-lex credendi-lex agendi10 (the law of praying affects the law of believing that affects the
law of acting), I am beginning the initial turn of theological examination through spiritual
practices. The practiced experience of these two narratives will be explored to see what led each
person to engage these non-Christian practices, their spiritual formation utilizing both traditions
and practices, and how their experience relates to Tillich’s idea of a courage-to-be. Some aspects
of a larger theological construct, such as an exhaustive comparison of eschatology or cosmology
as the telos of each tradition, may only be briefly examined as they arise in the narratives. The
narrative and phenomenological aspect of spiritual practices or revelation seems valuable to any
later comparative theological project.
Value of The Thesis for Today’s Ministers

Our context of diverse influences, interreligious dialogue, and multiple belonging impacts
our spiritual formation and ministry as religious leaders. The posture towards other perspectives
in relation to our truth claims can be towards dialogue, which can open up the depth and
practiced engagement with one’s own tradition and symbols. But we can also be oriented toward
fear where our theological tradition serves as a wall or weapon against that which represents our
9 John J. Thatamanil, “Transreligious Theology as the Quest for Interreligious Wisdom: Defining, Defending, and Teaching
Transreligious Theology,” De Gruyter - Open Theology 2 (2016): 354–362.
10 Geoffrey Wainwright, “Theology of Worship,” in The New Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, ed. Paul Bradshaw
(Louisville, KY.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 456, 725.
10
anxiety. Spiritual formation must now consider the multiplicity of influences for themselves and
the communities they serve, which is one focus of this project. The contribution of this project to
the understanding of multiple-belonging may also be of significance.
This research may also contribute to the current body of work on existential anxiety with
a different theological lens. Coupled with a practical theology, this research may shed light on
other modalities of epistemology and subsequent action. By engaging existential anxiety and
courage in the face of nonbeing in this way, there are potential impacts as to the formation of
courage and personal transformation that undergird any societal action and change. The
integration of spiritual practices from these different traditions may awaken a different
understanding of God. It may also awaken a different understanding of our identity and purpose
and how we are to a live a life of courage and absolute faith. Paul Knitter’s quote of Thich Nhat
Hanh in Without Buddha I Would Not Be Christian speaks to this integrative, non-dualistic
perspective, which parallels the possibility contained in these narratives.
The only way we are going to be able to create peace in the world
is if we first create (or better, find) peace in our hearts. Being
peace is an absolute prerequisite for making peace. 11
11Paul F. Knitter. Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian. Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian. eBook.. Croydon:
Oneworld Publications, 2013, 328.
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C H A P T E R 2 : P A U L T I L L I C H , E X I S T E N C E ,
A N D T H E E X P E R I E N C E O F G O D
PREPARATION: PRESUMPTIONS AND TERMS

As students hear the call to attend seminary, many strands of their life have been woven
together in compelling them to come and study theology for a vocational calling of service. They
may idealistically anticipate what status or designation this may place upon their quest and its
fulfillment. It may be the hope of fulfilling the role of a cleric mediating between the divine and
one’s people. Studying for the vocation of self-sacrificial service to God bears the traditional
weight of a higher obedience beyond this earthly realm. Often in seminary, there is an equal
amount to deconstruct as there is fulfillment of higher ideals. Exposure to the historical-critical
method of exegesis, radical theologies, and encounters with other students with vastly different
backgrounds and understandings of God can unsettle a student and their deeply held beliefs that
initially led them to seminary. This may provoke self-doubt and anxiety in the certainty of a
student’s calling and life’s purpose. What happens when the strands of one’s core beliefs unravel
in the process of examining them in greater depth? This is often attributed to just being part of
the formation process of seminary. Orientation, disorientation, and reorientation is the gauntlet
students are expected to run in order to reach the other side. But what is required in this process
is a courage to face this anxiety. Paul Tillich’s definition of a courage-to-be can point to what is
needed here, as well as what awaits them in their specific call after graduation.
In order to explore the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be from Tillich’s absolute faith,
some explanation of terms is needed. The spiritual aspect of our lives is often defined as the
“deepest center of the person… [where we are] open to the transcendent dimension.”1 Tillich
1 Ewart Cousins. “Preface,” World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, (New York: The Crossroad
Publishing Company, 2003), xii.
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defines the spirit as the unity of the power of being with the meaning of being. 2 From Tillich’s
definition, spiritual practices can be defined as intentional exercises in actualizing the unity of
one’s being and meaning. From these definitions and for this project, spiritual formation will be
defined as the overall deepening and growth of one’s unity of the power of being and meaning
through these practices. This spiritual aspect is the dimension of life that searches for answers to
the existential questions ‘Who am I? What is my purpose? How then shall I live?’
Courage is based in the word for ‘heart’ as a symbol of one’s innermost being. Courage
is often defined as being unafraid or not easily intimidated. What is implied is that courage is
summoned from one’s deepest center to overcome or conquer something producing fear.
Courage for this project will involve vulnerability by taking in existential anxiety thereby
reaching a source undergirding being and action. Tillich’s definition of courage is “self-
affirmation in spite of nonbeing.”3 Tillich does not address specific spiritual practices or the
spiritual formation of courage in his writings. In order to analyze the spiritual formation of a
courage-to-be from Tillich’s concept of an absolute faith, we need to examine his own spiritual
formation within his narrative and within his theology as his spiritual practice.
NARRATIVE
When he was 28-years-old, Christian theologian, Paul Tillich volunteered as a chaplain in
the German Army in World War I. He served from 1914 to 1918 in this capacity. The German
church sanctioned this war and Tillich was equally filled with romantic notions of patriotic zeal
when he enlisted.4 Tillich was soon met by the reality of the carnage that was emblematic of this
combat. Army chaplains in World War I broke bread with, prayed, and cared for the soldiers
they were in the trenches with daily. Fighting for national pride and security, each soldier risked
2 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol 3, (Evanston: University of Chicago Press 1967) 111.
3 Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, Second. (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2000), 95.
4 Paul Tillich, My Search for Absolutes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 38-39.
13
his life for his fellow soldiers and for a greater nationalistic ideal through the agony of war. Yet
death and the reminder of human frailty were ever-present; chaplains served as medics and
gravediggers just as frequently as they served as pastors and priests. In the brutality of war,
national slogans and the promise of glory pale as justification. What is left when one places an
absolute trust and one’s life purposes on something that becomes shattered and emptied?
Having suffered three nervous breakdowns during the war, returning to a devastated and
demoralized country, and discovering his wife had left him for a friend, Tillich’s “whole house
was in ruins” at the end of World War I. 5 It isn’t known if Tillich received psychological or
psychiatric treatment, but in his retreat from the war and subsequent recovery in the hospital and
back home, he did experience an encounter with God that shaped his life from that point.
Reading Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra was an ecstatic, revelatory experience which
helped transform his perspective from devastation to connection and hope. What was confirmed
in this reading was an affirmation of existence contrasting the death surrounding him and a
beginning conception of God as life being born afresh.6 In an earlier experience during the war,
Tillich was also stunned by Botticelli’s “Madonna with Singing Angels,” realizing that it was
possible to experience God through something other than ecclesiastical symbols. 7
What arose from the unraveling of Tillich’s own beliefs about God and his vocational call
as a novice chaplain opened him up to a different experience of God amid his deconstruction and
existential anxiety. These revelations transcended the place where reason could not go. These
events led to the trajectory of his work in philosophical theology that conceptualized a new
understanding of God from phenomenological experience and culture. Within his theology is the
5 John Heywood Thomas, Tillich, (London and New York: Continuum, 2000), 7-11. Tillich’s quote appeared in a famous lecture
from a paper to the Kant Society of Berlin in 1919 on theology and culture. In this paper, he argued for the against the
separation of the religious from the secular.
6 Wilhelm and Marion Pauck, Paul Tillich: His Life and Thought, Volume 1: Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 52, 76.
7 Ibid., 76.
14
examination of courage as a connection to the absolute in the face of these ruins and anxiety
rooted in existence. Using Tillich’s theology as his spiritual practice, the interplay of spiritual
formation and revelation can be studied in order to understand courage and healing amid the
threat of nonbeing. What can be gleaned from this is a process of spiritual formation.
TILLICH’S THEOLOGY
Tillich’s Systematic Theology arose, at least in part, in response to an atheism that had
arisen from Enlightenment rationalism where the capacity for logical reason was enthroned
above all other abilities. Atheism was another threat of nonbeing at this time. Tillich’s
theological works are quite voluminous. For the sake of this project, I will attempt to focus on
the main points pertinent to spiritual formation, revelation and courage knowing that I will omit
much in doing so.
Mirroring Tillich’s experience in World War I, the formal criteria of Tillich’s theology is
“our ultimate concern is that which determines our being or not-being.”8 Tillich’s theology
employs a method of correlation that is dialectic and begins by examining the structure of reality
and being, known as ontology. His theology considered the totality of humankind’s creative self-
interpretation of its existence through all forms of cultural expression. The questions of existence
and ultimate concern that arise from this analysis is the first aspect of his method.
The second aspect of his method is based on the assertion that answers to the questions
raised in existence could not be found through existence; humankind was the question, not the
answer. Answers derived solely from existence were myopically doomed to distortions and self-
destruction. Tillich’s apologetic theology “answer(s) questions implied in the situation in the
power of the eternal message (of the gospel) with the means provided by the situation.”9
8 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 14.

9 Ibid., 6.
15
In Tillich’s philosophical theology, being and nonbeing were at the heart of existence.
Being is existence while nonbeing can be represented either as death or as the loss of potential.
Reason has two functions for ontology and Tillich’s theology. The controlling knowledge of
reason can grasp and shape reality, while receiving knowledge allows reason to be grasped and
shaped by reality. Tillich’s theology was a criticism of modern over-reliance on controlling
knowledge in interpreting existence to posit a theory of being or nonbeing. Reason has its limits,
as there are questions within existence that it can grasp and shape but cannot answer or heal.
Reason Finds Questions Unanswered, Divisions Unhealed from Existence

The Subject-Object Split: Tillich held there is a split between the ‘self’ and the world –
between subject and object. Whenever we look at our world, we find ourselves as a part of it yet
also separated from it. Reason can grasp the split between subject and object but can never
overcome it or bring union between the two. Language as a tool of reason to grasp and shape
reality is based on this subject-object orientation and thus bound by its limitations also.
The ontological polar elements show this tension and division between subject and
object. These polarities are Individualization-(collective) Participation, Dynamics-Form, and
Freedom-Destiny (See Appendix A). The first pole of each pair relates to the self. The second
pole relates to the world. Individualization is the quality of being in having a centered self-
relatedness in experience while participation is the quality of relation to a larger whole.
Dynamics are one’s creative potential and vitality of being while form is the logic and structure
of being which gives vitality an intentional contour that can be grasped and shaped. Freedom is
one’s agency in transcending the contingency of being as experienced in deliberation, decision,
and responsibility. Destiny is nature and history, which condition our decisions.10
10 Ibid., 174-186.
16
In existence, human reason at its limits (anxiety and ambiguity) may attempt to grasp and
shape each pole where one pole is seen as a threat to the other as its destruction. We may then try
to destroy or swallow the opposite pole in the hope of clarity and certainty. The conflict between
the poles then becomes autonomy vs. heteronomy (individualization-participation), relativism
vs. absolutism (dynamics-form), and emotionalism vs. formalism (freedom-destiny) (See
Appendix B).11 Autonomy is distorted into resistance to being conditioned by situation and
world, which contradicts heteronomy as a law from outside oneself as conformity. Relativism
overemphasizes the dynamic and changing element of reason (creativity, vitality) which clashes
with absolutism as the static element of reason distorted into absolute truth. Emotionalism twists
the depth of being and becomes self-destructive as the sole, shaping and uniting function of
knowledge against formalism, which becomes the exclusionary convention and structure of
knowledge. Many conflicts in history within culture, politics, and theology demonstrate these
tensions. Yet, each pole is inter-related with the destruction of one leading to the destruction of
the other. Despair is the boundary line where these conflicts lead, shown by Tillich’s breakdowns
during war. What is sought is union of these poles which reason can grasp but cannot produce.
The Finite-Infinite Split –The Awareness of Finitude as Anxiety: Reason can grasp the
limits of being. Yet, we are finite creatures that can also imagine limitless possibility and
infinity. We then realize we are excluded from both. The shock and threat of nonbeing includes
both the “not yet” and the “no more” of being; the loss of potential and life, respectively.12 The
awareness and anticipation of nothingness at death or the loss of potential by enacting a choice is
our existential anxiety which produces the deep questions of the meaning and purpose of our
11 Ibid.,. 83-94.
12 Ibid., 187-88.
17
existence and the precarious responsibility for the failure or success in fulfilling it if found.13
Tillich outlines three iterations of existential anxiety from nonbeing: death and fate
(ontic), emptiness and meaninglessness (spiritual), and guilt and condemnation (moral). The
anxiety of death and fate is the awareness of our finitude and the contingent nature of our life as
having no ultimate necessity. 14 The anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness is the loss of
creative participation in our world that is then the loss of an ultimate concern as a spiritual center
giving meaning to all meanings.15 The anxiety of guilt and condemnation is our responsibility in
the loss of our potentiality, which then drives toward self-rejection from the despairing loss of
one’s destiny of ‘what we ought to be.’16 Tillich posits that ontic anxiety is expressed in spiritual
anxiety and is actualized in moral anxiety.
Existential anxiety is inescapable and cannot be derived from something else. It can only
be experienced, seen, and described as it is part of our existence. Dependent only on the threat of
nonbeing, anxiety is rooted in nothingness and cannot be removed. This is unlike fear (which
derives from anxiety) which has an external object to focus on and conquer through action. All
iterations of existential anxiety are always present and effective while interacting with one
another. Yet, during the breakdown of normative societal beliefs in history, Tillich believed one
came to the forefront each time. Tillich asserts our current period as the end of the modern age
with its emphasis on rational thought intensifying spiritual anxiety and thus meaninglessness.17
Existential anxiety can turn us toward courage because the alternative is despair. Because
it is rooted in nothingness, courage resists despair by taking existential anxiety into oneself as
13 Tillich, The Courage to Be, 64.

14 Ibid., 69-71.
15 Ibid., 74-76.
16 Ibid., 79-81.
17 Ibid., 90-101.
18
self-affirmation in spite of nonbeing.18 It does not remove anxiety and has no object to conquer
like fear. Because reason grasped but did not produce the courage to conquer the prevailing
anxiety at earlier two points in history, Tillich asserts that reason cannot affirm one’s self from
these anxieties now, either. Something greater than reason needs to undergird courage.
The Estrangement of Essential and Existential Natures: For Tillich, to exist means to
stand out from one’s nonbeing while paradoxically remaining in it at the same time. Nonbeing
can be either ‘not existing’ (as in death) or ‘not yet actualized’ (as in potential). Something that
exists never completely pours out its power of being or exhausts its potentiality into its state of
existence.19 Tillich asserts that essential nature is our potentiality. Our existential nature is our
actualized being. Our essential nature transcends our existential nature as we can see both our
uncontested potential and how far this is from reality. These two natures belong together yet are
still separated from one another, which Tillich deems as estrangement.
Existential anxiety can drive us to try to resolve the distance between these two natures.
The desire of freedom to make real what is possible drives us toward actualizing our potential,
thus precipitating a transition from essence to existence. However, the double threat rooted in
finite freedom and anxiety is posed here; we may lose ourselves by not actualizing our
potentialities or lose ourselves by actualizing our potentialities through action. A materialized
idea destroys or limits potential outcomes by its actuality.20 The union of these two natures is
what reason seeks but cannot produce. Estrangement threatens self-destruction by the distortion
of existence as the sole arbiter of reality in seeking this union. The division between self-world
(subject-object) is embodied in this estranged state and the attempted resolution of it solely from
18 The Courage to Be., 95.

19 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, (Evanston: University of Chicago Press 1967) 20-21.
20 Ibid., 22, 36.
19
existence can drive toward destruction and loss of our centered selves and/or our world which
Tillich defines as evil. 21 “[Evil] is dehumanization and not the expression of essential humanity.
[Humanity] becomes a thing and ceases to be a person.”22
Estrangement is made distinct by the marks of unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence.
Unbelief is the opposite of faith. Faith for Tillich is not a willed state of reasoned assent but
rather being grasped by ultimate concern. Unbelief is the state of losing essential unity with the
source of our ultimate concern of being and nonbeing.23 Hubris follows as the elevation of
ourselves as the center of being and, thus, to the sphere of the divine (as infinity). Consequently,
concupiscence is the unlimited desire to draw the whole of reality into oneself for the benefit of
oneself. It is the distortion of essential eros - the desire of the particular to seek union with the
whole - into seeking unlimited abundance in our poverty solely for security. We are then
elevated above our particularity and made universal. 24
Estrangement Creates Ambiguity: Reason’s Limits and the Need for Courage: Each
expression of estrangement contradicts the created essential structure of ourselves, our world and
their interdependence. Existential estrangement through the aspects of finitude and anxiety drives
life in one direction or another in the polarities (dynamics-form, etc), thus contradicting meaning
and purpose as ambiguity. Ambiguity is self-contradiction where meaning becomes uncertain
and the centeredness of life is threatened. 25 Tillich’s ambiguity is driven by disintegration as the
failure to reach or preserve self-integration on all dimensions of life.26 Life has a
multidimensional unity and diversity in order for being to be actualized. 27 These dimensions
21 Ibid., 60-6.
22 Ibid., 25.
23 Ibid., 48.
24 Ibid., 52.
25 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, 32.
26 Ibid., 33.
27 Ibid., 11-12.
20
include the psychological, biological, social, and spiritual among others. The dimension of spirit
is the unity of the power of being and meaning distinguished by self-awareness and is the vitality
and power of life.28 Spirituality for Tillich is the unity of dynamics and form in our moral and
cultural acts.29 Human life is the actualization of the dimension of the spirit. 30 In this
actualization, the ‘self’ centers itself in relation to the world. This centering process is creation
and growth marked by vitality and intentionality as the power to transform one’s reality. Three
movements define this process: self-integration, self-creativity, and self-transcendence.
Self-integration is where identity is established and where life itself drives toward a
centered self in its relationship with the world situated in the polarity of individualization-
(collective) participation. The centered ‘self’ actualizes itself in the moral act because of the
awareness of its own limits of finitude and partiality by the limiting presence of ‘others’ in its
world.31 Self-integration works in conjunction with the second process, Self-creativity. This is
where life drives horizontally towards newness as growth by transcending every individual
center. Re-integration of this growth then moves circularly as the return to centeredness is the
movement between the polarity of dynamics-form and produces vitality as the ability to create
beyond oneself without losing oneself. What is implied in this process is risk which is embodied
as culture as a shared reality that creates growth. Self-transcendence is the third process of life.
In contrast to the previous processes where growth was confined to finite life, self-transcendence
moves vertically where life drives beyond itself towards the sublime or its boundaries – the great,
the tragic and the inviolable dignity within it. This is life both in itself and above itself. 32 The
28 Ibid., 21-25.
31 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3., 38, 41.
32 Ibid., 30-32.
21
polarity of freedom-destiny creates self-transcendence as religion as the search for life beyond
the shackles of mortality (see Appendix C).33
The threat of nonbeing as existential anxiety is expressed in ambiguity from
estrangement. Ambiguity drives life in one direction or another, countering growth and vitality.
Self-integration is countered by disintegration which threatens one’s center towards imbalance to
be both static and immovable (as the inability to integrate participation with the world) or diluted
and weakened (as the inability to resist the manifoldness of the world).34 Self-creativity as risk
and growth is countered by destruction (where no center exists to be integrated and no meaning
to either be gained or lost). Self-transcendence is countered by profanation by reducing the self
to merely object. Tillich experienced all of these outcomes during and after the war. Many of
these can be experienced in some degree by seminary students in the unmooring of their core
beliefs upon deeper examination. Yet estrangement and its ambiguity may also drive a student to
overcompensate for this state of anxiety and overvalue their call and the importance it brings to
their individual worth. Every critical comment or suggestion can then be perceived as a threat of
nonbeing to an ideal or identity they have invested much in solidifying which would impact their
formation. Every function and life process are subject to ambiguity resulting in a constant
struggle between positive and negative elements, repulsion and attraction, as embodied in the
conflict between the poles of self and world; autonomy vs. heteronomy, relativism vs. absolutism,
and emotionalism vs. formalism.35 Reason is contradicted by any action or inaction. The desire
for an unambiguous life is unresolved.
33 Ibid., 86.
34 Ibid., 32-34.
35 Ibid., 32, & Systematic Theology, vol. 1 147-153.
22
Tillich’s Revelation Answers the Questions and Divisions Within Existence
All events in our life, where meaning is sought in interpreting experience, are subject to
uncovering the aspects of these splits which reason cannot overcome: subject-object, finitude-
infinite, and essential (potential)-existential (actualized) natures. The result is awareness of
existential anxiety and experienced ambiguity which leaves us searching for certainty to relieve
this tension. In this vacuum, it may be easier to search for a convenient object of fear to conquer
to temporarily quell this pressure and take a side in the conflicts between the ontological poles
(autonomy vs. heteronomy, etc.). Continued reliance on solely this strategy can ultimately result
in self or world destruction. In seminary, we construct theologies or philosophies to try to
discover meaning or make sense of these splits and tensions. But if we solely lean on reason by
controlling knowledge to construct this, have we realistically overcome these divisions and our
own existential anxiety? Have we led our students to believe that it will?
Tillich’s systematic theology can be seen as his own spiritual practice of unifying the
power of being and meaning. Derived from reflection on his own revelatory events, his
scholarship and theology can be seen stemming from his own experience of revelation and the
courage-to-be derived from this. For Tillich, revelation, as the encounter with God, is the only
sufficient way of answering and bridging these gaps. The inner conflict within existence forces
reason’s controlling knowledge to recognize its own existential predicament. This dilemma must
lead either to “a desperate resignation of truth or to the quest for revelation, for revelation that is
experienced claims to give a truth which is both certain and of ultimate concern - a truth which
includes and accepts the risk and uncertainty of every significant cognitive act yet transcends it
in accepting it.”36 God precedes these ontological splits and can be the only source of their
36 Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 105.
23
reunion. Experiencing revelation involves one’s entire being with particular reliance on receiving
knowledge rather than controlling.
From his method of correlation in answering the questions of existence, Tillich proposes
that the revelation of God as the source of being overcomes our finitude; the revelation of Jesus
as Christ as the bearer of the New Being overcomes existential estrangement; and that the
revelation of the Spiritual Presence (Holy Spirit) overcomes ambiguity as it brings ecstatic union
to both symbols.37 Each of these symbols correspond to the source, norm, and medium of
reunion.
Source - God as the Ground of Being Conquering Finitude: Tillich posits that God is the
source of being and is not a being among other beings, subject to the distortions and
contradictions of existence. God as a being would be subject to the separation between subject-
object and the distorted state of estrangement of essential and existential natures. God as the
ground of being is the infinite and inexhaustible source of union between subject-object and
essential and existential natures. It is also the source of the structure of reality (logos). God as the
ground of being contains nonbeing (as abyss) as well as the power to resist nonbeing. 38
The ground and abyss of being which determines being and nonbeing then should be our
ultimate concern. God is also the source of revelation that reason seeks yet cannot attain by its
own means. Union with the ground of being through revelation answers the questions from the
anxiety of our finitude as courage. Within this ground, the union of polar elements of existence
do not contradict or threaten self-destruction upon the other. Tillich’s own experience of
revelation with Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra in correspondence to the material threat of

24
nonbeing manifested in war speaks to this conception of God as being rather than a being.
Norm - Jesus the Christ: Bearer of the New Being Conquering Estrangement: For Tillich
and Christianity, Jesus as the Christ is bearer of the New Being. He is the final revelation as
unsurpassable criterion for all other revelations previously or following. Jesus maintains
undisrupted unity with God as the infinite ground of being and sacrifices everything he could
have gained for himself from this unity (including infinity). He could only do this if he possessed
himself and his world completely. The New Being as final revelation is marked by the power to
negate itself without losing itself in becoming completely transparent to the mystery and source
of being it reveals.39
The quest for overcoming estrangement by reunion is the quest for a new way of being
with the ground of being which already holds essential and existential natures in union. Yet, as
expressed in Luther’s “bondage of the will,” no human act within the context of existential
estrangement can overcome this condition by itself. Only God’s act of grace can reunite the
estranged.40 Jesus as grace is the bearer of this new ontological state by undisrupted, self-
sacrificing union with God within existence and estrangement. 41 The symbols of the cross (as it
represents the subjection to the conditions of nonbeing) and resurrection (as the conquering of
nonbeing) share in the confirmation of this unity and surrender. “To experience the New Being
in Christ means to experience the power in him which has conquered existential estrangement in
himself and in everyone who participates in him.” 42
Medium - The Divine Spirit Conquering Ambiguity: Tillich defines the divine Spirit by
the symbol of Spiritual Presence, which dwells and works within the human spirit. 43 Revelation
39 Ibid., 147.
41 Ibid., 134-135.
42 Ibid., 125.
43 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, 111. Tillich denotes the difference between the human spirit (lowercase ‘s’) and the
25
as the reunion and redemptive work of God as Spirit is "the most embracing, direct, and
unrestricted symbol for the divine life". 44 The Spirit of God answers and resolves the ambiguities
of life through ecstatic revelation as union with the ground of being and the New Being. This
“ultimate concern gives depth, direction and unity to all other concerns and, with them, to the
whole personality” and each dimension of a person’s being toward something of ultimate
meaning and significance. 45
The dimension of the spirit is dominant in human life as the unity of the power of
meaning and being. Union of the human spirit with the divine Spirit is joining with the ultimate
source of the power and meaning of life. This resolves ambiguity within morality, culture, and
religion along with a fragmentary union between self and world. This is successful self-
transcendence in the process of growth in life and is marked by vitality.
This presence of the Spirit is not a supranatural intervention from outside of the structure
of reality but resides within structure of the universe. Within human beings, there is a microcosm
of the universe that parallels the presence of the Spirit there also.46 The manifestation of Spirit
does not destroy the centered self or the structure of reality. Instead, it is the ultimate meaning-
bearing power, which grasps one in revelation as ecstasy. We receive the divine Spirit within our
own spirit as inspiration and infusion; “breathing in” as event without analysis and a “pouring”
out of its impact upon us.47
However, as Tillich posits these three symbols as the central Christian symbols of
revelation, his own experience and theology point to other mediums of revelation in connection
to these specific symbols.
divine Spirit (uppercase) in his nomenclature.

44 Ibid., 249.
45 Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith. Epub. Vol. 577, (New York: Harper, 2011), 98.
47 Ibid., 280-81 (the definition of Agape) & Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 115-117.
26
REVELATION IN RELATION TO SPIRITUAL FORMATION
The Experience of Revelation
Revelation, then, is removing the veil that covers the unconditioned source of being and
the New Being by the divine Spiritual presence. Revelation cannot be approached or controlled
through ordinary ways of gaining knowledge. It can only be received. It presupposes a truth that
is already there yet concealed. Revelation is not a teacher of information about God and divine
matters. Rather, it is a meaning-bearing experience where one is grasped. For Tillich, the marks
of revelation are mystery, miracle/sign-event, and produced ecstasy.48 Mystery, “derived from
muein [which means] ‘closing eyes’ or ‘closing the mouth’,” transcends the act of ordinary
seeing as it is impossible to express the experience of mystery by ordinary means. 49 Mystery
characterizes an unconditioned dimension which precedes the subject-object split and is not
sufficiently captured by language which has grown out of the same structure.
Genuine mystery appears when reason is driven beyond itself to its ‘ground and abyss.’50
When confronted with the physical stigma of finitude and the cognitive shock of the threat of
nonbeing, the negative side of mystery (as abyss) is revealed. The positive side of mystery
(ground) holds the negative side as well and becomes manifest in actual revelation. What is
revealed still remains a mystery after revelation and cannot be dissolved into knowledge about
God within the subject-object structure of reality. 51 It cannot be undercut or dissolved by
scientific or historical investigation. Revelation does not destroy the structure of cognitive reason
or the subject-object split. Instead, both protect revelation as they belong to a dimension that can
neither control nor grasp it as controlling knowledge. Reason only receives revelation.52
Ecstasy, for Tillich, means to stand outside of oneself cognitively. It is where one’s mind

49 Ibid., 108.
50 Ibid., 110
51 Ibid., 109
52 Ibid., 117
27
transcends the ordinary situation as the shock of the negative side of mystery (its nonbeing) is
encountered in the embodied sign-event and one’s entire being is grasped and drawn into the
revelation. Ecstasy does not negate or destroy reason. Instead, the ontological shock of the threat
of nonbeing (mysterium tremendum) is preserved and overcome simultaneously by the awe of
the ground of being (fascinans).53 Though the ordinary subject-object structure of rational reality
is grasped by reason’s controlling knowledge, it is transcended and put out of action as divine
ecstasy still preserves and elevates reason by its counterpart as receiving knowledge.54
Ecstasy is not to be confused with overexcitement where subjective production does not
include an objective (outside of oneself) reception. Instead, the ecstatic aspect of revelation
contains a salvific aspect of healing in the reunion of the split between subject-object thus
liberating self-awareness and alignment of all the dimensions of being (body, mind, spirit, etc.).
Estrangement is then also fragmentarily overcome by revelation as the reunion of essential and
existential natures becomes actualized in union with the source of its being through its medium,
the Spiritual Presence. The Christian path of reunion is Jesus as the bearer of the New Being.
The miracle/sign-event is the bodily experience of astonishment. Astonishment is the
giving side of revelation experienced as the stigma of nonbeing described as a dread of the
‘numinous’ which Tillich relates to having the ground of ordinary reality taken out from under
one’s feet.55 The healing aspect of the miracle sign-event brings reunion with the split between
finitude and its infinite source. If this bodily experience is not pointed to the mystery of being,
Tillich considers this mere sorcery. If it is not received in ecstasy, it is a “report about the belief
in a miracle” which Tillich parallels to Jesus being asked to produce a miracle/sign (to confirm
53 Ibid., 113 & Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy, (London: Oxford University Press, 1950) 8-23, 64. terror and awe of God
55 Ibid., 115-116.
28
another’s controlling knowledge) rather than a miracle being given to those who receive them in
faith.56 The sign-event is the shaking aspect of revelation alluding to a bodily experience paired
with the experience of mental shock in ecstasy.
Every person, thing, or event participates in being-itself and can become a bearer of the
mystery of being and a vehicle of revelation by the medium of the Spiritual Presence. Though it
is not the outstanding qualities of the person, object, or event that makes it a channel, the
qualities of each that point beyond themselves to the ground of being where meaning curates the
possibility of a revelatory event. Conduits of revelation would include nature, history,
individuals, and groups, which make themselves transparent to the ground of being.57 Tillich also
includes language as a channel of revelation. We grasp and try to understand the rational
structure of reality by words. They are a vehicle which express and denote the experience of a
‘self’ to another. The word as a medium of revelation “has a ‘sound’ and ‘voice’ of the divine
mystery in and through the sound and voice of human expression and denotation.”58 The depth of
being and meaning can shine through ordinary language to make it transparent to our source.
The content of revelation for Tillich is acceptance by the source of our being and
nonbeing rather than mere information about God. It is grace simply by our being in which we
stand out from nonbeing. Faith is the aspect of being grasped by that which is unconditioned; as
accepting this acceptance by the infinite source of our being. Christian revelation is reunion with
the God as the source of our being, Jesus the Christ as the norm and new way of being of this
reunion, and the Spiritual Presence as the medium of this reunion.
For Tillich, we cannot bridge the distance between the infinite and finite. Yet, in
56 Ibid., 117.
57 Ibid., 118-122.
58 Ibid., 124.
29
revelation, it is bridged by the source of being through the medium of meaning. Even after
receiving and accepting the contents of revelation “the risk of failure, of error, and of idolatrous
distortion can be taken, because the failure cannot separate us from what is our ultimate
concern.”59 Tillich’s description of what revelation is gives us initial indicators of what is and is
not revelation. Other defining marks of this would be what is the result of revelation.
Revelation Produces Faith as the Courage-to-Be

For Tillich, revelation produces faith. Faith is not a willed, cognitive assent. Rather, it is
being grasped by ultimate concern – that which determines our being and nonbeing or God as the
ground (and abyss) of being. It is ethical and ontological. The effects of this experience are
captured in Tillich’s sermon “You are Accepted” where he states:
Sometimes at that moment [of despair] a wave of light breaks into

our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: You are
accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than
you, and the name of which you do not know…Do not seek
anything; do not perform anything. Simply accept the fact that you
are accepted!60
This faith allows us to take nonbeing into oneself and overcome the anxiety of nonbeing. God, as
the ground and abyss of being/nonbeing, is the source of faith. The courage-to-be, with its basis
as faith, is self-affirmation of one’s being in spite of the negation of being and doubt; it is the
acceptance of being accepted by our ultimate concern.61
Because anxiety is rooted in nothingness, the courage-to-be resists despair by taking
anxiety into oneself.62 It does not remove anxiety because it has no object to conquer like fear.
Vitality, as the ability to create beyond oneself without losing the center of oneself within the
world, is an indication of this courage and successful self-affirmation by self-transcendence. We
59 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 97

60 Paul Tillich, Shaking the Foundations, (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1948), 162.
61 Tillich, The Courage to Be, 179-181.
30
have nothing to lose since this union with God cannot be taken away. Consequently, we can risk
and create more since this connection cannot be broken or destroyed by nonbeing as loss of
potential or life. This authentic vitality is what is sought within spiritual leadership.
Simply by being, we already participate in the source of being which prevails against
nonbeing. Consequently, everything can become an act of courage regardless of its success.
Tillich’s idea of neuroticism (clinging to “a fixed, though limited and unrealistic, self-
affirmation,” eschewing the reality of illness or danger by hiding in a “castle of defense”) is even
an act of courage because it avoids nonbeing by not being as a diminishment of life and
vitality.63 Even the states of cynicism and indifference, which also resist or avoid the threat of
nonbeing, can be considered acts of courage though they are blind to the source of that courage.
The ground of being and its power is at work in us as long as we maintain the courage to take our
existential anxiety upon ourselves. Thus, every act of courage is a manifestation of the ground of
being and a type of courage-to-be even if the arguments for this courage may hide or distort true
being.64 Tillich outlines this in the many historical examples of the courage-to-be as oneself
(individualization) and the courage-to-be as a part (collective participation). Yet, each example
shows the limitation of each courage as the subject-object divide remains and the state of
estrangement exemplified in ambiguity becomes intensified between both poles. Distinct from
previous historical periods, the 20th century has experienced the universal breakdown of
meaning. Truth is subjective as it is contingent, historically relative and conditioned,
perspectival, and tied to power. Our postmodern world has lost a meaningful world and a self,
63 Ibid., 66-69, 95-109.

