Zen, Christ, and Falling in Love Inaccurately
An interview with Ellis Potter
1. Blessed are the self-confident for they will succeed.
2. Blessed are those who avoid guilt feelings for they are comforted.
3. Blessed are those with a positive self-image for they will feel better.
4. Blessed are those who clarify their values for they will invent themselves.
5. Blessed are those who know their rights for they will realize their entitlements.
6. Blessed are those who are non-stick surfaced for they will be admired.
7. Blessed are those who mob and gossip for they will move forward.
8. Blessed are those who are politically correct for they will avoid controversy.
- The Post-Modern Beatitudes by Ellis Potter
Ellis Potter’s family is descended from the famous Methodist Charles Wesley1, his great grandfather knew the Russian mystic Madame Blavatsky, while Ellis himself ended up a Zen missionary who in the 1970s met Pope Paul VI, and was later converted to Christianity by Francis Schaeffer of L’Abri. During the Cold War Ellis visited Eastern Bloc countries, smuggling in Bibles and Western goods and giving talks on spirituality, once packing an audience in Wrocław, Poland, like a small rock concert.
I’ve written before about the importance of spirituality as a disruptive force within the Machine, one that both protects us and humanizes us. We may not share all the same spiritual assumptions, but reflecting on these assumptions can help us see more clearly who we are or who we want to become—and that is a speciality of Ellis Potter’s.
Ellis lives just outside of Basel, Switzerland, near the end of the number 6 tram line, across from golden fields and The Beyeler art museum. Entering his modest apartment you’ll see overloaded bookshelves and masterful sketch drawings on the walls, a horsehair fly swatter from Africa, paintings by a Polish surrealist, a framed piece of music on vellum from the late Middle Ages—and you’ll wonder, who lives here? A musician? An art connoisseur?
And if you spoke with him, you would find him gentle, humble, funny, full of anecdotes, and a very good cook—and you might never guess that he’s a Christian pastor, currently semi-retired yet still giving talks and writing books.
I’ve known Ellis for almost two decades and had the pleasure of interviewing him over lunch this summer in his kitchen. Our conversation touched on Zen, enlightenment, salvation, the Higgs-Boson particle, and much else, as we enjoyed potato soup and fresh bread.
You grew up in California the 1950s and 60s, in a churchgoing family, yet you later turned to Zen Buddhism. What led you in that direction?
Many of the Christians I knew were lovely people, but they didn’t want to deal with the kinds of questions I had. Questions like “How do we know that God is Trinitarian?”, or philosophical questions. They wanted a simple faith, trust in Jesus, and community with each other.
Did Zen answer your questions better?
Zen cancelled most of my questions, as it views intellectual knowledge as ultimately worthless. In Zen the way we know reality is by an immediate experience and not through rationality.
Did that make sense to you?
No, it didn’t, because in Zen it’s not supposed to make sense. But that was attractive to me at the time.
Zen sees rationality as the enemy. Zen would say that its own scriptures—of which there are quite a few—are a “finger” pointing to the truth. If you point at something with your finger and focus on the finger, then the finger is in focus, but what that finger is pointing to is out of focus—whereas if you focus on what the finger points to, then the finger goes out of focus.
According to Zen, the scriptures are a finger and should go out of focus, while the reality that they point to should come into focus.
Is that how we should view the Bible?
Yes and no. The Bible is the word of God, and the first thing we learn about God is that he speaks, that he is committed to his speech, and that his speech has an effect. In the biblical worldview speech is a fundamental element of reality. If we are made in the image of God, it’s fundamental to us as well. Our speech is not perfect and originally creative, as is God’s, but it’s essential to who we are.
In the Bible, prayer is speech. Prayer is words, aloud or silent. It is not meditation. Both “prayer” and “meditation” are in the Bible, but they’re not the same thing, although many people today think they are.
