Transfiguration As Universal Christ and Bodhichitta: The
Awakened Heart
I have long been haunted by the fact that The Feast of the Transfiguration is the day the United States of America chose to drop the first atomic bomb on the citizens of Hiroshima. Of that day, John Hershey wrote, “At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima….Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor’s widow, stood by the window of her kitchen watching a neighbor tearing down his house because it lay in the path of an air-raid-defense fire lane…Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German priest of the Society of Jesus, reclined in his underwear on a cot on the top floor of his order’s three-story mission house, reading a Jesuit magazine, Stimmen der Zeit…” [i]
“As Mrs. Nakamura stood watching her neighbor, everything flashed whiter than any white she had ever seen…the reflex of a mother set her in motion toward her children…she took one step…when something picked her up and she seemed to fly into the next room…was buried in the rubble of her house…she heard a child cry…started to frantically claw her way toward the baby, she could see or hear nothing of her other children…then, from what seemed to b caverns below, she heard two small voices, crying, ‘Help! Help!” [ii] They were survivors. Of the 245,000 people, a hundred thousand were killed instantly, and another hundred thousand were wounded.
Storyteller Luke tells us that atop a mountain, Jesus shined whiter than any white anyone had ever seen. Peter, James and John see him speaking to Moses and Elijah about his “exodos”, his exodus, his great escape, his exit. Moses and Elijah are experts on dramatic exits. We note that this blazing white Jesus is literally traveling through time to confer with these ancient heroes of Isarael. This is the first appearance of what Franciscan Richard Rohr calls the Universal Christ. Up to now, Luke has written about the man, Jesus. Now these three disciples see the Universal Christ, what Rohr calls “the Spirit of Christ,” which is not the same as the person of Jesus.
Rohr says the Spirit of Christ is essentially “God’s love for the world”, which has existed since before the beginning of time. This Spirit of Christ suffuses everything in creation, and has been present in all cultures and civilizations. Jesus, on the other hand, is a human incarnation of this Universal Christ, and Rohr suggests that following him may be for some the “best shortcut” to accessing God’s love for the world. Rohr also believes that this love can also be found through the practices of other religions like Buddhist meditation, or through communing with nature. [iii]
Indeed, Pema Chodron, a Buddhist teacher at Gampo Abbey, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery in North America, observes that in stories like the transfiguration, spiritual awakening is often described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. We imagine that at the peak we transcend all pain and suffering. But there is a problem with this metaphor. We end up leaving all the others behind – our drunken brother, our schizophrenic sister, our tormented animals and friends. Their suffering persists, unrelieved by our personal escape.
Chodron offers another view, focused on what Buddhists call bodhichitta, “an awakened or noble heart.” In difficult and suffering times, it is said that bodhichitta can heal. When loneliness, fear and feeling misunderstood becomes the heartbeat of all things, the heart of all sadness, bodhichitta cannot be lost. Bodhichitta is here in all that lives, never marred and completely whole. Bodhichitta sounds similar to Rohr’s Universal Christ – what the Gospel of John calls the Word, the Logos, which is the light and the life in all creation.
Chodron suggests that in fact the process to discover bodhichitta is a journey that goes down, not up. “It’s as if the mountain points down to the center of the earth, instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.” [iv]
The Universal Christ on top of the mountain is the love that never dies down, down, down in the midst of our suffering and worldliness. God’s love is for the world. The whole world. The whole world God has in God’s hands! Indeed, the story of the Transfiguration continues with Jesus and his three disciples going down the mountain, where he, Jesus, is confronted by a man whose son is having seizures. Jesus rebukes the unclean spirit in the boy, heals him, and gives him back to his father. All present are astounded at the greatness of God. The love that will not die, the bodhichitta, the awakened heart, the Universal Christ, God’s love for the world since before the beginning of time - this love was in evidence and demonstrated its healing power down, down, down at the foot of the mountain. This is where the transfiguration of the world happens.
Near the end of his account of that day in Hiroshima, John Hershey returns to the story of the Jesuit priests: “Months later, [after recovering in the hospital] Father Kleinsorge and the other German Jesuit priests…often discussed the ethics of using the bomb. One of them…wrote in a report to the Holy See in Rome: ‘Some of us consider the bomb in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civilian population. Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?’” [v]
That day on the mountain top, a dark cloud came over the disciples and over the whole mountain. From the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Beloved; listen to him!” Jesus was there alone. He and his disciples call us to go down, and down, and down the mountain with them, and with newly awakened hearts share the Universal Christ’s love for the world that never dies, with all those who are left behind, the lonely, lost, afraid, and suffering ….
[i]
Hershey, John, Hiroshima, (Alfred A Knopf, NYC::1946) p. 1-2
[ii]
Ibid, p.13
[iii]
Griswold, Eliza, “Richard Rohr Reorders the Universe,”5 February 2, 2020
[iv]
Chodron, Pema, The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambala, Boston:2008) p.86-87
[v] Ibid
Hershey, p.117-118
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