Everyday Enlightenment

By Margaret McKenzie

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: McKenzie, Margaret."Everyday Enlightenment." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):171-173, 196.

Theosophical Society - Margaret McKenzie is a social worker in Du Page County, Illinois. She is a Senior Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen where she has been a student of Zen Master Barbara Rhodes for thirteen years.

When I first heard of the idea of enlightenment, I thought it was some mysterious unusual state; something like levitating or being out of the body, and available only to a select few. In studying and practicing Zen, I have come to see that enlightenment means something else.

When the Buddha sat under the tree and saw the first star in the early morning, he did not see anything extraordinary. He saw the star complete as it was and observed:"How remarkable; everything already has it." We are all already enlightened, but we fail to see it, because we are caught in desire.

The second noble truth says that it is my attachment, or desire, to having things be a particular way that causes my suffering, not the events themselves. It is my identification with my opinions, my ideas, my likes and dislikes that are the cause of my misery. Sitting one hundred days in the woods provided me with an opportunity to watch events unfold very completely; to let me see things simply as they are—not as I want them to be.

In the fall of 2004, I spent one hundred days in a hermitage in northern Wisconsin and did a silent Zen retreat. The external frame of my days was structured with each day just the same as the day before. I did a three-hour block of bowing, chanting, sitting, walking, and a physical practice like yoga. I repeated this block four times a day. In between practices I cooked, ate, cleaned, and slept.

I brought four books with me. I read from one of them each morning, another each night. I took a walk everyday; the same walk of about a mile and a half down to the main road and back again. Everyday I ate the same meals of oatmeal, rice, carrots, squash, dried fruit, protein powder, and peanut butter. By removing so very many of the choices that enchanted, bewildered, perplexed, and confused me on a daily basis, I gradually cleared away the clutter and opened a welcoming place in my heart. It was a space where everything in the world, outside and inside, could receive my full attention.

Narrowing the field of one's attention and then dwelling within that space through the turning of two seasons, permits the very smallest aspects of the place to be revealed. All that surrounded me were a few acres, two ponds, a few buildings, the woods, a meadow, and a road. This allowed me to dwell in the landscape, perceive impermanence, the shifting of the seasons, the variety in the day, and to observe all of this with all of my senses.

I arrived in the last week in August. It was still hot, with the temperature in the eighties. The trees were green and full. In contrast, I was overweight and out of shape. I sweated until my clothes were soaked and my body throbbed. At night I fell into bed like someone who had been mining coal all day. I have never in my life slept with the deep unconsciousness that I did in those first few weeks. However, in the months between my arrival August and my departure in December, my habitual mind began to wear away and by the time I left, I felt empty within my clothes and rarely slept past three in the morning.

The routine of practice gradually sharpened my attention, allowing awareness of my environment to become more and more acute. I seemed to understand the way that my senses had been developed to let me live within a landscape. I named parts of the road where I walked by events that occurred there: the stream where I saw the muskrat, the tree where the pileated woodpecker sat, the patch of milkweed that changed from green to bright gold in a single night.

In October, as the leaves changed, I was able to identify the leaves that were different from the day before. In my daily rounds, I encountered new companions: the two cats that periodically accompanied me on my walks; the cows I heard every morning from a mile away, but never saw; the coyotes that howled in the middle of the night, and the deer.

There were about fifteen deer living on the land. When I arrived in August, there were several family groups; fawns with spotted pale patches on their coats, half the size of the adults, standing near their mothers. Besides the fawns and mothers, a third group looked to be gangly yearlings. The deer were around my cabin everyday. In the very early morning I would encounter them, strewn throughout the woods in groups of five or six.

At first I would know they were there because my heavy footsteps would spook them and they appeared to me as flipped tails and feet, racing off through the woods. As time went by though, we tamed each other. In learning to be more aware of my walk, I skillfully and quietly became a regular part of their landscape. By the end of September, I regularly walked within a few feet of them as they grazed around the land. They would lift their heads, gaze at me with their beautiful almond eyes, and go back to eating.