We bring our words to God when we pray. They don’t need to be perfect, but we need to be committed to them. We need to say, These are my words now. Words bring an existential element of commitment to our thinking and experiencing and envisioning and emotion. Words complete the reality of us.
What’s the “no” part of the answer?
Words are the expression of what we see. But in order to know and live truth, we also need faith, which is belief and trust in the things that we don’t see.
How does this relate to the Zen distinction between focusing on the finger versus the reality?
In Christianity, the near focus on the finger and the distant focus on reality are brought through the blood of Christ into a unified focus. This is what Jesus meant when he said “Let your eye be single”. Have one view of things, not a near view and a distant view. God is both a nearby God and a distant God. Both of these are reality.
What would a Zen practitioner say about all this?
They would say the unity of things is in realizing possibility. Behind and beneath everything that is, is possibility. This means that a near view is possible. A distant focus is also possible. Life is possible, death is possible, God is possible, the devil is possible.
And possibility is nothing. Possibility is the pregnant nothing. Possibility is the nothing that is pregnant with everything.
The Buddha himself is possibility.
Does this make sense from the perspective of Christianity?
No, because the biblical worldview begins with actuality.
What is that “actuality”?
The Trinity. God is three Persons. There can be other possibilities surrounding God—even alternative universes. But God is a specific God, with a specific structure, which he chooses because he is self-begotten: “I am that I am”. This is not possibility. It’s actuality. The biblical worldview does not begin with what is possible, but with choice and commitment.
I wonder if post-modern Westerners might find this viewpoint constraining?
They feel threatened. If the ground of everything is, instead, possibility, then there doesn’t need to be any moral commitment. Things just are.
Most people who are committed to the reality of “possibility” have discovered that it’s very helpful to have moral and ethical guidelines to life in order to realize the possibility. People who are enlightened tend to be disciplined people.
Where does that discipline come from?
It’s part of the finger that points to truth. Then, when the finger has served its purpose, you leave it. When you realize possibility—when you are enlightened—life also becomes to some extent chaotic.
For example, there is a graduation from language. So, when people come to the great Zen master and say, “Oh great Zen master, what is truth?” or “What is Buddha nature?”, the master is likely to say something like “Three kilos of flour” or “Cherry blossoms”. This helps the person realize they can’t objectify truth.
In contrast, in the biblical worldview, truth is objective—although it’s also subjective. It’s a total truth. If the biblical worldview is true, then the worldview of possibility is only partly true, as it’s mostly subjective and not true enough to give us life.
And yet, many people are attracted to this view.
Yes. A universal unity based on subjectivity is very similar to a black hole. It’s dead, but with a powerful gravity that sucks everything into it. Which is exactly what the devil is. God is three Persons, whereas the devil is one person. The devil is necessarily self-centred, whereas God is necessarily—by his own will—other-centered.
God alone is God, and God is not alone. You cannot make this statement about any other God or original perfection.
― Ellis Potter, 3 Theories of Everything
How can reality be both subjective and objective?
I don’t believe in objective truth; I believe in objective fact. But fact does not equal truth. Truth equals fact plus meaning, and meaning means relationships, which involves subjectivity.
We can think of this as a bridge. A true bridge is accurate both mathematically and in its engineering. But a true marriage is not accurate. You can build a true bridge accurately, but you do not fall in love accurately. And yet, falling in love is not false; it is as real as the bridge. But it’s quite different—it’s not accurate.
We need both the subjectivity and the inaccuracy of falling in love, and the accuracy and the objectivity of the bridge. They both have to be part of the reality. A full reality would be more like falling in love on a bridge.
You lived at a Zen monastery for a time in the 1970s. Did you ever have an enlightenment-type experience there?
Yes. I should explain there are three schools of Zen, although the two major ones are Rinzai and Soto. Rinzai is called the “sudden” school, where you might have an enlightenment experience after only a few years of training. Soto is called a “gradual” school where you have an enlightenment experience after many years of training. The Rinzai sudden experience becomes a memory unless it is continued and built upon, whereas the Soto experience is solid. It is who you are—a permanent psychosis.