64 Ibid., 172
31
which lives our meanings out of a spiritual center. 65 What is needed is a courage-to-be that
allows us to takes upon ourselves the anxiety of doubt and meaninglessness.
Our Current Threat of Nonbeing: The Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness

Yet, Tillich proposes that previous iterations of the courage-to-be from revelation at
different points in history are not sufficient for our current time. Each of these periods were
focused on either on ontic (death and fate) or moral (guilt-condemnation) existential anxiety. The
prevalent existential anxiety of Tillich’s time as well as ours is the anxiety of meaninglessness
and emptiness exemplified by ambiguity, doubt, and nihilism. Our current climate of the further
deconstruction of certainty, truth, and meaning only heightens our existential anxiety and the
threat of nonbeing. The anxiety of meaninglessness-emptiness is the loss of creative participation
in our world that is then the loss of an ultimate concern as a spiritual center giving meaning to all
meanings. This existential anxiety is rooted in the ontological polarity of dynamics-form, its
corresponding conflict of relativism vs. absolutism, and disintegration of the life process of
self-creativity and its resulting vitality. Indications from this existential anxiety may include
disruptions in a common shared meaning and experience of reality, the deconstruction of
common institutions as arbiters of agreed life together, and the distortion or paralysis of creative
participation in our world as conditioned under estrangement’s unbelief, hubris, and
concupiscence. This can exemplified in a reactionary fragility, rigidity, and/or impermeability
towards criticism of one’s self-creative acts. For our students and their contexts, this reality is
manifested in all realms of life.
The subject-object, self-world split is then bolstered by contempt and resentment. The
conflicts between the other ontological polarities as autonomy vs. heteronomy and
emotionalism vs. formalism are still present as hyper-individualism, tribalism, xenophobia,
65 Ibid., 168.
32
irrationalism, and detachment abound. Our finitude is heightened as the ever-present threat of
nonbeing is projected onto objects of fear. Yet, each instance may derive from the heightened
anxiety of meaninglessness. A new courage-to-be to take in this existential anxiety and
participate in the unambiguous divine life is needed even more today than ever, particularly in
the spiritual leadership of our seminary students.
Absolute Faith for a New Courage-to-Be is Needed Now

Tillich posits that a new courage-to-be is needed for our current time as one existential
anxiety has moved to the forefront. Traditionally, the two highest religious paths of courage as
accepting acceptance by our source of being is manifested in mystical and personal revelations
of God. The mystical path is defined by Tillich as self-affirmation by radical self-surrender and
renunciation of the illusion of appearances as the emptiness of all meanings. Penetrating to the
abyss of being, the mystic affirms the essential self (love and connected one-ness) against what is
not their true self. This process is done through graduated ascetic and ecstatic spiritual practices
as a way of emptying oneself to attain this awareness. Thus, being and nonbeing exist non-
dualistically with each other. Mystical courage-to-be reveals that ultimate meaning is not
something definite but the abyss of every definite meaning and the emptiness of all forms. 66 This
is the apophatic aspect of every religion.
The personal path of religious acceptance is typified by the Judeo-Christian tradition of a
personal encounter with the divine as exemplified in the Bible. This personal experience affirms
one’s personal reality and the divine’s partiality to that manifestation. Epitomized in the
Reformation and the prophetic/Protestant principle, personalism’s courage is the realization that
one can become assured about one's existence only after ceasing to base one's confidence solely
on oneself or external heteronomous institutions. This then centers the self in revelation of the
33
source of one’s particularity that brings union to essential and existential natures. The personal
path of acceptance overcomes guilt-condemnation through self-affirmation by communion with
its source cataphatically; the moral act of communal participation in the symbols, concepts, and
language of the sacramental acts of faith. 67
Each path arrives at accepting despair and nonbeing upon oneself where one is then met
by the source of our being that accepts us and awaits our acceptance. However, Tillich posits that
an absolute faith that includes but transcends these two paths is higher as a courage-to-be and
more pertinent for our contemporary situation of the meaninglessness of our existence. 68 This
courage-to-be takes doubt and meaninglessness into itself as faith is received from the God
above the God of the abyss or personal ground which is the line of despair that each walk
towards. According to Tillich, the mystical path of courage is limited by the devaluing and
renunciation of the concrete of any meaning or form. In doing so, the concrete can never be
redeemed as essential nature is still split from existential. 69 The personal path of courage is
limited by its reliance on a divine, personal presence still bound by the subject-object split. This
is then undercut by doubt which reduces believing to an unbelievable supranatural being.
Absolute faith as the ultimate courage-to-be is union with the source of being above the
God of theism and more than the absence of all meaning. The “God above God” 70 is not solely
the devaluation of the meanings which doubt has thrown the concrete into the abyss of mean-
inglessness; God as ground of being is the concrete’s potential restitution. Conversely, the God
above the God of theism is paradoxically hidden in the divine-human encounter of personal
courage. God is neither solely subject nor object but is rather a transpersonal presence of the
67 Ibid., 161-162.
68 Ibid., 198-199.
69 Ibid., 187.
70 Ibid., 217.
34
divine. The power of forgiveness can only be accepted if effective in a personal life as grace.
Yet, every prayer that is spoken to ‘somebody’ as divine person, if examined, is spoken to a
presence that is more intimate to the “I than the I is to itself.” 71 God as the ground of being is
intimately both subject and object of each prayer, paradoxically.
This courage-to-be which is rooted in the experience of the God above God unites and
transcends the courage-to-be as a part and the courage-to-be as oneself thus uniting the subject-
object split. Because it contains both apophatic and cataphatic elements, it avoids both the loss of
oneself by participation and the loss of one's world by individualization. The acceptance of the
God above God makes us a part of that which is the ground of the whole. 72 If the self participates
in the power of being-itself, it receives itself back; for the power of being acts through the power
of the individual self. It does not swallow particularity as every limited whole, every
collectivism, and every orthodoxy does.
A spiritual community, which stands for the power of being-itself or for the God who
transcends the God of religions, claims to be the mediator of the courage-to-be. A church that is
based on the authority of the God of theism cannot make such a claim. It inescapably develops
into a collectivist or semi-collectivist system itself. “A [spiritual community] which raises itself
in its message and devotion to the God above the God of theism without sacrificing its concrete
symbols can mediate a courage which takes doubt and meaninglessness into itself.”73
Absolute Faith as the basis for the courage-to-be is the boundary of human possibilities.74 It is
both the courage of despair and the courage in and above every courage. It is not a place where
one can live, it is without the safety of words and concepts, and it is without a name, a church, a
71 Ibid., 215.
72 Ibid., 188.
73 Ibid., 199.
74 Ibid
35
cult, a theology. But it is moving in the depth of all of them. It is the power of being, in which
these manifestations participate and of which they are fragmentary expressions. Being includes
nonbeing but nonbeing does not prevail against it. Nonbeing belongs to being; it cannot be
separated from it. Nonbeing drives being out of its seclusion and forces it to affirm itself
dynamically.75 Spiritual practices are the deepening of this affirmation as growth.
A new vitality, as the dynamic power of life, is then directly related to the effects of this
new courage-to-be. It is “the power of creating beyond oneself without losing oneself. The more
power of creating beyond oneself a being has, the more vitality it has.” 76 We see within vitality a
courage to risk related to the self-integration, self-creativity, and self-transcendence process of
life. Vitality, as dynamics, is then directed by its other pole of intentionality as form. Successful
self-transcendence as union with the ground of being provides more courage which translates to
more vitality with intentionality to be able to affirm oneself and create beyond oneself in spite of
more dangers announced by fear and anxiety. Once connected to something larger than ourselves
that cannot be taken away, we are free to risk even our being in order to create and experience
reunion with ourselves and world. Everything, then, is possibility which includes nonbeing and
the destruction of meaning.
The Spiritual Formation of the Courage-To-Be from Absolute

Faith
The courage-to-be is the self-affirmation of one’s being in spite of the negation of being
and doubt. It derives from revelation and is as the acceptance of being accepted. The two
historical paths of this acceptance are either through a mystical or personal encounter of God as
the abyss or ground of being. Both have limitations, as Tillich believes mysticism leaves no way
to redeem material particularity and personalism can profane the divine by making it simply a
75 Ibid., 206.
76 Ibid., 109.
36
being among beings. An absolute faith is needed that includes and transcends both. This is a new
courage-to-be to address our current existential anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness. Yet
Tillich does not give examples of what this might look like or actual examples in reality.
Tillich defines the spiritual as the unity of the power of being with the meaning of being
distinguished by self-awareness.77 Spirituality is the unity of dynamics and form (as self-
creativity) in our moral and cultural acts. 78 From earlier, spiritual formation for this project is
considered the overall deepening and growth of one’s unity of the power of being and meaning
embodied in self-creative moral and cultural acts. The following aspects from Tillich’s theology
will help formulate a conception of the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be that will be applied
to the following narratives in order to glean the spiritual formation of a new courage-to-be. In
order to begin defining a theological construction of the formation of this new courage-to-be for
seminary students, we must look at those factors that are essential in spiritual formation itself:
The target and path of spiritual formation, the practices that embody this effort, and the
community that supports and guides this focus.
The Source, Norm, and Medium of Spiritual Formation

Tillich’s theology provides a skeletal frame for the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be
from absolute faith; God as the infinite source and power of being, Jesus the Christ as the norm
or path of a new way of being from reunion with this source, and the Spiritual Presence as the
medium of this union between source and norm as the power meaning. God as the ground of
being is the source of the power of being and overcomes finitude. Jesus as the bearer of the New
Being overcomes estrangement within the structure of reality. The revelation of the Spiritual
77 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol 3, 111.

37
Presence overcomes ambiguity as it brings ecstatic union with both symbols as the power of
meaning.79
In forming spirituality, the source of the power of being is also what is uncovered and
experienced in revelation. The norm of spiritual formation can be seen as either preparation for
this union in revelation or the deepening of one’s path from it as exemplified within the structure
of reality. For Tillich, estrangement and its effects within reality as well as transparency and
unity to its source would be addressed in the norm. The medium of the union between the source
and norm in revelation is the power of meaning which addresses ambiguity. The medium is also
the underlying power of a formational practice of reflection, discernment, acceptance,
transparency and actualized vitality with self-awareness in uniting the source of being with the
structure or logos of existence by the power of meaning. The medium of as the power of
meaning is the depth of all sacramental acts as spiritual practices. Tillich’s own example of this
are explained earlier from his theology.
Spiritual Practices and the Courage-to-Be

For this project, I am defining spiritual practices as intentional exercises in actualizing the
unity of one’s being and meaning distinguished by self-awareness. Within spiritual formation
with its source, norm, and medium, spiritual practices help deepen and grow one’s unity of the
power of being and meaning. These practices are then embodied through ritual, contemplation,
perspective, and action distinguished by self-awareness in relation to a centeredness to one’s
world. This integration makes us open to that which transcends and includes us and our world.
This spiritual aspect is a dimension of depth to life in the search of answers to the existential
questions ‘Who am I? What is my purpose? How then shall I live?’ which correspond to the
polarities of individualization-participation, dynamics-form, and freedom-destiny.
79 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol 3, 286.
38
Tillich does not address specific spiritual practices in his theology but instead emphasizes
the depth within each and our intention entering into them. His own revelatory events during and
after the war suggest an openness to practices even outside the Christian tradition as long as the
orientation of depth is present. The Christian spiritual practices of prayer, sacramental acts, and
the mediation of the symbols and myths by the spiritual community are either contradicted or
strengthened by the engagement with the profundity of what they point towards also. Tillich’s
idea of sanctification points to this depth of orientation. Sanctification is the Christian journey of
being made holy after the justification by faith through revelation.
Tillich’s process of sanctification includes the four principles of increasing awareness,
increasing freedom, and increasing relatedness, all of which are predicated on self-
transcendence as growth in devotion to and participation in the holy. 80 Instead of specific
spiritual exercises, self-transcendence is “actual in every act in which the Spiritual Presence is
experienced (as revelation)” and may even lead one away from established religious life and its
practices if they are inadequate or threaten the movement into self-transcendence by sacrificing
the depth of their symbols and sacramental acts.81
Tillich’s sanctification is a continual preparation to receive the experience of ongoing
revelations of the power of being (God as ground and abyss) within the structure of reality (its
logos) by the power of meaning (Spirit). It is the search for the sublime as depth that transcends
but including the boundaries of oneself and the world. Nevertheless, this act of preparation could
also come before initial revelation, as self-transcendence is also available in the process of
growth as self-integration and self-creativity. Vulnerability and humility of the self as
preparation to receive the invitation of revelation would seem fundamental. Spiritual practices as
80 Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol. 3, 231-237.

81 Ibid.
39
preparation may then be considered as initial forays into the courage of taking existential anxiety
and the threat of nonbeing into oneself by the vulnerability of the self. A central argument of this
dissertation is that spiritual practices within self-transcendence then become intentional exercises
in unifying the power of being and meaning as preparation to receive the depth of the experience
of the God as the ground of being in revelation, as vehicles for revelation itself, or as a deepening
its impact after reception.
As an example, Tillich’s own spiritual practices from his narrative as a chaplain most
likely included reading and interpreting the Bible, leading worship, preaching, presiding over
Eucharist and Baptism, pastoral care, and praying for and with those in need. Yet, in war, these
practices went beyond the normal bounds of his clerical status to include the moral and cultural
acts of offering medical attention, burying the dead, and theologically interpreting God’s
intention within nationalistic fervor and the horrors of war to those being crushed by both. He
gathered strength and clarity from reading and engaging existentialist thought. He found depth
and meaning in art. Our spiritual practices may go beyond prescribed religious forms of our
particular camp or calling and still coalesce within our lives. We draw strength and meaning
from them in times of calm. They can be an anchor for us when we feel we tossed aside by an
indifferent and chaotic universe. But our spiritual practices are also a doorway into revelation as
union with God as the transcendent source of existence. This may be true when combined with
the awareness of the threat of nonbeing as either the loss of potential or life. From this encounter,
our lives may be altered indelibly.
As an example, Tillich’s threats of nonbeing experienced in the horrors of battle as death,
meaninglessness, and guilt, we can see in his numerous breakdowns the struggle for clarity,
strength, and courage to simply live in the face of all this. Along with whatever psychological
40
treatment he was receiving, the two revelatory events with non-Christian symbols provided an
experience of God that he received as healing and brought him away from the edge of despair. In
his later spiritual practice of theology, we see the reclaiming of the unity of meaning and being
from this time as he plumbs the cognitive depths of the threat of nonbeing, existential anxiety,
and revelation as the provider of the courage to simply be.
The Spiritual Community Mediating Symbols and Myth for the Courage-to-Be
Tillich proposes that a centered ‘self’ actualizes itself in the moral act because of the
awareness of its own limits of finitude and partiality by the limiting presence of ‘others’ in its
world. It must be in relationship with the world rather than absolutizing itself as an idol or as
mistakenly believing it is the sole power of being and meaning. As such, the spiritual community
is an integral part of spiritual formation and practice. Revelatory participation in the Spiritual
Presence (Holy Spirit) is mediated by a spiritual community and its sacramental acts that possess
and are able to preserve the power of the Spiritual Presence of God as the ground of being.82 The
mediation of sacramental acts pertains to the symbols, spiritual practices, and myths of a spiritual
community and the depth they point towards.
Tillich’s theology employs a symbolic rather than literal engagement with scripture and
theological concepts. He states that all expressions of ultimate concern occur through symbols
because the immensity and multidimensionality of the ultimate cannot be expressed in non-
symbolic terms. The two basic forms of symbolic expression and sacramental act are myth and
ritual. “The two are interdependent for what is practiced in the cult (rite) is imagined in the
myth, and conversely reciprocated. There is no faith without these two ways of self-
expression.”83 Tillich’s posture makes one aware the power of symbols rather than attempting to
82 Ibid., 124.
83 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 107.
41
drain them of their power. The rites and myths of the community of ultimate concern may be
distorted into magic realities and sacramental superstition, which then removes the depth of
meaning that rite and myth point towards. This literal interpretation begins to separate the moral
dimension of faith from its ground and source, which is then often turned against the Spiritual
community and its supranatural distortion. 84
Tillich does not limit the Spiritual community to just Christian churches or religion,
however. He defines latent and manifest Spiritual communities as those who show the power of
the New Being in an impressive way and which show the impact of the Spiritual Presence. 85 The
marks of the Spiritual community are extensions of the impact of the Spiritual Presence: faith (as
grasped by ultimate concern from union with the ground of being); love (from the New Being as
agapé - love that seeks the other because of the ultimate unity of being of the other is also being
within the divine ground); unity with all from faith; and universality from the agapé and eros of
love.86 These marks also denote formational goals of spiritual formation and the community that
participates in it. Tillich’s definition of the Spiritual community rejects the absolutizing of any
political, cultural, or ecclesiastical structures as ecstatic revelation influencing being is
fundamental to the Spiritual community and cannot be a heteronomous or autonomous law.
Tillich’s own spiritual community from his narrative could be interpreted as initially the
soldiers he was caring for, the church which ordained his ministry, and the German community
that was to receive him after the war was over. After his revelation, this community would
expand to those engaging his theology and the larger community of humanity, which experiences
a universal existential anxiety.
84 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 109-110.

85 Ibid., 153-154.
86 Ibid., 155-156.
42
Tillich’s Theology: Methodological and Hermeneutical
Considerations
This project assumes both narratives in the following chapters are two different examples
Tillich’s absolute faith. Each address the inclusion and transcendence of mystical and personal
spiritual traditions in their formation, their respective revelatory events, and a subsequent
courage-to-be. As such, each narrative will be examined for their initial spiritual formation of
joining two spiritual traditions through (1) the source, norm, and mediums of spiritual formation
embodied within practices in their spiritual communities, (2) Subsequent threats of nonbeing, (3)
the nature of the revelatory event, (4) the resulting courage-to-be and vitality in addressing the
existential anxiety of meaninglessness-emptiness; and (5) transcendence of both traditions as
absolute faith. The findings from each narrative will be applied to the spiritual formation in the
seminary context with particular relation to existential anxiety encountered by our students.
Before initiating this conversation, some considerations must be made in adapting
Tillich’s body of work to our current situation. The existential anxiety of guilt and condemnation
is a vast issue that will not be addressed in depth in this project. Eschatology impacts anxiety and
the formation of a courage-to-be. Because this project focuses on spiritual formation and
revelation, only acute aspects of eschatology and cosmology in each narrative as they pertain to
the anxiety of meaningless-emptiness will be included. My hope is to take up the anxiety of
guilt/condemnation and a full comparison of eschatology and cosmology at another time.
Tillich’s theology as Philosophical Rather than Psychological Construct

It is unclear what type of treatment or psychotherapy Tillich received for his breakdowns
during the war or other periods during his life. In our time, these might have been diagnosed as
post-traumatic stress disorder or moral injury. It is clear that he was drawn to psychology and its
influence in his theology by his references to it and his long relationship with Rollo May, the
existential psychologist. This project will be using Tillich’s theology as a philosophical construct
43
for examining existence and courage rather than a psychological one. Psychological health seems
instrumental for possessing oneself and one’s world in the structure of reality. This would then
seem to be a foundational premise when one is threatened with dispossession of either one in
order to experience revelation which transcends but does not destroy the structure of reality as
one becomes transparent to the ground (and abyss) of being. For students and UTS, we would be
cautious accepting a person who had recently had these traumatic events like Tillich. The
normalized deconstruction of long held beliefs in the seminary process may exacerbate
psychological conditions that have not been addressed sufficiently before seminary. This would
seem to either inhibit the experience, understanding, or integration of revelation. However, for
the purposes of this project, the philosophical and theological aspect of revelation as outlined by
Tillich will be the focus rather than the psychological allusions he draws upon in his work.
Correlational Method as Give-and-Take Rather than Monologue

Tillich published Systematic Theology, Vols. 1-3 (1951-63) and The Courage to Be
(1952) in another period of time where the scholarship of that era informed Tillich’s ontology
and theology. His Systematic Theology was written as an apologetic theology for a secular west
using the tools and framework from a western social location. It was structured as a one-way
monologue. Pluralism and access to other viewpoints has since expanded exponentially, thus
opening up other dimensions of life that affect ontology, theology, and hermeneutics. Even
Tillich was experiencing this dynamic in his encounter with Zen Buddhism in 1960 and captured
in his work “The Significance of The History of Religions for The Systematic Theologian.” 87 At
Tillich’s Memorial in 1965, Dr. Mircea Eliade stated that Tillich wished he could rewrite his
87 Paul Tillich,“The Significance of The History of Religions for The Systematic Theologian.” In The Future of Religions, edited
by Jerald C. Brauer, (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 80-94. This lecture was given ten days before Tillich’s death and
alludes to a broader framework to account for other religious truths in conversation with Christianity.
44
Systematic in light of his encounter with other religions.88
David Tracy gives us another way of interpreting a correlational method that is relevant
to this project. He proposes the model of interpretation as conversation where the
contributions of different voices, in equal conversation rather than rhetoric or monologue, adds
to the pluralistic depth and texture of the ongoing dialogue. 89 Each voice has a role to play in
conversation and guards against distortions or adding unnecessary meaning to a fuller
understanding and interpretation. This synthesis of multiple voices creates understanding and
may return to transform one’s center within an authentic exchange. The back-and-forth of
authentic conversation requires a “release of self-consciousness into a consciousness of the
phenomenon” along with a permeability to the exchange of ideas and depth that must take
place.90 Ultimate control of the object is not the goal of this mode of interpretation.
The structure of this project is meant to utilize this idea of conversation as interpretation.
As conversation is not always linear, a gestalt of this conversation will be unearthed that ties
together the theological whole of existential anxiety, revelation and spiritual formation. The
personal narratives within each of these spiritual practices are meant to be taken seriously as
autonomous authorities in order for this authentic exchange to happen with Tillich’s conception
of a courage-to-be and revelation.
Symbols
Tillich’s theology and spiritual practices mediate symbols uniquely because every
ultimate concern needs to be expressed concretely through symbol because of the aspect of
nothingness within anxiety. Tillich outlines six characteristics of symbols which detail their
88 Marc Boss, “Tillich in Dialogue with Japanese Buddhism: A Paradigmatic Approach to Inter-Religious Conversation.” 270.
89 Tracy, David. “Theological Method.” In Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, edited by Peter C.
Hodgson and Robert H. King. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1982, 37.
90 Ibid., 41.
45
power: (1) symbols point to something beyond themselves; (2) they participate in the power and
meaning of the reality to which they point; (3) they open up levels of reality which are otherwise
closed for us, as epitomized in art; (4) they unlock elements and dimensions of our soul which
correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality; (5) symbols cannot be produced
intentionally as they grow out of an individual or collective unconscious and cannot function
without the acceptance of our unconscious dimension of being; and (6) because they cannot be
invented, symbols grow and die according to the context that assists in either case.91
The symbols that spiritual practice utilizes (as rite and myth) will need to be examined in
the personal narratives. How one’s participation in these symbols and the interplay with the
threat of nonbeing and courage needs to be examined when considering spiritual practices and
formation.
91 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 47-49.
46
C H A P T E R 3 : B U D D H I S M A N D K E N S H O A S
T H E C O U R A G E - T O - B E
Introduction
Tillich does not address or give examples of what an absolute faith would look like. He
does not outline specific spiritual practices or a specific community representative an absolute
faith and its courage-to-be. He describes the depth of revelation that could be encountered within
spiritual and sacramental acts. The two proceeding narratives will be explored as possibilities of
what spiritual practices and their corresponding revelations might exemplify the formulation of
an absolute faith and its courage-to-be. Each of these subject’s narratives are captured within the
time frame of the beginning of their practices to examine the details of their formation leading
towards revelation. This might parallel the path a seminary student might experience during or
after their time in seminary.
Ruben Habito was an ordained Jesuit priest when he began practicing Zen Buddhism
with Kuon Yamada Roshi in 1970 while in Japan. Habito still retains his Catholic faith and
Buddhist practice. Habito’s narrative of belonging to both traditions fits Tillich’s concept of an
absolute faith that includes and transcends mysticism and personalism. His revelatory event of
kensho in the Zen Buddhist tradition is tied deeply to realizing the connected oneness of all of
reality and one’s true nature. The effects of kensho display similarities to the courage-to-be and
vitality in addressing the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness and estrangement’s
ambiguity.
Through Habito’s narrative, I will examine his initial spiritual formation in beginning the
practice of Zen along with his Christian tradition. This aspect of the study will include the
source, norm, medium, practices, and communities of formation. The threat of nonbeing, the
nature of Habito’s revelatory event, and its resulting impact in Habito’s life in addressing the
existential anxiety of meaninglessness and emptiness will then be examined in conversation with
47
Tillich’s idea of an absolute faith and its subsequent courage-to-be. Findings from this
interpretive exchange will reveal how both paths are included and transcended within Habito’s
life and being.
This study will focus on the kensho experience described in Habito’s book, Living Zen,
Loving God, interviews with him over the years, and his other encounters with the ineffable God
in the book Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of Buddha.
Narrative
Prologue
Raised by devout parents in the Philippines, Ruben Habito grew up Roman Catholic. As a
child, he believed sincerely in a ‘grandfather God’ that existed above the earth and was
benevolent and all-powerful. This God, Habito believed, would reward us when we were good
and punish us when we did wrong. But Habito described an initial insight at fifteen years old that
began to change this conception and spark a liberating curiosity into what God meant to him. 1
Habito was already attracted to books in physics that explored how the universe worked.
After contemplating the concept of the universe as finite yet unbounded, Habito had the
realization that there was no “God out there, beyond our universe, to make it work as it does.”
This realization felt exhilarating and liberating in being freed from the idea of a God as separate
from the universe or above us. As Habito describes, this “flash of insight ushered in a new
scenario of ‘the way things are.’”2
This insight led to his engagement with Sartre, Dostoevsky, and Camus in the questions
of life and meaning. However, it also led to an unsettling of his foundational beliefs. The
culmination of this first encounter with the mystery of God occurred when Habito was a senior in
1 Ruben Habito, “Close Encounters of a Certain Kind.” In Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of Buddha, edited
by Harold Kasimow, John P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger Keenan, (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003) 130.
2 Ibid., 131.
48
high school as he was travelling toward a public dance where he was to meet a young woman.
Habito’s friend who walked with him was a first-year medical student and mentioned how his
class had dissected a cadaver that week. The thought unsettled Habito as he was trying to focus
on meeting this young woman at the dance. Yet, his friend continued, explaining all the
intricacies and integrative functions of the parts of the body and how “it’s unthinkable that all
this could be out of mere chance.”3 This reverberated within Habito as he became extraordinarily
aware of his own body right then; his heart beating excitedly for the dance and meeting this
woman; his muscles moving his feet as the pace slowed; the function and rhythm of his
breathing; his whole body at work. The thought that all of this could not be by mere chance
triggered a sense of being enveloped in a mysterious presence that made it possible for his body
to work in this synthesis. What was experienced was not an intellectual conclusion but an
embodied reality.
After the pleasurable experience of the dance, Habito was left with an empty feeling
knowing that another year would pass before these festivities would return. Amid this emptiness,
the sense of the presence before the dance stayed with Habito and led him to the search for this
mystery and the meaning of it all. His university studies focused on mathematics and physics but
he kept seeking out books on philosophy and religion in pursuit of this mystery. Habito was then
drawn to enter as a Jesuit novitiate on the path to ordained priesthood. 4
Jesuit novices are initially focused on learning to live in community and to integrate the
practice of prayer. In this training, novitiates were required to practice a month-long program in
the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. These contemplative practices include an hour of daily
meditative silence and an annual eight-day period of spiritual practice. These activities were
3 Ibid. 132-33.
4 Ibid., 134-35.
49
meant to deepen one’s relationship with God and align the path of one’s life toward the yielding
of oneself to the call of God in this service. The Ignatian exercises are discursive in nature,
focusing on many theological concepts such as God’s creative, unconditional love and call for
total response, purgation of sin, and incorporation into Christ.5
In 1970, Habito was sent to Japan to study Japanese religions in order to serve the church
in the task of dialogue with other religious traditions as encouraged by the Second Vatican
Council. It was here; under the supervision of Father Thomas Hand, that Habito was encouraged
to take up the practice of Zen and was introduced to Yamada Koun Roshi 6 of the Sanbo Kyodan
lineage of Zen Buddhism in Kamakura, Japan. Father Hand was also studying and practicing Zen
at the time along with other non-Japanese and non-Buddhists. “At dawn while the Buddhists
chanted their sutras, the Christians gathered in another room of the Zen hall to celebrate the
Eucharist.7 Besides this, though, all activities at Sanbo Kyodan were done without distinction.
Yet, ironically, many of these early non-Japanese Zen practitioners were considered “ghetto” or
heretical practitioners because of a misperception of their intention in correspondence with a
limited view of Christian theology. 8
The Sanbo Kyodan lineage and other Zen traditions believe that enlightenment is beyond
words and is thus transmitted from person to person wordlessly. It is unique, however, in that
such an experience of awakening is not restricted to persons who have Buddhist affiliations or
5 Ruben Habito. Living Zen, Loving God. (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2004). 4 & Loyola Press. “An Outline of the
Spiritual Exercises,” n.d. https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/an-outline-of-the-
spiritual-exercises.
6 roshi in Japanese is translated as Zen Master
7 Ruben Habito. Living Zen, Loving God, 116.
8 Tyra Arraj,. Profiles in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue with Ruben Habito. Profiles in Buddhist Christian Dialogue. Inner Growth
Video, 1999. https://youtu.be/aPfdu8mQQpw. 7:00-8:19
50
are Japanese. Many non-Buddhists and non-Japanese participants have come to this place to
learn and experience this awakening, going on to teach throughout the world themselves. 9
Zen Buddhism and Kensho

Habito was immediately introduced to Buddhist sitting meditation in a Zen retreat called
sesshin (translated as ‘encounter of the heart’). This retreat is a four-day experience of rising at
3:00 a.m. and sitting meditating in silence with periodic breaks until 10 p.m. The sitting
meditation practice in the Zen tradition is called zazen. The aim is to be able to sit for a
prolonged period of time rather than enduring great pain or discomfort. During zazen, the mind
may have difficulty being still as thoughts bounce around. This is common in the beginning
engagement of this practice. Eventually, the mind is stilled not by the resistance or repression of
these thoughts, but the natural process of letting them go on their way and returning attention to
the breath. There are three fruits gained from zazen. The first fruit is a result of this stilling of the
mind marked by the power of concentration (joriki in Japanese, samadhi in Sanskrit). The
original sesshin left Habito with aching legs and a sore back but also exhilarated and eager for
more as he was already accustomed to the stillness of the Ignatian exercises. Yet, zazen
illuminated something different.
At his initial interview (dokusan) with Yamada Roshi, Habito was asked what he sought
from this practice. Habito replied that he “wanted to know the answer to the question ‘Who am
I?’” Though not as outwardly daunting as Tillich’s experience in war, this question of identity is
a major strand that shifts Habito’s theological beliefs while simultaneously tying together the
other previous realizations in his youth. Yamada Roshi gave Habito the famous Mu koan to focus
on what Mu was. Koans are paradoxical tales that are meant to confound the rational, discursive
mind in order to discover the depths of reality that reason cannot penetrate. The Mu koan is this:
9 Ruben Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, X.
51
A monk asked Zen Master Chao-chou in all earnestness: “Has a
dog Buddha-nature or not?” Chao-chou answered, “Mu!!10
Buddha-nature is the essential nature of all things, including plants, animals and all of
creation. Mu can be translated as either ‘no” or “nothing’ in Japanese. The conflicting
interpretations of the poem can be either ‘no, the dog does not have Buddha-nature’ or ‘yes, the
dog has nothingness and thus Buddha-nature.’ The first answer would contradict the Buddhist
belief of all things being imbued with this source. The second answer, though correct, was
seemingly too simple. Habito realized there was more than this interpretation also.
With every zazen, Habito focused on this word Mu with each exhale. He did so without
discursive and logical attention but was asked to become one with the word Mu; to be totally
absorbed into it (bitsunyu). Even in his waking and sleeping and every action in between was he
to dwell within this word. Habito’s second encounter with God occurred a few weeks later when
was struck “like an earth-shaking flash of lightning” and burst into “laughter and simultaneously
shed tears of joy” at the realization of Mu - not as intellectual concept, but as a bodily manifested
reality.11 It was an over-powering feeling that compelled him to go to Father Hand’s room to tell
him excitedly what happened but with little words to express it through his laughter and tears.
One way I can describe what happened at this point is that in a

flash of an instant, I understood, in a rather direct and intimate
way, that is, from within, what was behind the intriguing half-smile
of the Buddha figures we see in sculptures and paintings.12
(emphasis included in Habito’s account)
Habito then telephoned Yamada Roshi to ask for a dokusan and was asked the usual
questions in verifying it as a kensho experience, which was confirmed. Kensho is Zen
Buddhism’s initial experience of enlightenment as seeing one’s true nature, or Buddha-nature,
10 Ibid., 2.
11 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, 2
12 Habito, “Close Encounters of a Certain Kind” 136-137.
52
and is the second fruit of zazen. Habito explains that Mu is not the same as the concept of
nothingness or nonbeing. Mu transcends dualism and is beyond ‘being’ and ‘nonbeing.’ Instead,
it points to the infinite source of all of creation that permeates beyond the concept of nothing and
being, beyond any particular forms of being or nonbeing. This infinite source is experienced,
rather than cognitively grasped. Kensho, as experienced oneness with the source of everything,
requires experiencing the emptying of form, including one’s own form of self in body and mind.
As such, descriptions by language can become opaque to this mystery. Second-century
Mahayana Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna describes this Infinite source by four-fold negation:
“‘It’ is not being, not nonbeing, not both being and nonbeing, nor neither being and nonbeing.” 13
The initial impact of the experience of kensho on Habito lasted for several days.
After the enlightenment experience, Habito engaged in the continued practice of koans
and zazen to deepen his understanding for sixteen years afterward in actualizing the experience
of kensho. This is the third fruit of zazen which is described as the “bodily manifestation of the
peerless way” (mujodo no taigen). This practice after kensho is in response to the danger of
attempting to stay in kensho and enshrining it, glorifying it as object, using it as self-validation,
or trying to recapture the powerful emotions associated with it.14 Habito describes this danger as
“Zen sickness,” where one becomes self-consciously attached to the kensho experience. Instead,
delving deeper into understanding and actualizing this truth throughout one’s life requires the
same practice involved in joriki: constantly emptying oneself in order to be filled by union with
this infinite source so that it embodies a natural and new way of being in the world. 15
13 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, 7.

14 Ibid., 42.
15 Habito, “Close Encounters of a Certain Kind,” 136-137.
53
Epilogue
After kensho, Habito was faced with the question of whether he could continue in his Zen
practice and still be a Christian. How was he to integrate the two experiences and commitments?
The following years would be his quest to answer this question. He received his doctorate from
University of Tokyo in Buddhist Philosophy in 1978. He describes two other encounters with the
Mystery/God after his kensho experience that relate to his response to this question.
Habito’s third encounter with the Ultimate source of being occurred while teaching at
Sophia University in Tokyo, when he was able to travel to parts of Southeast Asia. It was during
these trips living amongst disenfranchised farmers and the urban poor that his eyes were open to
the realities of the pain and suffering brought about by systematic oppression. The destruction of
natural resources, poverty, violence, and the diminishment of life as commodity which
characterize our economy-driven world brought an understanding and deep realization of his
own complicity in these structures. 16
The awakening of the awareness of one’s Buddha-nature and the practice of embodying
this truth also awakens the oneness of that truth for all beings and our connectedness to their
being as well as their suffering. Habito quotes Dogen, a 13th century Japanese Zen Master,
regarding this connection and radical transformation: “To understand the Buddha-Way is to
understand Self. To understand self is to forget Self. To forget self is to be awakened by the
myriad of beings of the universe.”17 The four vows of a Bodhisattva18 then speak to this
connected compassion and the purpose of Habito’s journey and embodiment of his True Self in
his actions in response to the suffering of this world:
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them.

Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to extinguish them all.
16 Ibid., 138-139.
17 Ibid., 139.
18 A seeker of wisdom of the True Self
54
The Gates of Truth are countless; I vow to open them.
The enlightened Way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it. 19
The fourth encounter with the infinite source was with the Feminine aspect of the
mystery of God. Celebrating the Eucharist with an Indian Jesuit priest, the priest used the address
to “God, our Father and Mother.” This struck Habito and led him to explore the female figure of
the Bodhisattva Kanzeon who embodies the pain of the world borne by sentient beings. This
figure corresponds similarly to Mary, mother of Jesus, in the Christian tradition. 20 During the
persecution of Christians in Japan in 17th century, Christians often displayed the figure of
Kanzeon (also known as Kannon) as a way of secretly venerating Mary. Both figures of cosmic
compassion were often converged into one, which gives clues to the source of empowerment for
the common task of seeking ways to heal the world of its wounds and suffering.21
The encounter with the Feminine continued in another form as well. Habito met Maria
Reis in 1987 as she was doing her doctoral work on the Bodhisattva Guanyin (Chinese for
Kanzeon) and participating in Zen retreats in Japan at the same time as Habito. Habito
received Dharma transmission, a custom of establishing a person as a successor in the lineage of
Buddhist teachers so they may teach, from Yamada Koun in 1988. Habito left the Jesuit order in
1989 and he and Reis married soon afterwards. In 1991, Habito founded the lay
organization Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, Texas. He has taught at Perkins School of
Theology (Southern Methodist University) since 1989 as professor of World Religions and
Director of Spiritual Formation. Ruben and Maria have two sons. He still attends mass and
receives the Eucharist as well as leads his Buddhist community.
The Initial Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be
19 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, 81-82.