I began to talk to them, calling them the"dear deer" and"little friends." Since I was keeping such a regular schedule, the shifting of the season was apparent by my morning encounters with them. They entered the property on the east end and browsed their way through, exiting into the woods to the west. As the days shortened, I encountered them at different points in the landscape.

The deer appeared in the evenings as well. My hermitage was across from a small pond. Often, just at sundown, they would materialize out of the woods, drinking from the pond, making their way across the meadow into the space around the hermitage. Sometimes they came so close I could hear them eating.

All through October, I dwelt in a golden, sunlit land, pillared about with maple, oak, and aspen trees. I settled in, with my body settling, my mind slowing, and my heart opening. A crop of golden mushrooms appeared in the front of the cabin. Every evening three teenaged deer would come and eat them. They loved them so much that I could pass right by them into my cabin and they would stay still, mushroom crumbs falling from their mouths.

One day, as I sat to eat my lunch, I looked out the back window and noticed two deer that were sleeping. Curled up a few feet apart, each kept one funnel shaped ear erect, turning it constantly, scanning the land for change. I learned so much about attention from that half hour of watching them. They knew exactly how much attention to pay, when to stir, when to lift a head and look, and when to think about moving on. When they got up, they stood close together and groomed each other like cats.

Golden days do not last forever, though. The weather turned, and the leaves began to fall; slowly at first, and then it seemed all at once the trees were bare. The sky turned gray and the first of a month of rainy days arrived.

Life shifted in the deer herd, too. The groups were smaller, the teenagers sprouted antlers almost overnight. The herd seemed restlessness and jumpy. Males with full racks of antlers often came crashing through the woods. The days grew shorter and I came upon the deer less and less often while walking.

Then one day in early November, I was taking my walk to the main road when two men in a truck stopped me. They wanted to know who owned the woods and if the land was posted. I said I did not know and kept walking. When I looked for signs, I saw only one side of the road was posted"no hunting," while the other was not.

The next day I got a message from the woman who managed the hermitage saying that it was hunting season. She sent me some orange clothing with instructions to wear it whenever I walked off the property. Hunting season opened with bow hunting. It would continue for one month with firearms allowed during the last two weeks.

The first moment I fully absorbed the news about the hunting season, my mind began to go a hundred miles an hour. My mind became a trapped animal as I considered options: I would leave; or I would go into the woods and make a lot of noise; or I would confront the hunters and try to reason with them. A million ideas arose, but I actually did nothing except what I had been doing for the last sixty-five days: bowing, chanting, sitting, walking, and eating.

All that day I practiced, while crying and thinking,"I have to leave. No one would expect me to stay here while my beloved deer are being killed. I will call my teacher, she will understand. I have done my best. I must go."

For much of my life, I have been a leaver. When I had unpleasant neighbors, I moved out. When I had a difficult boss, I got a different job. When my marriage ran into rough waters, I departed. It became a style of mine: When problems appeared, I departed.

One of the first lessons of Zen meditation is about staying put. At a retreat during a sitting period, you do not just get up and leave. When you show up for a weekend retreat, you are expected to stay the whole time. During my years of practice, I learned something about staying. Whether sitting with uncomfortable physical sensations, sitting with unpleasant memories, different agitations, grudges, or itches, the practice is to just stay put and watch the parade come and go. Now, even though I felt like leaving, I knew I would not do so. I thought, planned, raged, but I did not go anywhere. I just kept on bowing, sitting, chanting, eating, walking, and sleeping. Things shifted.

First, I decided that what I could do was chant. There is a chant with the purpose of sending energy and healing. I started to do that chant for the deer on my walk each day. The second day, I decided to chant for the hunters, too. The weeks of bow and arrow season passed. I saw few hunters, encountered no killed deer. Then it was the opening day for gun season.

