Narratives of Detachment: Meister Eckhart and Buddhaghosa on Personal Transformation

Abstract

Meister Eckhart has many Buddhist admirers, not least the Japanese Zen teacher, Daisetz Suzuki, and one of his most celebrated translators, Maurice Walshe. As an exercise in what has come to be called Comparative Theology, this paper brings Eckhart into dialogue with the fifth century Theravadin commentator, Buddhaghosa. The main teachings of Buddhaghosa’s celebrated Visuddhimagga, the ‘Path of Purification’, focus on the dual practice of ethics and concentration, building stages of meditative consciousness, most notably upekkha, often translated as ‘equanimity’ or ‘detachment’, that lead to Nirvana. It is this last quality, the state of calm and open mindfulness, that most suggests a correlation with Eckhart and what he speaks of as Abgescheidenheit. Despite the many differences between their cultural backgrounds and metaphysical presuppositions, certain resonances between Eckhart and Buddhaghosa, particularly with regard to the virtues that underpin the religious life, open up a dialectical path between the already and the not-yet, transcendence and immanence, sameness and otherness.