20 Habito, “Close Encounters of a Certain Kind,” 140.
21 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, 100-101.
55
In dealing with Habito’s spiritual formation, revelation, and the courage-to-be, this
project will be dealing with aspects of Zen Buddhism and Catholicism but will not be a
comprehensive examination of Buddhist philosophy, Zen, the Jesuit order, or the Sanbo-Kyodan
lineage per se. Habito’s account of kensho is not meant to be a typical experience of revelation in
the Buddhist tradition as the experience manifests differently in individuals even if the content
and insight are the same. 22 Aspects and particularities of Habito’s experience and the traditions
laden within it will be explored in order to see points of connection, dissonance, and implications
with the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be. Connections between Habito’s experience and a
seminary student’s similar journey of unravelling and rebinding self-identity will be explored
through this lens of courage.
The difficult paradox in examining the spiritual formation of a mystical Buddhist practice
is that the emptiness of all forms has a different engagement with external symbols. The absence
of clinging to any impermanent and external object, concept, or word is central to Zen. Many of
its concepts point to a nondual, unified relationship between source, norm, medium, and practice
that transcends the discursive character of analysis and words conditioned by the subject-object
split. Nevertheless, this exploration will attempt to discover points of discovery.
Tillich’s absolute faith includes and transcends mysticism and personalism. Before
studying how Habito’s narrative transcends both paths of encountering the ground of being, an
exploration of his initial spiritual formation in beginning the second practice of Zen along with
his Christian tradition will be examined. This aspect of the study will include the source, norm,
medium, practices, and communities of formation.
22 Phillip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen, (25th Anniversary. New York: Anchor, 1980) 199-266.
56
Source, Norm, and Medium of Spiritual Formation
Again, Tillich’s definition of the spiritual is the unity of the power of being with the
meaning of being. Spirituality is then the unity of dynamics-form as self-creativity in our moral
and cultural acts. 23 Spiritual practices are intentional exercises in actualizing the unity of one’s
being and meaning. For this project, I will be using these understandings to define spiritual
formation as the overall deepening and growth of one’s unity of the power of being and meaning.
The Source of Spiritual Formation as the Power of Being: The source of being is what is
revealed in revelation and overcomes finitude. The source of Habito’s initial formation as a
Christian Catholic was a detached, grandfatherly God that doled out punishment or reward
according to behavior. As he grew older, Habito’s conception changed from God as a being to
something intimately foundational to the movement and inner workings of the universe. His
devotion to God as sovereign over his life and his desire to draw closer to this source can be seen
in his entering the Jesuit order. There is continued evolution of his conception of God,
particularly in relation to his own identity.
In his continued Buddhist formation, the source of Habito’s spiritual formation was
what is revealed in kensho: the True Self, or original Buddha-nature of all things. This True Self
is then the oneness of all things beyond all divisions and dualities. Habito relates this mystery
revealed with various Christian terms such as the “Christ-nature” or “our original face before our
mother and father were born…. where we see we are holy and blameless.”24
The Norm of Spiritual Formation within The Structure of Being: The norm or path of
spiritual formation is both the preparation for revelation and the deepening of one’s path from it
as exemplified in overcoming estrangement. The norm for Habito in his initial formation as a

57
Catholic was Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. To most Christians, Jesus was both fully
God and fully man. Jesus’ path of devotion to God and his humility in glorifying God alone is
the norm of most Catholic’s spiritual formation. Habito does not delve into his perspective of
Jesus growing up in the Philippines. For many Catholics, the symbol of Christ is both a norm for
spiritual formation as well as a medium to carry prayers to God. Jesus as the norm of formation
can also be seen in Habito’s own ordination as a Jesuit that required the vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience to God as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 19:21. The Ignatian spiritual
exercises also exemplify Jesus as norm with its stated purpose as “the conquest of self and the
regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any
inordinate attachment” with the culmination of the exercises as developing the facility to "find
God in all things."25 The Pope and other Priests who continued in the apostolic line of Peter were
also symbolic norms of spiritual formation in alignment with Jesus’ path.
The deepening of Habito’s engagement with this norm of formation as self-transcendence
continues in his narrative. The similar utilization of silence and stillness in engaging the self
within Ignatian Spiritual practices and Zen’s spiritual practices seem evident. In his continued
Buddhist formation, the path of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha Shakyamuni) in reaching
enlightenment in experiencing original nature was the norm. Buddha is not posited as a God or a
symbol to be prayed through or receive blessing from. Rather, it was his path of emptying
himself to original nature that is the standard. Buddhism’s three marks of existence, or the Three-
fold Seal of Dharma (Buddha’s teachings), are impermanence, suffering, and no-self,
correspond to this norm. Impermanence (Anicca)26 is the aspect that there is no permanent or
25 Loyola Press. “An Outline of the Spiritual Exercises,” n.d. https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-

exercises/what-are-the-spiritual-exercises.
26 Pali is the earlier Indian language in which some of the earliest Buddhist texts were written. Sanskrit appeared towards the end
of use of Pali and also is used in early Buddhist texts. The Pail terms of Buddhist philosophy will be used for labels here.
58
unchanging aspect of conditioned being; everything is in flux and nothing lasts. Suffering
(Dukkha) is the universal aspect of conditioned existence of un-satisfactoriness, pain, and
suffering within a cycle of birth-death-rebirth. No-self (Anatta, or non-self) is the view that there
is no permanent, unchanging ‘self,’ or soul, and thus no ‘I’ or ‘me’ in existence. Ignorance of
these three marks of existence leads to the endless cycle of suffering. Dissolving this ignorance
through insight gained from zazen leads to the end of this endless cycle of suffering in birth-
death-rebirth (Samsara). The Four Noble Truths capture Buddhism’s orientation to these marks
of existence and freedom from the cycle of suffering is embodied by the Eight-Fold Path.27
Norms stemming from this central teaching would also include those of the Sanbo Kyodan
lineage and its community.
The Medium of Spiritual Formation as the Power of Meaning: The medium of the union
between source and norm in revelation is the power of meaning. For Habito’s earlier Christian
spiritual formation, the medium would be the Holy Spirit manifested in the seven sacraments of
the Catholic Church and the mediation of the gospel through the liturgy of the mass. The church
and its sacramental acts are the vehicles for the Holy Spirit and the arbiter of salvation through
communion with God and Jesus Christ.
The medium for Habito’s Buddhist formation is the same as its source – the True Self, or
original Buddha-nature of all things. Emblematic of its nondual perspective, source and path
(norm) are one. All paths are one in this source. Everything is a vehicle for this medium/source
as there is no separation. There are no specific symbols in Zen Buddhism to engage with in the
27 The Four Noble Truths are: (1) Life is full of suffering (Dukkha) from craving and clinging to impermanent states and things;
(2) This restless craving (Tanha/Tarsa) characterized by aversion, passion/hoarding, or illusion/ignorance keeps us in Samsara
- the endless cycle of birth-death-rebirth; (3) An end to this cycle of suffering is Nibbana/Nirvana as a renunciation of our
craving as the quenching of our restlessness; and (4) the way that leads to this cessation of suffering is the Eight-fold Path:
right views, right intention, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
Yoshinori, Takeuchi, ed. “World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest.” Buddhist Spirituality 1:
Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, and Early Chinese. New York: Crossroad, 1995. P. xv-xvii.
59
same way as Christianity’s sacraments of bread, wine, and baptismal water as the emptiness of
all form precludes outward signs. However, in the following section regarding spiritual practices,
there are specific materials Zen may utilize for initially perceiving one’s True Self.
Spiritual Practices, Symbols, and Courage

Tillich defines the spiritual as the unity of the power of being with the meaning of being
distinguished by self-awareness. I am defining spiritual practices within self-transcendence
become the intentional exercises in unifying the power of being (including nonbeing) and
meaning as preparation to receive the depth of the experience of the God as the ground of being.
Spiritual practices may then be considered as initial forays into the courage of taking existential
anxiety and the threat of nonbeing into oneself through the vulnerability of the self.
Christian Spiritual Practices: Habito’s initial formation within the Catholic Church
would include the spiritual practices of the seven sacraments of the church as visible signs of the
Holy Spirit. These seven sacraments are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance and
reconciliation (confession), anointing of the sick (and extreme unction), Holy orders (ordination
of clergy), and marriage. Each one of these sacraments marks a time and place where the
epiclesis of the Holy Spirit is particularly needed for initiation, healing, service, and transition.
These liminal moments are often where there is more uncertainty and consequently a need for
more strength, clarity, and resolve. The presence here of the Holy Spirit in these practices as the
power of meaning and the medium of spiritual formation and courage signifies the vulnerability
of the self as surrender and obedience in receiving it within the liturgy. This is Tillich’s
orientation of depth as self-transcendence.
Habito’s other spiritual practices within his narrative also include the engagement of the
Ignatian spiritual exercises and his preparation as a novitiate for priesthood which would include
acts of charity, poverty, and obedience. Underlying these practices is the reflection and search
60
for the answer of “Who am I?” Each practice signals an act of courage as it incrementally takes
in the anxiety of death and fate by the question of identity. These initial acts of courage can be
preparation for revelation as self-transcendence.
Habito entered into the practice of Zen in order to deepen his vocational calling of
understanding Japanese culture within the mission of evangelism and mercy. But another
motivation was the discovery of his identity as revealed in his dokusan. His Buddhist formation
also invites this orientation of vulnerability of the self but with different means. Instead of the
discursive format of the Ignatian exercises, the Zen practices focused on in Habito’s narrative
were zazen and koan training in order to prepare, integrate and embody enlightenment
awareness. Zen practice seeks to experience the awareness of the source of our lives rather than
prioritizing conceptualization of it or trying to describe it as seen in the following descriptions.
What also underlies Buddhist spiritual formation and practice is engaging the ego-construct, or
‘self.’
The Spiritual Practices of Zazen and Koans: Zazen is the central practice and locus of
Zen. Zen itself is not a doctrine or a philosophy focused on verbal and conceptual terms, but
rather a praxis and way of life centered on the experience of seeing one’s true nature and,
thereby, being awakened. The foundational practice to manifesting this is through zazen as
sitting meditation.28 Zazen involves sitting with one’s back straight, sitting preferably in the
crossed-legged lotus position, with eyes open but not focusing on anything while paying
attention to the rhythm of the breath’s inhale and exhale. One then begins to let the mind become
silent by not dwelling on any particular thought or sensation, but rather letting these experiences
28 Ibid., 104.
61
come and go as attention is returned to the breath.29 “The practitioner enters into a process that
culminates in a self-emptying” and non-thinking.30
Habito clarifies that the practice of zazen is not absent-minded-ness, absolute passivity,
or a loss of consciousness. It is also not introspection where the subject turns inward while
focusing on objects outside of oneself, which would still engage mental faculties. Instead, it
involves a total engagement in one’s sitting and being present in that moment. Letting one’s
thoughts come and go as the practitioner notices them and lets them rest is like a muddied pond
that is stirred up and begins to subside; the sediment settles back to the bottom and the water’s
clarity begins to move from opaque to transparent. The first of the three fruits of zazen is joriki,
or focused concentration.31 As the cloudiness of thoughts settle in zazen, clarity and focus
become tangible. The attachments we may have to our thoughts as synonymous with our ‘self’
are seen and experienced in the frenzy of the mind settling into the sitting. The quieting of the
mind brings another lived dimension of an emptiness and presence. This first fruit of zazen gives
rise to the second fruit, kensho, which will be explored later as revelation.
Within zazen and all of Zen practice is the addressing and transcending the subject-object
split. As Tillich pointed out, language and concepts are founded on the structure of reality as
subject-object. Grasping reality through reason and the tool of language is discursive as
exploration moves from observation of a detached object from the point of view of the subject. It
would seem, from this aspect of reason, that all we can ever speak from is this point of view of
subject and self-centered orientation. Yet, Zen focuses beyond this split towards ‘zero-point’-
where all opposites and polarities are reconciled and the universe of concepts gives way to the
29 Ibid., 34-37
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., 3.
62
universe of living experience.32 Sitting meditation confounds the subject-object split by the
difficult task of letting one’s thoughts settle and become still and, with it, our attachments to
them in the construction of the self or ego. Language, conceptualization, and idealization settle
as well. We may simply be in this moment, emptied of discursive plans or cognitive tactics. This
challenges the linear and rational assumption that the subject-object split is only the structure of
reality. This concept is also similarly experienced in the practice of koans.
Koan comes from the transliterated Chinese word ‘gongan’, which means public case or
precedent. 33 In Zen’s application, these are often stories like the famous ‘Mu’ story in which
Habito was asked to dwell with in his initial dokusan (interview) with Yamada Roshi. In Zen
practice, these stories passed down in one’s traditions are not meant to be instructive or
descriptive. Rather, they are invitations to take them into our lives so “we can experience the
same state of consciousness as the characters themselves.” 34 In the Sanbo Kyodan tradition,
koans are used as a way of utilizing language to get through language - before speech, before
thinking, before emotions, or preconceptions - to that fundamental place of our original nature.
In Habito’s practice, his absorption into the koan embodied this process as it became
clear what Mu is –permeating every breath and appearing in the kensho experience. The
nothingness of Mu is the lived awareness and experience of emptiness of every form that
becomes transparent to the source of existence (found in the dog, every aspect of creation, and
made real through an actualized life called ‘Ruben’). Through the dokusan, one’s engagement
with a koan is given trajectory as the teacher lives the koan with student through question and
challenge; not as cognitive grasping of the conceptual information therein but as embodiment of
32 Ibid., 35.
33 Kjolhede, Bodhin, Judy Roitman, and Joan Sutherland. “How We Work with Koans and How They Work on Us,” January 15,
2016. https://www.lionsroar.com/how-we-work-with-koans-and-how-they-work-on-us/.
34 Ibid.
63
the consciousness embedded within the story. 35 After kensho, koans work to bring one back to
that original state of awareness in kensho and deepen it so that it may manifest in all aspects of
one’s being and orientation towards life (mujodo no tagien).
Koans confound reason by the perplexing nature of their proposition. In koan practice,
the teacher points out pseudo-structures that have been falsely identified with the mind in order
to get at what underlies our mind and conceived ‘self.’ As the rational mind exhausts itself in a
story that does not rely on reason to understand its premise, we may throw up our hands in
surrender and frustration. But this practice, in conjunction with zazen, brings to bear an emptying
of the rational mind of its sole grasp on perceiving reality to see what permeates through the
emptiness of forms. This process of zazen and koan practice may take weeks, several months, or
years but its trajectory is to experience what is at the bottom of the mind - the True Self.36
Dharma: Along with the Buddha and the Sangha, the Dharma is one of the three jewels
of Buddhism. The Sangha will be explored in the following section regarding the Spiritual
community. Dharma has many meanings. It can mean phenomena, which are evident to the
senses. All phenomena are the result of the law of cause and effect meaning they are contingent
on conditions creating them. Changes in these conditions produces a different phenomenon.
Without these conditions and causes, the phenomena disappear. Dharma can then also mean law.
The law of cause and effect (and the contingency and impermanence of all form and phenomena)
is central to the Buddha’s teachings as shown in the three-fold seal of Dharma. The teachings of
Buddha may also be referred to as Dharma. 37 A Buddhist practitioner’s engagement with these
teachings are infused in the dokusan, practiced in the zazen, and embodied in the koan.
35 Ibid.
36 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, p. 15.
37 Phillip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen, 78.
64
The ‘Self’: The idea of the self is a pivotal one for Zen. One’s mind and our thoughts as
we perceive a reality outside of our subjective conscious is considered one level of reality that is
observed. For Habito, this dimension is merely the tip of the iceberg as it is undergirded by
others such as the sub-conscious (activated during sleep) and Jung’s collective unconscious
(myth, symbols and archetypes).38 The subjective conscious level is the one to which most of us
are attuned. However, this perspective is limited, as we perceive ourselves as subject and the
world as object which presumes a separation. From this view, what constitutes a ‘self’ becomes
only one’s discriminating thoughts, inclinations, appetites, activity, and accomplishments. Our
attachment to these things to the idea of a ‘self’ includes the demand or division of our attention
in building a ‘self.’ This activity can lead us to realize that “a forlorn feeling that living our lives
‘merely’ on this level is incomplete, superficial and unsatisfying…that we are craving a
wholeness that would enable us to experience life as meaningful, worthwhile, joyful, and
beautiful.”39 These structures we create in order to secure a ‘self’ leads us to this feeling of
hollowness that make us ill-at-ease with ourselves. The mind at this dimension creates these
pseudo-structures or delusions of what it believes is the foundation of the self. Habito equates
these to the Christian parable of houses built on sand as they are subject to the impermanence of
reality.40
Emptying (sunyata) is what Habito considers the heart and meaning of Zen. In zazen and
koan practice where one becomes emptied of concepts of self, practitioners “are enabled to see in
the proper light those things that we have falsely identified with our self and our self-image…our
social position, our security blankets, our material or spiritual possessions, our natural talents and
38 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, 123

39 Ibid., 12-13.
40 Ibid., 13.
65
gifts, as well as our shortcomings, and weaknesses - all those things associated with our
‘identity.’”41 Seeing clearly the emptiness of all form, one is freed to experience another
dimension of being beneath our conscious and unconscious reality – that of the True Self as the
source of all life before the split between subject-object. This experience of emptiness leading to
connection to this True Self – or the essential world42 – is the essence of kensho as revelation.
Mediation of the Symbols and Myth by the Spiritual Community

The centered ‘self’ actualizes itself in the moral act because of the awareness of its own
limits of finitude and partiality by the limiting presence of ‘others’ in its world. Revelatory
participation in the source and norm of the Spiritual formation is mediated by a spiritual
community and its sacramental acts that possess and are able to mediate the Spiritual Presence as
the power of meaning. Tillich’s marks of the Spiritual community are extensions of the impact
of the Spiritual Presence: faith (as grasped by ultimate concern from union with the ground of
being); love (from the New Being as agapé - love that seeks the other because of the ultimate
unity of being of the other is also being within the divine ground.); unity with all from faith; and
universality from the agapé and eros of love.43
Habito’s first Spiritual community is the church in the Roman Catholic tradition, founded
by Jesus and led by apostolic succession in order to maintain the traditional practices of faith, to
evangelize the Gospel, and to offer support and mercy to the poor and afflicted. The community
becomes the intentional shape for life together based on the source and norms it mediates and
possesses. From the experience of revelation, this is the metaphorical body of acceptance of
acceptance as grace. The church, with Christ as its head, is universal as a means of salvation and
redemption.
41 Ibid., 14.
42 Ibid., 123.
66
Sangha is the Pali word for association or community. The Sangha is one of the three
jewels of Buddhism. It can refer to the monastic community gathered to follow the Buddha’s
teachings. It is sometimes used to refer the entire community of practitioners. The Sanbo Kyodan
where Habito practiced is a lay Zen sect of Buddhism and was distinct in opening its practices to
non-Buddhists and non-Japanese. Habito does not address this community specifically in his
narrative but it is implied. The practice of zazen, koans, and dokusan with the roshi are all part of
the fabric of the community. The confirmation of the kensho personifies the confirmation of the
acceptance of acceptance as well. The burgeoning connection of the mystical and personal paths
toward transcendence is illustrated in the dawn Eucharist alongside the Buddhist sutras before
communal zazen.
The Threat of Nonbeing

When confronted with the stigma of finitude and the cognitive shock of the threat of nonbeing,
the negative side of mystery (as abyss) is revealed. The positive side of mystery (ground) holds
the negative side as well and becomes manifest in actual revelation.
Surrendering one’s conceptions of self, mind and ego (including one’s thoughts and other
external affirming pseudo-structures) is likened to Tillich’s conception of courage as taking
nonbeing into one’s self as experienced reality. However, this is seemingly a contradiction of
self-affirmation that Tillich posits as courage. To be emptied of attachment to these concepts that
seemingly make up our identity is the anxiety of possibly losing one’s history as well as future
potential as an anchor for our particular existence. The emptying of our ego as a grasping subject
is a metaphorical death. If not this, then what makes up who or what I am? How do I know that I
exist if not for these physical or conceptual symbols and phenomenon?
44 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 110
67
If that which I consider unique to myself (and shapes how I engage and experience the
world) are emptied, the fear is that I will arrive where there is no real significance or necessity
for my particular existence – thus resonating with Tillich’s anxiety of death and fate. This fear is
nihilism – that nothing has any meaning or purpose as I am one of billions of other non-
necessary things in the universe. To be in this moment and simply attend to my breath risks
being bored, at the very least, or losing attachment to the very things that actively affirm or affix
one’s existence which may be a symbolic death of an illusion of self. 45
As opposed to Tillich’s narrative with his encounter of physical death on a battlefield,
Habito’s experiences with nonbeing are subtler in outward appearance yet still profound. His
examples highlight the gradations that existential anxiety may manifest as opposed to fear, which
is focused on a particular object to overcome. Fear derives from existential anxiety. Occasionally
there is not a simple one-to-one correspondence in terms of outwardly observed intensity. Within
Habito’s narrative, we notice possible ‘threats’ of nonbeing that coincide with a subsequent new
understanding: the loss of the conception of God as grandfather in high school; the idea of a
dissection of a cadaver mixed with the anticipation and anxiety of meeting a young woman; the
lament of the fading of that experience after it was over; entering the novitiate and leaving his
family; engaging in the Ignatian spiritual practices; leaving for a foreign culture and beginning a
spiritual practice outside his own tradition; being initially considered an outsider to the Zen
community; and eventually leaving the Jesuit order and his ordination vows. Shadowing each of
these incidences are Tillich’s existential anxieties (death-fate, emptiness-meaninglessness, guilt-
condemnation) in various grades. Habito mentions these occurrences many years after they
happened in his narrative without a sense of fear or uneasiness except for the incident of the
45 This concept is also described as ‘ego death’ in other mystical religions as well as in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a
Thousand Faces,(p. 29) as a surrender of the false self.
68
medical student describing the cadaver he dissected in class. Habito himself considers these
earlier events as beginning challenges as compared to his decision to leave the Jesuit order which
occurred after kensho.46 The existential anxiety within each moment is implied which precedes a
new growth of understanding. As with Habito’s work with the ‘Mu’ koan as an embrace of
nothingness, this practice of asking the existential question of identity and taking non-being into
oneself was evident in all these smaller instances also.
For a student undertaking coursework and communal life in seminary, all encounters bear
the potential of raising the threat of nonbeing and, thus, existential anxiety, even if there is not
the immanent physical threat of death. This might be the loss of potential in an idea or role that
one has built their hope and life upon. It may be the death of a theological truth that defines their
identity. The depth of examination and possible unraveling of theologies and beliefs that bolster
one’s ‘self’ can be experienced as intensely as fear though not outwardly observed as such.
The Nature of the Revelatory Event : Kensho

In order to help interpret revelation and its impact for spiritual formation for seminary
students, we can observe Habito’s experience through Tillich’s criteria and examination of
revelation. Tillich’s concept of revelation is a received union with the source of being which
answers the questions of existence: the divisions between finitude and infinity, the subject-object
split and a (fragmentary) union of our estranged essential and existential natures resulting in
clarity from ambiguity. Habito’s kensho experience is Zen revelation resulting from zazen and
koan practice in emptying of the self. This revelation cannot be strived for, but rather
surrendered to. It is an experienced understanding of what ‘Mu’ means – the emptiness of our
forms which points to one’s True Self. Habito’s narrative of kensho parallels Tillich’s three
marks of revelation: mystery, ecstasy, and miracle/sign-event.
46 Conversation with Dr. Habito 4/12/18
69
Tillich’s description of the mystery of what is revealed corresponds to kensho in that
something that has always been there but has been covered over by our discursive thinking,
concepts, and attachments to an illusory ‘self’ which also keeps the world at a distance. Habito
himself describes this mystery as that which goes before the subject-object split – the oneness of
all things in their original nature. 47 It can only be experienced from within rather than logically
explained. In the koan, the dog does not have Buddha-nature hidden within itself because
everything is Buddha-nature. In addition, it does not mean that there is only Buddha-nature and
nothing else. The dog is Buddha-nature. In becoming one with ‘Mu’, there is no longer a
perceived duality between oneself and the koan. We are Buddha-nature as is every moment. “In
the words of Yamada Roshi, it is finally no longer the retreatant who enters his door, but MU.”48
Habito relates this mystery revealed with various Christian terms such as the “Christ-
nature” or our original face before our mother and father were born. We must die to ourselves
and see the reality of the emptiness of all forms to partake in this divine life and original nature. 49
He relates this mystery to the first person of the Trinity as the “unknown and unknowable”
source of life that is too deep for words, paralleling Augustine’s description of that which is
“more intimate to me that I am to myself.”50 Kensho is an invitation into an ultimate reality and
truth that he equates to the realm of God in Mark’s gospel.51
From Tillich’s perspective, the ecstatic nature of kensho is exemplified by the negative
side of this mystery (the shock of nonbeing, the emptiness of all forms) appears as Habito
describes earlier. Reason’s controlling knowledge was transcended (or Tillich’s ‘put out of
action’) as Habito was grasped by what was at the bottom of the mind. The split between the
47 Habito, Living Sen, 17, 49, 60-61, 66.

48 Robert E. Kennedy, Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit: The Place of Zen in Christian Life. (New York: Continuum, 1995), 30.
50 Ibid., 108.
51 Ibid., 57.
70
subject and object is healed and reunion between our existential and essential worlds is realized.
Reason as controlling knowledge is not destroyed but is eclipsed by its counterpart, receiving
knowledge. As one realizes one’s own nothingness in the face of this infinite mystery, one is
thereby opened to an experience of one’s nothingness, which is also an experience of the divine
presence permeating through nothingness, beyond the concept of “nothing” and the concept of
“being.”52
Though Buddhism does not engage in signs, the bodily reaction Habito exhibited after
this insight aligns with Tillich’s miracle/sign-event: trembling, crying, laughter, and
speechlessness as the bodily manifestation of astonishment and awe. Kensho is the experience of
union with that unknowable, un-nameable source. It is being brought to ‘zero-point’ as reunion,
both cognitively and bodily.
[Kensho] is not an ‘out-of-body’ experience, but very much an

embodied event rooted in the specific historical realities of one’s
being. And yet, at this very moment, all the boundaries of space
and time collapse, as there is no ‘subject’ standing, or sitting, vis-à-
vis a given objective place, and no time before or time after that a
given subject can measure or tally. 53
Habito equates this with the Christian concept of eternal life experienced not in some
distant time period of utopia, but that which is at the end of our fingertips, or embodied, in the
depth of this moment here and now.54
The medium of kensho as revelation is the act of sitting still and becoming one
(bitsunyu) with the koan through one’s body and mind, which requires emptying both. But since
all of creation has Buddha-nature, any part of creation may become a medium for this insight and
awakening including ourselves or the symbolic nature of the words of the koan. The content of
52 Ibid., 6.
53 Ibid., 105.
54 Ibid., 16.
71
this revelation is acceptance by the source of our being and nonbeing that appears through the
emptiness of all forms as explained earlier. Ironically, Habito quotes Tillich’s sermon You Are
Accepted as the aspect of grace and acceptance from this source of everything that is. 55
Kensho answers the questions of existence resulting in a courage-to-be, which brings clarity to
ambiguity evidenced in vitality as growth.
Absolute Faith, the Courage-to-Be, and Vitality Towards the

Anxiety of Meaninglessness -Emptiness
The mystical path of a courage-to-be, defined by Tillich, is where ultimate meaning is
not something definite but the abyss of every definite meaning and the emptiness of all forms.56
The personal path of religious acceptance is a personal encounter with the divine that affirms
one’s personal reality and the divine’s partiality to that manifestation. Personalism’s courage is
the realization that one can become assured about one's existence only after ceasing to base one's
confidence solely on oneself or external heteronomous institutions. Tillich posits that an
absolute faith that includes but transcends these two paths is higher as a courage-to-be and more
pertinent for the current anxiety of the meaninglessness of our existence. 57 According to Tillich,
the mystical path of courage is limited by the devaluing and renunciation of the concrete of any
meaning or form. In doing so, the concrete can never be redeemed as essential nature is still split
from existential.58 The personal path of courage is limited by its reliance on a divine, personal
presence still bound by the subject-object split. This is then undercut by doubt that reduces
believing to an unbelievable supranatural being.
Absolute faith as the ultimate courage-to-be is union with the source of being above the
God of theism and more than the absence of all meaning. The “God above God” 59 both redeems
55 Ibid., 60.
57 Ibid., 198-199.
58 Ibid., 187.
59 Ibid., 217.
72
the material form despite its emptiness and is more intimate to the “I than the I is to itself” as the
both the subject and object of every prayer. 60 This courage-to-be which is rooted in the
experience of the God above God unites the subject-object split thereby avoiding both and the
loss of one's world by individualization and the loss of oneself by participation. The acceptance
of the God above God helps us see our connectedness to the ground of the whole.61 If the self
participates in the power of being-itself, it receives itself back; for the power of being acts
through the power of the individual self. It does not swallow particularity as every limited
whole, every collectivism, and every orthodoxy does.
The Courage-to-Be in Addressing the Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness

From Tillich’s theology, Habito’s experience of Zen and its spiritual practices take in
ontic anxiety (Death-Fate) through the ‘self’ by the stilling of thought and attachment to
impermanent structures that fortify or glorify it. In doing so, the revelatory event of kensho is
revealed through the emptiness of these concepts and thoughts to experience our True Self as the
original Buddha-nature of all creation. As union with the source of all of life, Habito describes
the effects of kensho as the “one true moment when we can really hear the primal Word and are
enabled to see our True Selves,” whereby one “will be forever and we will be changed forever
because of that one experience.”62 The shock of the ecstatic (cognitive) and miracle/sign-event
(bodily) results from this change and the joy therein. The insight of this experience makes one
realize that our life is of infinite worth even if we die right now. It prepares one with the
embodied truth that this treasure “will not rot and no thief can take away” (Luke 12:33).63 By this
reference, his initial Christian formation is not lost but now included beyond a mere conception.
60 Ibid., 215.
61 Ibid., 188.
62 Habito, Living Zen, 65.
63 Ibid., 31.
73
There is an initial glow after experiencing kensho as the intensity of experience and emotions
that come from this realization are powerful. To understand what it means to be fully human
means glimpsing “that all-embracing, Divine, Loving presence.”64
The anxiety of emptiness-meaninglessness and the conflict of relativism vs. absolutism is
then dealt with through union with the spiritual center of all meaning and one’s ultimate concern.
Union with the source of all creation also expands the awareness of connection to the rest of
creation as well without dissolving one’s particularity. Subsequently, compassion that is emptied
of all self-consciousness is then expanded and deepened to connection with all creation’s source
of being as well as the suffering that is also experienced by creation through our interconnected
oneness. An experienced realization of nonduality as embodied solidarity with every part of
creation is readily manifested; I am thou because of this union with our source. Habito describes
this experience through a re-interpretation of the good Samaritan story in Luke’s gospel. Instead
of a story of willed and moralistic good deeds, the enlightened Samaritan’s actions, in union with
the source and then with the beaten traveler’s suffering, are simply the “most natural thing” one
can do spontaneously when the pain of the other is actually experienced as our own. 65 The key to
the story is not simply focusing on moral actions but the way of being that creatively produces
actions without self-consciousness and can free us to further engage a complicated world.
Buddhism’s differentiation of one’s original nature/true self from one’s ego has
similarities to essential and existential natures. In relation to Tillich’s marks of estrangement, one
is grasped in kensho by original nature, which counters unbelief (grasped by penultimate concern
instead of ultimate concern). In the process, hubris (as the elevation of the self as the center of
being) is supplanted by the oneness with all things that is glimpsed in kensho and then honed as a
64 Ibid., 65.
65 Ibid., 77.
74
way of being in mujodo no tagien as the ‘self’ is loosed from attachments. Concupiscence, as the
unlimited desire to draw the whole of reality into oneself manifested as insecure restlessness, is
countered as one’s eros is joined with everything through our collective True Nature.
Buddhism’s three poisons of greed, aversion, and ignorance 66 result from a clinging self which
also share resonances with Tillich’s marks of estrangement which result from loss of connection
to the ground of being (unbelief) resulting in the enshrinement of the self (hubris) and its
resulting restless desire to take all of reality into oneself (concupiscence) (See Appendix D).
Kensho results in an eros manifested and practiced as the third fruit of zazen - mujodo no tagien.
Tillich’s Ambiguity is dealt with in a different way with kensho. Ambiguity as
disintegration is not resolved as a problem or concept. Rather, union with the ground and abyss
allows trust in whatever may happen because of being grasped by what is permanent amid
impermanence – “to accept what is rather than being swayed by what we prefer things to be or
what we hope things can be.”67 Self-transcendence exemplified in kensho and its foundation in
mujodo no tagien connects to the Buddha-nature of all things as life both in itself and above
itself. The polarity of individualization-collective participation in Tillich’s self-integration are
brought into union by a nondual experience of one’s True Self as the original nature of all things.
Reason is placed in a collaborative, rather than dominant, position to experienced reality from
the perspective of understanding one’s True Self and what is present in the moment here and
now. Thus, there is no contradiction in either action or inaction or religious identities, only
insight and a myriad of possibilities as potential is never lost.
66 Kapleau, Three Pillars of Zen, 197.