I was sitting on my cushion when dawn—or whatever the signal to begin hunting season was—arrived. The air filled with gunshots and it did not stop for two hours.

I sat on the cushion, got up, made my breakfast, and had a cup of tea. In all that time, the guns never stopped and I did not stop crying. Again, the same flood of thoughts broke over me:"I will call my teacher; I must get out of here; no one would blame me for leaving early."

And then a different thought appeared:"This is what a war is like." All over the world, there are people who live with this every day—except they are not safely tucked away in a hermitage with a choice about staying or going. The guns are outside their windows, in their houses. It is not deer that are getting killed; it is their families, friends, and neighbors. I had a rush of understanding about the privilege of my whole life: How blessed I had been to have never been in a war and how incredibly fortunate I was to be on this retreat.

I remembered a practice called tonglen. In it, you breathe in the suffering you are experiencing on behalf of everyone who is suffering and when you breath out, you send them peace and calm. It was easy and also a great relief to breathe in the suffering of all who hear gunshots and grieve, and to send them the peace I had known in the golden light of October.

Over the last weeks of hunting season, things gradually began to shift around inside of me. I did not leave. After that first day, I never thought about leaving again. I did my practice everyday and tried to bring the practice and the situation of sitting in the midst of shooting, together. I kept asking,"What is this?" Different answers appeared out of my practice. I sat at times full of compassion for all those who sit in the midst of shooting: people in Iraq, in Palestine, and the people who live in cities where there are gangs. I thought of my own"shooting," judging, condemning, and writing off different people, and I sent loving kindness and compassion to those memories and the places in my mind from where they arose.

I continued to encounter hunters when I walked at noon. I worked at keeping my heart open to them, acknowledged that I did not know what hunting meant to them, and sent them loving kindness when I walked by them. I fell into the rhythm of hunting— hearing the shooting at dawn and dusk, while noticing the quieter moments in between.

One day, toward the end of the two-week season, I got up from my cushion and walked to the window. It was sundown, but there was still a lot of shooting going on down the hill. I looked out the window; there were six deer out at the pond. They were drinking and grazing, and began walking uphill toward my cabin.

Bang, bang!—there went the guns—quite loud. The deer did not do anything. They did not lift their heads or even look toward from where the sound was coming. They did not have a conversation with each other about how awful the shooting was. They ate and drank and walked up the hill.

I started laughing just then and woke up to something: I saw the truth about the suffering of those two weeks. I recognized how my suffering arose from my ideas about how my retreat should be, about the lives of deer, about the character of the hunters, and not from the facts of the deer.

The deer just lived their lives, eating, drinking, walking, and when they were shot, dying. They did not spend any time beforehand thinking about dying. The cause of suffering was not the event itself, but my attachment to having the world run a particular way.

The hunting season ended, much as it began, with a two-hour barrage of shooting at the end of the day. Then quiet returned and continued through the last week of the retreat. One morning I went out to walk before breakfast. The sun was just coming up. I walked up to the big meadow. The sun was just rising and all the clouds were streaming from behind me toward the rising sun. The clouds all looked like rows of tiny square pillows; the wind was behind them and they were racing toward the sun. I had this complete sense of the world turning quickly toward the sun. I stood transfixed.

As the clouds moved and the sun rose, different parts of the clouds became illuminated in pink, rose, peach, coral, gold, and yellow as though someone was turning lights off and on, illuminating first one pillow and then another. I must have stood for ten minutes, unable to move.

Suddenly a door slammed. Hearing a rustle behind me, I turned to see a whole herd of deer barely ten feet from me. They turned, flipped up their wonderful white tails and were gone. Following their spontaneous retreat, I watched intently as they sped away, moving smoothly, effortlessly across the meadow and through the filigree of clean, bare, open woods beyond.


Margaret McKenzie is a social worker in Du Page County, Illinois. She is a Senior Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen where she has been a student of Zen Master Barbara Rhodes for thirteen years. Margaret has been a member of the Theosophical Society since 1995.


