Decoding Bloom: The Lotus Eaters Sutra

“Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek.” -- Ulysses, p. 80

This is a post in a series called Decoding Bloom where I take a paragraph of Ulysses and break it down line by line.

The passage below comes from “Lotus Eaters,” the fifth episode of Ulysses. It appears on page 80 in my copy (1990 Vintage International).

To listen to a discussion of this topic, check out the podcast episode here and here.

What better way to follow up stealthily reading a saucy letter than with a little bit of Mass?

St. Andrew’s (All Hallows) Catholic Church, Westland Row, 2018

Following his chat with M’Coy and his indulgence in Martha’s letter, Leopold Bloom ducks into All Hallows’ Church in Westland Row and observes a Catholic Mass. Curiously, though the Catholic church in Westland Row has always been called St. Andrew’s, Joyce chose to call it All Hallows’ instead. Deacon Dermot McCarthy of present-day All Hallows’ explained the discrepancy in an email:

“…our understanding is that the usage in Ulysses derives from the fact that the church is located on the grounds of the Priory of All Hallows’, a medieval foundation established where Trinity College now stands, centred on the present Campanile. All Hallows’ College in Drumcondra is built on the grange or farm associated with the Priory.

There’s no local tradition of referring to the church as All Hallows’. The present building replaced in the 1830s a former church dedicated to St Andrew on Townsend Street, while the parish originated in the 12th century centred on the site of the former Church of Ireland church dedicated to St Andrew on Suffolk Street.”

Why is Leopold Bloom, Ireland’s most famous Jew, hanging out in a Catholic church anyway? Bloom is a Catholic on paper but, in truth, a non-believer all around. All the same, he is a seeker in his own way - possessed of a curious mind and consistently open to new ideas. Perhaps the church is simply a quiet refuge from the hustle and bustle of Dublin’s streets. Maybe he is adding to his alibi for his visit to Westland Row. At the very least, if he meets another busybody acquaintance, he won’t be compelled to talk to them. In fact, it seems he has been to this church in the recent past as his first thought upon creeping in the back door is:

“Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S.J. on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African Mission.”

“Same notice.” Perhaps he’s in a habit of killing time in this very church.

Keen readers will recognize the very reverend John Conmee S.J. from both A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (where he is described as “the decentest rector that was ever in Clongowes”) and from the “Wandering Rocks” episode of Ulysses (where he is a superior with a bit of a superior air). Conmee was a real man who indeed knew a young James Joyce when he was a rector of the Jesuit-run Clongowes Wood College. He later used his influence to get Joyce a place in Belvedere College, ensuring the young Artist received a top-tier, Jesuit education.

St. Peter Claver, a Spanish Jesuit, is remembered for his work in South America rather than Africa. In the 1600’s, he ministered to enslaved Africans as they disembarked in Cartagena, Colombia. He was canonized for his efforts and is the patron saint of slaves, race relations and ministry to African Americans. While he is celebrated by some (notably the Catholic Church) as someone who provided spiritual comfort to African people, in fact Claver greeted arriving slave ships and converted their passengers, who were owned as chattel slaves, to Catholicism. As the converts were held in bondage, they really had no say in their “conversions.” Rather, their conversion to Catholicism was one step in divorcing them from their culture and community and, ultimately, conditioning them to enslavement. I’m guessing only select parts of that story made it into Fr. Conmee’s sermon.

Notice that both Conmee and Claver bear the appellation “S.J.” This stands for Society of Jesus and marks them both as members of the order. The Jesuits, as they’re commonly known, conducted missions of conversion not only in Africa and South America, but around the world. Bloom, even with his tenuous grasp of Catholic history, makes this connection instantly:

“Save China's millions.Wonder how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for them.”

Bloom thinks about Jesuit missions to “save” the Chinese by converting them to Catholicism. Bloom converted to Catholicism in order to marry Molly, but is still recognized as a Jew by his peers. He is keenly aware of what it’s like to be discriminated against for not being a believer of the “true faith,” so it’s jarring to see him use such bigoted language against another group (which he does more than once throughout the day). Being a marginalized person does not necessarily cause one to embrace all other outsiders.