67 Rush, David. Interview with a Zen Master, 2017. https://youtu.be/Q_1plLgAaJ4.
75
Resulting Vitality as Spirituality
Vitality within intentionality, stemming from the effects of revelation and its courage-to-
be, is the power of creating beyond oneself without losing oneself. A centered self that is able to
move from one center of its multidimensional being (self-integration) to the creation of another
(self-creativity) as growth evidences vitality. Forming another center from union with the
Ultimate, as in revelation, is self-transcendence which then shapes the formation of new centers
from this ultimate center. The initial vitality from kensho leads one to risk this acceptance further
and go deeper in understanding by incarnating this way of being in one’s perspective and lived
compassion throughout everyday life as the third fruit of Zen (mujodo no tagien), paralleling
Tillich’s sanctification. This is the continued in the exercise of zazen, koan practice, and
interviews with the roshi. The practices move toward where there all thought, word or action
becomes Mystery’s concrete expression, even in the most menial of tasks. “Everything is
inundated with a fullness, precisely as one is emptied of oneself in every thought, word,
action.”68 Going from the glow of kensho to the unvarnished, lived reality of this understanding
can be arduous. But trusting the initial revelation as acceptance, one may risk the continued
loosening of one’s attachment to external structures for assurances of self. This inward process
moves one to outwardly engage the world more fully than solely isolating oneself in either.
Zen enlightenment does not usher one into world of euphoric

contentment and stoic detachment as some might imagine. Zen is
not a practice that shields one from the realities of this world to
provide a haven of peace and security within one’s own small self.
Rather, Zen enlightenment involves a stance of readiness to plunge
right into the very heart of the world in solidarity with all the joys
and hopes; the pains and sufferings; the blood, sweat, and tears of
all sentient beings – right here and now.69
68 Ibid., 10.
69 Habito, Living Zen, 10..
76
Habito also describes clearly the possible distractions after receiving revelation in
defining what kensho and vitality are not. Using language to describe the enlightenment moment
is considered ‘dirty talk’ in Zen. Using conceptual language in the attempt to describe a mystery
that can never be reduced to a concept is dangerous. Commonly, language only manages to hide
rather than reveal as the transition from zero-point back to a subject-object split with the tool
conditioned by this structure risks muddying waters again or distorting it into what it is not.
Habito describes a subsequent danger in the act of attempting to grasp or explain kensho:
[After the experience of enlightenment], a certain glare that

remains, certain consciousness that goes with powerful emotions
triggered. A tinge of attachment to the experience remains,
understandably, because it is something intimate… that has
definitely affected one’s entire outlook on life and on the universe.
But if this gets out of hand it easily leads to what is known as
‘Zen-sickness,’ an overenthusiasm with Zen-like expressions and
paraphernalia, coupled with the propensity to bring Zen into
normal conversations even when uncalled for, and overzealousness
to convert others to Zen.70
In addition, trying to describe this experience may lead to another danger of glorifying it
or making it an idol; grasping it as a pseudo-structure to fortify the ‘self’ that sets oneself apart as
something special, thus re-invigorating the subject-object split; quite simply, making this a
statement of pride that enshrines the ego structure again. Post-kensho practice with koans helps
to grind away this sheen of self-conscious attachment to the experience. It enables practitioners
to become their normal selves again yet with a difference; a person who is at peace with his or
her True Self; one with the entire universe. Each moment is a complete realization of this
original nature in each concrete situation; but in all this, there is no need to say, “In this act I am
one with the Universe.” One is simply so, that is all.
70 Ibid., 42.
77
The second aspect of growth and self-creativity as vitality from dynamics-form may
differ from Tillich’s understanding. Self-transcendence in revelation creates a center, the True
self, from which all new centers must adhere. Since the self in Buddhism is emptied of
attachment to structures to fortify it, there is some question as to how the process of creation of a
new centered self plays out in a Zen system. Tillich marks vitality, as the power of creating
beyond oneself without losing oneself, as directly resulting from the effects of revelation and the
courage-to-be in resolving estrangement and ambiguity. From a Western perspective, a Zen
practitioner might not exhibit vitality in the same manner. External evidence linked with
creativity from a Western social location may be in direct contradiction to the Zen perspective of
non-attachment to pseudo-structures of one’s ego construct. External accomplishments,
influence, or prominence would seem to be in contradiction with Zen’s aspect of no-self.
Instead, Zen’s three antidotes to the three poisons (generosity, compassion, and wisdom to greed,
aversion, and delusion) and the Bodhisattva’s four vows indicates vitality in creative expressions
of compassion without ego.
Vitality resulting from the revelation of the God above God as absolute faith and its
courage-to-be must also include and transcend mysticism and personalism by the redemption of
the material, while also experiencing the transpersonal nature of the divine. Habito’s third and
fourth encounters with the infinite source speak to another vitality from his kensho. Habito’s
encounter with the suffering of impoverished farmers in the southeast from the effects of
globalization and predatory economic practices has led him to advocacy beyond merely praying
for these sufferings or sitting in meditative oneness with them. Advocacy then means full
engagement with a suffering world in relationship with those whose action impact and suffering
injures others. This was an integrated, direct answer to his question of whether he could still be
78
Christian and practice Zen. This exemplifies redemption of the material and the increased
awareness from self-transcendence.
Habito’s vitality continues in his engagement with the Bodhisattva Kanzeon (Kannon)
and the encounter with the Feminine aspect of the mystery of God. With her 1000 arms and 11
faces representing the third and fourth vows of a bodhisattva (reflecting and recognizing each
person and thing in its uniqueness and particularity and then reflecting and responding in
universal availability to each need according to the particular demand of the present
situation),71 Habito includes this in his narrative as shaping his posture in the world in leading
both the Maria Kannon Zen Center and as the director of Spiritual Formation for students in the
Perkins School of Theology. Even in his marriage to Maria, these examples parallel Tillich’s
signs of sanctification as increased relatedness from self-transcendence from absolute faith by
this transpersonal conception of God.
Habito’s decision to leave his ordination vows, his continued practice in both traditions,
his hermeneutics of cross-pollinated understanding between Biblical scripture and Buddhist
philosophy demonstrate an increased freedom for self-transcendence where each path begins to
play with and heighten new understandings between each tradition. Yet, each is still distinct and
resists a mutated synthesis between the two by the depth of commitment to both traditions by
Habito. All aspects of Habito’s vitality from revelation translate seamlessly to the spiritual
leadership of a seminary student at United. Rather than focusing solely on the outward acts as
indicators of successful formation, Habito’s narrative invites us to look at the source of vitality.
71 Habito, Living Zen, Loving God, 21, 93-100.
79
Tillich’s Own Engagement with Buddhism
Tillich also encountered Buddhism later in his life. The content of these conversations
covered many topics of theological comparison.72 In relation to this project, I will only
summarize points of contention and agreement here related to spiritual formation. Though
Tillich’s theology lends itself to many similar and corresponding aspects, many theologians and
scholars conclude that presumptions on Tillich’s part about Buddhism were limited if not
incorrect.73 One major point of contention for Tillich was the belief that Buddhism’s quest for
liberation from finitude contradicted Christianity’s struggle to transform (and redeem) finitude.
Other theologians feel that this characterization of Buddhism is overdrawn and also contradicts
Habito’s experience and action. 74 Tillich had difficulty with and became fixated on the
particularity of the self and the difference between karuna and agape in relation to Buddhism’s
nonduality. “I must try to learn with my dualistic mind how the individual – or ‘particular’ – is
simultaneously preserved and not preserved.”75
Briefly, the self is not discarded but emptied. No-self means there is no unchanging
permanent ‘soul’ or ego. The emptying of the self, or ego construct, empties any clinging to or
craving for impermanent states or things to anchor the ego’s survival. Thus, suffering from this
clinging is gone. It is the third fruit of zazen (mujodo no tagien) where living from this emptied
self becomes more a lived reality paralleling Tillich’s sanctification. Habito’s statement of
wanting to know the answer to the question “Who am I?” to his teacher in the beginning of his
72 Marc Boss, “Tillich in Dialogue with Japanese Buddhism: A Paradigmatic Approach to Inter-Religious Conversation.” 255-
256. Between 1950-1957, he met on three separate occasions with noted Zen masters Daisetz Suzuki and Shin’ichi Hisamatsu.
In 1960, he was invited to Japan for ten weeks to lecture and continue conversations with Suzuki, Hisamatsu and other
religious leaders.
73 Carl Olson, “Tillich’s Dialogue with Buddhism,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 7 (1987): 183–195.
74 Thatamanil, The Immanent Divine: God, Creation and the Human Predicament, location 1784.
75 Boss, “Tillich in Dialogue with Japanese Buddhism: A Paradigmatic Approach to Inter-Religious Conversation.”
80
Zen training was the prompt of seeing past the idea of a self to that of original nature which
precedes the particularity of any self.
The implications of these seemingly competing concepts of the ‘self’ impacts many other
aspects of vitality including ethics and love. Christianity’s love is agapé, which is defined as
God’s love for humankind (the higher for the lower) and what our love for the ‘other’ should be.
This love from God is acceptance of the unacceptable that can transform the other in the
direction of what is meant by the kingdom of God. 76 Buddhism’s love is karuna, which is
compassion from union with the Buddha-nature of all creation. Tillich’s belief was that
participation in community presupposes differentiation and particularity as separation between
one another is inherent. Participation leads to agapé. His criticism of Buddhism and karuna was
that suffering through identification was not agapé in that it lacked the will to transform the
individual or their social structures prophetically.77
From these conclusions, Tillich mistakenly questioned whether democracy could take
hold as the prophetic principle, and differentiation, seemed to be missing in Japanese and Zen
culture in contrast to the Christianity, the US, and other European countries. 78 Over time, we can
now see that this was a misreading of both Zen and Japanese culture where Tillich’s dualistic
categories could not capture the nuance of either the culture or Zen. Had Tillich had more time to
explore these nuances, he might have seen past his initial encounter with Japanese culture and
possibly confusing it with Zen practice. Had he also witnessed Zen’s growth in the U.S., he
might have seen how its expression in a different cultural context non-dualistically redeems
76 Tillich, Paul L. Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. 70-71.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid., 72-75.
81
one’s particularity without losing the essence of Zen’s emptiness that leads to seeing one’s True
Self regardless of social or cultural location.
Findings on the Spiritual Formation of a Courage -to-Be from

Absolute Faith
Habito’s narrative is one example of the spiritual formation of Tillich’s absolute faith that
transcends and includes a mystical and personal path of a courage-to-be. How this impacts the
spiritual formation of seminary students will be touched on briefly here and expanded in the
conclusion.
Characteristics of the Initial Spiritual Formation of Courage

By examining Habito’s initial spiritual formation in participating in these two traditions,
underlying threads of identity appear throughout which are resolved in kensho. This revelation
brings the self in closer unity to the world as (collective) participation. In his initial Spiritual
formation of courage, we see the characteristic of Habito’s yearning and curiosity for self-
transcendence in his initial encounters with the mystery of God through conceptions and
experience: a grandfather God, a God that is the inner workings of the universe, interest in the
existentialist writings of Camus and Sartre, entering the priesthood, and practicing Zen. This
orientation towards self-transcendence included the search for identity in the question, ‘who am
I?’ The drive and diligence in discovering answers to this were demonstrated in his studies,
preparation for the priesthood, diligence in the Ignatian practices, and the eighteen-year process
of Zen practice leading to Dharma transmission. The quality of focused patience and
commitment with in the search for self-transcendence, lead to a potential for deepening for
Habito as bitsunyu (becoming one with).
However, this focus and commitment did not devolve into absolutism. There is an agility
and suppleness that allowed for his understanding of the source, norm, and medium of spiritual
formation to evolve as the expansion of his understanding of his identity did. One concept was
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not simply discarded when another one was assumed. Instead, the development and inclusion of
new understandings brought about new perspectives on other long held beliefs and experiences –
a complementary relationship that could deepen each other. Paralleling this were communities
and relationships that mirrored these same qualities (self-transcendence and identity, a focused
and patient commitment, and a complementary agility) that nurtured, challenged and deepened
them for Habito as well. For a seminary student, the initial qualities of yearning for self-
transcendence, focused commitment, and a complementary agility, are essential in the spiritual
formation of a courage-to-be and the preparation for revelation. Conversely, Tillich’s conflict
between ontological poles and the marks of estrangement (unbelief, hubris, and
concupiscence/restlessness) would seem to be contrary to these qualities. Tillich’s explanations
here could be useful to gauge one’s spiritual formation as to the degree of conflict between one’s
being as well as the hubris and concupiscence one is experiencing.
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith: Preparing for or Deepening Revelation

The second aspect of the spiritual formation of an absolute faith as the courage-to-be
involved the threat of nonbeing as existential anxiety, revelatory kensho, and subsequent vitality
from the courage-to-be. Fulfilled self-transcendence creates union with a permanent, unchanging
center. Findings from Habito’s kensho effect spiritual formation as either preparation for
receiving revelation or deepening its impact as an actualized life.
An Incarnationally Apophatic Experience: Apophatic theology knows God or ultimate
reality as language-transcending mystery beyond either positive or negative descriptions. 79 A
nondual unity of the mystery of the Ultimate defies division, compartmentalization, or
conceptualization and draws mainly upon Tillich’s receiving knowledge of reason (being
grasped and shaped by reality). Cataphatic theology uses language and concepts to describe or
79 Thatamanil, The Immanent Divine: God, Creation and the Human Predicament, location 860.
83
refer to God, which utilizes reason’s controlling knowledge (grasping and shaping reality). Much
of the theology of mainline churches and seminaries are grounded in cataphatic orientation.
Tillich’s theology, while incorporating many nondualist concepts, still maintains a dualist
separation in many components that aid his own exploration. Yet, Habito’s own accounting of
the experience of the mystery of God as ultimate truth allows him to engage conventional truth in
a different manner. Ultimate truth interpenetrates all of conventional truth as experienced insight
in kensho. We exist in both realms simultaneously. Yet this insight allows Habito to hold and
engage conventional truth lightly yet profoundly as he simultaneously belongs to ultimate truth.
The complementary nature of both paths then draws out the possibilities for both but the
necessity of the experience of God or Ultimate truth is stressed for this depth to exist. Theologian
Paul Knitter illuminates this point well.
‘God’ must be an experience before ‘God’ can be a word. Unless

God is an experience, whatever words we might use for the Divine
will be without content, like road signs pointing nowhere, like
lightbulbs without electricity. Buddha would warn Christians, and I
believe [theologian Karl] Rahner would second the warning: if you
want to use words for God, make sure that these words are
preceded by, or at least coming out of, an experience that is your
own.80
The spiritual formation of existential courage leading to revelation would seem opposite
to the emphasis of an overly-discursive, cataphatic seminary experience. For United, have we
made room or discerned the importance for a revelatory event in our student’s lives and the
impact on their leadership? Have we the resources to facilitate or disseminate this if this did
happen in one of our student’s lives?
Multiple Belonging with Perichoresis in Both Paths: Does one who belongs to multiple
streams of influence still mediate the depth of the myths and symbols of each strand? Habito
80 Knitter, Paul F. Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, 15
84
walks in both Buddhist and Christian worlds as a full participant. Though he is no longer a
Catholic priest, he still attends mass and takes communion. As the leader of a Zen center, he
leads zazen and all aspects of Buddhist practice. His outward identity includes both paths. The
complexity of his identity has strengthened and grown to hold both with integrity.
However, in another way, his identity is fluid. Our social or conventional truth uses
labels, which he can reify without dishonesty. But in ultimate truth, no labels really define us or
reality, which Habito acknowledges also. 81 This allows a flexibility to his religious identity
which affirms particularity but only within the context of universality before the subject-object
split. This sense of double- or multiple-belonging points to a nondualistic posture of being that
must mediate different symbols from different traditions without betraying the truth within each.
This agility takes risk and requires courage derived from revelation rather than a willed action
from a cognitive theory. Habito’s posture is not aimless relativism where one picks and chooses
identity dependent on one’s ego need. His lengthy study in the Jesuit order gives a depth of
commitment to his initial formation. And the emptying of one’s ego by revelation and honed in
mujodo no tagien seems to allow him to truthfully stand cognitively and bodily in both places
which then reflects the totality of ultimate truth mirrored in the multidimensionality of life. The
Spiritual Communities that mediate the symbols can also serve as confirmation or
disconfirmation of this authenticity of multidimensionality. How a student at UTS engages in
non-Christian spiritual disciplines would have to consider this possibility of multiple belonging
that would inform and illuminate the other tradition, as well as the initial danger of appropriation
or relativism.
81 Conversation with Habito 4/24/18
85
Having accepted acceptance from both the ground and abyss of being, Habito is able to
derive a courage-to-be to participate in both community’s sacramental acts. Successfully taking
the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness upon himself allows him to create beyond himself
within multiple contexts as his vitality within intentionality. Perichoresis is a term used to
describe the complete and total indwelling together of each person of the Trinity while remaining
distinct. Habito’s iteration of an absolute faith may also be described in the same way. “There is
no mixing of traditions. Each remains clear and distinct. Each tradition enriches the other without
either turning one into some sort of bastardized mutation of itself.” 82
A Symbolic ‘Self’ in Relation to the World at the Heart of all Spiritual Formation: The
Christian tradition grounds itself in the relationship of the self to other and God. Right
relationship with both determines one’s alignment to the covenant or to following Christ. To
‘love God with all your heart, mind and soul’ and ‘to love your neighbor as yourself’ summarize
the focus on locating the self within the context of relationship. How does one get to this right
relationship? How can one tell if one is in right relationship? Throughout the history of Judaism
and Christianity, attempts to answer these questions occasionally lead to strident moralistic
standards, extreme pietistic asceticism, or instilling a rigid culture of codified judgement and
shame. There is still an ‘insider/outside’ perspective that these conclusions adhere to in
maintaining a barrier against corruption from outside influences.83 This has then been expressed
historically as justification for maintaining a western lens of dualistic, misogynistic, hetero-
normative, and hierarchical epistemology through judgement of practices including the
mediation of the sacraments, worship style, ethics, and social activism. Intra-religious dialogue
82 Ibid., XI.
83 The Didache is one of the earliest, 1st century Christian documents outlining basic spiritual practices. In the 8th line, the author
distinguishes the community’s prayer and market behavior from the ‘hypocrites’ (nee “Jews”) that they have a polemical
relationship with.
86
is, in many ways, even more difficult than inter-religious in that there is a fundamental
disagreement with how one sees and interprets similar revelations and symbols.
Zen also deals with relationships but its particular attention to the self adds another
dimension to the Biblical aspect of relationships. The writers of the Hebrew Bible were not
interested so much in the structure of personhood as they were the location of a person (and thus
personhood) within a constellation of relations as reflected culturally along with relationship to
the divine.84 Karuna that arrives from an experienced apophatic experience of God as the abyss
would lend balance to the other aspect of a structure of personhood. This, then, would possibly
add more dimensionality to agapé as relationship with God as the ground of being and the other
as world. Nondualistically, the permeability and integration of these two aspects of self would be
evidenced as vitality and vulnerability in action and advocacy. Buddhism has its examples of this
in Habito’s work and in other’s works as well.85
The concept of the ‘self’ is our particularity. Psychology offers models of its
construction. Psychologist Carl Rogers and Tillich had a long relationship and conversation over
the overlap of their work in this area and the possible inner workings of a symbolic self.86 Carl
Rogers’ theory of personality believed that self-concept had three components: self-image (our
view of our self), self-esteem (how we value our self), and ideal-self. We behave as we do
because of how we perceive our situation and ourselves, which is influenced by our experiences
and interpretations of those experiences. Self-actualization is what humans strive for where our
84 de Silva, Lynn A. The Problem of the Self in Buddhism and Christianity. Sri Lanka: The Study Centre for Religion and
Society, 1975. p. 11
85 Zen priest Rev. angel Kyodo williams’ work on seeing clearly and dismantling white supremacy in the U.S. through the
perspective of a clinging ego construct is ground breaking in opening up avenues for transformation; Sulak Sivaraksa, a Thai
activist and a founder of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, works with other activists in exposing capitalist
globalization and its destructive pursuit of profit.
86 In 1960, the two were recorded in a 50 minute conversation in dialogue over their works. From this conversation, we can see
how psychology and Roger’s work influenced Tillich’s thought. https://youtu.be/8gHSKdX66tY
87
ideal-self is congruent with our behavior as our self-image.87 Experience and interpretation
relates to Buddhism’s skandha, or aggregate elements of existence. These five correlates are: (1)
material form as matter and the body, (2) sensations as feelings from form, (3) perception as
apprehension of an object as distinct from self, (4) mental formations as conditioned response
to the object, and (5) consciousness as awareness of the object before perception of what it is. 88
Each of these are temporary and conditioned phenomena. Yet, through these aspects of existence
is how the ‘self’ grasps and clings to an idea of a permanent self, thus causing suffering as a
distortion of how reality is versus what we want it to be.
In Rogers’ conception of self, this distortion may appear within incongruence between
self-image, self-worth, and ideal-self that deters self-actualization. For Christians, it may show
up as estrangement from essential and existential natures embodied in ambiguity and the distance
from actualizing the kingdom of God. In Buddhism, it may be the doctrine of dependent
origination of the self (paticca samuppada) and ignorance of an ultimate truth that
interpenetrates our conventional truth as the cause of suffering from a clinging self.
Is there a ‘symbolic self’ through which we mediate and engage God, other, and one’s
own being? Buddhism is directly engaging in the emptying of the self in its spiritual practices.
Zen may not agree with the idea of a symbolic self as it does not encounter signs the same way
as Christianity. There is no self but one’s original nature as True Self. This self can only be
apophatically experienced rather than discursively known (receiving versus controlling
knowledge). But Christianity has room for a symbolic self to be grasped by revelation which
87 Rogers, Carl. Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications and Theory. London: Constable, 1951. p. 480-487
88 Yoshinori, Takeuchi, ed. “World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest.” Buddhist Spirituality 1:
Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, and Early Chinese. New York: Crossroad, 1995. P. 409
88
may parallel Tillich’s theology of reason as controlling knowledge driven to its limit before
surrender and receiving knowledge can be prepared to receive revelation apophatically.
From this dialogue between Zen and Christianity, a symbolic self (which includes the
body and mind) would mediate and engage in the reality it points to, which is God, other, and
one’s own subjectivity. Conversely, a symbolic self could run the risk of becoming an idol if we
are not aware of its natural tendency to cling to impermanent things for affirmation. Zen and its
practices work on emptying the symbolic form as its clinging ego construct in order to be
grasped by the truth of our source of being. From a Christian perspective, emptying (or kenosis)
may also redeem but not exalt the symbol. Christian ascetics, with their polemical stance of the
flesh and mind being the enemy of this union, mortified the flesh in order to achieve a similar
result. However, from a nondual perspective of dialogue, particularity as a symbolic self is
preserved but interrogated (including emptying) while universality and ultimate truth remains.
Conceptually, a symbolic self in relation with other selves and symbols would have the potential
of a ‘fusion of horizons’ in creating new meaning in relationship with the other. 89 Congruence
between our engagement of this symbolic self, how others engage it, and how we engage God
through it shapes our understanding of the question ‘Who am I?’
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith for Seminarians

Habito’s narrative of the spiritual formation of an absolute faith as the courage-to-be can
inform the formation of seminary students. The consideration of existential anxiety, spiritual
practices, and revelation as one of the foundational emphases of the seminary experience is key
89 Philosopher Hans Gadamer’s theory of a fusion of horizon’s in interpretation between a person and a work of art seems apt
here. A horizon, as Gadamer describes it, is the totality of all that can be realized or thought about by a person at a given time
in history and in a particular culture. The horizon is the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a
particular vantage point. “A person who has no horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence overvalues what is
nearest to him…"to have an horizon" means not being limited to what is nearby, but to being able to see beyond it.” When two
horizons encounter each other, they may become fused, thus creating a new horizon and a new perspective for each entity.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2nd revised edition. (London: Continuum), 2004, 302.
89
to this type of formation in relation to the question of identity. Cultivating the initial qualities of
yearning for self-transcendence, focused commitment, and complementary agility is needed in
order to participate in spiritual practices from two traditions. In order to experience perichoresis
as revelation, these practices will engage a symbolic self leading toward union.
An example of this possibility is shown in Martin Luther King’s Letter from a
Birmingham Jail. King speaks of an “inescapable network of mutuality…a single garment of
destiny” where we can no longer speak provincially of an “outside agitator” as “what affects one
directly affects all indirectly.” But he goes on in speaking about the four steps of any nonviolent
campaign which exemplify this symbiotic, nondualist relationship through a symbolic self:
collection of facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and
direct action, which also does not diminish the personhood of those perpetuating the injustice. If
we want peace, we must be peace. When we are peace, then all awareness is attuned to what is
actually there, including injustice and suffering, as well as our connection with all of it though
this symbol. Awareness brings us to direct action where this cycle continues and the merging of
horizons between symbolic selves may amplify and open up depths within each other.
Indra is a Vedic deity in Hinduism. Indra’s net is often a metaphor for interdependence
and connectedness in Buddhism and the interpenetration of Ultimate Truth through each
particular entity. On this infinite net at each vertex is a jewel. Each jewel glitters brilliantly.
Looking through one jewel, we can see all the other jewels and their brilliance. Nevertheless,
each of these other jewels in this reflection also reflect the brilliance of all the other jewels.
“Because of the clarity of the jewels, they are all reflected in and enter into each other, ad
infinitum…. If all jewels are present within each jewel, it is also the case that if you sit in one
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jewel you sit in all jewels at the same time…while never leaving this particular jewel.” 90 Our
symbolic self is the jewel through which we engage and experience the world. Yet, through this
symbolic self, have we practiced seeing the reflection of the other jewels and the infinite that we
are connected? For this truth is what guides action and makes transformation possible.
90 Fox, Alan. “The Practice of Huayan Buddhism,” n.d.

http://www.fgu.edu.tw/~cbs/pdf/2013%E8%AB%96%E6%96%87%E9%9B%86/q16.pdf.
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C H A P T E R 4 : J A Z Z A N D U L T I M A T E
F L O W A S T H E C O U R A G E - T O - B E
Introduction
The interpretation and integration of disparate and threatening experiences seems pivotal
in spiritual formation. The unity of the power of being and meaning in these instances is crucial
for survival and eventual liberation. For many students entering seminary, painful events have
shaped their identity and beliefs about God. To be aware of these experiences and how they
inform our being is one place of integration. But to transcend them (but not leave them behind) is
the possibility that revelation and its resulting courage-to-be offer us. This can be seen clearly in
the life of Jazz musician John Coltrane.
Jazz is an African American musical genre originating from the Spirituals, the Blues, and
Gospel music. Musicians note it for its improvisation as a personal interpretation of a song in
correspondence to one’s context and relationships.1 However, Jazz and its forerunners are also
regarded as the exemplary African American expressions of resistance to hostility and injustice.
These art forms in their essence “tell in word and music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding;
they grope toward some unseen power and sigh for the rest of the End.”2 Thus, Jazz is existential
and spiritual with the potential of expressing ultimate concern – being and the threat of nonbeing.
Jazz is not a religion but Tillich expands the awareness of any cultural expression as a
yearning for the answer to our existential situation as a “latent Spiritual Community,” or latent
church. Latency is the state of being partly actual and partly potential. Any cultural institutions,
artistic or political movements, and gathered individuals “whom the Spiritual Presence’s impact
is felt” is considered part of this latent church as they show the power of the New Being by the
divine Spirit’s manifestation in an impressive way as grasped by ultimate concern with love as
1 Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz: The First Century. (New York: Oxford University Pres, 1998), 79-80
2 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks. (Amazon Classics, 2017), 247.
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the transcendent reunion of the separated.3 Not all Jazz musicians fit these criteria. Those that do
would carry an intention and gravity to their work as the divine Spiritual Presence is present and
unifies culture wherein the “essential relation between religion and culture - that ‘culture is the
form of religion and religion the substance of culture’- is realized.”4
John Coltrane’s album, A Love Supreme, was considered a spiritual epiphany. Cornel
West deemed it ‘the masterpiece of the greatest musical artist of our time and the grand exemplar
of twentieth-century black spirituality…[which] confronted the darkness in and of modernity
with artistic integrity and genuine spirituality.” 5 In the album’s liner notes, Coltrane wrote of a
spiritual awakening event in 1957. The effects of this spiritual awakening approximate Tillich’s
description of revelation and the courage-to-be.
Coltrane’s spiritual formation also approximates absolute faith that includes and
transcends a mystical and personal path of encountering God. Raised in the African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) Church, Jazz was added later as Coltrane’s cultural expression of being and
will be considered a type of latent-mysticism. Coltrane’s initial spiritual formation in beginning
the practice of Jazz in relation to his Christian upbringing will be examined through the source,
norm, medium, practices, and communities of his formation. The threat of nonbeing, Coltrane’s
revelation, and its courage in addressing the existential anxiety of meaninglessness-emptiness
will then be examined in conversation with Tillich’s courage-to-be from an absolute faith. How
this impacts the spiritual formation of seminary students at United will then be explored.
3 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, 153-154.

4 Ibid, 158.
5 Cornel West, “The Spirituals as Lyrical Poetry” The Cornel West Reader. (New York: Civitas Books, 1999), 466.
93
Narrative
This dissertation will only touch on certain aspects of John Coltrane’s life and music as it
pertains to spirituality and its practices, the threat of non-being, revelation, and the courage-to-
be. His musical style and influences will be included only as they pertain to these topics.
Prelude
John William Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926 as the
only child of J.R. and Alice Coltrane. They moved to High Point, NC shortly after John was
born. He grew up in the same house with his maternal grandparents, his cousin Mary, and her
parents. High Point was segregated into black and white neighborhoods with the African
American community relegated to second-class status in relation to the schools, economic
opportunities, and access to political agency. 6 Yet despite this marginalized existence, the
African American community of High Point often felt close and supportive of one another. 7 The
church, its message, and its music, were the hubs of this intimacy as an expression of their
humanity amid these challenges. The African Methodist Episcopal church was the initial space
of spiritual formation for Coltrane as a child.
John Coltrane’s father was a tailor but both of his grandfathers were AME pastors.
Coltrane’s mother Alice played the piano and sang. J.R. was remembered as a good musician,
often playing on the ukulele, violin, and singing. John always wanted to play like his father.8
Along with the traditional music from the church, Coltrane was exposed to a variety of music
such as the Spirituals, the Blues, and Jazz like Duke Ellington’s big band featuring alto
saxophonist Johnny Hodges.
6 Porter, p. 18-19. Here are accounts of textbooks, band uniforms, football uniforms being handed down from the white schools
because of the low budget afforded to the black schools.
7 Ibid, 19.
8 JC Thomas, 17-18.
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In a span of less than a year from 1938-39, John’s family suffered a series of significant
deaths including his aunt, his maternal grandfather and grandmother, and his father. All of these
deaths devastated the family. 9 It was at this time that Coltrane began taking up the alto
saxophone and clarinet through the church’s community band. He began his now famous
discipline of practicing obsessively “as if [it] would bring his father back, or maybe help him
forget his father – as if, succeeding in music, he could restore stability and control to his life.” 10
Only he, his cousin Mary, and their respective mothers remained. Both mothers had to go to
work as they fell into poverty because of these deaths. Coltrane’s mother, Alice, moved to
Philadelphia looking for work during Coltrane’s senior year. He would join her after graduation
in 1943. Cousin Mary and Aunt Bettie also moved there also and all four shared an apartment.
Philadelphia and New York: Changing Styles as Growth

Coltrane was solely playing the alto saxophone at this point and was noted for his similar
sound to Johnny Hodges whose style was described as very lyrical and smooth.11 Coltrane could
produce many familiar solos note-for-note by intently listening and diligently practicing them.
Musicians often learn phrases or entire solos from recordings in order to incorporate and alter
them in their own improvisations. These creative alterations then become a distinctive style that
marks one’s originality and honesty in improvising, which is highly valued.
Coltrane’s style and interest changed when he went to see alto saxophonist Charlie Parker
(aka ‘Bird’) play with Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1945.12 Parker and Gillespie played a new style
of Jazz known as bebop. It differed from Ellington’s style because it was fast-paced, had many
swift and dissonant chord changes, and required virtuosity from soloists in quickly adapting their
9 Porter, 16.
10 Ibid, 17.
11 John Scheinfeld,. Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary. Documentary. (Virgil Films, 2016), 14:00. & Chris
DeVito, Coltrane on Coltrane: The John Coltrane Interviews (Musicians in Their Own Words). (Chicago: Chicago Review
Press, 2010), 65.
12 Porter, 36-37.
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improvisational harmonies. After the concert, Coltrane began working on mastering Bird’s style
and technical difficulty. During WWII, Coltrane served in the navy for a year and played with a
navy Jazz band while practicing bebop also.13 After his discharge, Coltrane immersed himself
into learning from a variety of diverse teachers (Jazz, Classically trained, foreign born) and
music theories (other genres, cultures, and instruments).14 He threw himself into learning the
theory of harmony, chord structure, scales and arpeggios (select notes from a scale that make up
a chord from which a solo can be constructed). This searching, engagement, and incorporation of
other sources not normally associated with his instrument would be emblematic of Coltrane’s
restless pursuit throughout his career.
Coltrane moved from the alto to the tenor saxophone at this time in search of his unique
sound away from Bird’s style. The tenor sax is a bigger instrument than the alto and requires
more air and stamina to produce and sustain sound. Coltrane’s influences on tenor at this time
were Lester Young, for his simplicity in profound phrasing, and Coleman Hawkins, for his
arpeggiated chords.15
When he moved to New York, he had the opportunity to work with different bands and
Coltrane always asked other band members about their technique and arrangements. He was
known by other musicians and critics as a sweet, shy, and quiet person; never critical of other
musicians.16 But his insatiable curiosity and obsessive practicing spoke of a fire within him
focused on finding an elusive sound and expression of his own.17 Coltrane would often practice
late at night without blowing into his horn but still fingering the notes on the instrument so as not
13 John Coltrane in the Melody Masters playing “Koko” in 1946. See https://youtu.be/MGnY-axUH0U His sound and melody on
these earliest recordings display his emulation of Bird without a distinct idea of a melodic through line. The run of notes is
dense and technical but without Bird’s clarity of idea and expression.
14 Porter, 33, 51, 81, 138 & Ben Ratliff, John Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. (New York: Picador, 2011), kindle location 793.
15 Porter, 70-71.
16 DeVito, xv.
17 Devito, 1961 Interview, 143.
96
to disturb the neighbors, simply imagining the music.18 He would work through solos and
musical ideas between sets. Later in his career, he would sometimes come off the stage while
another member was soloing and go into the bathroom to practice something else he was
working out!
Coltrane is renowned for the fullness of his sound, the stamina of each note and solo, the
urgent “sheets of sound” that he would play through long and rapid arpeggios, his technical
precision and brilliance in correspondence to what other musicians were playing, and an
unvarnished, authentic voice that would reflect his own personality. 19
Addiction and the Threat of Nonbeing

Even though he was departing from Parker’s playing style, Coltrane began taking on
Bird’s self-destructive habits as a manifestation of the threat of nonbeing. Already drinking
heavily, Coltrane began taking heroin in 1948 like many musicians who wanted to emulate
Parker’s artistic ability, success, and lifestyle. This addiction was rampant in the Jazz community
and contributed to Parker’s death in 1955. Coltrane’s heroin addiction got him kicked out of
more prestigious bands like Dizzy Gillespie’s ensemble. 20 Though remaining humble and gentle,
he would often fail to show up or would nod off in-between solos on stage. 21
Coltrane met Naima Austin in 1954 and she would be instrumental in him overcoming
addiction. She was born Juanita Austin in North Carolina but her family moved to Philadelphia
under similar circumstances to his family. Naima was a converted Muslim and had a daughter
from a previous relationship, Syeeda. Though he explored Islam, there is no account of Coltrane
18 Thomas, 52, 65 & Scheinfeld, 19:21.

19 Porter, 133 & Ratliff, location 47 & 788. “Sheets of Sound came from music critic Ira Gitler. In reference to Coltrane stacking
chords upon one chord played becoming a long stream of notes gathered together.
20 Porter, 85-95.
21 Porter, 85-93. Scheinfeld, 7:01-8:55
97
ever entertaining conversion. Syeeda remembers both of them being very spiritual people but not
devout attenders of church or mosque. Coltrane and Naima married in 1955.
At this time, Miles Davis was a nationally known Jazz artist at the time Coltrane joined
him in his quintet in New York in 1955. Coltrane expressed later that he always felt insecure
about his musicianship playing with Miles at that time. He did not really understand why Davis
had chosen him and felt inadequate and ashamed of the early records with the group. 22
Additionally, Miles would give Coltrane lots of room to improvise but would not give feedback
or instruction as to what to try or what he wanted. All of this left Coltrane unsettled and
uncertain even though Miles supported him. Yet, by 1957, Coltrane’s addiction forced Davis to
fire him.
In the spring of 1957 after the firing, Coltrane, Naima, and Syeeda moved back in with
his mother in Philadelphia. Naima had been influential in introducing him to new ideas in
philosophy and religion, which led him to finally kick his habit and purify his life. 23 Coltrane
quit his heroin addiction cold turkey (no medication or medical intervention) by fasting and
isolating himself in the apartment with both Naima, Syeeda and his mother tending to and
praying over him. After a week or so, he emerged from his room free from his addiction but
changed.
During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a

spiritual awakening, which has led me to a richer, fuller, and more
productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be
given the means and privilege to make others happy through
music. I feel this has been granted through his grace. ALL PRAISE
TO GOD24
22 Ibid, 100.
23 Thomas, 142
24 John Coltrane, “A Love Supreme.” Impulse, n.d., Liner notes.
98
Experimentation from Courage: Monk, Miles, & Modes
Congruent with Tillich’s idea of courage giving rise to vitality and being, Coltrane’s path
grew at this point in regards to his exploration, creativity, and risk taking in expressing what he
experienced. With Naima aiding Coltrane in changing his lifestyle, his playing returned even
stronger. He could think and play better. 25 He returned to New York with a clear purpose. He
began playing with and joined Thelonious Monk’s band later in 1957 in New York. Contrary to
Davis, Monk would take ample time to explain his ideas and theory to him when asked. Monk
was a “musical architect of the highest order” and freed Coltrane both intellectually and
creatively.26 It was his newfound personal transformation coupled with this mentorship that
elevated Coltrane’s playing level and confidence to record his first album as the bandleader. The
earlier habits of intense focus from his practice coupled with an insatiable search for a sound and
original expression only deepened this growth and sped its momentum with these relationships
honing its trajectory. “Coltrane was not some isolated genius, as in a Hollywood movie, but a
normal person growing and developing in a fortunately inspired circle of musicians.” 27
Coltrane rejoined Davis at the end of 1957. Their pairing became one of the most
impactful Jazz groups in history. Coltrane’s playing was more assured and confident as
evidenced in the 1959 album Kind of Blue. Davis employed a new style of improvisation deemed
modal Jazz which focuses on one or only a few chords played for an extended length for the
entire piece. Traditional western music relies on many chord changes and their progressions from
and towards the root chord to imply movement and closure. Modal jazz focuses on only a few
chords played for an extended length or the entire piece without regard to the root. This allows
maximum freedom for a soloist to explore different melodies in one mode (or scale). The
25 Scheinfeld, 25:24-27:01
26 Porter, p.110–111.
27 Porter, 44.
99
musician can create their own melodic starting and ending points and, thus, their own harmonic
motion. By 1959, Coltrane was feeling stifled in his playing with Davis and was contemplating
leaving to find the sound he was seeking. “What I’m playing with that group sounds
incorrect…it sounds wrong.”28 By 1962, Coltrane left Miles to form his own group.
Vitality from Revelation: A Love Supreme