Solitary Retreat Musings of Ani Kunzang

By Lilia Molina 

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Molina, Lilia. "Solitary Retreat Musings of Ani Kunzang." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):194-196.

Theosophical Society - Lama Kunzang received her monastic vows from Tai Situ Rinpoche in 1998, and in 2009 completed a traditional three-year retreat in the Shangpa Kagyü tradition under the guidance of Lama Lodru Rinpoche.  Now a resident teacher at Gomde CA, Lama Kunzang is also a well-known meditation instructor in the Eureka/Arcata area.  She recently retired from a career as a speech language pathologist at the Hupa Tribal Reservation on the Trinity River in Northern California.

In November of 2005, my friend Ani Kunzang Drolma, a Buddhist nun of the Tibetan Kagyu Lineage, went into silent retreat which she will complete in 2009. The retreat was preceded by a program at Far Horizons Theosophical Camp with Anton Lysy. She sent the following letter to those she met at this wonderful Theosophical Camp:

February 2006

It has been six months since we were together at Far Horizons. I hope that your lives have been prosperous, healthy and filled with humor, curiosity and compassion. I also hope the time we have spent . . . contemplating various wisdom teachings have helped us all face life's challenges with loving kindness and equanimity. The door of my retreat has been closed for three months. I receive mail but only see my teachers and support person. I have been engaged in what are called "preliminary practices" [which] purify and stabilize the mind so that later meditation will be more fruitful. Solitude has been both challenging and rewarding. During these last few months as my mind has settled, I have realized how incredibly precious we all are. Once concerns with everyday "hustle and bustle" subside, our inherent loving kindness can begin to be expressed.

Here follows some of her thoughts during her silent retreat and comments on practical matters regarding her situation. Ani's retreat is located in the Kagyu Droden Kunchab retreat near Laytonville, California. Her teacher and mentor is the Venerable Lama Lodru Rimpoche. Her cabin has no electricity, but she is otherwise self-sufficient with the help of a staff person hired to help all the retreat participants. She is the only woman on retreat at this time, and shares her time with her cat, Bangkok. Here is a glimpse of her silent retreat which continues to 2009.

Thoughts 

December 1, 2005

I was thinking today about our whole mind/body continuum—specifically, I was thinking of my body. It certainly seems an expression of me—to be mine—but then I think about the intestinal bacteria that must be present for me to keep living. I don't think about them as me and I'm sure they, at whatever level, are conscious do not think they are me. They think they are themselves. My blood, once again essential to my life, can live outside of me. And every little muscle cell is doing its best to keep alive all on its own. And there are all those other symbiotic and parasitic beings that have a different DNA sequence, that are part of what I think as my body. It truly is hard to find the "my" part of this body.

December 9, 2005 

Yesterday I had a thought as I was saying many refuge prayers. I thought that if we could see clearly—see our own lives with the Buddha's eyes—then perhaps we would see that absolutely everything that arises from our lives is a display of total absolute compassion. Through our samsaric eyes we see the field of karma—through Buddha's eyes there is only ceaseless compassion. Well perhaps when people treat us in unkind ways—on some level—without their being aware at all, Buddha's compassion is manifesting. Now I don't think this means we become doormats, don't protect and defend ourselves, but inwardly, in our hearts, our attitude should at least be open to the possibility that what is happening is medicine [and] will eventually in this life or another lead to the cessation of suffering. With this attitude we might not develop such strong thoughts of revenge, might not say and do actions which would perpetuate the painful confusion we all live in.

December 23, 2005 

Today so far has been a wonderful day. Yesterday afternoon I realized I was reaping some of the effects of solitude. I am so aware of the wide range of moods that I go through each day. I think that I am getting quiet enough to notice how incredibly . . . my mind/mood/emotions [vacillate]. I always took these changes to be caused by various "external" situations [but] I no longer have these distractions. The changing moods emerge all on their own—they are part of the landscape of my own internal processes—they always were. I have learned to trust these moods will pass. I just practice and read, do daily living chores, but I am very aware of my internal state and its constant flux. I think this awareness has been heightened due to my solitude and my practice.

