Meister Eckhart Latin Sermon II,1 deep dive analysis (new translation!)

This is a new 2024 translation of Meister Eckhart's Latin Sermon II,1 by Dr. Clint Johnson
Dr. Johnson teaches philosophy at Georgia Tech. He is the author of Paradox at Play: Metaphor in Meister Eckhart's Sermons by Catholic University of America Press. It includes many sermons never before translated into English.
Meister Eckhart, Paradox at Play
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Thank you for this, and for all your videos. They are very good to think with. I have a couple questions/thoughts-- first I have the feeling that the comparisons of Eckhard to Buddhism is just a shorthand for Eastern philosophy. He seems much more inline with Yoga/Vedanta, and more specifically, Advaita Vedanta, with its emphasis on oneness, than he does with the extreme momentariness and impermanence of Buddhist philosophy. His thoughts seem inline with the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. And his emphasis on experience as an ultimate way of knowing seems in line with yoga philosophy. Or maybe I’m just not familiar enough with a particular lineage of Buddhism with which he resonates strongly?
Next, you mention Eckhart’s lack of interest in historicity and emphasis on the eternal. That’s a very helpful nailed down summation. Would you say this is true of all mystics within the Abrahamic faiths? Is this what distinguishes mysticism? It seems to be something so many Christian mystics have in common.
Other stay thoughts: I’m not familiar with the Book of Causes, but it sounds fascinating. The shift from infinity as chaos to infinity as a settled oneness is also fascinating.
Thanks again.

[@goodtothinkwith]

You're quite welcome - thank you for the kind words! To some extent, yes, it is a shorthand for Eastern philosophy insofar as Eckhart is equally at home with Advaita, Taoism, Therevada and Mahayana Buddhism. But that is to say - as you rightly point out in your next question! - that this is a kind of "distinction" for mysticism generally. I say that ironically and in a provocatively Eckhartian fashion alluding to Eckhart's rhetoric about God being distinct in his indistinction. Mysticism is "distinct" and different from other things because other things want to identify differences. Since mysticism (divine oneness by any name) antagonizes all distinctions, it is "distinct" in this ironic way. Perhaps that will help with the second question. If an Abrahamic mystic is a mystic, then that person will share much with other mystics (this is why we see and hear the same thing about the commonalities between St Teresa of Avila and Eastern thought.
Part of the shorthand is historically conditioned, by the way. Since Daisetz Suzuki was part of the early conversation about Eckhart in the 1950s and he was himself Zen, that's probably one of the reasons that "Eckhart and Zen" are more naturally considered a pair than "Eckhart and Advaita."
The Book of Causes, The Book of the XXIV Philosophers, The German Theology (Theologia Deutch, the Book of the Perfect Life), The Paradise of the Intellective Soul... these are all books that were at one time very popular. But now, it's unusual for someone to have even heard of them. And it's not always easy to even get copies and translations of them, unfortunately. As a translator, especially, I think we should at least have translations of the popular books for our different ages of history. Reading them helps us to get in the mind (as I like: enter into the imaginative horizon) of the people we're studying

​@@goodtothinkwith
I have a few more questions, if you don't mind. If all mysticisms resolve in ultimate unity how do I account for Vishnavia Bhakatas for whom it would be a horror show to be one with the beloved because that would be to be without the object of adoration. Is that just not mysticism? Does it just resonate with mysticism because systems of thought that come out of the East have an overall ring of mysticism, at least to the Western ear? When St John of the Cross, in his poems, speaks erotically to the beloved it does feel like it resolves in unity. In Krishna leelas it doesn't feel like that same resolve is there. For the Bhakata there is more insistence on god having an independent form. As soon as there's an insistence on form is that not mysticism? As soon as there's form there's dualism-- and this is maybe the heart of what's bothering me-- are there no dualistic mysticisms? I get something like the Doaist conception where there's an ongoing trill between two-ness and one-ness. Are the mystical options panentheism (where Eckhart seems to be) or pantheism?
My concern comes out of wanting to hear what different systems of thought have to say. It does seem to me that all rivers resolve in the ocean, but some rivers say they are not ocean-bound. I'm not sure what to do with them. I'm not listening if I am imposing my assumptions of an, at least qualified, unity.
Back to the similarities between Eckardt, or mystically oriented Christianity, and Eastern thought. I wonder what Thomas Merton's altar looked like. I wonder if he had Buddhist symbols? ...jumping to Merton as he seems to be part of the same lineage, had access to Eastern thought, and was in conversation with Suzuki. .....or maybe his altar was his bookshelf.... My point here is that once you get to the place of the altar, be it an actual altar or a metaphor for what is revered, isn't it the contemporary Advieta altar that is most likely to hold both East and West? I get why we point to Zen from a historical perspective. But I'm not sure why we keep pointing there. I mean that both critically and ernestly.

[@thomassimmons1950]

Crazy, but I just read this, this morning in the Mystical Writings of Meister Eckhart.

[@Nakfourium]

Which Sermon is it in this book?

[@thomassimmons1950]

@@Nakfourium I'll have to look, mate.

[@Nakfourium]

@@thomassimmons1950 tysm