Coltrane’s subsequent album, Giant Steps, is considered a culmination of his study in
intricate chord movement within modal Jazz. His logical and technical brilliance in this type of
movement displayed his expertise as a composer and music theorist and is still studied and re-
recorded today by many musicians. But his growth continued to expand in another direction. For
Coltrane, music was beyond what can be described. It was an experience that evoked something
within the musicians and the listener and touched something deeper.
His arrangement of My Favorite Things (from the musical The Sound of Music) as a
modal Jazz piece over two chords on the soprano saxophone infused an Eastern feel into the song
and changed the emotion from a catchy Broadway musical to a deep human yearning for
freedom. Over the implied lyrics in the bridge “When the dog bites, when the bee stings…”,
many have heard the depth, pain, irony, and resilience in the arrangement resonating with the
African American experience within the civil rights struggle of that time. 29 Similarly, Coltrane’s
composition Alabama in response to the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963
(with his solo assumed to be based on the syllabification of Martin Luther King’s eulogy for the
four girls killed) expresses a “stubborn resilience of the blues and the psalmic and God-haunted
lament” of hope crushed.30 “Alabama bears a powerful relationship to the trauma and to the
28 Scheinfeld, 37:21
29 Jamie Howison, God’s Mind in That Music: Theological Explorations through the Music of John Coltrane. (Eugene: Cascade
Books, 2012), 91. https://youtu.be/NWYWgda5f0I
30 Ibid, 68. https://youtu.be/saN1BwlxJxA
100
subsequent search for justice” that was embodied in this event for the Black community. 31
Coltrane was not simply playing intricate theoretical musical exercises, mastering the technical
aspects of his instrument, nor playing for the enjoyment of his audience now; he was playing
life.32 “I myself don’t recognize the word jazz. I just feel that I play John Coltrane.” 33
Coltrane’s curiosity led him to explore other aspects of life such as Hinduism and
Buddhism, world music, and quantum physics. He began meditating. He was reading
metaphysical texts such as Cyril Scott’s Theosophical text Music: Its Secret Influence Through
the Ages, and Hazrat Inayat Khan’s The Mysticism of Sound and Music which led him to ideas
that “human thought, behavior, and experience of the divine could not only be accompanied by
sound but realized through it.”34 With the same driven curiosity and experimentation, this path
led him to seek out other alternative experts and experiences to understand himself and the world
better in order to express this in his music and possibly understand what he had encountered in
his spiritual awakening. His playing also seemed to be coming from a deep place that brought
these diverse influences together. People often likened his spiritual wailing to an impassioned
preacher like his grandfather.35
His main group that he worked with from 1962-65 was Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, and
McCoy Tyner. This group is considered by many as the finest Jazz quartet to ever play together.
They played many venues to work out their chemistry onstage over many months. 36 Because of
this, Coltrane began planning less and allowing the nature of the songs and the trust between
musicians determine how they played. From chord progressions, to modal suggestions, to simply
31 Ibid.
32 Scheinfeld, 38:15
33 Ibid, 1:12:14-1:13:22
34 Jason C. Bivins, Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion, (New York: Oxford Press, 2015), 289.
35 Ibid, 45:00-46:12
36 Porter, 178-180.
101
tonal arrangements (like eastern and African drones) the group had confidence in one another
that allowed them to experiment together with very little verbal communication. During this
time, Coltrane ended his marriage to Naima around 1963 and later began his eventual
relationship and marriage to Alice McLeod, a Jazz pianist.
Within these events, Coltrane created A Love Supreme in 1965; regarded as one of the
most influential albums in history. Alice Coltrane remembers him coming down from his studio
after a long seclusion of meditation and writing with the album conceived.
It was like Moses coming down from the mountain, it was so

beautiful. He walked down and there was that joy, that peace in his
face, tranquility. So I said, “Tell me everything, we didn’t see you
really for four or five days…” He said, “This is the first time that I
have received all of the music for what I want to record, in a suite.
This is the first time I have everything, everything ready. 37
He had written the entire suite in four sections: “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,”
“Pursuance,” and “Psalm.” The movement of the suite suggests a spiritual pilgrim
acknowledging the divine, resolving to pursue it, and rejoicing in what is found. The prelude and
postlude, “Acknowledgement” & “Psalm,” have a relaxed open-ended structure with no chord
progression which allows for the improvisation to roam. The middle pieces, “Resolution” and
“Pursuance,” have a more hurried pace with a distinct chord progression and structure. He uses a
repeated phrase in “Acknowledgement” which the band chants instrumentally throughout in
different chords and then at the end with Coltrane’s voice in the phrase “a love supreme,”
saving the exposition – or perhaps ‘revelation’ would be the better

case – for the end. He’s telling us God is everywhere – in every
register and every key – and he’s showing us that you have to
discover religious belief. You just can’t hit someone over the head
by chanting at the outset – the listener has to experience the
process and then the listener is ready to hear the chant.38
37 Thomas, 323, Scheinfeld, 1:18, & Ashley Kahn,. A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album, Kindle
Edition, (Penguin books:New York). xv. https://youtu.be/clC6cgoh1sU
38 Porter, 242. https://youtu.be/qagOblqhBhk
102
In the postlude, “Psalm,” there is no chord progression or steady beat as his solo is the
syllabification of the poem in the liner notes, recited as a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving. 39
The musicians did not really talk about the meaning of the album as they were making it.
Coltrane gave very few directions in his leading of the group. Tyner explains, "we had reached a
level where you could move the music around… He gave us the freedom to do that.”40
This suite has rarely been re-recorded over its 50-year history, as any artist would have to
deal with the myth surrounding it and its creator. Many people have referred to this work as
inspiration for their own lives and art in connection with the divine love that Coltrane offers his
musical prayer. The depth of the album and Coltrane’s own spiritual search have left an indelible
impact on culture and the community that resonates from the transcendent substance within both.
Postlude
After the album, Coltrane continued to produce other albums with the same spiritual
focus. Meditations and Ascensions fit this direction.41 Nevertheless, with each album, he seemed
to go further away from a typical melody and towards the boundary of dissonant noise. He was
increasingly welcoming and mentoring younger players whose emphasis was more on expression
than technique. His band size and reputation grew. Other critics and musicians complained that
this new music, dubbed free Jazz and avant-garde, was hard to listen to; a cacophony of wails,
shrieks, and repeated patterns with seemingly no harmonic coherence. Coltrane believed it to be
cleansing. Some solos would last over 45 minutes and some fans felt like he was betraying jazz
and his devoted following.42 Many dismiss this later phase as an aberration of the 60’s and
Coltrane exploring a dead end. At that time, Coltrane was also venturing further into other
39 DeVito, 225-228.
40 McCoy Tyner, NPR interview… https://www.npr.org/2000/10/23/148148986/a-love-supreme,
41 https://youtu.be/TuzfMR-7v1I & https://youtu.be/-81AEUqHPzU
42 DeVito, 199.
103
religions and focusing musically on Indian and African drones and repeated drum patterns.
Coltrane understood the backlash but he kept insisting on looking for a sound and truth in his
musical search. There was a point he was trying to convey even if others did not get it. There are
patterns in the music. But mainly there is an egalitarianism in the contributions of the younger
and less advanced musicians that speak of it as a charismatic connection to God through
communal expression. It is more a feeling than a linear statement; a “speaking in tongues”
moment from connection with the Spirit rather than a flowery essay on what love looks like. 43
Illustrative of his spirituality, during his Japanese tour in July 1966, Coltrane’s guides
found him on the train playing his flute and “searching for the sound of Nagasaki.” 44 Instead of
going to the hotel, Coltrane requested to go to the Nagasaki War Memorial where the atomic
bomb was dropped. There, he placed a wreath of flowers, began to pray, and then stared above
imagining the sounds of the plane, the bomb, and the suffering of the Japanese people at that
moment. At the concert later, he played his composition “Peace on Earth” as a requiem for those
suffering from the atomic bombs and for peace for the universe.45 Coltrane died July 17, 1967.
The Initial Spiritual Formation of the Courage -to-Be

In dealing with Coltrane’s spiritual formation, revelation, and the courage-to-be, this
project will be dealing with aspects of Christianity and Jazz as latent-mysticism. Coltrane’s
revelation deemed here as Ultimate Flow State, is not typical of Jazz musicians or Christians.
Coltrane’s Jazz as latent-mysticism is marked by improvisation which risks and loses self-
consciousness in order for meaning to arise. In Jazz improvisation, reason’s controlling
knowledge (to grasp and shape) is subordinated to receiving knowledge (being grasped and
shaped) from this loss of self, embodied as deep listening. But controlling knowledge returns in
43 Howison, 213.
44 Scheinfeld, 1:21 – 1:23
45 Scheinfeld, 1:33.
104
one’s expression as sound. Flow State’s circular give-and-take between the receiving and
controlling knowledge of reason mirrors Tillich’s absolute faith between personalism and
Coltrane’s Jazz as a cultural latent-mysticism. Other aspects of Coltrane’s Jazz and life also
exemplified a mystical search beyond the subject-object split: non-notated, impromptu
instrumental music beyond words or concepts as received and expressed through a life in union
with his instrument and other people. His references to the emptiness of labels for his music and
the Ultimate Truth of love that undergirded it; and his deep explorations and references to Asian
mystic religions and New Age exploration. In relation to the spiritual formation of seminary
students, Coltrane offers another form of spiritual quest that breaks beyond the bounds of
conventional religious traditions which is indicative of today’s religious climate. Delving into his
narrative offers a different perspective and path of spiritual practices, revelation and absolute
faith against the anxiety of meaninglessness and doubt.
The difficulty in positing Coltrane’s Jazz as a form of latent-mysticism is that the typical
source, norms, and mediums found within familiar religious paths are not concisely defined. But
as in Habito’s narrative, the evolution of these parameters may still become evident as self-
integration and self-creativity is moved along by the impulse of self-transcendence then fulfilled
in revelation. Coltrane’s revelation as awakening is also not typical of a religious adherent
following the parameters of a tradition’s norm toward its source provided by its medium. Yet,
Coltrane’s revelatory event is supported by Tillich’s own experience of ecstatic revelation
occurring outside traditional religious symbols.
Before studying how Coltrane’s narrative transcends both paths of encountering the
ground of being as absolute faith, an exploration of his initial spiritual formation in beginning the
105
second practice of Jazz along with his Christian tradition will be examined. This aspect of the
study will include the source, norm, medium, practices, and communities of formation.
Source, Norm, and Medium of Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be

Tillich’s definition of the spiritual is the unity of the power of being with the meaning of
being. He defines spirituality as the unity of dynamics and form as self-creativity in our moral
and cultural acts.46 For this project, spiritual practices are then intentional exercises in actualizing
the unity of one’s being and meaning. From Tillich’s definition and for this project, spiritual
formation is theorized as the overall deepening and growth of one’s unity of the power of being
and meaning, of dynamics and form, actualized in our moral and cultural acts.
The Source of Spiritual Formation as the Power of Being

Coltrane’s early symbol of source was God as conceptualized within the AME Zion
church. This was the God of the Apostle’s Creed as Father Almighty and maker of heaven and
earth. God as the Creator is the source of all creation and is to be worshipped and given thanks
and praise for his providence. The personal aspect of God as source for Coltrane lends itself to a
revelatory encounter of personal intimacy.
However, Coltrane’s conception of God as source evolved as he delved further into Jazz
and other religions. Though he still referred to God as ‘him,’ Coltrane did not want to try to
define God “because I think he’s beyond any definition that I could give.” 47 The basis of faith
was in knowing and expressing truth, which parallels a musician’s effort to be truth through their
music and instrument. "Even though a man was not a Christian, he still has to know the truth
some way or another. Or if he was a Christian, he could know the truth… or not," he believed.

47 Devito, 271. – his reply to the question “Are you a Christian?”
106
"The truth itself doesn't have any name on it to me. And each man has to find this for himself, I
think." 48
This truth was centered on a universal love that transcended “Christ, or maybe Buddha,
or Krishna, or all of them. And all of them, I think it’s the same one, that one, that all of them
describe.”49 For Coltrane, this love is “from which it all comes, path, the love you have for your
work, it’s all the manifestations of that one to me.” 50 God as love is always abiding and could be
sought by the righteous path. But even with the influence from Asian mystical religions, Coltrane
often refers to what was encountered in his spiritual awakening as ‘him’ alluding to the personal
nature of God.
The Norm of Spiritual Formation within the Structure of Being

Coltrane’s early norm was Jesus Christ, the son of God as the Word of God, detailed in
scripture. His path of his transparency as obedience to God’s will as his atoning sacrifice for the
forgiveness of sin and as the perfection of humankind’s nature was the preparation for receiving
revelation and the deepening of the experience of it afterwards. Jesus was both fully human and
fully God and his path demonstrated the right relationship of the created with the Creator. Along
with this norm were the symbolic representations of it in his grandfathers as AME Zion pastors.
Coltrane’s other norms in music and Jazz were his father, Johnny Hodges, Charlie Parker,
Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk. Each one of these were
norms in their original style and expression that conveyed truth and inspired Coltrane to emulate
them, master their form, and incorporate it into his own expression. These norms were
guideposts along a path to his seeking, giving shape to his journey of mastery of expression
along the way. However, his father as norm might be different in orientation from these other
48 Ibid, 277.
49 Devito, 270.
50 Ibid, 277.
107
norms. It was not so much J.R.’s playing style that was the norm for Coltrane, but rather the
association of music with a symbolic figure of love that was gone.
Coltrane also began exploring other religions and reading voraciously about subjects
beyond Jazz, such as the structure of the universe in order to understand how sonic experience
was also devotional which would give direction to his playing. 51 The norm of any Jazz musician
was to play truthfully. “So in order to play those kind of things, to play truth, you’ve got to live
with as much truth as you possibly can.” 52
Coltrane’s norm became striving for universal love by the righteous path in living and
manifesting truth. “I am supposed to grow to be the best good that I can get to. And as I’m going
there, becoming this… if I ever become, this will just come out of the horn.” 53 Coltrane’s own
striving to be the good meant that his centeredness was engaged in growing and learning. This
process requires humility where you must “open your mind. You absorb. But you got to be quiet;
you have to be still to do that.”54 Coltrane quoted the Platform Sutra in the liner notes of his
album Meditations giving cues to the norms that helped him prepare for this striving. “There is a
need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered
in its pure state… So that we can see more clearly what we are,” he explained. “In that way, we
can give to those who listen, the essence—the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage,
we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.”
Coltrane’s purpose as a musician was then clear. “I think the main thing a musician
would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and
senses in the universe. That’s what music is to me,” he explained in a 1962 interview. “It’s just
51 Jason C. Bivins, Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion, 289.

52 Devito, 14.
53 Ibid, 277.
54 Ibid, 314.
108
another way of saying ‘This is a big beautiful universe that we live in that’s been given to us.
And here’s an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is.’” 55 Liberation, awe, and
connection are at the heart of Coltrane’s norm.
The Medium of Spiritual Formation as the Power of Meaning

In Coltrane’s initial spiritual formation, the Holy Ghost (that proceeds from the Father
and Son and is of the same substance) is the power of meaning that moves self-awareness in
uniting with both source and norm. The Holy Ghost is transfused and experienced in every
practice as worship, praise, prayer, the proclamation of scripture as the Word of God, and the
administration of the sacraments through the church as the Body of Christ.
The medium of Coltrane’s Jazz improvisation is the same as its source – the Truth that
undergirds all action and for Coltrane, his music. This Truth as universal love was the medium
and source for deep listening as well as expression through his horn. It undergirds not only the
musicians but all those who participate in it including the audience. Coltrane believed music and
this Truth were also an instrument that could “create the initial…thought patterns that can create
the changes, you see, in the thinking of the people.56 Music was an expression of the human
heart, “of the being itself… I feel that it, it expresses the whole thing – the whole human
experience.”57 The evolution of Coltrane’s source, norm, and medium of spiritual formation
arrives as a form of mysticism that reaches for and expresses the ineffable mystery as being
breathed in and through his horn.
My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it in my

music. If you live it, when you play, there’s no problem because
the music is part of the whole thing… My music is the spiritual
expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being …
When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do
something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from
55 Devito, 153.
56 Devito, 287.
57 Ibid, 281.
109
its hangups. I think music can make the world better and, if I’m
qualified, I want to do it. I’d like to point out to people the divine
in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to
their souls.58
Spiritual Practices, Symbols, and Courage

The early spiritual practices of Coltrane were his family’s involvement in the African
Methodist Episcopal church. The AME denomination was founded in 1794 as a response to
being forcibly removed from praying with white congregants seven years earlier. Its formation
“was, in fact, a form of rebellion against the most accessible and vulnerable expression of white
oppression and institutional racism in the nation: the American churches.” 59 The Christian
practices of worship, prayer, and bible study would have been present with a strong emphasis on
liberation. Coltrane reports that he eventually became disillusioned with the rigid exclusivity of
his faith, questioning much of what he learned. 60
Coltrane’s main form of spiritual practice became Jazz and improvisation. For some, Jazz
is merely a musical genre to be mastered while others consider it a deeply spiritual experience,
where the meaning of one’s being is connected to the source of life – a mirror of Tillich’s
definition of the spiritual.61 Anything can be a source for the spiritual as well as a symbol to
ecstatically experience the transcendent. Conversely, anything can also not be spiritual. What
distinguishes these perspectives is the intention of the interpretation of the event as self-
awareness. For Coltrane, Jazz was spiritual in its symbolic engagement with God as the source of
everything.
58 Porter, 232.
59 Gayraud S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of African Americans,
third edition, revised and enlarged (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1998), 103.
60 Devito, 12.
61 Elina Hytönen-Ng, Experiencing “Flow” in Jazz Performance (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013). In this publication, Hytönen-Ng
surveyed Jazz musicians in Norway and the US. An overwhelming majority of the Norwegian musicians considered the
performance of Jazz as simply a musical endeavor while an overwhelming number ofJjazz musicians in the US attributed more
personal and spiritual meaning to its performance.
110
There are four symbolic and performative aspects of the practice of Jazz that contribute to
it as Coltrane’s unity of being and meaning: mastery of instrument and tradition, communal
resistance to dehumanizing forces, improvisation, and transcendence and liberation.62 Many
of Coltrane’s examples in these areas parallel a seminary student’s goals of vocational, personal,
and spiritual formation through the aspects of their spiritual leadership rather than a musical
instrument.
Mastery, Resistance, Improvisation, and Transcendence: Mastery of one’s instrument
includes both the musical instrument and one’s body engaged in making music. This is
exemplified in Coltrane’s relentless practicing over the technical and theoretical aspects of the
saxophone and the sheer stamina required for the ‘sheets of sound’ style of playing. Mastery of
the tradition refers to the legacy of contributions to the Jazz catalog including its predecessors:
the Spirituals, Blues, and Gospel. Often, the aspiring musician had to pay his or her dues in the
“conservatory of the community.” 63 This meant not only exhibiting a strong ability to play but
also a readiness to do the hard work to continue this communion as exemplified in Coltrane’s
honing in Philadelphia and New York as well as his own mentorship with younger musicians.
This tradition was also the communal resistance to dehumanizing forces. Historically
for many African Americans, the depth and importance of music as a “Sorrow Song” expresses
both the suffering of slavery and debasement at the hands of white supremacy in the U.S. as well
as a hope for freedom in this world and the afterlife. 64 Langston Hughes attributes this gravity to
Jazz as “one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America; the eternal tom-tom beating in
62 John Lee, A Knock at Midnight: A Spiritual Journey Through Jazz. Documentary, 2015. https://youtu.be/yrfu2rHi2CQ.
63 Jamie Howison, God's Mind in That Music: 158.
64 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks, 113. At the beginnig of each chapter, Du Bois places a
Spiritual. Chapter 14 is “Of the Sorrow Songs” which speak of the haunting nature and heartache of these songs; songs of the
slave to the world which “still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro
people.”
111
the Negro soul--the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway
trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.” 65
Improvisation has two components - faith and flow. Faith, for Tillich, is being grasped
by ultimate concern of being and nonbeing. Jazz offered and engaged as telling “in word and
music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding…toward some unseen power and sigh for the rest
of the End.” 66 Jazz is where one is grasped by ultimate concern, which impacts the vulnerability,
originality, and honesty of what one offers and receives as part of an ensemble. This is then
embodied in improvisation as flow in effortless action that is intrinsically fulfilling. Flow allows
one to improvise instantly while remaining rooted within the form of the medium and the reality
of one’s context. Flow will be explored in more detail below.
Flow state begets transcendence and liberation in Jazz. For many musicians, flow is a
spiritual experience as the connective tissue between each member transcends the sum - where
“suddenly everyone can anticipate what the other person is going to do before they do it.” 67
[With the Wayne Shorter Quartet] that’s the closest I’ve ever felt
to feeling the divine power of God…. You’ll start from nothing and
think “Wow, I don’t really have anything tonight,” and somebody
will do something and you’ll think, “wait a minute.” And then it’s
a big journey. I call it the ultimate microcosm of what Christian
community would be if people would just be willing to take
chances, and get out of the comfort zone and be that other-
oriented. I’m speaking of myself too…Sometimes you’re playing
and all these things are happening, and you’re like “Well, that’s
God.” The “other,” meaning the other musicians, but then it spills
right into the audience. -Bassist John Pattitucci68
The historical and deep longing within Jazz for freedom, an originality of expression to
65 Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” The Nation, June 26, 1926, 692-4.
66 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois,, 247.
67 Steven Kotler,. The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. EPub. (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2014), 130.
68 Jamie Howison, God’s Mind in That Music: Theological Explorations through the Music of John Coltrane, Eugene: Cascade
Books, 2012. pp. 162
112
be heard, and the experience of joy can bring an ecstatic connection to something bigger than
oneself and liberation from the tyranny of a hostile world.
For the United student, the mastery of one’s instrument is not only the cognitive material
but one’s body and presence within acts of compassion, proclamation, or advocacy. The
resistance to dehumanizing forces through one’s spiritual practice parallels an awareness of the
threats of nonbeing that occur throughout one’s life and their impact on one’s presence. Faith and
transcendence are spoken about theoretically but not always experienced or emphasized in
practice. It seems a key component that could be more present is the aspect of flow through
practice and improvisation in relation to being grasped by ultimate concern and transcendence.
Flow State as Optimal Experience: A foundational aspect of the spiritual practice of Jazz
is improvisation as flow state. Psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi pioneered the study of
happiness and intrinsic motivation in his work Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
People were studied from different socioeconomic groups around the world in response to the
question of when they felt most happy. The moment of optimal experience of overcoming
challenge was the overwhelming response. He defines this moment as flow “in which people are
so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable
that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” 69 Flow State is not known
during moments of leisure. Instead, flow occurs when a challenge requires all of our attention
which provokes effortless action that feels harmonious with one’s world. “[I]nstead of being
buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate... a
sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a
landmark memory of what life should be like.”70
69 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. EPub. Australia: Harper Collins, 1990, 21.
70 Ibid, 19.
113
Csikszentmihalyi believes flow is something we make happen rather than good fortune or
perfect conditions bringing it about. Flow has deep historical roots within personal fulfillment,
culture, religion and ritual. Consequently, it impacts the building of initial courage.
Consciousness and the Symbolic ‘Self’ as The Basis of Flow State: Flow is rooted in our
consciousness which has a deep effect on the conception of the “self” and how we then receive,
engage, and simultaneously enact agency in the world. Csikszentmihalyi defines consciousness
as the intentionally ordered information of the sensations, feelings, thoughts, and intentions that
are occurring and whose course we are able to direct.71 Subjectively experienced reality
functions as “a clearinghouse for sensations, perceptions, feelings, and ideas, establishing
priorities among all the diverse information” so that it can be evaluated and acted upon by the
body.72 This aspect of being allows us to deliberately weigh what the senses tell us and respond
accordingly and also invent or imply information that did not exist before.
Intention are goals shaped either by biological needs or by internalized social ends and
are structured in hierarchies. It is the force that keeps information in consciousness ordered.
Intentions arise in consciousness whenever a person is aware of desiring something or wanting to
accomplish something. Intentions then move attention as psychic energy toward some objects
and away from others in keeping our mind focused on preferential stimuli in striving to actualize
a goal. Attention is energy in that no work can be done without it and in doing work, it is
dissipated. With this energy under our control, we can choose to invest it to shape memories,
thoughts, and feelings.73 The person who is in control of consciousness is able “to focus attention
71 Ibid, 57.
72 Ibid, 54.
73 Ibid, 69.
114
at will, to be oblivious to distractions, to concentrate for as long as it takes to achieve a goal, and
not longer. And the person who can do this usually enjoys the normal course of everyday life”74
The “self” exists solely in our own consciousness and contains everything that has passed
through it: all our memories, actions, desires, pleasures, and pains. The self represents the
hierarchy of goals (intentions) that we have built up over the years. Csikszentmihalyi considers it
the most important element of consciousness for it represents symbolically all of consciousness’s
other contents as well as the pattern of their interrelations.75 A circular process of consciousness
is the basis from which flow occurs. The self directs attention towards a subjective experience of
reality. Yet consciousness and its goals are the result of different ways of investing attention. The
self shapes attention and is in turn, shaped by it.76
Disruption in consciousness is information that conflicts with existing intentions or
distracts us from carrying them out. Experiences such as pain, fear, rage, anxiety, or jealousy
force attention to be diverted against our desires where psychic energy becomes unmanageable
and ineffective. Csikszentmihalyi defines this inner disorder as psychic entropy - a
disorganization of the self that impairs its effectiveness.77 Every piece of information is
evaluated for its bearing on the self as a threat, affirmation, or neutral end to our goals. “A new
piece of information will either create disorder in consciousness by using energy to face a threat
or it will reinforce our goals, thereby freeing up psychic energy.”78
The threats to the psychic energy/attention of a seminary student may occur through
numerous avenues but the disruption to the conception of self through exposure to radical
theologies, community, or displacement of habituated practices. This parallels Tillich’s
74 Ibid, 66.
75 Ibid, 70.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid, 74-75.
78 Ibid, 78.
115
ambiguity within the self-integration, -creation, -transcendence process. However, the bodily
action of practice and flow, as in Coltrane’s case, may help to bring order to entropy along with
other benefits.
Flow and Strengthening of the Self: Flow, as optimal experience, is the opposite of psychic
entropy. It is the state where attention can be freely invested to achieve a person’s goals because
there is no disorder to straighten out and no threat for the self to defend against. Information that
comes into awareness aligned with our intentions/goals allows attention/energy to flow
effortlessly towards embodied action in the world. Consciousness and the world become aligned
which provides a sense of order over both. One’s sense of adequacy and self are reinforced as
this positive feedback of effortless action strengthens the self and more attention is freed to deal
with the outer and the inner environment. Flow is often called negentropy (order) and those who
attain it “develop a stronger, more confident self, because more of their psychic energy has been
invested successfully in goals they themselves had chosen to pursue.” 79 A subsequent feeling of
mastery over a chaotic universe is elicited by being in harmony with it. The “battle” is not
against the self but rather for the self in the struggle for establishing control over attention
against entropy that brings disorder to consciousness and, thus, relationship to the outer context.
The subsequent feeling of flow is fulfillment. The opposite feeling of entropy is either boredom
or anxiety.
The phenomenology of flow as enjoyment and fulfillment has eight major components:
1. An experience where we confront challenges that require our commensurate skill and
ability. Too little challenge risks boredom. Challenges exceeding ability produce anxiety.
2. The ability to focus our concentration on what we are doing.
3. The task undertaken has clear goals which,
4. Provides immediate feedback as affirmation or needed changes in action.
5. One acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness
extraneous worries and frustrations.
79 Ibid, 79-80.
116
6. These experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions as well
as their environment.
7. The concern for the self disappears yet, paradoxically, the sense of self emerges
stronger after the flow experience is over.
8. The sense of the duration of time is altered as hours pass by in minutes, and minutes
can stretch out to seem like hours.80 (See Appendix E)
The lack of self-consciousness stems from all attention as energy directed towards stimuli
in achievement of the goal. Yet afterwards, the organization of the self becomes more complex
than it had been before and can be equated with growth. Complexity occurs through
differentiation and integration. Differentiation implies a movement toward uniqueness as
distinguishing oneself from others based on what has been accomplished or experienced which
corresponds to Tillich’s ontological pole of individualization and Jazz’ primacy of cultivating an
authentic sound. Much like the other ontological pole of collective participation, integration
refers to a union with other people, ideas, and entities beyond the self, which is essential to flow.
This is essential in playing in an ensemble and receiving everything the other musicians are
offering. Movement between reason’s controlling and receiving knowledge then would also be
honed within improvisation as flow. Both differentiation (subject) and integration (object) occur
simultaneously during flow which then strengthen the self in action and its relationship to the
world it receives afterwards. Improvisation as flow parallels a beginning practice of union
between subject and object, self and world.
Flow integrates the self because consciousness (including thoughts, feelings, and
emotions) is well ordered in deep concentration focused on one goal. “When the flow episode is
over, one feels more ‘together’ than before, not only internally but also with respect to other
people and to the world in general.”81 A complexified self may then continue to grow to meet the
80 Ibid, 95-96.
81 Ibid, 82-83.
117
complexities of the environment corresponding to one’s changing intentions. Coltrane’s interest
in other religious practices and quantum physics demonstrated this.
Acting freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, we learn to
become more than what we were. When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits
of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. “And once we have tasted this joy, we
will redouble our efforts to taste it again”82
The aspect of security is an important component of fulfillment. The two main strategies
to improve the quality of life are either trying to make external conditions match our goals or
changing how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better. Flow is
focused on the second method by modifying what we mean by security. If one does not expect
perfect safety, recognizes that risks are inevitable, and succeeds in enjoying a less than ideally
predictable world, the threat of insecurity will not have as great a chance of disordering
consciousness. “Neither of these methods is effective when used alone. Changing external
conditions might seem to work at first, but if a person is not in control of his consciousness, the
old fears or desires will soon return, reviving previous anxieties.” 83 Flow amplifies Jazz’
mastery of instrument and tradition, communal resistance to dehumanizing forces, improvisation,
and transcendence and liberation by building initial courage in control over engagement and
perception of the world from internal mastery of consciousness. From an African American
context, this courage would be in direct relation and refutation of an unsecure and hostile world.
For the spiritual formation of a seminary student undergoing ambiguity, striving toward the
successful attainment of flow state in small and great ways would seem essential in building
82 Ibid, 83.
83 Ibid, 86.
118
initial courage. This would in turn strengthen and complexify the self in the integration of more
complex information within one’s presence and spiritual leadership.
Mediation of the Symbols and Myth by the Spiritual Community

Tillich’s centered ‘self’ actualizes itself in the moral act because of the awareness of its
own limits of finitude and partiality by the limiting presence of ‘others’ in its world. Revelatory
participation in the source and norm of the Spiritual formation mediated by a spiritual
community and its sacramental acts that possess and are able to mediate the Spiritual Presence as
the power of meaning. Tillich’s marks of the Spiritual community are extensions of the impact
of the Spiritual Presence: faith, love, unity, and universality84
The church was Coltrane’s early Spiritual community in mediating the symbols and
sacramental acts that united the power of being with the power of meaning. Its message and its
music were the hubs of intimacy and strength as an expression of humanity amid the
dehumanizing challenges for African Americans. Coltrane later became disaffected from the
church. He alludes to the absolutizing and exclusionary nature of its theology that he
experienced as the cause. 85 He believed in all religions and his idea of God was more universal
than contained in one religion “because if [someone’s] right somebody else has got to be
wrong.”86 His faith in God, though, was very important to him and how he led his life as his
exploration of other religions and metaphysical thought would demonstrate.
Coltrane’s evolution of beliefs in the source, norm, and medium of his formation is
mirrored in the communities he became involved in. He seemed to experiment with different
traditions and their communities of practice like Islam and Buddhism. However, his central
devotion to Jazz led him to the ‘conservatory of the community’ that served to inform, hone,
84 Ibid, 155-156.
85 DeVito, Coltrane on Coltrane, 13.
86 Ibid, 13.
119
support, and affirm the authenticity of his offering and belonging. The ensemble is where this
‘church’ becomes localized and realized. Cornel West likens it to a mode of “democratic action”
where being in the group is “antagonistic cooperation which means bouncing against one another
so that you're giving each other more and more courage to engage in higher levels of collective
performance.”87 The Spiritual community of Jazz is the context for flow to occur.
The evolution of Coltrane’s source, norm, and medium of his spiritual formation kept
expanding as the mastery over his expression through music and exposure to new influences
grew. These new centers were interconnected instead of an abandonment of one for the other. As
in concentric spirals, one may find the origins of one’s beliefs within another turn of life. The
discovery is the re-discovery of this still-connected wisdom but from a new and deeper
perspective. Coltrane’s formation was based somewhat on his Christian upbringing but had
expanded beyond it. “I was brought up in a religious family. I had the seeds of it in me, and, at
certain moments, I find my faith again. All of that is connected to the life one leads… It’s
everything for me; my music is a way of giving thanks to God.” 88 In contrast to Habito’s distinct
traditions, Coltrane’s path is more syncretistic and experimental, perhaps reflecting the need for
freedom and exploration like his art form.
Many of our seminary students are also coming from nontraditional backgrounds or no
background in religion. Yet their openness to the spiritual dimension is no less intense. Creating
a path of spiritual formation from the concept of flow would also seem to be dependent on the
formation of community in order to practice this. The strengthening of the self to integrate
greater complexity would also seem to be of great benefit to the mastery of academic material
87 Cornel West, Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom, 3rd ed. (New York: Hay House, 2008) 118.
88 Ibid, 245.
120
and information. Nevertheless, the aspect of the threat of nonbeing and revelation from the
incorporation of latent mystical practices within Coltrane’s narrative are instructive as well.
The Threat of Nonbeing

The shock of nonbeing includes both the “not yet” and the “no more” of being. 90 The awareness
and anticipation of the loss of potential and the nothingness at death is our existential anxiety.
This is manifested as anxiety of death and fate as awareness of the contingent nature of our life.
It is also embodied in the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness as the loss of creative
participation in one’s world. For many African Americans, Tillich’s threat of nonbeing is
pervasively embodied in prevalent material symbols and experiences of marginalization and
oppression. Capricious violence, terror, and death are historically illustrative of the “no more” of
being. The loss of potential and the lack of full creative participation in one’s world in the “not
yet” can be found in the limitations imposed on many non-white, non-male citizens of the U.S.
Coltrane also experienced the threat of nonbeing in the early trauma with his aunt,
grandfather, grandmother, and father dying within the span of a year when he was 12 years old.
The subsequent descent into poverty for his mother and himself would seemingly compound this
threat and its anxiety even further. Music became the stabilizing and organizing force amid this
chaos as well as throughout his life. Flow state would be the sanctuary through achieved goals in
his music thus strengthening and complexifying the self in order to have the courage to strive for
more gradual challenges to confront. Flow may have also been an initial escape from the
inability to make sense of these deaths.
89 Ibid, 110
90 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 188.
121
Other threats would be his insecurity in his musical proficiency and his heroin addiction.
These threats seem evident in relation to music being his sense of order within consciousness and
the conception of “self.” His place in the “conservatory of the community” represented
belonging. The possible loss of both to addiction would exemplify psychic entropy as nonbeing.
Coltrane’s overcoming of his heroin addiction through complete withdrawal (by sheer
determination without medical intervention) seems to parallel how he threw himself completely
into mastering his music with flow as the usual reward for this persistence and obsessiveness.
Flow within his spiritual practice in relation to previous threats seems applicable as initial
courage building. The outcomes from these previous experiences could have been applied in
Coltrane’s belief in the same process in overcoming his addiction. The complexifying and
strengthening of the self from flow could be correlated as preparation for receiving revelation.
Csikszentmihalyi links flow state’s ordering of chaos as a dissipative structure, where the
harnessing of energy that would have been wasted or lost in random motion is recaptured and
redirected towards another purpose. 91 Just as plants take CO2 and recycle as fuel for life, the
psyche operates in a similar fashion as “the integrity of the self depends on the ability to take
neutral or destructive events and turn them into positive ones.” 92 Flow as the intrinsic reward
after struggle, in turn, helps build the dissipative structure of courage. This seems essential for
the lifelong, ongoing formation of a person committed to spiritual leadership. Improvisation as
flow is initial courage building. It utilizes reason’s controlling and receiving knowledge equally;
both differentiation (self) and integration (other) occur simultaneously during and after flow,
which then strengthens the self. Improvisation as flow is the beginning practice of union between
subject and object, self and world, as it requires permeability between both. Flow is directed
91 Csikszentmihalyi, 335.
92 Ibid, 336.
122
toward a specific goal in a specific moment, which requires all of one’s psychic energy, which
brings congruence to action upon and reception of one’s world. Initial moments of flow make
only the ‘present’ moment important as extraneous information (past, future, judgement, doubt)
is there but subsumed within attention unless needed to fulfill the challenge in the moment. One
needs a somewhat strong and complex self to be grasped by revelation and then to grasp the
meaning of it over a lifetime.
The Nature of the Revelatory Event: Ultimate Flow State

Tillich’s concept of revelation is a received union with the source of being which answers
the questions of existence: the divisions between finitude and infinity, the subject-object split and
a (fragmentary) union of our estranged essential and existential natures resulting in clarity from
ambiguity. Revelation is removing the veil that covers the unconditioned source of being and the
norm of New Being by the divine Spiritual presence as medium. Revelation cannot be
approached through reason’s controlling knowledge. It can only be received as meaning-bearing
experience where one is grasped. It is marked by the presence of mystery, miracle/sign-event,
and ecstasy. Coltrane’s own brief accounts of ending his heroin addiction along with a Syeeda’s
memory of the event are the only references available of what happened. Coltrane’s revelation
stemmed from his spiritual practice in Jazz as initial courage flow coupled with the threat of his
heroin addiction. The ordeal of enduring symptoms of physical withdrawal from heroin addiction
can be painful. His step-daughter remembered how she begged God to spare him as she thought
he was going to die.93
As documented in his liner notes, the subsequent release from addiction was a “spiritual
awakening” that led to a “richer, fuller, and more productive life.” What Coltrane experienced in
that moment was not specified but he believed it was given by God’s grace. God is still a theistic
93 Scheinfeld, 23:35-24:38
123
encounter but the awakening alludes to being grasped by the mystery of something larger than
his addiction or the threat of nonbeing. Jesus is not recounted here but a new way of being is
produced, transparent to its source, where “in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means
and privilege to make others happy through music.”
Tillich’s miracle/sign-event is the embodied stigma of finitude from the shock of non-
being. Coltrane’s physical symptoms from withdrawal as his “dark night of the soul” may have
been a prelude to a corresponding stigma of encountering one’s finitude and a genuine mystery
appearing when reason is driven beyond itself to this ‘ground and abyss.’94 The subsequent
noticeable change in energy, disposition, and direction after revelation would confirm a physical
occurrence during revelation that led to these changes.
The ecstasy of revelation is a cognitive aspect where the ordinary subject-object
structure, or rational reality grasped by reason’s controlling knowledge, is transcended and put
out of action by its counterpart, receiving knowledge.95 The ecstatic aspect of revelation contains
a salvific aspect of healing in the reunion of the split between subject and object thus liberating
self-awareness and alignment of all the dimensions of being (body, mind, spirit, etc.). Whatever
Coltrane’s experience of God was in that moment seems to have healed his body, aligned his
intentions/goals and attention/energy within consciousness, and given him a new perspective.
“At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others
happy through music. I feel this has been granted through his grace. ALL PRAISE TO GOD” 96
Though he doesn’t describe the contents of his revelation, his response of humble gratitude
94 Ibid, 110
96 Coltrane,. A Love Supreme. Impulse, n.d., Liner notes.
124
points to a shaking experience, given and not earned, where the effects have fragmentarily
overcome estrangement and ambiguity to bring about clarity of purpose and meaning.
Jazz’ improvisation as flow state can be viewed as an initial aspect of courage building
and self-fortification/complexification in preparation for the invitation to revelation.
Improvisation as flow utilizes movement between reason’s controlling and receiving knowledge
equally to build agility and permeability between one’s self and the world, an experienced micro-
union between both. The self is strengthened and made complex afterwards that aids in receiving
more complexity of the world. Coltrane’s Jazz as flow would then become a norm of spiritual
formation. Initial flow, however, is directed toward a specific goal in a specific moment such as
a musical venture. Revelation could then be considered part of Ultimate Flow in that one
receives the infinite ground and abyss of being and meaning as the source. Controlling
knowledge is temporarily put out of action from solely directing consciousness. Receiving
knowledge becomes primary as psychic energy is grasped by the source of being. Controlling
knowledge after revelation is then put back in play, as a lifetime is needed to grasp the meaning
of this encounter and enact it throughout all of one’s life. Sanctification would then be the further
perfecting of receiving knowledge in collaboration with, rather than subordination to, controlling
knowledge.
Absolute Faith, the Courage-to-Be, and Vitality Towards the

Anxiety of Meaninglessness -Emptiness
He and others only briefly describe Coltrane’s revelation around him. Because he was not
part of a traditional religion, there are no theological or philosophical rubrics to quantify the
event to compare it neatly with Tillich’s courage-to-be. But the reported objective changes
witnessed by others and reported by Coltrane himself after the event as his vitality directs us to
125
then look backwards for evidence of a courage-to-be and then explore confirmation of aspects of
an absolute faith that includes and transcends mysticism and personalism.
Coltrane’s Signs of Personal Transformation as Vitality from Revelation

Vitality with intentionality, stemming from the effects of revelation and the courage-to-
be, is the power of creating beyond oneself without losing oneself. A centered self that is able to
move from one center of its multidimensional being (self-integration) to another (self-creativity)
as growth evidences vitality. Forming an absolute center from union with the Ultimate in
revelation is self-transcendence, which then gives purpose to all self-integration and self-
creativity in forming new centers from this one. Coltrane’s initial courage of improvisation as
flow resulted in his growth of self through music. His resulting courage from Ultimate Flow as
revelation can be linked with subsequent vitality where we can see appreciable change in the
type and depth of creativity compared to previous, initial courage.
Coltrane’s vitality mirrors Tillich’s marks of sanctification: increased awareness,
increased freedom, and increased relatedness. After kicking his habit after his revelation, things
began to change. Coltrane’s energy went up, he smiled more, and he seemed very happy
according to his step-daughter Syeeda and others. 97 “I was able to play better right then you
know. I can play better and think better, everything.”98 These effects could be attributed to being
off heroin. However, by his own testament, this was also a spiritual awakening, which led him to
lead a “richer, fuller, and more productive life.” (liner notes) He moved back to New York and
with a clear purpose and began playing and learning from the highest caliber of musician in
Thelonious Monk.99 Monk mentors and help ground Coltrane’s theoretical curiosity to the point
where he was confident to go off on his own and record his first album as a bandleader. His
97 Scheinfeld, 26:45-27:50.
98 Ibid, 26:50-27:05
99 Ibid, 26:26-26:44.
126
previous insecurity exhibited earlier in playing with Miles is gone. “His music just sounded
different. It was like... there was new blood in his playing. There was a certain kind of almost
recklessness.”100
His music becomes an expression of his engagement with and permeability to life, where
his life and horn were the vessel to receive and then pour out the essence of the world he was
experiencing, demonstrated in My Favorite Things and Alabama. He begins to search out other
sources and perspectives of life that would expand new understandings and engagement with a
diverse and multidimensional world thus matching his own growing and complex self from
possibly the source of his revelation he encountered. All of this leads to A Love Supreme as a
prayer of gratitude to this source and a musical metaphor of his spiritual pilgrimage. In the
creation of the album, there is an embodied trust throughout in his writing process and in the
scant preparation with his band which mirrors a greater trust in this new center of self he had
experienced in 1957. A depth of compassion from this permeability and connection leads him to
go to Japan and play his composition “Peace on Earth” as a healing balm for those still suffering
from the effects of war and atomic bombs.101 A spiritual community touched by his life, his
music, and the spiritual depth and integration of both continues today.
In his final years of his life, he is grounded deeper in this eternal center that he can risk
the emptiness or even destruction meaning to evidence the eternal Truth therein. This was
demonstrated his decision to leave Miles, divorcing Naima and marrying Alice, his move to
avant-garde music and the absence of form, his castigation by critics and fans for taking on so
many younger musicians in this move, the departure of Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner from his
group. All of this affected him but did not intimidate him from choosing otherwise. He had a
100 Ibid 28:36-28:54.