February 10, 2006 

Ani writes about a poem written by Buddhist monks and nuns. She had copied them from www.accesstoinsight.org . The poem was written by Ubbiri and was deeply grieved when she wrote it about her daughter's death. She subsequently became a nun. The poem, Ani says, put it in perspective for her: I remember on a deep level why I am here. For a while I was just trying to "cope" with the solitude, . . .strange language, etc. Now I am back on the trail. I have glimpsed a footprint and will follow. This is the poem:

Jiva, my daughter,

You cry in the woods.

Come to your senses, Ubbiri.

84,000 all named Jiva have

Been burned in that charred ground. 

For which of them do you grieve? 

 

Pulling out—completely out—

The arrow so hard to see

Embedded in my heart,

He expelled from me,

Overcome with grief,

The grief over my daughter.

 

Today, with arrow removed,

Without hunger, entirely unbound- 

To the Buddha, Dhamma and

Sangha I go for refuge to

The Sage

It came to me in Tara [practice] this morning that we should all be praying for and dedicating merit to all those people in the world who are truly working for peace. I often pray for peace, but I realized that peace is not something separate from sentient beings. We don't get peace like we get a new set of clothes. We get peace by being peaceful and usually we become peaceful when a peace maker shows us the way. So I am dedicating to all the peace makers regardless of belief or non belief. And those who espouse violence and hatred will be ignored.

Practical Matters August 2, 2005 

She begins by explaining that the participants all have a set of texts of the Shangpa Kagyu from India, divided into 11 volumes in Tibetan. These will be the basis of her practices.

October 8, 2005 

I continue to be getting ready for the doors to close . . . [as] I had a propane heater installed this week. My auxiliary water tank is here . . .[and] unexpectedly I had to buy new batteries for my solar system.

November 3, 2005 

The fence/canvas went up on Tuesday [2 days before the note] Yesterday, I chain sawed wood. It took a lot of energy—more than I anticipated, but it was fun . . .

November 5, 2005 

With the sun so far south and low in the sky and with limited amount of daylight, my solar batteries are struggling.

November 20, 2005 

I have planted bulbs and transplanted some iris from outside my fence. All is ready outside. The wood pile is tidy and covered, the yard is raked, a juniper and honeysuckle are planted, the Guardian Dieties are in place above my gate . . .

November 23, 2005 

The closing of the gate to Ani's cabin closed at about 11:15 am on this day. She says:

I hadn't been given any instructions, so I didn't know what to expect. Lama Lodru, Lama Namse and a young Tibetan monk named Tenzin [came into] my cabin and specifically to my practice room to be blessed by Lama Namse. Then everyone left and my retreat officially began. My schedule:

4:00-6:00 am First session (different pujas, prayers and main practice) 6:00-6:30 am Break

6:30-8:00 am Green Tara Practice

8:00-9:00 am Breakfast

9:00-11:30 am 2nd Session: main practice only

11:30- 1:00pm Lunch break

1:00-3:00 pm 3rd Session: main practice only

3:00-5:00 pm Mahakala Practice

6:00-8:00 pm 4th Session: main practice

8:00-9:00 pm Chod and later on Vajakilaya Practice

 

 

February 28, 2006

I have . . . learned some very practical lessons. Solar lights only work when the sun shines. Adult children are unfamiliar with "snail mail" and must be encouraged to locate their local post office. Huge wood piles can be consumed in a very short time. Ravens prefer suet above any other human provided food.

And so it goes during this Solitary Meditation—until 2009.

Correspondence by Ani Kunzang, P.O. Box 43, Laytonville, CA 95454


Silence is the Garden of Meditation

By Kay Mouradian 

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Mouradian, Kay. “Silence is the Garden of Meditation.” Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):167-169.
 