In this case at least, it seems that Bloom is rolling his eyes at the idea of Jesuit missionaries positioning themselves as saviors of the simple, drug-addicted Chinese, who would rather have opium than everlasting life. Bloom is an Orientalist at heart, spellbound by dreams of the mystic East. Though he knows very little about actual Chinese culture, he sympathizes with them in his own way. Due to his dearth of knowledge, Bloom draws upon popular culture to express himself. “The Heathen Chinee” is the title of an 1870 poem by Bret Harte. Spoiler alert: it’s racist!

The stereotype of the Chinese as opium addicts is likely a reference to the Opium Wars of the 19th century. Opium, once used mainly medicinally, was peddled by British black market traders as a recreational drug, leading to widespread addiction. The British fought two wars against China because the Chinese had the audacity to try to end the British black market trade in opium in China. The stereotype of the Chinese as opium fiends was a result of foreign incursion. Bloom’s comment here is ironic - the missionaries might view the Chinese as dope-fiends, but in truth they are celestials thinking on a higher level than these mere Westerners. Still problematic, but a different kind of problematic.

Bloom is quite skeptical of the Church’s intentions, viewing the Jesuits as self-interested and two-faced. Christianity, like recreational opium use, was imposed by foreign invaders in Asia as a way of undoing the local culture in favor of Western hegemonic power. Of course, Karl Marx famously described religion as the opium of the people, so beyond the racial connotations, Bloom’s statement can be read as quite critical of colonialism. I don’t see Bloom as much of a Marxist, but he is skeptical of how the Church views both non-believers and its own parishioners.

“Prayers for the conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the true religion.”

Bloom thinks how nonsensical conversion efforts can be. As prime minister, William Gladstone supported Irish Home Rule. While that put him in the good graces of some Irish Catholics, he remained personally ambivalent towards Catholicism as a religion. On the eve of Gladstone’s death, Archbishop Walsh of Dublin called for prayers for Gladstone, but not for his conversion. The divisions between different denominations of Christianity can seem huge to Christians, but to an outsider, they can seem more or less like different shades of the same color. Bloom, the son of a Jewish man turned Protestant, has been both a Protestant and a Catholic on paper, but on the inside he’s always just been Leopold. A war for souls in the eyes of some comes across as petty scorekeeping to Bloom.

“Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning.”

The reclining Buddha Bloom saw in the museum. Image source: http://100objects.ie/reclining-buddha/

Bloom’s done with Christianity for a moment. His mind jumps to a reclining Buddha statue he saw in the National Museum.

Bloom was so taken with this statue, that he took Molly to see it, too, as she recalls in “Penelope”:

“... that Indian god he took me to show one wet Sunday in the museum in Kildare street all yellow in a pinafore lying on his side on his hand with his ten toes sticking out that he said was a bigger religion than the jews and Our Lords both put together all over Asia…”

Bloom’s enthusiasm for Buddhist art surpasses his actual knowledge of Buddhism, however. To begin with, the Buddha was not a god. Buddhism is a nontheistic belief system - its central tenets do not require a belief in a deity of any kind. Siddhartha Gautama was a human man who, through a focused practice of asceticism, was able to transcend the endless cycle of death and rebirth known as samsara. Because of this, he is referred to by the title “Buddha,” meaning “enlightened one.” This contrasts sharply with Christianity, whose namesake is considered the Son of God by the faithful and the only chance of salvation is devotion to Him, a man who is also a God. On top of this, that statistic Leopold gave Molly is not accurate at all. There were far more Christians and Jews (combined) than Buddhists in the world then and now.

The Buddha is typically depicted in one of three postures - standing, seated or reclining. Reclining Buddha images are associated with Theravada Buddhism, which emphasizes monasticism as a means of achieving enlightenment. Though Bloom sees this statue as an image of a guy relaxing and hanging out, it is actually depicting the Buddha in his dying moments. He is at peace as he is in the process of achieving nirvana, breaking free from samsara. Bloom’s lack of knowledge is universal, but here we see his penchant for Orientalist fantasy resurface. He’s returning to his earlier daydream about the “Cinghalese lobbing around in the sun.” The Orient is so laid back that even their god is a guy who is just chilling! Radical!

