The Way of the Circle
Disclaimer: All the ensō images used in the video were purchased as digital files. They are not created by me.
As I spend more time practicing and teaching Interspirituality, I am increasingly in awe of the circle as a symbol of wholeness, inclusion, and what the beloved Vietnamese zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, called “Interbeing.”
To quote Thich Nhat Hanh:
““To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing.”
The way of the circle is a fundamentally non-hierarchical way of being.
And… I am continually shocked to discover just how much of my own psyche is still colonized by hierarchical thinking and ways of being.
I often find myself raging against what I call “love and light” spirituality. That shadowless place that admits only the good, only the beautiful – only the pureness of white and light.
While I rage against this supremacist and patriarchal model of both psychology and spirituality when I teach and write, while I hark on the value and power of darkness, messiness and imperfection of embodiment, I find that deep within myself, I still have a lot of decolonization to do. When I slightly slacken my attention, it is very easy for me to fall into the binaries of good and bad, right and wrong, light and dark. And yes, these are HIGHLY value-laden qualities. Good, right and light are to be aspired for, worked towards. And bad, wrong and dark are to be moved away from, to be grown out of. My skin crawls when I hear yet another spiritual teacher talk about “high vibe” and “low vibe.” And, I am here to acknowledge that my skin crawls partly because this type of thinking still lives in my psyche. As my shadow.
Yesterday, I taught about shadow to our first year interfaith/interspiritual seminary students at One Spirit Learning Alliance. So, this particular shadow is more on the surface today, and is yearning for some integration.
Even though I made the video (see above) a few weeks ago, I finally decided to write this piece today, while this subject is fresh (and hot) on my heart! I offer this essay and video as an alternative perspective, a counterbalance to the hierarchical psyche that I know I share with many who will be reading this. Let’s face it. This is the water we have been swimming in. This is Western Enlightenment thinking. No wonder none of us are exempt from it! Not even if you grew up all the way across the world – separated by landmasses, mountains, and oceans!!
The Circle as an antithesis of Hierarchy
When I think of hierarchy, I think of rungs on a ladder, or a long, steep staircase leading to the temple of the gods high on the mountaintop. It takes work to make our way up the ladder. It requires will. Remember that will is an attribute of consciousness – whose center, in Jungian psychology, is defined as the ego. Our consciousness works with grades and scales, and assigns moral valence to these grades and scales. In all fairness, this type of hierarchical and moralistic thinking may have a function in our lives among the ten thousand things. Maybe it is the price we pay to become “civilized.” To live in relative peace with other humans who also have well-honed consciousness (and hence a nice, solid ego).
When I looked up the etymology of hierarchy, this is what I found. The word “hierarchy” derives from Greek hierarkhia, meaning "rule of a high priest." The word is composed of hiera, meaning "the sacred rites" (neuter plural of hieros, meaning "sacred"), and arkhein, meaning "to lead, rule." So, moving upward on the hierarchy is really about the power and permission to rule and lead, especially in rites and practices that are considered “sacred!”
An implicit accompaniment of hierarchy is striving for perfection. Perfection is the highest, purest form, for which no further improvements are possible (composed of Latin per, meaning "completely", and facere, meaning "to make, to do.") Perfect is something that is complete. Done. Finished… Dead! It has no more potential. Whatever was possible for it is manifest at this moment.
How boring is that?
I believe that there is another way of being. Something deeper. Something that lives in our very bones – in our collective unconscious. Something we share with all of nature.
And that is the way of the circle.
First and foremost, nature is circular. Living on this round planet on ours, we cannot miss the cycles of day and night, full moon and new moon, the seasons, birth and death. What dies rots; and feeds new life.
So, when I feel exhausted by the climb of the hierarchical ladders and staircases (which, as I said, seems impossible to fully step off in our “civilized” identities), I fall back on practices that honor the circle.
Many, if not most, indigenous practices – from the North American indigenous medicine wheel, to chakras and mandalas of the Eastern traditions, to Celtic and Wiccan sacred circles, to crop circles and labyrinths – honor what is circular. That which has no beginning or end. No higher or lower. No power-over.
In Western alchemy, whose roots go back to ancient Egypt and Greece, an important symbol of this eternal life-and-death cycle is the ouroboros (or uroboros), depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. This symbol is at the core of a lot of Gnostic and Hermetic teaching.
Ensō: The Japanese zen practice of beauty in imperfection
Today, I invoke the Japanese zen image of the ensō as an exquisite entre into the way of the circle.
In Japanese zen, an ensō (円相, "circular form") is part of the practice of sumi-e. The Japanese term sumi means “black ink”, and e means “painting”. One uses an ink brush to apply ink to washi (a thin Japanese paper). Interestingly, on rice paper, only one brush stroke is allowed for each mark: any touch-ups are immediately evident.
As a spiritual practice, you contemplate the form to be painted. One could say that you “become” what is to be painted. Then, you apply one swift brush stroke for each element. Once drawn, there are no corrections, no improvements. What is drawn, stands.
An ensō partakes of the Japanese aesthetics of wab-sabi (侘寂). In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Wabi-sabi is a composite of two interrelated aesthetic concepts, wabi (侘) and sabi (寂). According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, wabi may be translated as "subdued, austere beauty," while sabi means "rustic patina." Characteristics of wabi-sabi aesthetics and principles include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and the appreciation of both natural objects and the forces of nature.
Here are some words from Junichiro Tanizak, written in 1977, in his book “In Praise of Shadows,” that speaks to this sensibility:
“The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance, but we object to the practice. While we do sometimes indeed use silver for teakettles, decanters, or saké cups, we prefer not to polish it. On the contrary, we begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky patina… We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity.”
As we lean into wabi-sabi, we are touched by mono no aware (物の哀れ), sometimes translated as the “pathos of things.” It is the gentle sadness or wistfulness that comes when we contemplate something beautiful and impermanent (like life itself). Think of the cherry blossoms as an example of this short-lived explosion of beauty that almost hurts the heart, while also filling it with joy!
Rather than use more words to try and describe something that lives beyond words, please allow the video above to wash over you. May these images open you to wabi-sabi, and the accompanying mono no aware.