May the outward and inward man be at one.

—Plato

Theosophical Society - Kay Mouradian, Ed.D., is a retired professor of health and physical education from the Los Angeles Community Colleges. A long-time student of Theosophy, she is author of Reflective Meditation(Quest Books, 1982) and her first novel, A Gift in the Sunlight: An Armenian Story

Movement is inherent in humans, but its impact is as subtle as the earth’s movement around the sun. Everything is dependent upon movement, including the physical body as our hearts beat and circulate blood without our awareness. Another unnoticed movement comes into play when the physical body is silent and still—the movement of thought. But it is so faint that it is usually unobserved. 

Most of us have never investigated where our thoughts originate. Where is that place in and around our minds? The key that opens the door lies in learning how to sit in active silence, but for many of us silence is a stranger.

Silence is a skill that can be likened to the skills developed in sports or the arts. Some individuals respond more quickly than others, while others spend hours practicing to become better. Developing the skill of silence needed in meditation demands the same quality of attention, desire, and dedication practiced by all outstanding performers. The skill of silence requires even more.

Silence is probably the highest refinement of sound. Sounds carry vibrations, and some are very heavy. Our world is not quiet and we tend to associate things with sounds; associations that often are not accurate. For example, a car just sped by and, in a flash; I saw ocean waves in my mind. Engine sounds remind me of the ocean. As I continued to write, I heard another car speed by and a red car flashed in my mind. How accurate are those pictures? Would I have seen those pictures in my mind if I had not been aware of the impact of sound on my thought process? Perhaps those pictures would have flashed through my mind, but I would not have noticed them.

How much more am I unaware of? What activity is taking place in my mind when the radio or television is blasting away, but I am not really listening? I have wondered if such unnoticed sounds play havoc with our minds and create confusion and stress in our lives. And are those heavy sounds playing a role and undermining our consciousness? Is this what H. P. Blavatsky meant in "The Seven Portals" of The Voice of the Silence when she said, "Thou shall not let thy senses make a playground of thy mind."

We passively accept noise as a way of life. For many, it conveniently drowns out the inner clamor that affects and confuses our thinking. I first became aware of the effects of noise when I started to meditate some thirty years ago. It was an uncomfortable experience. Not seeing what was around me and not being the center of my environment, I could no longer make judgments, even for something as simple as not seeing what in the room needed dusting. I had to learn to move away from the outside world and its effect upon me. It was my first encounter with silence, and it was a struggle.

I was told to "look within," but I found the phrase confusing. At the time, I thought: Looking denotes eyes and if I close my eyes, how can I see? Is there another dimension of seeing within? Does it really mean listening within, or is there another kind of sight and sound? My curiosity was aroused and as my scientific mind began to investigate, I sensed the opening of a fascinating new world.

I was a proponent of the "think positively" ideas, but to my surprise I found I had never before really understood thought. I began to see a different meaning of the term "think positively" as I explored the deeper part of my mind. I could hear myself think! I had never before experienced this, and I found it exhilarating!

Interesting questions began to surface: Could I really hear my thoughts? Does thought carry a tonal vibration? Does my sense of sight, even with my eyes closed, affect the depth of this new listening? Does the intensity of quiet affect this inner sight?

I learned to center my attention in the middle of my forehead at that space called the "mind’s eye." It was there that I discovered an interesting facet of the thought process. Thoughts originate in several places and many thoughts are active simultaneously. I realized how easy it was to be oblivious to all of them, because they tended to be floating around and feeble. They were just there.

