Ignatian Spirituality and Mindfulness in Karl

Rahner, S.J. Paul J. Schutz

TEDxFordhamUniversity with English subtitles
good afternoon my name is Paul Schutz I'm
a doctoral candidate in systematic
theology here at fordham which means
that I've been in school much much much
longer than anyone ever should in their
entire life but hopefully for a good
cause and it's a great pleasure to be
with you this afternoon um the topic of
my talk today is cultivating a
spirituality of mindfulness out of the
work of a Jesuit German Jesuit
theologian Karl Rahner who died just
recently 1984 and he is known as one of
the greatest if not the greatest
Catholic theologian of the 20th century
so I'm going to try to interpret a
little bit of what he was saying for you
guys today in terms of what this session
is about what this week is about mental
health awareness so what I'm going to
talk to you about today basically is
having a good idea everybody having a
good idea at some point and I'm not
talking about the good idea like two
o'clock in the morning let's go to
mugsy's there's two more hours right
like that not that kind of good idea but
the type of good idea or something
really works out right we're in your
life at a given moment you have this
sort of inspiration you have this sort
of moment you're like yeah I should do
that and you do it and everything seems
to fall into place or maybe a good idea
where a good idea that you thought you
had was challenged sometimes could I
just turn out to be bad ones too Emma
mugsy's being a possible primary example
so to get into this in terms of Rahner
as I said Rogers our 20th century German
Jesuit theologian now if you know
anything about Jesuit spirituality you
don't have to get what I'm sort of
presenting today but if you know
anything about Jesuit spirituality one
of the key parts of it is this idea of
finding God in all faiths that for
Jesuit priests God is available God is
present in with and under everything
that exists both in the natural world in
relationships interactions with other
people all these things
means to a possible encounter with God
for German Jesuits and that comes in
theological terms of the mode of grace
that God graciously gives of God self to
the world in and through these things so
that people can come to understand God
so that's the piece of it I think that's
operating in the sort of SJ that's after
runners name and the names of a lot of
people on our campus here at Fordham as
Jesuit university now runner at the same
time that all of that is true he was
trained in that spirituality he also was
a very very very rigorous German thinker
right you know hi digger the Martin
Heidegger the famous philosopher was his
teacher his mentor um he was trained in
that very complicated and difficult if
you drive a red German philosophy you
know sentences will go on for you know
10 20 30 lines in a book and you're
trying to figure out like what what goes
where in terms of comments and
everything else in fact he's so strongly
within this particular intellectual
tradition then he has a brother the
lesser know rahner who I think had some
like ego issues his whole life because
it was brother was Hugo Hugo runner
nobody's ever early heard of it was once
interviewed about his brothers work and
the interviewer asked you know if you
know a very obvious question so have you
read Karl's theological writings Karl
wrote in German you know did all these
things is German academic and Hugo's
response was no I haven't I'm still
waiting for them to be translated into
German right which of course the
language that runner wrote in so so
incomprehensible people really labor
over sometimes reading some of his stuff
and at the end of my talk you're going
to hear a little snippet of this stuff
but focusing away from sort of the deep
theological things in runners um writing
i wanna i want to interpret a little bit
of what he wrote instead in terms of
this idea of mindfulness and what is
mindfulness comes generally out of the
Buddhist tradition something called
sotti and it's sometimes defined this is
just one definition as the intentional
accepting and non-judgmental
focus of one's attention on the emotions
thoughts and sensations occurring in the
present moment so this idea of
mindfulness has a focus on liberating
oneself freeing oneself to really be
present in a given moment and to take
seriously one's emotions one's thoughts
one's feelings one's relationships in
that moment be it to a tree or another
person or blade of grass or whatever it
is wherever it is that you're right
there you're all the way there in that
moment that's what mindfulness is so if
we bring together the thought of this
like you know crazy ideas of this German
theologian and this idea of mindfulness
kind of what do we get well R honors
theology in all of his spirituality
everything finding God in all things as
an inner and an outer dimension so yes
we have concrete experiences I come to
here to talk to you guys today I'm I
talked to like Jed a little bit later
face to face right in that moment in
that concrete experience and interaction
there's not just the what's really
happening there but there's always
another dimension to our experience and
for honor that's the spiritual dimension
that is the dimension where God is so
God's presence God's grace this
spirituality is mediated in and through
every single moment of human life and
experience every moment every
interaction with another person with the
world is a means to grace because
according to Jesuits we are finding God
in all things so what do we do then when
we interact with somebody but for honor
every interaction with a person or with
anything else is an opportunity for a
yes or a no not only to that person not
only to the sort of mindfulness of that
person your self present are you texting
white in the middle of your conversation
with the other person or are you really
there present to them are you saying yes
to their presence before your eyes or
not and for honor that's not all there
is at the same time that that
interaction happens God is there as well