Apart from enjoying Buddhist aesthetic, it is safe to say that Bloom knows less about Buddhism than he does Christianity or Judaism. But what about Joyce? Buddhism is referenced several times in Ulysses, so he must have had more than a passing interest. We can assume, for instance, that Bloom’s enthusiasm for the reclining Buddha statue in the National Museum was shared by Joyce, who must have seen it in person. It is a real statue, though it is no longer on display in the museum’s Kildare St. location. Whatever Joyce’s thoughts on British rule were, the statue that so illuminated Bloom’s imagination was a product of imperial adventurism - it is listed as a stolen item on a current website attributed to the National Museum of Ireland.

Like many young people who reject a dogmatic religion in their youth, Joyce sought a replacement for the spiritual void in his life after he abandoned the Jesuits. He turned to the spiritual movement of Theosophy which was popular in intellectual circles at the time. Joyce ultimately abandoned Theosophy (which he described as a “refuge for renegade Protestants''), but it’s likely that he was introduced to Eastern philosophical ideas through the Theosophical texts he owned, as well as through Theosophists like Æ Russell, who appears as a character in Ulysses.

Theosophy was developed by Westerners like Madame Helena Blavatsky and Col. Henry S. Olcott, both of whom traveled extensively in Asia. Religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism heavily influenced their spiritualism, especially concepts such as reincarnation and a universal mind. Blavatsky and Olcott tweaked these ideas to fit their own spiritual system. It’s documented that Joyce owned books by Blavatsky and Olcott but not books about Buddhism from non-Theosophical sources, so his view of Buddhism was filtered through a secondary spiritualism.

That doesn’t mean Joyce was totally silent on the matter of Buddhism, though. In 1903, Joyce wrote a short review of H. Fielding Hall’s The Soul of a People, a book about the author’s travels in Burma. It’s clear from the review that Joyce was quite taken with the vision of a Buddhist society described in the book. He writes about Buddhism as a “wise passive philosophy” in which:

“All things that are inimical to human peace are evil. Though Buddhism is essentially a philosophy built against the evils of existence, a philosophy which places its end in the annihilation of the personal life and the personal will, the Burmese people have known how to transform it into a rule of life at once simple and wise.”

It’s notable that Joyce opts to classify Buddhism as a philosophy rather than a religion. It’s been said by many that Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion, but there is a strong religious component to the daily practice of Buddhism for many Buddhists around the world. In The Buddhist Catechism (which Joyce owned) Olcott is direct in his assertion that Buddhism is a philosophy alone, stating, “The word 'religion' is most inappropriate to apply to Buddhism, which is not a religion, but a moral philosophy.”

Joyce continues in his review:

“Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many things which perhaps are of no importance, that it cannot but see something feeble in a civilization which smiles as it refuses to make the battlefield the test of excellence…. All this is part of a suave philosophy which does not know that there is anything to justify tears and lamentations.”

Sounds great! However, while the Burmese are indeed Theravada Buddhists and suave in their way, they are not the bliss-ninnies that they are made out to be in these descriptions. Buddhist monks have often been at the center of political resistance in Southeast Asia. Joyce’s characterization overlooks even recent history, such as the struggle of the Burmese against the British Empire. It shows his ignorance of the three Anglo-Burmese Wars that flared up between the 1820’s and 1880’s. It also neglects that one of the voices opposing British rule and the imposition of Christianity in Burma at the turn of the 20th century was U Dhammaloka, an Irish sailor turned Buddhist monk. I have no idea what Joyce’s knowledge of these events was, and I’m sure that U Dhammaloka wasn’t making headlines in Dublin. However, it does show that Joyce had a naïve view of Buddhism. To me, it seems Bloom’s stereotyped views of life in the East were also Joyce’s.

Let’s look back at the opening paragraphs of “Lotus Eaters”:

“Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in dolce far niente, not doing a hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness.”

The Cinghalese are the people of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where Olcott wrote The Buddhist Catechism. I think Joyce may have seen Buddhists as a real-world variant of Homer’s Lotus Eaters. The “flowers of idleness” may well refer to the lotus, a symbol of Buddhism, which Joyce saw as a passive philosophy. A chilled-out, drowsy Buddha fits comfortably with this vision. The lotus is not a symbol of passivity, however. It represents the achievement of the arduous task of enlightenment - a clean emblem of perfection rising out of the muck of samsara. The Lotus Eaters embark on no tasks, arduous or otherwise, and an air of passivity hangs over the episode of Ulysses bearing their name.