Then I realized I could strengthen a thought, one thought, by focusing it at the mind’s eye and giving it full attention. The other thoughts then lost whatever force they carried. I would sit for hours just watching the activity in my mind. It was a fascinating experience, and I began to understand the expression "the monkey mind" and the understanding that the highest yoga is the control of the mind. More questions surfaced: Could I rid myself of what I call "my junk thoughts," such as anger or its close relation, self-pity, by watching them form? I practiced focusing attention on my mind’s eye, and one day I saw a strong angry thought-form surface. I watched it intently, without confrontation or fear, and it dissipated. Anger, which had been a bane in my life, has never plagued me since. What a gift!

I now keep my thoughts focused at my mind’s eye and so I’m aware of what thought activity is continually playing in my mind. Thoughts rule my consciousness, and just as junk foods pollute my body, I know that junk thoughts pollute my mind.

Becoming curious about how others perceived this concept, I experimented with the community college students enrolled in my yoga class. I discovered most of them had a difficult time focusing at the mind’s eye. Those students able to consciously bring thoughts to this space said those thoughts tended to be positive, while negative thoughts seemed to emanate from elsewhere. Some complained of the onset of a headache. I wondered if a possible explanation was that these frontal brain cells had never been stimulated with conscious use, therefore the intense concentration may have caused tension.

Our educational system has trained us to assimilate knowledge passively, and if we change from that passive pattern to an active effort to investigate, the brain cells have to be reeducated, which may be possible through active silence. Mouni Sadhu in his book Meditation gives an interesting explanation of this concept, as he says:

would like you to know the difference between ordinary school and university studies that we pass through, and the study of meditation. From the beginning, with the former, we will fill our memory with appropriate material and gradually extend our abilities of understanding, combining and judgment, all of which affect the brain cells comparatively gently and indirectly. I say indirectly because memorizing the alphabet touches only one side of the working brain, while leaving others at their ease. When we pass on to say, mathematics, then another part is affected, and so on. Moreover, our brains are accustomed to working this way, not only during our present childhood, but because of our mentally educated brains from former lives, although we may not realize this or recognize this, but the fact remains.

However when we commence meditation, it is no longer a swallowing of information, or standard activities. For then we begin to impose vibrations on the whole of our thinking apparatus, to compel it in a way that is new and unusual for it, to create vibrations along a specially chosen line, under the strict control of awareness, while using the power of concentration.

Then the cells have quite a different matter with which to deal. All of this produces tension in them, which parallels the same in your consciousness. So that is why we should be careful, and not overcharge our mental vehicle.<70-1)

Years of hard meditative work helped me become aware that I could rid my consciousness of anger, fear, greed, unkindness, harmfulness, and love of power before those junk qualities became encrusted. So for those of us who care about reeducating and or retraining our brain cells to clear our consciousness of these kinds of "junk thoughts" by focusing at the mind’s eye, we may want to consider an Edgar Cayce reading that says,

For the mind is both spiritual and physical in its attributes to the human body, and if ye feed thy body-mind upon worldly things, ye become worldly. If ye feed thy mind upon those things that are His, ye become His indeed. (Reading 1992-1)

Descartes’ famous quote "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) carries deep significance, but most of us have no idea what thoughts are floating in and around our heads. For those students at Mouni Sadhu’s "university level" who have developed their ability to concentrate and activate deep silence in meditation, it is possible to discover what thoughts cause disruption in our lives and then, with intense concentration and without fear, watch them dissipate in nothingness. It can be a promising gift. But remember Mouni Sadhu’s warning that this kind of intense meditation could be harmful to those who are not ready.


References:

Blavastksy, H.P. The Voice of Silence. Wheaton, IL; Theosophical Publishing House, 1973.

Sadhu, Mouni. Meditation. North Hollywood, CA; Wilshire Book Company, 1978.

Cayce, Edgar Reading. 1992-1. The Association for Reasearch and Enlightenment. www.edgarcayce.org.

 

Author’s Biography

Kay Mouradian, Ed.D., is a retired professor of health and physical education from the Los Angeles Community Colleges. A long-time student of Theosophy, she is author of Reflective Meditation(Quest Books, 1982) and her first novel, A Gift in the Sunlight: An Armenian Story is available from amazon.com . She can be reached at cmouradian@earthlink.net.