101 Ibid, 1:27-1:29.
127
purpose, as intentionality, which guided him towards action, which was vitality from a new
center.
The Courage-to-Be in Addressing the Anxiety of Meaninglessness and Emptiness

In a Tillichian framework, Coltrane’s experience entering withdrawal ‘cold-turkey’ takes
in ontic anxiety (Death-Fate) through the embodied self. The practice of initial courage leading
to this point was the risking and losing of self in Jazz improvisation as flow. It would appear that
Coltrane’s revelatory event is revealed through the emptiness of the body to experience a Truth
that was the source of his music and all creation. He described what he encountered in his
revelation as spiritual awakening. What he experienced was given by the “grace of God” and, in
response as gratitude to this encounter, he “asked to be given the means and privilege to make
others happy through music.” What Coltrane encountered might be similar to Habito’s encounter
in kensho where understanding what it means to be fully human means glimpsing “that all-
embracing, Divine, Loving presence” that permeates through all being but is revealed in
emptiness. His renewed strength, clarity, and quality of his playing demonstrate the bodily
effects of the revelatory miracle/sign-event.
The anxiety of emptiness-meaninglessness and the conflict of relativism vs. absolutism is
then dealt with through union with the spiritual center of all meaning and one’s ultimate concern.
Jazz’ flow state already began to address estrangement by placing one’s focus on the present.
Union with the transcendent then expands one’s awareness as the ‘now’ contains all potential
and actualized reality; these natures are never separate and eros is constant if our attention is on
the present. Ambiguity from estrangement as disintegration of a centered self is also resolved by
this centering union with an Ultimate love, allowing one to risk more without concern of losing
this center and one’s self in the process. Revelation is fulfilled self-transcendence, which then
anchors all other growth through the cycle of self-integration and self-creativity as vitality. We
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see Coltrane’s resulting vitality of this in his renewed purpose and confidence, his gathering of
even more multiple influences to expand his understanding and offering of a musical expression
of the divine, and risking even the destruction of meaning in his music in order to disclose the
Truth of a Love Supreme. All of this parallels Tillich’s sanctification as self-transcendence
(revelation) which produces increased (self) awareness, increased relatedness, and increased
freedom which directly translates into his medium as Jazz as flow.
An Absolute Faith that Includes and Transcends Mysticism and Personalism

An absolute faith that includes and transcends a mystical and personal path both redeems
the material (individualization) and yet demonstrates the emptiness of all form through which a
Divine presence or Love Supreme interconnects it all (collective participation). Coltrane’s
material presence as his individuality is redeemed through revelation as demonstrated in a
renewed purpose to uplift and free the people through his music. Yet the universality of the Truth
of a divine love is demonstrated through his music, even emptying the musical form and
ensemble to its primordial abyss “from which it all comes, path, the love you have for your work,
it’s all the manifestations of that one to me.” 102 All paths lead back to God. All paths come from
God. All is belonging.
The anxiety of emptiness-meaninglessness is initially dealt with in Jazz improvisation
with a courage from flow that deepens permeability with one’s world. Initially, this is done by
listening in order to later create within the world. A courage-to-be through union with the
spiritual center of all meaning and one’s ultimate concern deepens and intensifies this
permeability as interconnectedness with all of creation. “No road is an easy one, but they all go
back to God. With all we share God. It is all with God. It is all with Thee.” 103 Courage and
102 Devito, 277.

103 Coltrane, John. “A Love Supreme.” Impulse, n.d., Liner notes.
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vitality for Coltrane expresses itself in actualizing the manifold character of God. Before
revelation, Coltrane was already exploring disparate resources all of which broadened him to be
able to handle ambiguity and discover the interconnectedness of all these sources that coalesced
into an authentic musical expression. After his revelation, the incorporation of sources like these
only deepened and intensified. He believed in a higher truth beyond what one religion professed
which may also give some shape as to what he experienced in his revelation and how he was to
then live it out.
He would not classify himself as a Christian except by birth and would evolve to use
names for the Divine presence as ‘Truth’ or the ‘pure state.’ His incorporation of Indian and
African drones and different instrumentation became more frequent in service to his purpose. In
revelation, there was a new courage of multiplicity - of becoming aware of the microcosm of a
Divine universe of multiplicity within one’s self and then participating in and manifesting these
multiple streams as they reflect and lead back to God.
He eventually felt that his music outgrew the label of Jazz because it was too confining.
Belonging to an Ultimate Truth as revelation to the source of manifold existence gave him more
courage to risk what he had received as self-affirmation in order to receive and grasp more - even
if that meant leaving previously safe confines.
Attempting to coalesce a multiplicity of sources would seemingly lead to either
heightened ambiguity (as disintegration of a centered self) or relativism. But relativism vs.
absolutism from dynamics-form are resolved as one’s intimacy and union with the experience of
the Ultimate is the defining element that prevents multiplicity from devolving into either
extreme. Existence as the sole external arbiter of multiplicity would then leave open the
possibility of disintegration or relativism. From the outside, Coltrane’s multiple belonging would
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seem to be a form of relativism. However, his relativity did not feel threatened from other’s
absolutism (music critics, disappointed fans) as Tillich posits the conflict would manifest. The
possibility of an epistemology of multiple belonging would seem to result from Coltrane’s
narrative and the practice of Jazz as flow. Rather than a linear movement between two poles, the
structure of an ever-more encompassing concentric spiral might be more helpful.
As one experiences and integrates a self within a world, we move to form another center
by growth as self-creativity in Tillich’s model. Flow as the mastery of one’s consciousness
would stress that the center we just moved from is still part of one’s consciousness as we
complexify and strengthen the self by making a new center while integrating the old one. What
we learn in one stage of life and flow moment, we constantly engage again in other aspects of
life but with a different perspective. In each improvisation, we add onto our understanding so we
may draw upon that wisdom at some other moment. Coltrane used varying techniques and
instruments at different points of his career. He would leave some for a time but go back to
others. This agility in answering the demands of attention for the challenge of the moment in
order to reach flow would need to access more integrated information without self-consciousness
or judgement prohibiting instantaneous engagement. The concept of the self would need to be
broad, strong, and agile in order to engage the world in this manifold way.
The danger is also of relativism becoming absolutism. Yet, Coltrane did not impose his
same standards of relentless striving upon others. Everyone tries “to reach his better self, his full
potential, and what that consists of depends on each individual.” Yet, Coltrane believed whatever
intention we set requires vigilance and “welcome is that feeling you have when you finally do
reach an awareness, an understanding which you have earned through struggle. It is a feeling of
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peace. A welcome feeling of peace.” 104 Union with the source of all creation also expands the
awareness of union with to the rest of creation without dissolving one’s particularity. Others
cannot be forcibly brought to this truth, as absolutism then becomes a heteronomy. Instead,
Coltrane’s gentleness and humility provide an alternative as evidenced in “A Love Supreme”
that – “in every register and every key – and he’s showing us that you have to discover religious
belief. You just can’t hit someone over the head by chanting at the outset – the listener has to
experience the process and then the listener is ready to hear the chant.” 105
The danger of multiple belonging is appropriation, commodification, or vapid surface
engagement for ego affirmation. Revelation as Ultimate Flow would act as a guardrail for this
possibility in that hubris would be aligned by humility and gratitude from exposure to the source
of being and nonbeing. Eros, as union with the whole, would not become distorted into
concupiscence but rather directed towards oneness again in relationship to the world while still
experiencing and expressing its multiplicity.
A Spiritual Community from the God above God

A spiritual community, which stands for the power of being-itself or for the God who
transcends the God of religions, claims to be the mediator of the courage-to-be. A church, which
is based on the authority of the God of theism, cannot make such a claim. It inescapably
develops into a collectivist or semi-collectivist system itself. “A [spiritual community] which
raises itself in its message and devotion to the God above the God of theism without sacrificing
its concrete symbols can mediate a courage which takes doubt and meaninglessness into
itself.”106 The marks of the Spiritual community are extensions of the impact of the Spiritual
104 Ibid, 330.

105 Porter, 242. https://youtu.be/qagOblqhBhk
106 Tillich, A Courage to Be, 199.
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Presence: faith (as grasped by ultimate concern), love; unity with all who have ultimate concern;
and universality from the eros of love.107
A compelling aspect of Coltrane’s vitality is the Spiritual community gathered from his
music and his spiritual pilgrimage contained within it. He felt compelled from his newfound
purpose to include and mentor younger musicians versed more in expression than technique even
though he garnered heavy criticism that he was destroying Jazz and his reputation. This was not
simply altruism but a mutually beneficial exchange as Coltrane was also gaining from them – the
energy of dynamics and freedom before it was confined by form and destiny, all of which helped
conceive of the primordial abyss of his avant-garde Jazz as a sonic manifestation of the Divine
presence.
Coltrane’s own conception of the Jazz ensemble was part of this Spiritual Presence as
evidenced in flow as the symbol that mediates courage. Musicians performing together can
influence one another’s performance by their reciprocating emotional movements. But from this
symbiotic permeability to all of one’s context with the intentions of the musicians, the audience
may also become part of the performance – giving back to the musicians by being moved “the
same way that you are, to such a degree, or approaching the degree, it’s just like having another
member in the group.”108 Coltrane’s new purpose after his awakening speaks to an expanded
bond with the audience. His offering and connection to them evokes a relationship of mutual
liberation and hope as community.
I play what I feel in me, and I hope that what I feel in me says
something to the audience… I now present a varied program,
allowing me to explore the emotional terrain that is the most
complete possible. That way, I increase my chances of speaking to
the majority and I improve myself while I remain myself…I would
love to discover a process such that if I wanted it to rain, it would

108 Devito, 281.
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start raining. If one of my friends were sick, I would play a certain
tune and he would get better; if he were broke, I would play
another tune and immediately he would receive all the money he
needed…The true powers of music are still unknown. The
knowledge of these forces fascinates me. I would like to provoke
reactions in my audience, to create a real atmosphere. That’s the
direction I want to go in, and go as far as possible. 109
What is received through his music is the depth of his union with an Ultimate Love. The
Spiritual Community that can sense this connection through the Spiritual Presence is not a fan
base but those who have drawn inspiration from the depth of Coltrane’s work and the
implications for their own existence and purpose. Many people have referenced his work as
inspiration for their own lives and art in connection with the divine love that Coltrane offers
musical prayer. Musicians Carlos Santana, Bono, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and Nicholas
Payton.; writers and scholars Tim Keller, Nathaniel Mackey, Gil Scott-Heron, Amari Baraka and
Cornel West.; even a church (the African Orthodox Saint John Coltrane Church in San
Francisco) cites Coltrane and his music as an inspiration.; the symbolic depth of the album and
Coltrane’s own spiritual search have touched a deep longing for self-transcendence within and
made a great impact on culture.
Tillich’s Own Engagement with Art and Culture

Tillich does not address Jazz specifically in his essays or his systematic theology.
However, much of his work does focus on art and theology within culture and its interplay with
religion. I will only touch briefly on the points of resonance in regards to the spiritual formation
of the courage-to-be and any places of dissonance that illumine salient points towards formation
also.
For Tillich, religion’s substance is ultimate concern. Culture is the totality of forms in
which ultimate concern expresses itself implicitly or explicitly. In Tillich’s time, there was a
109 Ibid, 182.
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hostile distance between the autonomy of culture (including science and art) from the
heteronomy of religion resulting from Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason. Tillich’s theology
was in response to this situation as he sought a deeper connection between each discipline, which
he deemed as Theonomy. Theonomy opposes the autonomy of culture and the heteronomy of
church dominating cultures yet keeps an interdependence of each. God as the ground and abyss
of being is the underlying premise of both.
Tillich’s focus was mainly on visual art but many of his principles apply to music and
Coltrane as well. Art points to an ultimate reality that underlies all reality and it characterizes the
appearing world as non-ultimate, preliminary, transitory, and finite.110 It is below the surface of
everything we encounter. We search for an ultimate reality that will not deceive us and lasts
within impermanence and finitude. Tillich believed Expressionists such as van Gogh and Munch
answered the contemporary situation of meaninglessness more fully by breaking through the
surface of form to show the ecstatic-spiritual aspect of ultimate reality. Expressionism’s dynamic
character both disrupts and alters surface form, as it is both realistic and mystical; it criticizes
form while anticipating its fulfillment; it is restless yet points to eternal rest. 111
Coltrane’s spirituality as the focal point of his art is theonomous. His preparation, the
purpose of the medium and his efforts in what he was expressing all hinged on his connection
and experience of God. Even his medium as wordless expression could be a prompt for that
which precedes the subject-object split, which conditions language. From his own revelation, his
experience of a theistic God aligned the different dimensions of life for Coltrane towards this
purpose of expressing gratitude and living out the greater purpose through his medium as the
expression of transcendent love. By becoming aware of the depth of what was breaking through
110 Paul Tillich, “Art and Ultimate Reality,” Cross Currents 10, no. 1 (Winter 1960): 1.
111 Ibid, 9-10.
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the surface of form (Jazz), Coltrane’s path mirrors much of what Tillich valued in expressionism.
Depth of the ground of being through an ecstatic-spiritual aspect of ultimate reality disrupts and
alters the experience of form without destroying it. Anyone could have played My Favorite
Things in a minor-major key on a soprano saxophone. But the alignment of who was playing it,
when in history it was played, where the depth of his life was oriented, and what came after this
piece only adds depth to the offering and our initial engagement of it. The depth of being allows
us to see the malleability of the surface form to the depth that lies beneath.
Even Coltrane’s later period of Free Jazz, where many considered it a hostile assault of
noise, possibly lends itself to this same perspective. If Coltrane was trying to communicate a
feeling, it might have been approaching from the side of chaos and the abyss of all meaning to
the moment where it begins to take shape as repeated patterns as love and receptivity. What
begins as a formless void emerges into something in an instant – a repeated note or rhythm, two
notes played together that catches the attention of another listening ear, all of which become a
phrase that two or three begin to repeat and build on. The abyss is the potentiality, from which
love, community, egalitarianism, unity and welcome that may appear in an instant and grow or
recede back into nothingness. Coltrane’s avant-garde music does not come with a polished,
easily digestible form with a pre-made hook and ending. Instead, though it proceeds A Love
Supreme in chronological time, it precedes it in terms of the timeline of universal creativity – it is
the abyss of meaning and the solitude before coming down the stairs with everything in order; it
starts from the destruction or absence of all meaning (the dark night of the soul) to explore the
exact moment when love begins to shape meaning as form.
If this is possibly true to Coltrane’s intentions, no wonder so many were upset and felt
betrayed upon hearing this music. The terror of experiencing nonbeing, the abyss, is what we
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have been building existential shields against our whole lives in order to give us the illusion of
control over a possibly indifferent universe. Removing the shield that music provides in ordering
our consciousness by a symbolic figure who has given us this order in the past would feel like
betrayal. But Coltrane was not invested in either maintaining his symbolic significance for his
fans or repeating a familiar trope for commercial success or security. If he was playing life,
playing “John Coltrane,” then the expansion, complexification, and strengthening of his self to
grasp and play a universe he received was the next edge he walked towards. Being initially
grasped by the ground and abyss also means receiving the courage to grasp and be continually
grasped to allow that source to become more a part of oneself through all of life as theonomy.
Flow as Embodied Participation Rather than Mere Observation: Tillich’s definition of
ecstasy includes a sign-event aspect that is embodied. Tillich’s own theology avoids a dualism of
the body and mind that was prevalent in other Christian theologies, but he does not address the
role of the body specifically. Improvisation as flow state usually involves one’s entire body. A
feeling of oneness with one’s actions, being, and environment is common among those who
practice this frequently like Coltrane. The embodiment of the threat of nonbeing is also present
but opens the door for experienced self-transcendence and subsequent union with all things.
Coltrane alludes to this experience, but Dean Potter, a base jumper (jumping off high, stationary
objects with a parachute), engages flow and relates a descriptive reflection of this occurrence that
might parallel Coltrane’s experience and expand Tillich’s sign-event. The danger and potential
of Potter’s activities is where one mistake leads to death or enables one to reach the high of flow
state where self-consciousness is lost and attention is solely on immediate intuition in order to
meet that challenge. One of Potter’s jumps off a mountain went awry and his chute did not
deploy correctly. He was descending too quickly and headed for the wall of the mountain. He
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saw a flash of an orange rope that his friends had hung a camera from earlier, which he
instinctively reached out and grabbed. His hands were instantly cut open from the rope and
cauterized from the friction. Potter eventually slowed his descent and landed in a cave filled with
swallows on the side of the mountain. His friends above were trying to coordinate his rescue but
his focus from flow was still only in that moment and now the ground beside him where a
swallow with a broken wing lay dying. Potter picked up the bird and union was immediate. “I
know it’s hard to believe,” says Potter, “but the experience was so powerful, the connection so
true. I just sat there with that bird, holding it while it died. When it died, I died with it. And I
don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean I became that dying bird.”112
Coltrane’s spirituality involves his entire self, including his body. Improvisation as flow
is not just a cognitive model but also a lived experience that requires bodily participation as well
as all of the dimensions of life. Tillich talks about ecstatic revelation in the experience of the
visual art and reading Nietzsche but limits his bodily participation to primarily a cognitive
recounting. Coltrane’s spiritual practice engages his whole body as breath, the listening and
production of sound, the relationship with other musicians, and the movement of the audience all
within a fraction of a second. His practice of bodily flow state, the physiological withdrawal
from heroin, and a complex and strengthened self possibly prepared him for his revelation of
Ultimate Flow.
Tillich’s social location may have some cultural antecedents for his theology and
ontology and the compartmentalization of bodily participation. Tillich’s examples in Art and
Ultimate Reality included almost all white, European or U.S. males. The inclusion of Asian art
was in reference to a mystical style. No African or South American art was included. Tillich’s
112 Kotler, 55.
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insights are impactful but his epistemology is monochromatic which may also point to his desire
to resolve the dualities of his theology with an overly emphasized cognitive aspect of being. How
does one live with ambiguity before revelation, hoping for resolution though it may not ever
come? Tillich experienced this in moments in war and trauma and found ecstatic revelation as
the answer of acceptance amid existential terror. But the default norm before and after these
events for Tillich was a white, heterosexual, male paradigm as stability. What form does an
existential crisis look like when you have never fit any of the norms? Where can you find
sanctuary amid a material reality that is unrelenting in its disconfirmation of your acceptance?
Coltrane’s identity as an African American male amid the U.S. in the 20th century is
emblematic of W.E.B. Dubois’ idea of double consciousness.
the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with
second-sight in this American world, — a world which yields him
no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through
the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this
double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self
through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a
world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels
his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts,
two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body,
whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.113
Du Bois paints this double consciousness as a weight and a longing to merge one’s
double self into a “better and truer self,” but more, the slow pace of change leaves one with “a
peculiar wrenching…of the soul…of doubt and bewilderment…double life… thoughts…
duties… words… ideals and tempt the mind to pretense or revolt, hypocrisy or radicalism.”114
This split mirrors Tillich’s estrangement and ambiguity as well as the possibility for realizing an
absolute faith and its courage-to-be. However, the body, as the location of unification of these
113 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. The Souls of Black Folks. 3.

114 Ibid, 123.
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two consciousnesses, is key. The body is not the enemy or means of salvation. Instead, all this
integrates as a microcosm of the universe upon the canvas.
These attempts at reaching the resolution of “twoness” in the African American
experience are fashioned, not only from African traditions, but also the intermingling of
Christian beliefs and other cultural influences and the dissonance between them. This state of
double belonging and estrangement produces a third reality from these two sources that is
beyond simply resolution or resignation, revolt or relativism. It neither absolutizes White
Supremacy nor African nostalgia. It seeks to transcend justifying itself by the tools of the
dominant hegemony or be defined by the ontological “blackness that whiteness created.” 115
Instead, a multiplicity of embodied interpretations of African American ontology is sought and
created in relation to this aspect of multiple estrangement and belonging, a hybridity of ontology
and revelation that transcends its two or more spheres of influence that parallels Tracy’s merging
of horizons but within another dimension.
Instead of a curse, double consciousness is more ontologically true for the human
condition and thus holds the possibility for a courage-to-be as integration and synthesis of these
dimensions and sources as the courage of multiplicity in one life within a community. For those
who have to hold more than a binary consciousness (women, racial ethnic, pansexual, gender
fluid), this would seem more apt to help us discern what absolute faith and its resulting courage
would look like for our current context. Coltrane’s spiritual practice of synthesis required all of
his body (rather than just his mind) as a communal resistance to dehumanizing forces. James
Cone describes this embodied spiritual practice of synthesis as a form of love that unifies body
and spirit where people “have been up against the edge of life, …and experience the brokenness
115 Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness, (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1999), 161
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of existence as disclosed in human oppression and know the power inherent in bodily
expressions of love.”116 The unification of the body, mind, and spirit as well as all dimensions of
life seems essential in engaging the symbols and myths of ecstatic revelation but is not explicitly
emphasized by Tillich’s theology.
Findings on the Spiritual Formation of the Courage-to-Be from

Absolute Faith
Coltrane’s narrative is one example of the spiritual formation of Tillich’s absolute faith
that transcends and includes a mystical and personal path of a courage-to-be. The cultural
expressions of spirituality illuminate a different path than Habito’s integration of Buddhism and
Christianity. How this impacts the spiritual formation of seminary students will be touched on
briefly here and expanded in the conclusion.
Characteristics of the Initial Spiritual Formation of Courage

Coltrane’s narrative is one example of Tillich’s absolute faith that transcends and
includes a latent-mystical and personal path of a courage-to-be. As with Habito, underlying
threads of identity appear throughout his initial spiritual formation which are resolved in
Ultimate Flow which brings the self in closer unity to the world as (collective) participation. In
his initial spiritual formation of courage, we see the foundational characteristic of a deep
humility and unvarnished authenticity in his relationship with others that mirrored his sound. The
search for personal authenticity mirrors a Jazz musician’s search for transparency in playing
truthfully. The fierceness of his playing is undeniable but does not come from a place of anger or
resentment of the world. Instead, this appears to derive from Coltrane’s relentless drive for self-
transcendence through his music as an initial escape from the trauma of so many deaths in his
family. The inadequacy of one spiritual formation in addressing all of the enormity of the threat
of nonbeing propelled him to search for others. But instead of condemning the inability of his
116 James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues. 2nd ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004), 114.
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Christian faith to answer or take in all of this existential anxiety, Coltrane later realized the
‘seeds’ of this first nurturing were interconnected to all that would come later. What is
demonstrated is in Coltrane’s narrative is that often what propels one’s spiritual quest is often not
simply the destination but also what we are leaving or escaping from.
The existential question of ‘who am I?’ is implicit within Coltrane’s narrative.
Exemplified in the insecurity of his playing, his obsessive practicing could also be seen as
neuroticism. In contrast to Habito’s initial spiritual formation, Coltrane’s search for identity is
not as explicitly stated and roams more freely, possibly because of the lack of a tradition’s well
hewn path towards answering this question. This is not a value statement on either narrative.
Efficiency was not the top priority in Coltrane’s search for identity. Instead, originality and
manifesting truth through his instrument was primary. Ironically, then, there are no wrong notes
or dead ends in his spiritual practice of Jazz, only the experience, the risk entailed, and the
learning gleaned to further more authenticity. The requirement of a lack of self-consciousness in
Jazz allowed some freedom for Coltrane to work out any neuroticism through practiced courage.
The requirements, room, and relationships to risk, fail, succeed, learn, and risk again as flow is
vital as preparation for Coltrane to receive and accept the invitation of revelation. With this is the
initial building of a courage of multiplicity.
Practicing flow is practicing this process. The requirements (form) of the task at hand
helps us focus our exploration (dynamics). The room to make mistakes and learn from them
involves freedom and destiny. But the relationships as the ‘conservatory of the community’ that
embody and help to construct, reflect and synthesize this in the expansion of the self is vital. The
musicians mentioned earlier are part of this group. But much like the women in Mark’s gospel,
cousin Mary, his mother Alice, Naima, Syeeda, and Alice McLeod play a vital role in the
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preparation to receive revelation. Before we can be transparent to the ground of being, we must
possess ourselves (the self and our world) in order to lose ourselves; we must also belong to
ourselves (as self-awareness and love from one’s community) in order to have the freedom to
risk and expand even more. Each of these women demonstrated an unconditional place of
belonging that is symbolic of the greater Ultimate Truth as love that Coltrane professes through
his horn.
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith: Preparing for or Deepening of Revelation

The second aspect of the spiritual formation of an absolute faith as the courage-to-be
involved the threat of nonbeing as existential anxiety, revelation as Ultimate Flow, and
subsequent vitality from the courage-to-be. Fulfilled self-transcendence creates union with a
permanent, unchanging center. Findings from Coltrane’s revelation impact spiritual formation
and how we can prepare to receive it or deepen it after experiencing it.
An Embodied, Cataphatic Experience: Typical of human religiousness, most modern,
mainstream Christian churches in the U.S. are immersed in cataphatic theological expressions of
the divine. Cataphatic theology is defined as using positive terminology to describe or refer to
God. Christianity is a faith that is incarnational and cataphatic in terms of symbolism and
discursive theology. In the U.S., there has been a distinct duality of body and mind in regards to
our faith. Though Jesus is considered the embodiment of Immanuel, God with us, his flesh and
the sensations of being human are often explicitly and implicitly denied except in relation to sin,
temptation, and the passion of the cross. Sensuality and emotionality are dangerous entities to be
subjugated. Part of the modern conception of revelation is the subsequent ability to control one’s
thoughts, emotions, and sensations. The inability to do so means to be open to external forces or
internal passions which are correlated with a more primitive and amoral existence. In lieu of the
experience of direct revelation, the church often may settle between a literal interpretation of
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symbols, an overexcitement that is merely a subjective experience which produces no objective
changes, an overly discursive theology meant to subjugate the body to the mind, or a strict
pietism that sacrifices the other dimensions of life such as the bodily experience of joy. The
body, with its emotions, sensations, and activity, becomes an object to be mastered in order to
experience God. This dualistic viewpoint is a profaning of the body, as merely object, in order to
avoid idolizing it under the conditions of unbelief, hubris, or concupiscence.
The nuance of the process of flow as the ordering of consciousness leads one to, instead,
conceive of the body as a full member of the practice of the unity of being and meaning. The
“battle” is not against the self but rather a for the self in the struggle for establishing control over
attention against entropy that brings disorder to consciousness and then the relationship to the
world. The battle is not against the body as a part of the self, but instead for alignment of the
body with intention towards a goal that expresses the depth of being. Earlier ascetic practices
focused on the denial or mortification of the body as a way of aligning oneself to the will of God.
This may work for some as their choice. But another option can be seen in the aspect of double
consciousness and the African American experience - a bodily unity with the spirit that is
fundamental for the liberation and transformation of all of one’s being. To experience God in this
way, one must have all dimensions of life engaged and open with the wisdom and precision to
determine what aspects lead to decentering from the body’s source of being.
Flow’s Risking and Losing ‘Self’ in Relation to Ground of Being as Presence: Flow is the
construct of how receiving and controlling knowledge work. As initial courage, it strengthens
and complexifies the self by risking and losing it in focused activity as growth. It is a microcosm
of the union between the subject-object split and is preparation for revelation. Ultimate Flow as
revelation is union with the Ultimate as the source of being and the top of the hierarchy of
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intentions/goals from which all paths come from and lead back. Sanctification as the grounding
of this acceptance of acceptance is amplified flow back to this one center where it is found again
in the practice itself.
From this posture of aligning all of oneself in spiritual practices, improvisation as flow
becomes the hope of each engagement as initial courage. Ordering consciousness to attend to the
moment that aligns oneself with the world creates harmony and fulfillment. It centers all our
attention as psychic energy to the present moment which afterwards is experienced as joy which
makes life meaningful. In correspondence of Zen’s emptying of self, one may aspire to lose self-
consciousness in the challenge commensurate with one’s ability in order to complexify and
strengthen the self. The practice of losing oneself to gain oneself is key in Jesus’ teaching but is
often limited theologically in terms of larger ego goals without examination of the process itself
or what the self is besides ego. Anything can be placed within one’s consciousness to find flow.
However, these goals must be important to a person rather than heteronomously placed there by
outside forces. This type of permeability requires autonomy in order to not slip into passivity.
Within permeability, our finitude limits the amount of psychic energy one can expend.
There are moments where solitude and fallowness apart from engagement is key in order to
synthesize either flow or entropic situations in order to re-engage more fully later. The apophatic
practices could offer a counter-presence in order for flow to occur and expand – strengthening
receiving knowledge so that controlling knowledge (cataphatic) may increase in correspondence.
The addictive nature of flow needs to be pointed out here as well. Flow has no ethical
valuation of good or bad. Flow seems to be self-perpetuating and can lead to greater heights of
exploration, accomplishment, and self-transformation. Yet, whatever we place as our
intention/goal can become the focus for the mastery of consciousness and the growth of self
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regardless of the constructive, destructive, or narcissistic nature of these intentions. What we
place as our intentions and their hierarchy, therein, seems to be key here and what is perpetuated
and amplified. Without a sense of empathetic connection to the world, flow only appears as
domination and subjugation of the world which eventually leads to self-destruction.
Co-Creation Applied to Relationship to the World: Deep Listening, Deep Intimacy: What
drove and produced Coltrane’s brilliance was the ‘conservatory of the community.’ In his own
development, Coltrane was influenced by and incorporated the styles of many musicians across
the spectrum. Later on, his permeability with his younger musicians allowed them the freedom to
explore their own self and craft within a place that allow risk. As iron sharpens iron, the
collaborative nature of the community shapes who we are and we incorporate these lives into our
being. For Tillich, the centered self actualizes itself in the moral act because of the awareness of
its own limits of finitude and partiality by the limiting presence of ‘others’ in its world. 117
Realizing our own limitations is then awareness and acknowledgement of the influence of others
in forming who we are also.
The hyper-individualistic emphasis of our U.S. culture often obscures or ignores this fact.
It is a cleaner narrative if there is a focal point to concentrate on. In our current climate of
V.U.C.A.118, singularity is desired. The yearning for a hero to take on our existential anxiety and
conquer a chaotic universe by themselves inspires us. But in a Jazz ensemble, the interaction
between the musicians and the audience is key. Foundational is the ability to listen. Duke
Ellington once said that even a sigh from the audience became part of the music. 119 Music and
flow state within a community are co-creations of meaning. Shared contributions and leadership
117 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 38, 41.