What do you mean by permanent psychosis?
It is a radically altered view of reality that never stops.
But “psychosis” implies being mentally disconnected from reality.
Yes.
What’s the disconnection?
It leaves out relationships—because it’s a total unity.
I trained at a Rinzai monastery, where I had some minor enlightenment experiences, but I had a major experience years earlier, when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was reading about Zen Buddhism and had been practising a little meditation. One day I climbed up to my bunk bed to take a nap, and as my head hit the pillow, I became exactly the same size as the universe. It was an extremely powerful experience and lasted several minutes. It wasn’t repeated, as I didn’t build on it, so it was just an experience.
After training at the monastery, you eventually left to travel. Why?
A lot of Zen Buddhist monks travel and visit different monasteries, allowing them to study Zen in various cultural situations. That isn’t frowned upon. In Japan and China there are wandering monks who go from place to place and increase their experience. So I took off to travel to practice zazen in different places, starting in northern California and then in Oregon and Massachusetts.
Then I went to Europe, where I spent time at a Zen center in Italy. I also studied the Japanese tea ceremony for six weeks.
A friend brought me to a Christian community called L’Abri in Switzerland, but I didn’t like it. People were constantly talking whereas in Zen Buddhism the focus is on silence. I left L’Abri, but I eventually returned and ended up becoming a Christian—partly against my will.
How so?
Because I didn’t want to be like the Christians I had met.
What were they like?
They were critical, and insecure, and made fun of things they didn’t understand. Some of the students tried to destroy me by ridiculing me or dismissing me. Some of the staff felt so threatened they didn’t want me to stay in their houses.
I wore Levi overalls and a flannel shirt. I dressed like a Midwest farmer, and my head was shaved, shiny bald. That was too much for many of them. Some of them could deal with it, and others, not.
What made you stay in a place where you felt so much rejection?
L’Abri has various houses, and the houses have different atmospheres. Some of the students in the house where I was living were afraid of me, but the people running the house were not.
What made you want to give up Zen?
I never did want to give it up.
Then why did you stay at L’Abri?
I knew Christians that I loved and respected, and I wanted to know enough about Christianity so that I could help them. I studied Christianity as a Zen missionary with the goal of converting others to Zen.
But you were converted to Christianity instead?
Yes—which means I was a terrible missionary!
How did this conversion happen?
As I studied, the words built up, and made sense, and the picture became more and more clear. Then I had an actual “born-again” salvation experience—which was very quiet. It was about 7:30 in the evening, and I was upstairs in the library reading a book. I looked up from the book and the whole universe changed focus. Just click. Everything shifted slightly. And it was completely different. I looked out the window and saw the Alps—the Dents du Midi—and I knew that they were created. And it wasn’t intellectual knowledge. It wasn’t irrational. It was existential. Ah, they are created, and so am I. The Creator loves them, and he loves me.
I turned to a woman named Holly who was the only other person in the library. “Holly?” I said.
“Yeah, what is it?” she said.
“I believe it,” I said.
“I’m very happy for you,” she said. She was not a believer, but we were friends, and she could see that something in me had changed.
In the most basic sense, meaning means relationships. There is fact, and there is the relationship of that fact to other facts, and that relationship is meaning. A fact has no meaning in isolation. The color red has no meaning in itself. It only has meaning in its relationship with blue or green or yellow. In the same way, you have no meaning in yourself but only in your relationship with your environment and other people.
― Ellis Potter, 3 Theories of Everything
Your journey to Christianity—a path which affirms the importance of objectivity—is in many ways the opposite trend we see in the West today, where spiritual seekers often emphasize subjectivity. Why are so many going in this direction?
I think it’s an opportunistic enticement by the devil into death. People are often offended to hear me say that, but I believe it’s the truth.