The “Lotus Eaters” episode closes with Bloom reclining in the bath examining his “languid floating flower.” Homer’s Lotus Eaters were vegetarians (as are many Buddhists), eating only flowers. Bloom associates vegetarianism in “Lestrygonians” with mystic and theosophist Æ Russell. Was Joyce making this connection of the Homeric Lotus Eaters to Buddhists, or what he imagined Buddhists to be like in Ceylon and Burma? I think so. It seems likely to me that like so many Eastern cultures that get rolled together in Bloom’s imagination, Western spiritualists and Buddhists are also mixed together in Joyce’s mind.

“Not like Ecce Homo. Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks?”

Bloom compares his blissful Buddha with Christ on the cross. Interestingly, both images show a religious figure near death, but the way death is depicted differs starkly - one lying peacefully on his side, the other twisted in agony and adorned with a crown of thorns.

Ecce Homo, by Mihály Munkácsy, a painting reviewed by James Joyce: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44871346 — *Ecce Homo*, by Mihály Munkácsy, a painting reviewed by James Joyce: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44871346

“Ecce Homo” is Latin for “Behold the man,” words spoken by Pontius Pilate as he presented Jesus to the crowd in John 19:5. While Bloom doesn’t really understand the iconography of the reclining Buddha, he sees clearly that Christians revere a god who was humiliated and tortured before being executed like a common criminal. The comparison certainly taps into Joyce’s earlier statement about Buddhism as a religion that reveres peace while Westerners revere violence. It’s understandable that someone with only a cursory knowledge of both religions (like Bloom) would see Buddhists in reverence of a “god” who loves relaxing and Christians in reverence a god beaten and bloodied.

“Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking. Sorry I didn't work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't.”

Bloom’s metaphysical pondering is short-lived. Even religion has an angle to work. It seems unlikely that even a cat so clever as Martin Cunningham, who you may remember from such short stories as “Grace” and who we’ll soon meet in “Hades,” could have gotten Molly into that choir. Pope Pius X had written just the year before that “singers in church have a real liturgical office, and ... therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church." Molly suspects the scheme didn’t work out because “... the jesuits found out he was a freemason…”

“They're taught that. He's not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.”

Bloom turns a skeptical eye to the Jesuit order. Historically, the Jesuits are a wealthy order of priests, though they run missions in impoverished corners of the world. Fr. Farley is imagined as a flashy priest in sunglasses playing dumb to avoid actually helping someone deserving, in this case Molly Bloom. He’s certainly not doing work that would cause him to break a sweat, oh no. Though it’s expressed very differently, this line recalls Stephen’s comment in “Proteus'' about “the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat.” Both Stephen and Bloom share this distrust of the Catholic clergy, seeing them as vain and lazy, just going through the motions of priesthood and enriching themselves in the process.

Despite his ignorance of religion generally, Bloom actually embodies some Buddhist ideals, particularly the virtue of ahimsa, meaning non-violence and respect for all living things. As Bloom goes through his day, we see Bloom’s gentle nature and compassion towards humans and animals alike, whether he’s interacting with hungry seagulls or a blind stripling. Bloom approaches the greatest turmoil in his life - Molly’s infidelity - non-violently. Bloom chooses not to confront Boylan directly or fight off Molly’s suitor like “fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters.” True to his character, he chooses non-violence even though Molly’s affair crushes him emotionally. He doesn’t take his hurt out on anyone, choosing instead to be gentle and generous. He manages to save Stephen from two altercations in Nighttown without swinging a fist. In fact he has such compassion for this young man, that he lifts him out of the dirt, feeds him and offers him shelter. Molly recalls with some annoyance her husband “...bringing in his friends to entertain them like the night he walked home with a dog if you please….” If metempsychosis allows Bloom to become Odysseus, Moses and so many others, why not add Buddha to the list?

Decoding Bloom: The Lotus Eaters Sutra

Further Reading:

Decoding Bloom: The Opiate of the Mass

The Language of Flowers