118 Volatility, Unpredictability, Complexity, Ambiguity
119 Hentoff, Nate. “The Duke, Before My Time.” The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2011.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703791904576076282468283342
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in the album A Love Supreme exemplify a co-creation of meaning where collective self-
consciousness is lost so deep listening and engagement may occur instantaneously with one
another. What goals the Spiritual community pursues must be a co-created aspiration of the
community, its leadership, its theology, and all avenues of its revelation as Jazz.
Multiple Belonging that Evolves: Latency to be Nurtured, Mentored: If a courage of
multiplicity, as exemplified by Coltrane even before his awakening, is part of a searching self-
transcendence, then the nurturing and mentoring before and after revelation is essential. Before
his revelatory event, the community of his family, the tradition and conservatory of Jazz, and
Naima’s Islamic faith and exploration brought Coltrane into contact with new sources that added
depth and dimensionality to his life and his expression of it amid the threat of nonbeing. After his
revelation, the guidance of Monk, Hindu and Buddhist practices, New Age metaphysical authors,
and other experimentations with younger musicians helped ground his awakening into
actualization. This possibly gave shape to what he experienced in Ultimate Flow and how then
he would live it out.
The Spiritual Formation of an Absolute Faith for Seminarians

Like Habito, Coltrane’s narrative of the spiritual formation of an absolute faith can
inform the formation of seminary students. Identity, existential anxiety, the spiritual practice of
flow, and revelation are foundational to this path. The cultivation of the initial qualities of
yearning for self-transcendence, deep humility and unvarnished authenticity in his relationship
with others and his art is needed to build an initial courage of multiplicity.
For a United student, embodied practices with the goal of reaching flow would need to
delve into the sensuality and emotionality towards the end of union with God (rather than an end
to themselves). United has valued the construction of embodied theologies, but this time and
context may lead us toward other aspects of this integrated within academic study and cognitive
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thought. Structuring intentional practices to do this in small and well-defined arenas and
activities (such as within chapel, community offerings, and communal relationships) would be
essential in order to strengthen and complexify a student’s ‘self’ so as to integrate and risk even
more throughout seminary. The embodied cataphatic experience of practicing this is a precursor
for experiencing this in revelation. Distinguishing flow from overexcitement, self-abnegation,
and addiction would also be needed here. Tillich’s categories of estrangement (unbelief, hubris,
and concupiscence) would be helpful guardrails for assessing revelation as well. Tillich’s
concept of sanctification (increased awareness, freedom, and relatedness) and Buddhism’s
mujodo no tagien would ground this experience into a lived reality and vitality.
Yet, Coltrane’s narrative also asks deeper questions of the seminary as ‘conservatory of
the community’ in its ability to nurture the spiritual formation of a courage -to-be. Can we
develop deep listening and deep intimacy? As a seminary that is steeped in a tradition that prizes
critical analysis and prophetic action, have we helped form student’s capacities for receiving
knowledge to manifest as deep listening and prophetic discernment? Have we assisted them in
forming intimate bonds that undergird trust and even bolder action from grounded relationship?
Our role as faculty and staff in mentoring the spiritual formation of our students is this
grounding work. Many of our students now come with multivariant background and quests that
do not fit a traditional path of a mainline Christian formational path. Guiding them in confronting
of ambiguity and anxiety as a spiritual practice seems fundamental to a seminary’s calling in
forming leaders. But the utilization of the seminary community of peers to do this practice with
each other would need to develop. Relatively, we are all in a place of latency in our religious
quests, including professors and staff. Modeling the relationship of the self to the world
interpenetrated by a Supreme Love is essential for its actualization. How are professors and staff
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cultivating their own spiritual formation in this regard and for their mentorship? By themselves
or intentionally with others in the community? Coltrane’s expression of his purpose conveys the
depth we all strive for and can mentor others toward in each of our callings, regardless of the
medium.
Once you become aware of this force for unity in life, you can’t
forget it. It becomes part of everything you do… My goal in
meditating on this through music however remains… to uplift
people as much as I can. To inspire them to realize more and more
their capacities for living meaningful lives. Because there certainly
is meaning to life120
120 Devito, 263. Liner notes to the album Meditations.
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C H A P T E R 5 : C O N C L U S I O N
Summary
Habito’s Narrative and Tillich’s Courage-to-Be
Within Habito’s narrative, the spiritual practices of zazen, koan work, and the dokusan
interact with the self and identity in engaging the unity of the power of being and meaning.
Buddhism’s concept of the clinging self as the root of suffering leads these spiritual practices to
empty the ego of any pseudo-structures of affirmation, which can be likened to a metaphorical
death of self. However, the spiritual practices build courage by continuing to practice the
emptiness of all form. Kensho is the culmination of this practice as the revelation of the original
buddha-nature of all things beyond the emptiness of all forms. This revelation leads to a courage-
to-be in taking existential anxiety upon oneself as affirmation and clarity from the seeing one’s
original nature. This courage is exemplified in Habito’s vitality in risking this affirmation as
growth and creativity beyond oneself in his social activism and his personal relationships.
Contrasting Tillich’s assumption, Habito’s revelation with contemplation and personal growth
lead one to actively engage the social dimension and embrace the world, including its injustice
and suffering, and not just the individual. Habito’s iteration of absolute faith is comprised of two
traditions which interpenetrate and complement each other but do not mutate into a singularity.
Habito’s source of spiritual formation evolved from God as grandfather to original
Buddha-nature of all things. His earliest norm was Jesus as God. Zen’s norm is Buddha but not
the person of Buddha as intermediary. This norm includes the four noble truths and eight-fold
path. His medium was originally the Holy Spirit but his kensho experience realizes original
nature is also the medium as it permeates all of life, similar to Tillich’s Spiritual Presence. The
spiritual practices were originally the Catholic Church’s seven sacraments and Ignatian
exercises. These helped prepare him for the Buddhist practices of zazen, koans, and the dokusan,
which address the concept of the ‘self.’ The spiritual community is the Catholic Church and the
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sangha. Characteristics of Habito’s initial spiritual formation of courage include a yearning
curiosity for self-transcendence, a patient focus and commitment to the task at hand, and an agile
adaptability to allow for the evolution of his source, norm, and medium to occur from
experience.
From Habito’s revelation, we can glean aspects of the spiritual formation of absolute faith
to either preparing for or deepening the revelatory event. These include: (1) an incarnationally
apophatic experience where God is an experience before it can be a word or concept; (2) a
multiple belonging between two paths with perichoresis – where both are distinct but draw out
nuances and depth from each other; and (3) a (symbolic) ‘self’ in relation to the world as the
heart of all spiritual formation which needs to be experienced, reflected on, and risked.
Coltrane’s Narrative and Tillich’s Courage-to-Be

Within Coltrane’s narrative, the spiritual practice of Jazz as mastery of instrument and
tradition, communal resistance to dehumanizing forces, improvisation as faith and flow, and
transcendence and liberation were the focus of unifying the power of being and meaning. The
foundation of this practice is improvisation as flow state, which is the concept of mastering one’s
consciousness in meeting the challenge of a present task. Flow frees us from an overly attentive
and restrictive self-consciousness in the moment. It then complexifies and subsequently
strengthens the self as fulfillment and joy. Both factors make the present moment meaningful as
the external world and our consciousness are aligned. The spiritual practice of improvisation as
flow state builds initial courage by creating permeability between the self and world, risking
engagement of both without losing either. We possess ourselves by strengthening the self only to
risk it again by the next level of challenges in attaining flow. It is a microcosm of the union
between the subject-object split and is preparation for revelation. Coltrane’s revelation as
Ultimate Flow state culminated from this practice and the threat of nonbeing from withdrawal
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symptoms. Ultimate Flow as revelation is union with the Ultimate as the source of being and the
top of the hierarchy of intentions/goals from which all paths come and return. The content of this
revelation was with a transpersonal God that brought healing to him amid these threats.
Revelation led to a courage-to-be in taking existential anxiety upon himself as affirmation of his
being and was expressed in his purpose of uplifting others and pointing to this source of
revelation and being through his music. This courage is exemplified in Coltrane’s vitality in
risking this affirmation as continued growth and creativity beyond himself by multiple sources of
expression apart from commercial success or public approval.
Coltrane’s art aligns with Tillich’s theonomy - where form reaches for its transcendent
source while demonstrating transformation by it. Tillich’s conception of art was limited to visual
representations of predominantly western, white males. Coltrane’s social location and the
medium of his art open up the possibility of an integration of multiple streams of consciousness
apart from the dominant narrative. This aspect of multiple belonging and its integration also
invites other modalities of practice, which include the body with flow state. A courage of
multiplicity, as the reception and integration of these diverse experiences, along with its
subsequent vitality within Coltrane’s narrative, point to aspects of an absolute faith. Coltrane’s
now unnamable God, which connected him to all of creation, also compels him to use art as a
means of liberation and transformation. Coltrane’s iteration of an absolute faith is more
syncretistic than Habito’s path.
Coltrane’s source of initial spiritual formation was originally God as father as conceived
in the AME church. This evolved into God as Universal Love and Truth. His norm was
originally Jesus as the Son of God but that conception expanded to include other religions and
means by the righteous path in living and manifesting truth through his horn and his life. The
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medium began as the Holy Ghost but became the Truth as Universal Love that undergirds all
actions. His spiritual practices were initially the Black Church, its message, and its music. Jazz
improvisation became his main form of spiritual practice. The four symbolic and performative
aspects of Jazz described above unified being and meaning through this practice. Characteristics
of Coltrane’s initial spiritual formation of courage include a deep humility and unvarnished
authenticity in his relationship with others, a drive for self-transcendence that may have stemmed
from an escape from nonbeing, and the requirements, room, and relationships needed to risk, fail,
learn, succeed, and risk again for flow to occur.
From his revelation, we can glean aspects of the spiritual formation of absolute faith to
either prepare for or deepen the revelatory event. These include: (1) an embodied, cataphatic
experience; (2) flow’s risking and losing ‘self’ in relation to the ground of being as presence; (3)
co-creation applied to one’s relationship with the world as deep listening and deep intimacy; and
(4) a multiple belonging that evolves as latency, which can to be nurtured and mentored into
actuality.
Seminary Education and Formation of Students

This project is an initial theological construction for ministry as the spiritual formation of
existential courage for United Theological Seminary and its students. The discoveries from these
narratives with Tillich’s philosophical framework of existence, anxiety, revelation, and absolute
faith has provided the initial foundation for this paradigm. Complete implementation from these
findings into the formation program at United will evolve in my time as director. Though I am
new to this role, it seems clear there are impactful recommendations and guidelines which I will
illustrate in the following sections. From the conversation of these two narratives with Tillich’s
theology of existential anxiety, revelation and the courage-to-be, the nurturing of the initial
spiritual formation of courage is essential. The qualities of yearning for self-transcendence, the
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ability to be patient and committed to the task at hand, agility and adaptability, humility and
unvarnished authenticity in relationship with others, and the resources needed to risk one’s self
over and over would need to be identified and further nurtured in the spiritual formation of
seminary students.
The second aspect of the spiritual formation of the courage-to-be would be the invitation
to the possibility of revelation summarized from these two narratives and applied to the seminary
experience by: (1) cultivating either an incarnationally apophatic or an embodied, cataphatic
experience where God must be an experience before it can be a word or concept; (2) engaging a
symbolic ‘self’ in relation to the world as the heart of all spiritual formation which needs to be
experienced, reflected on, and risked; (3) creating opportunities for flow’s risking and losing
‘self’ in relation to the ground of being as presence; (4) co-creation applied to one’s relationship
with the world as deep listening and deep intimacy; and (5) supporting a latent multiple
belonging with perichoresis between traditions where the streams of belonging are distinct but
complement each other as they draw out nuances and depth.
The goal of these proceeding suggestions for the formation program at United is not to
produce a revelatory experience. However, the purpose is to place revelation and its subsequent
courage as a fundamental experience within a student’s lifelong spiritual formation. If they have
already experienced an event such as this, then seminary formation will focus on grounding this
experience deeper into their lives and within their spiritual leadership. If they have not had this
experience yet, the focus will be deepening their practices to journey closer to this possibility and
to begin to define parameters of what this might be for themselves and the people they will work
with. Before elaborating on these possibilities, there needs to be an exploration of the traditional
role of seminaries, the type of student at United, and the current climate of existential anxiety.
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Traditional Role of Seminaries
Seminaries are tasked with educating and preparing students for service to the world
either as ordained clergy or in some other leadership capacity, generally from a religious or
spiritual perspective. Historically, this was preparation for ordination as a pastor, priest, chaplain,
or leader in the Christian church by the definition of ministry. Training usually included a
grounding in scripture, theology, ecclesiology, polity, evangelism, and liturgy. The vocational
direction towards ordination or ministry reflected the purpose of the church, and thus seminaries,
in equipping its leaders to go out and baptize all nations in the name of Christ in all contexts.
The span of spiritual formation within the traditional Christian church also discloses the
role of the seminary in that formation. The local church plays the initial vital role in the spiritual
formation and affirmation of vocational call for an individual growing up in the community. The
participation in the liturgy, governance, and fellowship of the church help form the identity of its
congregants. This earlier formation continually impacts their interpretive viewpoint of life from
this theological lens when they enter seminary. The interaction of this ‘self’ and ‘world’ are
intermingled and reinforce one another. A student’s religious identity is then naturally drawn
upon and deepened further when studying theological endeavors. This process aids in re-
interpretation of these past events and the depth therein, but also builds generativity and
confidence for further ministry contexts.
United Theological Seminary and Our Students.

Our context is changing rapidly with many denominations declining, many local churches
closing, and some seminaries already following suit. The existential anxiety of nonbeing is
present for these institutions as well. United Theological Seminary began in 1962 as a merger
between two seminaries of different denominational backgrounds, the Evangelical and Reformed
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Church and the Congregational Christian Church. 1 It is a United Church of Christ graduate
school that is now founded on the principles of ecumenism, social justice, the arts, and
interreligious engagement within a theological education that fosters the intellectual, spiritual
and personal growth of spiritual leaders. Like many seminaries, United has had to reflect on and
discern its purpose in light of these societal shifts. We are adapting to the needs of new students
by offering degree programs that reflect a broadening of the vocational destinations they seek
after graduation. In addition to the traditional church leadership tracks, United’s degree offerings
(M.Div., M.A., M.A.L., and D.Min.) include concentrations in social transformation, theology
and the arts, and interreligious chaplaincy within each degree. As congregational ministry
continues to decline, the vocational destination of a United graduate is becoming increasingly
diverse and ambiguous.
Seminary Students in the past usually arrived with some common background in faith
formation that would shape their time and energy in seminary in preparation for a vocational
destination. However, what we are finding is that many of the students that come to seminary
now do not fit these norms. Many of our degree concentrations are attracting students with
atypical formational backgrounds. A significant number have come from non-Christian traditions
and this number is predicted to grow. For many of our new students, the communal experience of
spiritual and personal formation has not happened in a church or spiritual community context at
all. Different spiritual practices may be incorporated within their past experience but without a
deeper community relationship to hone their sense of self or belonging to a non-Christian
tradition. Some are arriving with the desire for self-transcendence but without a usual
formational history to give shape to what this might look like or what awaits them on the other
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Theological_Seminary_of_the_Twin_Cities
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side of union with God or transcendent reality. The tension that this places on the communal
spiritual life of an increasingly pluralistic seminary is evident. In a typical seminary, the
symbolic source, norm, medium, spiritual practices, and community of spiritual formation are
homogenously Christian and, often identified with the school’s denominational affiliation.
Challenges to Spiritual Formation in the Seminary

Lack of Practice in Pluralistic, Community Formation: In the beginning of my time at
United, there was some sensitivity and anger towards any traditional Christian expression in the
school. There were many people who attended UTS from the Unitarian Universalist tradition and
others who had been wounded by the church and expressed open hostility toward any symbols or
expressions deemed too close to a more rigid, traditional Christian theology. The seminary was a
hub for LGBTQ and feminist theology in the past, which shaped the ethos of United as one of
radical inclusion. The legacy of this prophetic tradition also attracted those that had been
marginalized by fundamentalist hermeneutics. However, inclusion could mean redacting one’s
particularity or tradition if it approached particular lines of offense. Honest dialogue, where
disagreement is welcomed and shared, where community is deepened rather than broken from
the exchange, and where respectful dissonance can strengthen perspective as well as relationship
with the distinct ‘other,’ happened occasionally. Often students would experience public
shaming for offering anything beyond the communal norm. Many felt certain aspects of
themselves were not welcome, even as a question or concern to be explored in aiding formation.
This atmosphere is changing but the complexity of our community continues to grow.
Besides Unitarian Universalist students, we now have Buddhist, Muslim, Bahaí, Pagan,
Humanist, and agnostic students. The potential for either conflict or incredible depth is
exponential. Tillich’s description of the centered ‘self’ is helpful here. He states that a centered
self is actualized in the moral act of community because of the awareness of its own limits and
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partiality by the limiting presence of ‘others’ in its world. The potential of a pluralistic
community can potentially help check our theological and epistemological assumptions. This is
vitally important for spiritual formation – both individually and communally.
A Seminary Steeped in Discursive, Cataphatic, Dualistic Thought: Seminary pedagogy
tends to accent the cognitive, discursive aspects of formation and the cataphatic aspects of
religious traditions. Accreditation standards, classroom assessment, Christian theology and
thought, and our Protestant emphasis on the Word of God, demonstrate and drive this. The
imbalance toward this side leaves little room for apophatic experience or understanding. If it is
not quantifiable, it often seems of little value. If we are preparing future leaders, is a cataphatic
and cognitive-heavy orientation the only or the best way? Often, a discursive-heavy theoretical
emphasis is antithetical to awareness of one’s body, this moment, and attending to what is most
pressing now rather than fixating on what has happened in the past or anticipating future
challenges and danger. Does a cognitive-heavy approach prepare us for the dark night of the
soul? Does it prepare us when others in our care are experiencing it?
In addition to this emphasis on rational orientation, there is a Cartesian dualism of the
mind and body. Rationality holds a separation between subject and object. The object is to be
analyzed at a distance in order to grasp it and shape it by one’s controlling knowledge. The body
as object, and separate from Descartes’ being as thinking, is either a hindrance or an object to be
controlled. The lack of unity between body and mind and the enthronement of reason can distort
one’s experience and interpretation of reality and thus the experience of revelation or union.
From the viewpoint of traditional Christian personalism, the only concrete material that is then
redeemed by grace is our brain. Conversely, an over-glorification of the body can mask places
where shame and trauma have distorted the perception of our bodies. Healing and integration of
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the body in line with the rest of the dimensions of being is the greatest need here. In either case,
the over-emphasis of the mind in our pedagogical context reduces God to merely a concept or
object to be handled and shaped for our own desire. The implication is that the rest of our being
is excluded.
Commodification and Scarcity of Time and Resources for Integration, Synthesis: More of
our students are feeling the effects of a lack of resources – financially, relationally, and
chronologically. Most of our students are commuters who work in addition to going to school.
They are often in many locations within a single day, which divides and compartmentalizes their
attention/psychic energy. Their intention is receiving their degree in as short a time as possible
with as little financial stress as needed. They are not always on campus and find it difficult to
make time to attend communal events. Between the demand of papers, readings, and
assignments, there is nothing left to put towards the idea of spiritual practice and community or it
is pushed further down the hierarchy of intentions. The intensity and pace of these tensions
demands compartmentalization of one’s learning to set times in set ways. The space, time, and
freedom to reflect, discern, integrate, and actualize vitality with self-awareness must wait until
after seminary is over or it must be hurriedly lived in the cracks between other demands. In
addition to these factors is the condition of a hyper-individualistic, market driven, pick-and-
choose, and relativistic approach to spiritual practices without regard to the traditions or their
cultures and communities. Depth is sacrificed for immediate impact and quick insight. These
aspects can heighten the formation tensions of a student in a four-year seminary education.
The Spiritual Formation of a Courage-to-Be for United

Theological Seminary
Spiritual Formation at UTS Currently
United has begun to address spiritual formation from within the context of our pluralistic
community. These endeavors already contain facets of a formation of a courage-to-be. Chapel
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has become an intentionally diverse expression of the different traditions represented. Here, the
invitation is to engage “in the ritual and choices made in constructing the gathering that stems
from a deep, authentic yearning to engage with the holy and what it means to be human” and
where the “resonance and dissonance of other traditions may assist us in reflecting on our own
journey.”2
The vocational and spiritual formation program at UTS has six key qualities for personal
and spiritual formation that shape the trajectory of the student experience: authentic
spirituality, differentiation of self, moral imagination, emotional intelligence, humility, and
generativity (working for the common good as the beloved community). The six key qualities
are the foundational aspects of a course taught to first year students: Introduction to Spiritual and
Personal Formation (EL250).
This course is rooted in a vision of formation as the central work

necessary to realize social transformation. As such, students will
engage with varied intercultural and developmental models related
to personal growth and social action. The intersection between the
inward journey and the outward journey of faith, life, and
leadership will be explored. 3
This course centers each week on its reflection on one’s identity and the formation of a
self within each of these six key qualities both inwardly and in relation to the world. Their call to
seminary, how these revealed aspects impact the way they relate to the world, and the effect this
understanding has on the vocational direction they are headed towards are explored in this
course. It is an intentional exercise of self-awareness and the initial examination of Tillich’s
ontological polarity of individualization-participation.
2 Excerpt from UTS chapel bulletin invitation.

3 Syllabus EL250
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Along with my role as the Director of Formation, the Director of Spiritual and Vocational
Development (DSVD) provides another mentoring relationship in the student’s formation.
Students are required to write a spiritual autobiography that is discussed with the director. Each
year, both directors meet with students to go over their Individualized Development Plan based
on this spiritual autobiography, psychological evaluations, the Intercultural Development
Inventory, what was learned in EL250, and recommendations from faculty and staff who engage
the student’s academic career. The lens of the six key qualities are used as an evaluative tool for
these conversations and plans. During internship, the DVSD meets with students at their site to
discuss their vocational goals and spiritual life during this crucial experience. The mentor role of
a Yamada Roshi or a Thelonious Monk to Habito and Coltrane, respectively, is vital in the
honing of one’s spiritual formation.
Many of the current practices fulfill aspects of the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be.
The potential impact of these on communal intimacy, identity, and inclusion could be profound
as more and more of our students are commuters (and may have a diminished experience of
community). The seminary is not a church. But our findings lead us to believe that we must
address and solidify some functions of communal life and support for formation.
Suggestions for Spiritual Formation for Nurturing Initial Courage

All of these current practices are instrumental for the spiritual formation of a courage-to-
be in the exploration of the self in relation to the world, the embodied practice of building trust
and acceptance as a community, and the establishment of mentor relationships. Yet, the
challenges mentioned earlier for our students and seminary community create the need to address
these differently as well. The discursive, rational nature of seminary dialogue, the scarcity of
time and resources, and the market-driven commodification of spirituality paints the picture of a
hurried and compartmentalized existence within the seminary and life in general. Conversely, the
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space, time, and expectation for integration of other aspects of life for the spiritual formation of
the courage-to-be is needed. What follows are other suggestions to help address these issues
gleaned from the narratives of Habito and Coltrane in the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be.
The Initial Characteristics of the Spiritual Formation of Courage: Identifying and
nurturing initial characteristics of courage would be the first step. Habito demonstrated the initial
characteristics of yearning and curiosity for self-transcendence, a focus and commitment to the
task at hand, and an agility and adaptability to uncertain contexts. Coltrane also demonstrated an
initial drive for self-transcendence along with a deep humility and unvarnished authenticity in his
relationship with others. The characteristics parallel the six key qualities of United in many
ways. Before even coming to seminary, these characteristics would be desirable and could
possibly correlate to success within the academic and formational curriculum of the seminary.
This would relate to Tillich’s possessing oneself and one’s world in order to risk and lose both in
becoming transparent to the source of our life as God. As such, using the six key qualities for
admissions criteria would be a distinct possibility for those entering United. This suggestion is
not just for academic success. These same qualities must be continually honed in personal and
spiritual formation during and after seminary and in preparation for revelation. Yet revelation as
a central part of one’s religious and spiritual practice is not part of conversation in any of these
areas. Here are some suggestions for United in preparation for receiving students and to nurture
their initial characteristics of courage:
• Admissions could use the six key qualities to initially evaluate students for readiness and
challenge of seminary and the spiritual formation of courage. The initial qualities of self-
transcendence, focus and commitment, agility and adaptability, humility, and
unvarnished authenticity in relationship would be key indicators within this process.
• Place the spiritual autobiography as an artifact before entering seminary as an evaluative

tool (along with psychological assessments and the IDI) in order to determine these initial
qualities and to determine if a revelatory event has already occurred. The mentorship for
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students who have already experienced this may look different from those who have not
or are unfamiliar with the concept of revelation. Currently, the prompts only mention
writing on a high or low point. As explained earlier, a revelatory moment may not be
either a high or low point but a clarifying and possibly terrifying experience. Adapting
the spiritual autobiography to begin prompting either the recording of a past revelatory
event or begin reflecting on its future possibility is necessary for the spiritual formation
of courage. The spiritual autobiography may also be examined for current or past threats
of nonbeing in terms of identity, social location, and potential in the development of their
individual plans for personal, spiritual, and vocational formation. Tillich’s description of
sanctification is also helpful here in evaluating students for seminary: increasing
awareness, increasing freedom, and increasing relatedness, all of which are predicated
on self-transcendence as growth in devotion to and participation in the holy.
• Conversely, the implications of Tillich’s explanation of conflict between n ontological

poles and the marks of estrangement (unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence/restlessness)
would seem to be contrary to these qualities. These could be useful to gauge one’s
spiritual formation as to the degree of conflict, hubris and concupiscence one is
experiencing. Students that exhibit high degrees of self-absorption, breakdown in the
self-integration/-creation/-transcendence process, or defiance in the face of diversity and
difference may find it difficult within the academic life of United and a deeper dive into
existential anxiety and revelation. The degree of conflict or distortion within the
ontological poles (autonomy vs. heteronomy, relativism vs. absolutism, emotionalism vs.
formalism) lends a framework for assessing a student’s spiritual formation as well. One
who does not possess themselves and their world may not be ready to handle revelation
and this type of courage. In some situations, seminary may not be the appropriate place
for a person’s spiritual quest. There may be outside religious and spiritual organizations
as well as spiritual formation and psychological help that may be more appropriate for
people’s quest who fall into these areas as exhibited in psychological assessments, the
IDI, and personal references. United is focused on also training leaders for many of these
organizations to help form others who may come to them in their quest for union with
God.
• Identifying the source, norm, and medium of a student’s spiritual formation as they enter
seminary. We could then track their development over the course of their study to
understand how their theology and spiritual practice evolve over this time. This would be
recorded and discussed during their Individual Development Plan with the directors of
formation and spiritual and vocational development.
Nurturing Culture and Community Within the Seminary: There is a compartmentalization
of spiritual formation, in general, within the structure of United and possibly many seminaries.
This task is usually confined to the chapel, public events, the beginning and ending of meetings
as prayer, and certain informal conversations between students. The practice, integration, and
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awareness of spirituality is often not the common language of an organization that places this on
the edges of its mission and which emphasizes linear and dualistic categories and goals. The
following possibilities are not offered in order to make us a less linear nor a non-dualistic
organization. Instead, the capacity to become aware of the depth and unity of our work is the
foundation of what we do and the intent that these are offered. What is the embodied spiritual
formation of our professors? Our staff? What is their spiritual autobiography and do we know
each other’s story? Is there space, time, and permission to stop and reflect on these important
aspects that undergird and propel our work together? Do we value this or simply try and fit it into
the cracks of all the tasks we must take on for survival? The spiritual community that mediates
the myths and symbols exhibit Tillich’s marks and impact of the Spiritual presence: faith (as
grasped by ultimate concern from union with the ground of being); love (from the New Being as
agapé - love that seeks the other because of the ultimate unity of being of the other is also being
within the divine ground); unity with all which derives from faith; and universality from the
agapé and eros of love.4 Cultivating this quality within the community gathered is essential for
the spiritual formation of our students as well. Curating space for us to practice initial union and
courage building with another is the intention:
• Shared leadership of prayers, intentions and practices before meetings with staff, faculty,
and leadership.
• Shared leadership of chapel between students, staff, and faculty. Currently, many of our
staff are isolated from student interaction.
• Closed offices for chapel so that this is a shared communal act.
• Purposeful retreats for faculty, staff, and students focused solely on community building
and building shared trust and narrative with one another.
• Self-guided plans of intentional spiritual and personal formation for faculty and staff.
• Audit of the number of tasks we are taking on and space for integration and reflection of
changes and experiences we are undergoing.
4 Ibid., 155-156.
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Suggestions Around Spiritual Formation, Identity, Revelation and the Courage-to-Be
The following suggestions pertain to the spiritual formation of an absolute faith
that includes and transcends a personal and mystical orientation towards God as exemplified in
both narratives. This would include the findings from both narratives: (1) Cultivating either an
incarnationally apophatic or an embodied, cataphatic experience where God must be an
experience before it can be a word or concept; (2) Engaging a symbolic ‘self’ in relation to the
world as the heart of all spiritual formation which needs to be experienced, reflected on, and
risked; (3) Creating opportunities for flow’s risking and losing ‘self’ in relation to the ground of
being as presence; (4) Enabling co-creation as applied to one’s relationship with the world as
deep listening and deep intimacy; and (5) Supporting a latent, multiple-belonging with
perichoresis between traditions where the streams of belonging are distinct but complement each
other as they draw out nuances and depth.
The goal of the formation program is not necessarily to produce revelation, which would
be hubris. However, either the preparation for this event (by our spiritual practices) or the
deepening of it as an event that already occurred is within the responsibility of formation. We
have designed the academic trajectory of formation for our M.Div. students. EL250 is followed
by the EL200 (Leadership and Strategies for Social Transformation) in the second year. CL200
(Leadership in Religious and Non-Profit Contexts) coincides with the third-year contextual
placement. The final year is the course CL301 (Capstone seminar). We are currently working on
integrating some or all of the six key qualities into these classes in order to form and measure
progress developmentally in formation. However, what is apparent is that these classes are only
vocationally focused in terms of formation. What is missing is the practice in exploring
existential identity, the threat of nonbeing, spiritual practices that build initial courage, and the
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academic and experiential aspects of revelation. The following are possible opportunities in
developing these areas through spiritual practices:
Delving into Identity and Community: Habito’s narrative and question of ‘Who am I?” is
a deep inquiry that underlies existential anxiety and courage. Engaging a symbolic self with the
world needs to be experienced, reflected on, and risked, which is vital to this endeavor. In line
with this goal and through a grant, the work that students do in small groups in EL250 class was
extended in another spiritual formation class – How Our Stories Shape Our Leadership (CL455).
Here, students begin to look at the construction of their narrative identity with one another in
smaller groups in a narrative circle process based on group spiritual direction and taught by a
trained spiritual director. Each week this process entails a student narrator first offering a
descriptive response to a narrative prompt about their life regarding an event of challenge,
difficulty, or depth in a small group of 3-4 peers. Each peer then offers a contemplative, selfless,
open-ended question for the narrator to use to deepen their reflection on their own story. From
this, the original narrator responds to his or her own narrative in light of these offerings. This
course has just completed its first trial in the spring of 2018 and the responses from the
participants have been surprising. What was learned in these groups was a way for them to be in
relationship with one another beyond talking about discursive theory. By listening intently and
offering a reflective, selfless question for the narrator to go deeper into their own narrative,
students developed another level of intimacy in their own sense of self and in community with
one another. The practice of being heard and belonging to one another seems foundational to this
process, which allow greater risk between one another.
There has been a significant transformative event with the students who took EL250
before CL455. These students reported experiencing an integrative pathway for their seminary
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career. They now have tools and a process that they practiced in class to use in future vocational
contexts to facilitate and develop an intimacy with others that is invaluable for communal
belonging and identity. The majority of the first students in CL455 express hope that this process
would be what all United students experience in the future. Many students from this course plan
to continue to meet with one another in narrative circles after the class is over. The act of
intimately sharing one’s narrative identity (or symbolic identity) to listeners who respond with
selfless questions is the fundamental building block of Jazz improvisation and group flow.
The narrative process in CL455, paired with the self-exploration of EL250, assists in the
process of beginning a theological reflective practice. They ground communal spiritual and
personal formation through trusting relationships and provides a process and tools for students to
engage deeper conversations in their future leadership and vocational contexts. These courses
assist in remediating the discrepancy between students who have, versus who have not been
nurtured in a religious tradition and community in their formation. Experience here helps
integrate discursive theory. How we fit this class into an already tight curriculum will need
further exploration.
Experiencing and Practicing Receiving Knowledge: Revelation is where one’s
controlling knowledge, as grasping and shaping reality, reaches its limit and the shock of
nonbeing as our finitude is encountered in the negative side of mystery as the abyss. Controlling
knowledge is put out of action. Receiving knowledge, as being grasped and shaped, is placed as
principal in order to receive the positive side of the mystery as the ground of being, embodied as
astonishment. One’s receiving side is not just cognitive but bodily as shown in the ecstatic and
miracle/sign-event of the revelation of mystery. Preparation for revelation would be the
exercising of the cognitive and bodily aspect of receiving knowledge; to be grasped and shaped
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by reality requires the attention (psychic energy) and intention (goal) of consciousness. Bodily
and cognitive awareness of the depth of each moment in order to receive all of what is occurring
would be exercising receiving knowledge over controlling knowledge. Self-consciousness would
dissipate attention from receiving what is present. Attention on potential threats to the self would
activate controlling knowledge to prepare for grasping and shaping a response to keep the self
safe. Selflessness frees up energy as attention in serving the intention of awe and depth without
labels, control, or other ulterior competing goals.
Habito and Coltrane’s characteristics that aided in the preparation for revelation display a
disposition for placing the self aside and activating receiving knowledge over controlling
knowledge. The prerequisites needed to risk, fail and learn in flow either in zazen or in Jazz
performance speak of the need to focus, the space and time to explore and integrate, and a trust
and acceptance of belonging in relationships that could not be taken away.
Anything that cultivates receiving knowledge to lead ahead of controlling knowledge is
preparation. This would include any activity where selflessness or risking a secured belonging of
self in focused action occurs. Creating the possibilities for receiving knowledge to be primary
and for flow to occur and be experienced is what is suggested. This would then aid in the
strengthening and complexifying of the self for everything including academic tasks. Here are
possible opportunities for students to practice utilizing their receiving knowledge:
• Participation in meditation with Buddhist or other experienced leaders who have

experienced revelation to help bring one to the present moment with receiving knowledge
leading and the ‘self’ quieted.5
• Activities such as Lectio Divina, the Examen, centering prayer, and the Metta prayer all
serve as ways to practice receiving knowledge as selfless engagement.
5 Mindfulness meditation is different than zazen. Both focus on the breath but mindfulness is on the present and attending to what
is happening now while noticing the experience. There still exists a duality between mind and body. While also focusing on
breath, zazen is emptying any differentiation between mind and body and reality. There is a wholeness in experiencing ‘zero
point’ where there is no subject-object split. This is experienced nonduality.
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• Active reflection with the six key qualities in EL250 as self-awareness with other
student’s feedback engages a moral act as the limitation of the self in proximity to the
other.
• The narrative circle process in CL455 is where selfless listening is vital in order to offer a
question back to the narrator that will open up their engagement with their own identity.
It is in this process that the experience of intimacy of relationship with the other in a
moral act guided by compassion also assists in creating a community.
• Immersion experiences in other communities and religious traditions (either here or
abroad);
• A sustained relationship with another religious community over mutual interests and
exchange;
• Experiencing nature with a community like the boundary waters of northern Minnesota
from a spiritual perspective or with other disciplines such as the sciences.
• Buddhist and Christian mystic death meditations draw on receiving knowledge also.
Cultivating nonattachment to protecting the self by allowing receiving knowledge to
become primary, yearning for self-transcendence as the perception of the depth of existence, and
nurturing relationships that center self-awareness in conjunction with others as a moral act are all
preparations for revelation. These correspond respectively to mental discipline, wisdom, and
moral relationship. Tillich’s sanctification seen as preparation parallels increased freedom of
attention as psychic energy into receiving knowledge, increased awareness as wisdom and seeing
the depth of things as they are, and increased relatedness in the moral act as the centering of self
in relation to others. Any place in the seminary we can make space for this with self-awareness is
relevant and fundamental to the formation of courage.
Awareness of The Threat of Nonbeing Pertaining to Revelation: Engaging a symbolic self
also entails awareness of our existential anxiety, which is an aspect of spiritual formation and the
foundation of the courage-to-be. The threat of nonbeing as existential anxiety can be found
everywhere; even within every object of fear. Awareness of this ‘nothingness’ pervading every
aspect of existence allows for being to dynamically affirm itself as courage. Psychological health
and grounded relationships would assist in the preparation for this awareness as well as the
possibility of revelation to happen. Those with a history of mental illness where nonbeing
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exacerbates mental health would need other modalities such as therapy or psychological
counseling in conjunction with the seminary experience in order to ground trust and belonging
further as spiritual formation continues. Before one can risk and lose oneself, one must possess
and belong to oneself and one’s world. For those individuals and communities who have been
systematically denied a self and the power of self-determination (as with Coltrane), exploring the
cultural and religious means of reclaiming this power is vital. Academic offerings in addition to
partnerships with outside groups (i.e., Penumbra, Hmong Cultural Center, etc.) that continue
these practices with an awareness of nonbeing is congruent toward the spiritual formation of
courage. Understanding what is experienced during existential anxiety would be the beginning of
taking it into oneself as courage. Each aspect as awareness of nonbeing contains the threat to self
and world.
• The described revelatory narratives of Habito and Coltrane can be utilized either as
preparation for revelation or the grounding of it as a mujodo no tagien and sanctification.
• An intentional awareness of what is being experienced both bodily and cognitively would
be the beginning step. EL250 initiates this awareness by turning toward the experience of
reading provocative texts that confront students with differing viewpoints that begin to
shake certainty of one’s own.
• From here, safe relationships with advisors, mentors, spiritual directors, chaplains, and
classmates may help to hold safe places for delving into these vulnerable or
uncomfortable spaces and beginning to take nonbeing into oneself.
• In these relationships, existential anxiety within the academic aspect of seminary may
also be used as point of reflection for nonbeing.
• CL455 is also an invitation to become aware of the threat of nonbeing by walking into
these previous ‘deaths’ or loss of potential that have been painful episodes shared with
peers.
• Opportunities for psychological counseling or therapy would also be considered an
invitation of this awareness as well as a way to continue possessing oneself.
• Introducing students to different ministry or vocational contexts where they may be out
of their comfort zone could also be used. Providing spaces to reflect and become aware of
the experience holistically with a guide or mentor would become a possibility for this
awareness. This may also include an overseas immersion experience.
Awareness is not enough. The possibility of avoiding, minimizing, or blaming someone
else for this threat would avoid taking the threat of nonbeing into oneself as the courage-to-be.
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The goal is not to presume to produce a revelatory experience. Instead, the practice of taking
nonbeing into oneself and self-affirmation in spite of this is the preparation for revelation or the
deepening of a revelatory event that has already occurred.
Experiencing and Practicing Flow as the Courage-to-Be: Flow occurs when a challenge
requires all of our attention, which provokes effortless action that feels harmonious with one’s
world. “[I]nstead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions,
masters of our own fate... a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long
cherished and that becomes a landmark memory of what life should be like.” 6 The circularity and
rhythm between receiving knowledge and controlling knowledge is at the heart of flow. This
requires deep listening and deep intimacy with one’s self, world, and actions. The aspects of co-
creating meaning and experience with others is embedded within this action, as it was with
Coltrane and his other musicians. Within flow there must be an element of the threat of nonbeing
(even as symbolic death or loss of potential) for flow demands a risking and losing of one’s self
in order for it to return strengthened and complexified. Practice in the arts of ministry would give
a context for flow to occur. Placing flow as a goal in participating in these activities would be
essential. The components of flow as shaping factors for students to experience this in any
activity would be:
1. An experience where challenges that require commensurate skill and ability.