We live in a time of fragmentation and lack of trust. We’re taught that nothing is “given” to us, and instead that we have to invent ourselves. All this makes us more vulnerable to the devil’s project, which is to suck all reality into himself. He is a black hole, a singularity, necessarily self-centered. Anyone he can seduce into being self-centered is absorbed by him.
The devil tried hard to absorb Jesus. You see this during the temptation in the desert where he tries to get Jesus to be self-centered. In the end Jesus called down all the power of Satan on the cross, and swallowed it up in truth and victory.
How do you counsel people who are seeking spiritual truth?
I ask them questions, like What are you looking for? What do you expect? Do you need to create yourself, or is anything given to you? And if, for example, they say “No, nothing is given to me”, then I might ask Does that make you lonely?
Some of the questions are shocking, to try to help people realize what they’re doing.
Who have you spoken with recently?
I’ve spoken with researchers who work in particle physics at CERN. This is where the Higgs-Boson was discovered—a tiny subatomic particle, sometimes called “the God particle”. That’s the kind of thing these researchers deal with. They don’t know who God is, but they know that this particle cannot be categorized or compartmentalized. It’s so universal, so necessary, so foundational, and so not understood.
So the more research they do, the more they realize that physical research does not lead to the shape of reality. It leads to uncertainty. They want to be materialists, but they’re not really convinced.
And I think to myself, This is good!
If you want to hear more from Ellis Potter, here are some useful links (note that I support Ellis as a friend and don’t receive any financial compensation for his work).
- A talk on comparative worldviews (Christian and Eastern)
- 3 Theories of Everything – a book on comparative worldviews
- Staggering Along with God – an entertaining interview-style biography
- Comprehensive Spirituality – a new book on spirituality from a Christian perspective
- Ellis also hosts a “Friday Bible Investigation” (a.k.a. FBI) group every Friday at 19:30 Central European Time via Zoom, which is attended by a diverse international group. I’ve never had a chance to drop in, but I hear it’s very engaging. Here are the coordinates if you want to check it out. Or if you prefer to type it in: Meeting ID: 875 2591 8664, and Passcode: 1224.
For example, in the case of predestination and free will, does God choose me or do I choose God? I could divide up the pie chart 50%–50%, but it doesn’t seem like I should be equal to God, and so maybe I should make it 51% God and 49% me? Then again, maybe it should be 99% God and 1% me, or maybe 100% God and 0% me, or maybe 100% me and God is on a deistic holiday?
None of this, of course, is satisfactory. The pie chart won’t work. The third circle regards God as 100% sovereign and people as 100% responsible. God’s sovereignty and the free will of people are both fully real. In this mysterious complementarity, Calvin and Arminius kiss each other.”
– Ellis Potter, 3 Theories of Everything
Wesley’s personal Bible is a Potter family heirloom.
I stumbled onto your page by accident (Or perhaps not). This was a supremely interesting read. Thank you for introducing me to Ellis Potter. This quote really stayed with me:
"So the more research they do, the more they realize that physical research does not lead to the shape of reality. It leads to uncertainty. They want to be materialists, but they’re not really convinced."
I have watched how deeply ingrained the materialist worldview has become among my peers and family. I spent most of my life there, too. What's so fascinating is how deeply people believe in it, even as their certainty is constantly being undermined. We want so desperately to believe in something that gives us a solid footing that we will reject anything that might threaten this worldview, even as it is crumbling around us.
Yet just as I noticed the doubt within me, I see it in the eyes of others. How we decide to grapple with that will decide our collective futures, I think.
Interesting interview :) , my first experience was after praying as my last hope to a God i did not believe in yet. As he said i did not build on that experience so it quickly became a memory. Afterwards I went into zen and advaita which gave me more similar but less powerful experiences.
What i now realise is that zen and advaita made me disinterested in everything around me. Now i realise God is Love and creation is here to be loved, which is more a romantic viewpoint but it feels much more real and truthful, sure it produces suffering. But our God suffered on behalve of us so we don't get to tap out of reality by becoming empty vessels.