in the person that you're faced with in
the graced moment of this encounter and
that yes or no that your give to the
person is also yes or no to God who is
present in
in that and for honor this extends to
all creation to all concrete experience
to all of history not just to these
moments so heaven god these ideas that
usually get talked about in church are
not about ideas that are floating around
up in the sky but radically radically
present in front of your face in every
moment and the ability to say yes or no
to that moment is the god moment is the
moment of encounter with God and so
that's through this idea of the inner at
what he calls the transcendental and the
outer dimensions the categorical moments
in human experience the way that he puts
those two things together so I want to
ask you for a minute to think about what
would happen if we cultivated a sense of
this mindfulness a sense of this
presence in terms of the spiritual
resources that Rahner offers us what if
as part of our commitment to our own
mental health to the well-being of each
other into the world we had the
opportunity to really recognize and take
seriously not only maybe as Christians
but in any religious tradition or not in
a religious tradition it doesn't really
matter but take in all seriousness the
radical interconnectedness of all things
and to take seriously the fact that our
being present our mindfulness and the
mindfulness of those of whom we interact
is crucial to the flourishing of people
is crucial to the life of people the joy
of people in all of these things if we
could keep ourselves grounded in that
moment in that mindfulness what would
our world look like to take with radical
seriousness the importance of presence
of my presence of heart in everything
that we do in everyone that we see in
every moment that we experience and I
think that Ron or spirituality if we
take this sort of ideological language
and translate it into everyday life
that's what it looks like that's what it
asks people to do and so as I said
regardless of whether you're religious
or not many Buddhists have no interest
in the question of whether God exists
Buddha isn't always like a god or a
divine figure it can simple
be the presence and a recognition of the
interrelatedness of all things I have a
relationship strangely enough with this
podium right and I have through all of
history I have a relationship with each
one of you whether or not we've ever
interacted personally or not and taking
seriously that all of that and being
mindful of it is the key to kind of
getting into this so I think that this
is something that in terms of if we if
we take as our starting point the idea
that flourishing this growth this
radical group of people having a hope in
that flourishing whether it comes from a
Jesuit spirituality another faith
tradition or anywhere else is a
component of this awareness this keeping
in mind all things that really do enact
the growth from the flourishing of
everything that is so to put this in
runners terms to go back to this
original idea of that I broke everything
sorry to put this in the in the terms of
Rahner and this idea of having a good
idea Roger says as is really funny
passage this is the last book he wrote
before he died it's a summary volume of
all of sta alla G most of the sentences
occupy like eight to ten lines and have
like 17 commas you know it's that kind
of thing but every once in a while he
like breaks down and this is the way in
which breaks it down this idea of having
a good idea so just listen bear with me
for a minute because it's hard to say
any read anything from runner that's
short so just listen briefly to this as
his interpretation of maybe one way of
looking at what having a good idea is
like in terms of a relationship with God
and in terms of this Jesuit spirituality
so he asked about having a good idea a
good idea strikes me which has as its
consequence an important decision which
proves to be valid and objectively
correct I regardless good ideas and as
an inspiration of God so he's asking
about divine inspiration may I so he
goes on to consider this today he says
but the moment that I experienced myself
as the transcendental subject in my
orientation to
and accepted and the moment I accept
this concrete world with all its
concreteness and messiness and in spite
of the functional interconnectedness of
all its elements accepted as the
concrete world in which my concrete
relationship to the absolute ground of
my existence in his world that's God it
could be something else unfolds
historically for me as I actualize it in
openness and in freedom then within this
so on sentence subjective transcendental
relationship to God this good idea
receives objectively a quite definite
and positive significance hence I can
and must say it is willed by God in this
positive significance as a moment of the
one world established in freedom by the
ground as the world of my subjective
relationship to god swear stuff happens
and in this sense can be called an
inspiration he puts it in quotation
marks of God of course it could be
objected against anis that in this way
everything can be regarded as a special
Providence as an intervention of God as
God's action in Our Lives presupposing
only that I accept the concrete
constellation of my life real stuff and
of the world in such a way that it
becomes a positive salvific experience
of my transcendental relationship to God
in freedom and yours work comes down he
says but against this objection we can
simply ask the counter question why then
may this not be the case and that's
where he leaves that chapter he's like
in this experience people talk about
divine inspiration are good ideas
inspirations well maybe so if we're open
to it and who's who cares like why can't
that be the case if in mindfulness in
our presence into the world be it to God
to each other we encounter that we
should follow through on those things to
trust in ourselves and have confidence
and hope in what it is that comes our
way and to understand this feeling
sensation of being led may actually be
leading us somewhere thank you