2. The ability and resources to focus our concentration on what we are doing.
3. The task undertaken has clear goals which,
4. Provides immediate feedback as affirmation or needed changes in action.
5. One acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness
extraneous worries and frustrations.
6. Flow allows people to exercise a sense of control over their actions as well as their
world.
7. The concern for the self disappears yet the self emerges stronger after flow.
8. The sense of the duration of time is altered.7
6 Ibid, 19.
7 Ibid, 95-96.
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The practice in any of the applied arts of ministry could serve as situations where flow may
occur. This would include:
• Constructing chapel services for the community where there is something at stake for
leader and participant alike as co-constructed meaning in context is emphasized.
• Leading spiritual disciplines with and for other students in class or outside.
• Practice offering spiritual care in the greater community or with one another in seminary.
This may also coincide with the beginning designation and training of student chaplains
for United.
• Participating in the creation and expression of artistic and musical endeavors. This may
include dance, choir, and solo expressions of art but there must be an element of risk
involved either as an exhibition, presentation, or demonstration to some community.
• Participating in student leadership opportunities. Student government, committee work,
or Board of Directors participation may be included in this.
• Participation in social advocacy outside of the school with other agencies in partnership
with the seminary.
• In each of these instances, there has to be a reflective space with guides in order to
initially structure conditions for and then consequently disseminate flow. As in Coltrane’s
case, master musicians help in taking the initial steps of creating these conditions. Hard
work and discipline continue to bring us back to these difficult challenges until flow is
found again. The strengthening and complexifying of the self after flow and in relation to
those masters continues to urge us forward into more challenges, and possibly, into
accepting the invitation to revelation.
Experiencing and Practicing Nonduality as the Courage-to-Be: A discursive-heavy
curriculum emphasizes a linear and dualistic epistemology where the division of one’s being is
separated into compartments. Yet we strive to educate and train spiritual leaders who are agile
and able to understand multiple viewpoints and integrate all of this into ethical and spiritual
leadership. Linearity is important as it gives form. But what is beyond form is a dynamism that is
required for leadership. A Jazz quote attributed to Charlie Parker is appropriate here: Learn the
changes (in the chords and melody line of a song) and then forget them (in order to get into the
beauty and art of being the music). What is needed, but not practiced or emphasized, is an
integrative viewpoint that is also preparation for revelation and the courage-to-be.
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Nonduality resides in the undivided wholeness that all of creation shares. The
interconnectivity of all things is a lived experience that includes but transcends duality and
linearity. All of one’s experience as emotion, thought, and ethos are connected to the greater
rhythm and fabric of one’s world and places these within a larger context and viewpoint offering
balance and harmony. Practicing nonduality would assume a willingness to let receiving
knowledge lead, to be confronted by the threat of nonbeing in all forms, and to trust in resulting
action that can integrate all these seemingly disparate views. Practicing this can be the
preparation for revelation, which ultimately also exposes how deep this reality is. Mirroring
Habito’s work with koans and Coltrane’s use of dissonant scales and chords, the confounding of
controlling knowledge in order to expand one’s perspective and experience of this truth is at the
heart of these suggestions. Ceasing to strive and sitting deeply in being is the focus here.
• Experiencing, rather than just reading, nondual texts and authors. EL250 makes
extensive use of Audre Lorde’s essays and speeches. By using her poetry (such as Power
and Who Said It Was Simple) opens up the possibility of seeing beyond the words and
experiencing that which is before the words. This begins reverberations with our own
connection and experience that goes beyond mere sympathy and empathy.
• Utilizing other nondual writers such as Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) and Laozi (Lao Tzu) in
addition to mystics such as Teresa de Ávila and St. John of the Cross to expand what the
nature of nonduality is as the union with the source of life.
• Participating in mystical, nondual spiritual practices outside of one’s tradition, led by
practitioners that can adeptly explain the purpose and metaphysical nature of them.
Understanding these practices, such as the one’s illustrated in the narratives and listed
above, as they relate to the emptying of oneself and union with the source of being
• Using ethical situations as koans to confound reason, experience ambiguity, and expand
one’s perspective. For students, participating in scenarios that they may well encounter in
their vocational call in order to explore the variety of factors to consider is preparation for
experiencing an enlarged perspective of nonduality.
• Expanding the initial courage of multiplicity: examining points of intersection within
one’s reality, experiencing, and building long-standing relationships with others with
worldviews and theologies radically different from our own (atheism, humanism, queer
theory, Christian Fundamentalism). What are the resonances and dissonances from the
encounter? What is the larger truth that holds all of these together?
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Experiencing and Practicing Multiple-Belonging as the Courage-to-Be: The courage of
multiplicity invites us into the intersectionality of the dimensions of our being and aspects of our
identity. One major argument from this project is that a trans-religious engagement between each
mystical-spiritual practice and a Christian background is one effective way for an absolute faith
to meet the existential anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness. The dissonance of traditions
and commitments may also bring out a deeper perspective and resonance in union with God as
the ground of being. Multiple belonging to different religious traditions is not a path that will
resonate with all students. Even students who consider themselves solely one religion can
experience the multiplicity of what makes up their identity as we engage with a diverse world
that constantly influences us. The perichoresis between either traditions or aspects of identity is
where the streams of what we belong to are distinct but complement each other as they draw out
nuances and depth. Experience of this is deepened within revelation and the practice of this is
preparation for this possibility. The aforementioned experiences dealing with identity as a
symbolic self, communal culture and life, and the threat of nonbeing are precursors to this aspect
of multiple belonging. The constant exposure to dissonant external influences and the subsequent
reflection and integration of these encounters into our identity and being is the manifestation of
the courage of multiplicity. This is flow with the multidimensionality of oneself and one’s world
in every encounter.
We are actively working on the community dynamics so that an ethos of belonging,
rather than inclusion, is fostered for greater risk and deepening to occur. Inclusion has sometimes
meant the toning down of particularity that makes up our identity that might be perceived as
threatening or inhospitable. Belonging is more expansive and dangerous as those discordant
aspects of our identity must be present and acknowledged with compassion in order for depth to
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be manifest. The permeability of students to being grasped by the presence and contribution of
others is vital for courage. We will be moving to a new location in the winter of 2019. Our new
neighborhood will be more diverse socioeconomically, racially, and ethnically. Beginning the
practice of deep listening and deep intimacy in a new space effects both the internal and external
circumstance we are entering. Co-Creation would then mean shared leadership with all who are
helping to create the new space for everyone’s needs. To make this place a home, we are given
the invitation to be in flow with one another in the process of engaging each other in higher
levels of collective performance academically, logistically, and communally. For our new
neighbors, a deeper connection with the life of the area seems like an ideal opportunity to engage
others without an agenda, to practice selfless listening and offering a deepening question, and to
extend our ultimate concern to a larger network of community. Reflection and guided
engagement of this new relationship would be a great invitation for creating the community that
manifests its source, norm, and medium of spiritual formation explicitly. The threat of nonbeing
is inherent in the interaction.
However, new community also brings disagreement, which also can function as the threat
of nonbeing. How we experience, navigate, and find resolution and healing through this moving
process and any conflict that arises is a spiritual practice. The opportunity to utilize this as
awareness of nonbeing can deepen one’s spiritual formation of courage as well.
The Role of Mentors and Guides and Engaging Nonbeing: Not only are faculty
considered mentors, but the support staff, those relationships within the student body, the
wisdom of the neighborhood that we are moving into, and even the communities that each of us
have come from are included. The experience of revelation may happen to an individual, but the
acceptance of a community as belonging is vital for either preparing for revelation as initial
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courage or grounding the experience into reality and deepening its impact into all of one’s life. I
will focus primarily on faculty here, however.
Faculty are being called upon to do more than be subject matter experts and great
teachers. They are asked to utilize their wisdom in relationship with those seeking self-
transcendence in order to facilitate the direction of their journey. My experience of faculty is that
many seem burdened by demands dividing their time between teaching, researching and writing,
and keeping the institution operating. Compartmentalization is the frequent antidote with the
Chaplain and Vocational Director being charged with the brunt of overseeing student formation.
Nevertheless, staff and faculty needs for collegiality and authenticity are there for them as well,
which mirrors a possible role in the mentorship for students. The role of the seminary professor
needs to be re-examined in light of the need for their wisdom in helping mentor and guide the
spiritual formation of our students beyond discursion; not as another add on, but a depth of
engagement that then implies the question of the faculty’s own individual source, norm, and
mediums of spiritual formation. The faculty’s own individual spiritual formation of courage
needs to be attended to rather than just assumed and has the possibility of impacting the larger
community’s formational path.
The threat of nonbeing from a mentor relationship is speaking truth into a student’s life
and experience. This might be an uncomfortable truth, one that exposes aspects a student has
been running away from, revealing a dissonance between an idealized self and an actual
presentation, or a humbling of self-expectations. The delivering of grades as perceived validation
or diminishment of one’s worth can be a situation of existential anxiety. How the mentor
relationship helps a student become aware of the experience of this threat is the beginning of
initial courage. Understanding the role of the mentor in these situations is key. Reframing
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perspective on difficult feedback that is offered to hone student’s learning rather than an
indictment of their value or potential is a change in the how one engages reality.
In the past, we established relationships with spiritual directors to assist in the mentoring
and guidance of our student’s spiritual formation. Their interaction would often illuminate the
existential anxiety that already exists under our current situation. This may be another resource
not just for our students but for our staff and faculty as well.
A Conceptual and Experiential Study of Revelation as Seminary Course: The topic of
revelation is a delicate one in a liberal, mainline denominational seminary. As a theoretical
abstract concept, it is safer to hold it at a distance than as an experienced reality. The remnants of
a rational skepticism of an experienced revelation as hallucination (or over-excitement from a
more charismatic tradition) may pervade over any serious conversation or academic examination
of the event. Paradoxically, a course on revelation from a multi-disciplinary standpoint might
assist in the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be. Holding it as an object to be analyzed at least
brings the experience closer.
The theoretical possibilities are many in a course of this focus. For example, another kind
of reluctance in the anticipation of revelation may stem from a Christian theological precept that
humanity cannot produce a revelation as that would render God less than sovereign and more
towards an object that could be manipulated; that grace could be controlled or earned through
our actions. The total depravity and creaturely-ness of our existence prevent us from having
control over God as Ultimate in this profane way. But the language of preparation for the
reception of revelation still relinquishes sovereignty to God as the ground of being while also
locating our conditioned existence to this ground. This is the language that both Tillich and this
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project have used. This retains the depth and omnipresence of the mystery of God while
providing some agency on our part in receiving Ultimate truth.
Still another reluctance to be explored in a potential course is that talking about revelation
is considered ‘dirty talk’ in some traditions. Discussion of the event would run the risk of
glorifying or idolizing the experience and making it a self-justifying action that fortifies an ego-
construct. This endangers revelation by mistaking it for a humanly produced occurrence rather
than a received truth. The presence of what is encountered and the gravity of its contact can be
conveyed conceptually to begin to quell any false belief that this is an easy panacea to self-
esteem issues or fulfillment of any earthly desire for self-importance. The mysterium tremendum
et fascinans that is encountered is greater than either penultimate concern.
The goal of seminary is not to solve all of the answers of life and ministry or to bring
students to enlightenment. The exploration of Coltrane’s narrative is not to equate seminary
students with Jazz musicians or to have them perform Jazz as a ministry. The inclusion of
Habito’s narrative is not with the end goal of introducing Buddhist practices or justifying a
stance of multiple belonging that is prevalent today. Instead, the experience of these two people
is meant to illuminate the source, norm and medium of our spiritual formation, which directly
relates to the goal we are placing our attention and energy towards – for theology, for our
relationships, for our ministry, and for the answer to the question ‘who am I?’ Undergirding
theology is the experienced spirituality as the unity of being and meaning.
The spiritual formation of a seminary student is a lifelong spiral that was occurring before
they arrived and will continue after they leave. What happens in the time they are here is then
informed by their spiritual formation revealed in this moment. The evolution of these symbols
and their engagement with them in the communities they belong to is ultimate concern for both.
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This is the depth that our seminary discursion is cataphatically pointing towards. The other
aspect that could be deepened more within seminary is the experience of this depth as both
awareness of nonbeing and taking it into oneself as courage. The telos of a spiritual formation
within seminary is to deepen what has already arrived in order for the journey to continue and
expand more intimately with the world we will encounter.
A course that illuminates a different religion’s source, norm, and medium of spiritual
formation of revelation may help illumine a student’s own orientation in order to reveal what is
at stake in classroom conversations, in their relationship with their peers, and in the trajectory of
their academic careers. Conceptual language is a premium in seminary. We may use this
cognitive emphasis as an entry into the experience of the depth behind the concepts and words.
Nonbeing drives being to dynamically affirm itself. Just as drawing on the awareness of
nonbeing in the narrative prompts of CL455 has helped students conceptualize a depth and
courage in their previous experience, the awareness of the threat of nonbeing through revelation
may help us reveal what is the source, norm, and medium of our own spiritual formation as well
as experience the underlying yearning for self-transcendence.
A course that delves into revelation must go conceptually deep into its source. Habito’s
incarnational apophatic experience and Coltrane’s embodied cataphatic experience of the
Ultimate point towards that which goes beyond the subject-object split and involves its reception
by one’s whole body as being. The question then changes from a constructive theological
question of ‘What/Who is God?’ and all the attributes we project as holy to ‘what will I
encounter in a revelation?’ which is what union with the unknowable and unnamable is
experienced as. In this proposed class, a student’s recollection of these experiences or the
anticipation of a revelation that is yet to come repositions one’s engagement with reality itself.
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The norm of revelation could easily be analyzed conceptually in class with the potential
for the depth behind the words arising as well. Habito and Coltrane’s norms of revelation were a
multiple sense of belonging with perichoresis (interpermeating presence) that has the power to
allow us to evolve. This is a nondual orientation where belonging and acceptance by the
manifold mystery opens up engagement with the microcosm of the universe within us as our own
multidimensionality. We experience it and seek out its echo in the presence of the distinct other.
Particularity is not lost but Ultimate Reality always interpenetrates conventional reality. This is
Jesus communing with the outcast for whom the threat of nonbeing is palpable; Jesus eating with
religious leaders for whom the threat of nonbeing is being eluded by power and privilege; and
Jesus having his eyes opened to this wisdom of multiple belonging to each other by a
Syrophoenician woman’s reminder that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s
crumbs.”8 This is Shakyamuni’s evolution from cloistered power as a prince, to extreme ascetic
renunciation from seeing the threat of nonbeing, to the middle way of awakening. This is also
manifested in Habito and Coltrane’s narrative as multiple belonging that includes and transcends
mysticism and personalism.
Studying the medium of revelation means engaging in unity of the source and norm.
Conceptual exploration may then be paired with practicing the exercises that lead to revelation
as experience. The medium arising from these two revelation narratives becomes a symbolic
‘self’ in relation to the world as the heart of all spiritual formation. This ‘self’ needs to be
experienced, reflected on, risked and emptied. Flow is risking and losing ‘self’ as vitality is
easily reproducible as a shared experience. Delving into these vehicles for the medium of
revelation in this class would then include participation from more than just our cognitive reason.
8 Mark 7:27
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The symbolic self needs to be unpacked in more detail in this proposed course and future
study. Symbols participate in the power and meaning of the reality to which they point. They
open up levels of reality, which are otherwise closed for us. They unlock elements and
dimensions of our depth that correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality. Habito’s
Buddhism enacts with the self to empty it in order to experience that which permeates it and
everything in creation. Coltrane uses it as a vehicle and vessel through which the divine can be
experienced by him and through him for his collaborators and followers. Flow utilizes the lack of
self-consciousness to free energy to become one with the task at hand. Students in EL250 and
CL455 are exploring the self and discovering its contours, its malleability, and possibly its
conditioned existence. The symbolic self is where the anxiety of nonbeing is felt first. The study
of the symbolic self and its engagement in a class on revelation open up the possibility of
encountering the divine for their own formation.
The exploration of co-creation as deep listening and intimacy in a class on revelation
would also have an impact on their leadership. Co-creation is reliant on awareness of the
limitations of the self in relation to the particularities and limitations of relationship with the
other in the moral act of community. Yet, conversely, the transcendence of these limitations in
moral relationship becomes Jazz as flow. We become more than the limitations of our
particularities in relationship to another. We become more than just the sum of the parts added
together. In union with the source of our being and formation, community in “antagonistic
cooperation” becomes exponentially larger than either our self-consciousness, our limitations of
finitude, or our prized particularities. In the community where the Spiritual presence is
manifested, we bounce against one another so that we are giving each other more and more
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courage to engage in higher levels of collective performance. 9 Collective bitsunyu as Jazz shapes
us into waves of one sea and is the potential of spiritual leadership.
The Possible Impact on Spiritual Formatio n of the Courage-to-Be

for our Degree Concentrations
Our three degree concentrations are also directly impacted by these findings.
Social Transformation.
Students in this area of study focus on the strategic skills needed to effect institutional
change and social transformation in harnessing “the power of faith for changing the world.”10
Students in this concentration seek to work for justice by speaking truth to power in their
activism from the place of their religious tradition and beliefs. This truly exemplifies Tillich’s
agapé from personalism and the redemption of the particular and concrete by a transformative
love and its actualization as just relationship.
In line with Tillich’s misgivings about Japanese Zen and its philosophical proposition of
the emptiness of all forms showing the Ultimate Truth, it would seem that Zen and its practices
are in direct contradiction to social activism or transforming concrete systems of injustice.
Another perception of Zen from the concept of the emptiness of all form is an absorption into the
practice of meditation in order to purify the mind in attaining peace and contentment but which
withdraws us from engaging the world. This would be a “spiritual hedonism, in search for a kind
of inner satisfaction away from the turmoil of daily life” which makes one passive, malleable,
and subservient.11 In the face of the world’s suffering and the systems of oppression that create
these conditions, this passivity allows this dynamic to thrive in the inactive assent given by those
not engaged in confronting and speaking truth to power.
9 Cornel West, Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom, 3rd ed. (New York: Hay House, 2008) 118.
10 https://www.unitedseminary.edu/academics/social-transformation/
11 Ruben Habito, Total Liberation: Zen Spirituality and the Social Dimension (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2006) xvi.
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Habito’s iteration of absolute faith demonstrates that the emptiness of all form is not a
concept but an experience where particularity is not lost, but is not glorified either. The self-
centeredness of contemplative passivity as well as the oppression of others is the same target of
the meditative practice of Zen – the liberation from one’s ego-centered attachment to structures
of self-affirmation. What appears in experiencing this truth is compassion (karuna), as the
suffering of all living things becomes ours as well. But from this wisdom of seeing things as they
are, Habito then demonstrates that, instead of retreating from the world, one is plunged into the
heart of the struggle in the social dimension as solidarity with the exploited and oppressed,
adding our voice to those crying out for peace and for justice.
For those whom participate in social activism, the unspoken fear is that a mystical
practice like Zen will diminish the energy of outrage and desperation often utilized in working
for justice and peace – that ‘oneness’ with both oppressor and oppressed convolutes engagement
and makes one’s actions and their consequences ambiguous. It is true that the heat of conflict
within a polarity can drive action to definitive ends. However, liberating wisdom may actually
help us to be more precise, effective, and impactful in our solidarity and struggle for a loving and
just world. This wisdom can actually help us see when our actions for justice become a
reinforcement of our own ego-construct, which eventually leads to destruction and a perpetuation
of unjust systems of dehumanization. Taking in this anxiety and ambiguity is the next growing
edge of social activism and is the courage-to-be that is needed for this current context – rather
than mere anger.
The spiritual formation of a courage-to-be for social transformation may include the
cathartic aspect of joriki as trauma stewardship for those in the struggle for justice and working
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with those traumatized by these conditions. 12 But the telos of utilizing a contemplative, mystical
aspect of encountering God is so that the prophet can remain permeable to allow for prophecy to
still be spoken into their lives. This wisdom becomes actualized in their compassion in the
relationships they advocate for as they speak truth to power from an Ultimate Love.
Theology and the Arts

Our theology and the arts concentration is designed for those who want to explore the
spiritual content of their artwork, expand their spiritual practice through art-making, and explore
the deep questions of the human condition through artistic mediums.13 Students come already
with a conception or practice of art as spirituality in the unity of their being and meaning. Art as
vitality stemming from the dynamics-form of Tillich’s self-creativity is naturally congruent with
the personalist view of God’s partiality towards the created and through the created as
redemption of the concrete. God’s grace breathes through us as creation. God’s Spirit blows
through us to create and redeem creation.
Mysticism would seem to correspond to the astonishment that art embodies as
astonishment from creation ex nihilo. Yet often this astonishment can be distorted into either
envy or disdain. Artists are often prized for their singular ability to channel this spirit in
producing something that moves us and stirs awe. Their symbolic self is glorified and often
idolized as they alone and their gifts could produce something that can create revelation, as with
Tillich’s ecstatic engagement with Botticelli’s work. Because of their uniqueness, this can create
distance that can become distorted into idolization or disdain that happens if the artist’s ego is
perceived to be bolstered by how distinct and gifted they are to the rest of humanity. In this
scenario, mysticism that empties one of ego can be seen as threat. What sets us apart and
12 Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk, Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for
Others, ebook. (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, n.d.) 12.
13https://www.unitedseminary.edu/academics/theology-arts-concentration/
184
misleads us to believing we are noncontingent (our individuality as artistic expression) is then
seemingly emptied of ultimacy. Can one still create works of art or appreciate their depth if the
ego that seemingly drives its production is emptied?
Coltrane’s iteration of absolute faith counters this doubt. The aspect of flow as his
spiritual practice exemplifies focus and concentration needed in any creative endeavor. His
social location as embodied estrangement and double consciousness prepared him for a courage
of multiplicity as reception and incorporation of various sources of truth without destroying his
center. His revelation transforms all of these practices towards the awakening of his center to the
unknowable, unnamable God as our ultimate concern. His skill and art were then transformed
from a search for originality and individualization, to a prayer and a prophetic vehicle to reach
and invite people into the experience of the universal love. Coltrane was not perfect and he
admits to moments of ‘irresolution.’ 14 But his purpose was made clear, and he then saw himself
and his art as vessels for actualizing the good; his art was now seen as a moral act. Purifying his
engagement to this purpose was still ongoing. The irresolute behaviors and activities that kept
him from allowing this Love to flow clearly through him needed to be addressed continually.
Spiritual formation of a courage-to-be for theology and the arts students would seemingly
include the following: the experience and reflection of flow; an enactment of the courage of
multiplicity in engaging disparate and uncomfortable sources to expose comfort and familiarity
that reduce our permeability and creativity by the securing of the self; and applying art as a
moral act that seeks to reach and transform all those experiencing it as much as it has grasped
and transformed the artists themselves.
14 A Love Supreme liner notes.
185
Interreligious Chaplaincy
This concentration is meant to equip students who seek to become chaplains with the
foundational tools for working with persons from all faith backgrounds and walks of life in a
variety of contexts. This focus is intended to “deepen your compassion, understand your faith
tradition, engage you in inter-religious dialogue, and support your formation into an engaged and
ethical leader in a diverse world.” 15 Coursework covers intercultural and interreligious resources
and competency for spiritual care.
This new concentration would seem to entail a myriad of possibilities of Tillich’s
absolute faith. The possibility of students engaging other faith traditions in order to actualize
compassion and care demands humility, permeability, and vulnerability to take seriously the
particularity of the other in our midst. The structure of the engagement itself is a moral act where
the limitations of our finitude and particularity are in relation to those same facets of the other.
The possibility of students who belong to multiple traditions because of this course of study is
becoming a reality. The likelihood of students incorporating another religious tradition because
of their study increases as well. Because of this, the harmonization of a multiplicity of
engagement with a distinct other would be directly related with an internal integration of
different traditions and beliefs
Both Habito and Coltrane’s aspects are helpful here in the spiritual formation of the
courage-to-be. Both are valid means for the formation of courage but required different
expectations. Habito’s distinct interpenetration of mysticism and personalism is one model of an
absolute faith. The complementary nature of each is grounded in a deep experience of both that
creates an interreligious wisdom. This foundation provides a guardrail to the surface level
engagement of other religions as (1) appropriation of spiritual practices as commodity or panacea
15 https://www.unitedseminary.edu/academics/interreligious-chaplaincy-concentration/
186
for discontent with one’s own tradition, (2) use of other spiritual practices and their traditions as
a bolstering of one’s ego-construct as mastery, or (3) distorting the practices into a misshapen
amalgamation of some new religious form, which disregards and violates the principal wisdom
of the source, norm, and medium that the practice came from and is tied to. However, Coltrane’s
spiritual formation might have fit all of these conditions initially. His narrative demonstrates the
latent spirituality within any life that needs mentoring, guiding, and correction along the winding
path. Coltrane’s process of flow, his relationships of care, his subsequent revelation from the
threat of nonbeing, and his community that helped ground this reality into a greater depth. All of
these point to the other aspects of spiritual formation required for our students to deepen their
spiritual formation. Literally, Habito and Coltrane represent the dynamic-form polarity of
ontology manifested in a courage of multiplicity.
This concentration already assumes that students will meet the distinct other with
humbleness and openness. Students engaging in other spiritual practices and relationships with
other traditions in order to experience the impact on their own symbolic self would be assisted in
their spiritual formation of engaging the ‘self’ by emptying and experiencing flow. The aspect of
bitsunyu (becoming absorbed or immersed) in both practices seems instructive, as the
complementary impact of one tradition may help illuminate the other. The potential for latency
to be nurtured into actualization is also pertinent and is reliant on our humility and hospitality in
engaging the distinct other.
Final Thoughts
Caveat
The narratives included in this project are both heterosexual males. The racial-ethnic
identity of both seem to have contributed to an orientation to the world apart from a white,
Western, male epistemology. The next iteration of this exploration would need to include people
187
who extend even further from the binaries represented here. If absolute faith and a courage of
multiplicity is correct, then more examples are needed to understand fully the courage-to-be
amid the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness.
Whole Life Span Spiritual Formation

We are launching a new degree in faith formation at United. The spiritual formation of a
courage-to-be seems appropriate for an exploration of being grasped by God as the ground of
being but would need to be adapted. As demonstrated in Coltrane’s avant-garde Jazz, pre-mature
exposure to the abyss inflames existential anxiety rather than assists us in its healing. A spiritual
formation across age spans would entail many of the classic Christian and psychological texts
such as James Fowler’s Stages of Faith and Lawrence Kohlberg’s The Psychology of Moral
Development. Other resources may illumine the threats of nonbeing at each stage of development
and how they may be dealt with successfully. Bill Plotkin’s Nature and the Human Soul deals
with this and the cultural antecedents that embody Tillich’s courage-to-be as taking existential
anxiety within oneself and participating in the power of being. Anxiety that confronts us at each
stage of life and the path to meet these challenges seems relevant for this endeavor.
Nonduality of Christian Theology

Jesus is revered by other religions but not as God. A Buddhist’s view Jesus complexifies
and adds a different texture to how I receive this symbol. Nonduality proclaims the undivided
wholeness that all of creation shares as original nature or the True Self. I will not enter into all
the possibilities from a nondual engagement with Jesus. However, if Jesus is the norm of my
spiritual formation, a nondual perspective would conclude that the path Jesus’ took is also my
own. Jesus as forerunner and exemplar is then not reduced to a heteronomous God pointing out
how to be human. It would seem heretical to say ‘I am Jesus’ as cognitive duality would
distinguish this as delusion if not narcissism. Nevertheless, an embodied experience of that
188
which precedes the subject-object split uncovers something else. There is no separation between
myself and Jesus as we share original nature. His path is also my path and invitation– to be
transparent to the ground of being in every action and moment in undivided unity.
A nondual engagement with Jesus, scripture, practice, and theology would change the
depth of concepts such as the sovereignty of God, the total depravity of human nature, sin, and
grace. But perhaps, this is what Tillich was pointing towards in his own evolving spiritual
formation and subsequent theology. Perhaps the seeds of life being born anew and the vitality
that Tillich points to is absolute faith that contains nonduality. From revelation, we recognize
the multiple places we belong to and are accepted by within the microcosm of the universe
within us. This then compels us to find this in all of creation as liberation.
Lastly
For our United students as spiritual leaders, the culmination of this project is the
cultivation of either an incarnationally apophatic or an embodied, cataphatic experience of God
as revelation. This encounter is where God is an experience before it can be a word or concept
and produces the courage-to-be, which impacts all aspects of our life and our spiritual leadership.
The pluralistic landscape, which can be perceived as a threat, may also hold the possibility of a
new aspect of revelation where life’s multiple dimensions are drawn ever deeper and more
coherently amidst ambiguity. Knitter’s quote in the introduction is potent for those of us tasked
with the nurturing of students’ spiritual formation: “The only way we are going to be able to
create peace in the world is if we first create peace in our hearts. Being peace is an absolute
prerequisite for making peace.”16 In truly being peace, one must encounter and know peace with
one’s whole being; where God, as the peace that surpasses all understanding, is experienced
16Paul F. Knitter. Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian. Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian. eBook.. Croydon:
Oneworld Publications, 2013, 328.
189
before it becomes a word or thought. Practice towards this possibility seems at the heart of
spiritual formation of a courage-to-be.
190
A p p e n d i c e s
Appendix A
Overview of Tillich’s Ontological Polarities

Self - Subject World - Object
Individualization (Collective) Participation

having a centered relation to a larger whole
self-relatedness in experience Each pole is
related to and
always connected
with the other.
Dynamics Form
one’s creative potential the logic and structure of being which gives vitality an
and vitality of being intentional contour that can be grasped and shaped
They cannot be
separated.
Freedom Destiny
agency in transcending the essential nature and history which
necessity of being as experienced in condition our decisions
deliberation, decision, and
responsibility
Return to text
Appendix B
Overview of Conflict within Ontological Polarities World - Object
Self - Subject
Individualization Existential Anxiety (Collective) Participation

AUTONOMY as the threat of HETERONOMY
resistance to being nonbeing (death or law from outside oneself
conditioned by loss of potential)
situation and world may distort the
poles into conflict.
Dynamics One pole then tries Form

RELATIVISM to swallow or ABSOLUTISM
overemphasis of the destroy the other the static element of
dynamic and changing as an object of fear. reason distorted into
element of reason absolute truth
Lost is the
realization that
destroying the
Freedom other pole begets Destiny
EMOTIONALISM destruction of itself FORMALISM
twists the depth of being as the as they are always the exclusionary convention and structure
interconnected of knowledge (nature and history)
sole, shaping and uniting
function of knowledge
Return to text
191
Appendix C
Tillich’s Process of Life as Actualization of the spirit
Vitality - Creativity
(Dynamics - Form)
Self-Integration Self-Creativity Return to Self-Integration
A centered self as identity Going beyond centeredness as Reintegration of new growth
in relation to a world growth, risking identity in a centered self to a world
(Individualization-Participation)
Ambiguity…
• Threatens self-integration with
Self-Transcendence disintegration (Immovable or
A centered self is weakened center)
driven vertically to • Threatens self-creativity with
the boundaries destruction (no center)
(great, tragic, worth)
(Freedom-Destiny) • Threatens self-transcendence with
profanation (self as mere object)
Return to text
Appendix D
Buddhism’s 3 Marks
of Existence &
Impermanence
Three Poisons
Th r istenc
Ignorance Greed
ce f
ee M
o
Ex
Illusion (unbelief) Attachment (concupiscence)

Ex i Marks
ark
sten
s of
e
ee
Th r
The Three Poisons

result from a clinging
self and bear
similarities to Tillich’s
No-Self marks of
Suffering No permanent, estrangement:
Unsatisfied, unchanging self Unbelief (disconnection
Three Marks of from being), Hubris
Existence (self as center of
existence), and
Concupiscence
Aversion (restless desire to
gather all into oneself)
Repulsion (hubris)
Return to text
192
Appendix E
Object
Overview of Flow Receiving Knowledge
Challenge
Subject 1. Challenges that require our
commensurate skill and ability.
Consciousness, Flow Produces... • Too little challenge = boredom.
• Too much= anxiety.
as Awareness, holds: 5. Deep but effortless involvement,
6. Removes awareness of extraneous
2. Focus our sole concentration
Intentions worries and frustrations. • (energy) on challenge
(biological, social, 7. Allows one to exercise a sense of
Intrinsic goals) control over their actions and 3. Challenge has clear goals
environment. which,
Attention 8. The concern for the self disappears
yet, paradoxically, the sense of self 4. Provides immediate feedback
(energy to focus on emerges stronger and more complex • as affirmation or needed changes in
goals) after flow experience is over. action.
‘Self’
(hierarchy of goals Controlling Knowledge
over time)
Flow parallels Tillich’s idea of growth as

self-creativity and re-integration
Return to text
193
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Spiritual Formation of Courage To Be Lee

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THE SPIRITUAL FORMATION OF A COURAGE-TO-BE:

THE INTERRELIGIOUS WISDOM OF

In Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Ministry

by Rev. John Chang-Yee Lee

November 11, 2018

CHAPTER 2: PAUL TILLICH,EXISTENCE, AND THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD ................................... 12

CHAPTER 3: BUDDHISM AND KENSHO AS THE COURAGE-TO-BE ............................................ 47

CHAPTER 4: JAZZ AND ULTIMATE FLOW AS THE COURAGE-TO-BE ......................................... 92

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 150

Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 191

BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 194

threat to our way of life and beliefs.

clarity through their own existential anxiety?

of Christianity. A Christian, dualistic orientation of a fixed state of separation between humanity

of nonbeing to our certainty.

claims. Many of these non-Christian practices propose a nondualist transcendence and

Nondualism asserts the undivided unity of all aspects.5

and subsequent existential anxieties.

environment as pastors, chaplains, artists and social transformation advocates. Traditionally,

related to being a congregational pastor (i.e. administration, financial, and leadership

to be spiritual leaders in guiding others in understanding or experiencing a phenomenon that will

Christianity that over-emphasizes a particular revelatory experience as a demarcation of

non-Christian practices, has shaken the foundations of my understanding of God, my identity,

presence in this world and, thus, my own leadership.

unsatisfactory nature of traditional pathways. He concluded that a new courage-to-be arising

is needed to address this new context.

exploration of their own existential anxiety as it relates to their formation.

In light of these considerations, I will argue that a trans-religious engagement between

gestalt in the conceptualization of applying this to my context.

often considered a philosophical theology as it incorporates these existential questions with a

for this project.

Courage, for Tillich, is confronting existential anxiety by self-affirmation in spite of the

the revelations that could result.

practice of improvisation as flow state. Coltrane’s revelatory event in correspondence to

differs from traditional religious symbols.

rubrics of the spiritual formation of a courage-to-be from Tillich’s theology.

formation will be included.

project is just the initial stage of a formulation of a comprehensive trans-religious theology, as it

of a larger theological construct, such as an exhaustive comparison of eschatology or cosmology

later comparative theological project.

Value of The Thesis for Today’s Ministers

the understanding of multiple-belonging may also be of significance.

perspective, which parallels the possibility contained in these narratives.

PREPARATION: PRESUMPTIONS AND TERMS

amount to deconstruct as there is fulfillment of higher ideals. Exposure to the historical-critical

possible to experience God through something other than ecclesiastical symbols. 7

much in doing so.

8 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 14.

shaped by reality. Tillich’s theology was a criticism of modern over-reliance on controlling

Reason Finds Questions Unanswered, Divisions Unhealed from Existence

object. These polarities are Individualization-(collective) Participation, Dynamics-Form, and

relatedness in experience while participation is the quality of relation to a larger whole.

one’s agency in transcending the contingency of being as experienced in deliberation, decision,

the poles then becomes autonomy vs. heteronomy (individualization-participation), relativism

vs. absolutism (dynamics-form), and emotionalism vs. formalism (freedom-destiny) (See

anxiety and is actualized in moral anxiety.

13 Tillich, The Courage to Be, 64.

still separated from one another, which Tillich deems as estrangement.

potentialities or lose ourselves by actualizing our potentialities through action. A materialized

18 The Courage to Be., 95.

[Humanity] becomes a thing and ceases to be a person.”22

Estrangement is made distinct by the marks of unbelief, hubris, and concupiscence.