The Art of Simply Being

By Sue Prescott

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Prescott, Sue."The Art of Simply Being." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):175-178.

Theosophical Society - Sue Prescott, MSW, is a psychotherapist and frequent lecturer at the Seattle lodge and surrounding area. She is author of Realizing the Self Within—an overview of the concepts of spirituality that can be applied to relationships and self-improvement. She has been a member of the Theosophical Society for over twenty-five years.

The essence of the great spiritual teachings is the same—that of allowing ourselves to be absorbed in the wondrous bliss of simply being. What does this mean? How can we achieve it?

The teachings say to just let go and that we don't need to exert ourselves. As many of us know it takes little effort to physically release something. If someone has a book tucked under their arm, they only need to relax their muscles and it drops to the floor. It happens in an instant. Similarly, when there is no effort, we can be quiet. In the Bible, just letting go is described in Psalms 46:10 as,"Be still, and know that I am God." Peace comes without a struggle. It does not take any practice. We just need to allow ourselves to be absorbed into it, and become it. There is no process to go through because we are already there. We do not have to do anything. After all, we are human beings, not human doings. The quiet comes from within. There is a stillness that impacts us from the depth of the self. It is a silence that takes our breath away and it is indescribable.

A Zen saying speaks of the silence in this way,"Knock on the sky and listen to the sound!" This thought astonishes and shocks the mind with its incongruity. It defies logic and temporarily overwhelms our normal, everyday thinking. Our minds take a back seat which frees us to touch something deeper. Another question from Zen gives the same result,"What is it that makes you answer when you are called?"

This is the power of koans. A well-known example is"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Because this question can't be answered, pondering it deeply supersedes the mind and renders it ineffective. When the mind is still, we can touch the source of our own nature. A koan opens the pathway to the Self."What is your original face which you had before your parents gave birth to you?"

Getting in touch with this source and the silence that permeates it is not what we normally do. Most of the time, we are wrapped up in our thoughts. Our thinking everyday mind is very useful to us. It takes care of our needs, organizes our lives, and remembers what we need to do. But it is also the thief of peace. Meister Eckhart (1260-1327), the German theologian and preacher, illustrates this when he writes"God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk" (Fox 15). The quiet mind brings us back home to the self.

In order to access the stillness of our being, the mind needs to be held in a state of abeyance or inactivity—a quality referred to as"no-mind." The Chinese call this wei wu wei, or"doing not doing." This is actively doing nothing and remaining quiet. It is like the calm of a windless lake—a metaphor frequently used to symbolize the tranquility of a silent mind.

When the mind is quiet, we have a sense of emptiness and nothingness. This is the void or the abyss of the self. Several metaphors from Lao-Tzu express the importance of the empty space. He said that spokes join together in a wheel, but the center hole is what makes it spin. Straw can be woven together to form a basket, but the emptiness inside is what we use to carry things. Wood makes the walls to form a house, but the empty space inside is where we live. (Mitchell 11)

Whatever the mind conceives as peace is not peace. Peace is beyond the mind. Philippians 4:7 refers to it as the"peace which passeth all understanding." When we are not aware of the silence, it is concealed by the"I" thought. This is the thought generated by anything we pursue in our personal lives. It will take us wherever our minds go. If we are washing the dishes, but thinking about going to a movie, we will be at the movies, not in the silence of the dishes, the water, or soap on our hands. The mind will go wherever it thinks we will be happy. That is its nature.

To override the mind, the great Indian sages, Sri Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi, tell us to consider where the"I" thought comes from. They ask,"What is the source of the 'I' or the 'I am?'" If we ponder this question deeply, we reach a point where all thought stops. There is nothing but a vast abyss of quiet. There is no source that our minds can conceive. The"I" disappears and we dissolve into the peace of the self. This process of self-inquiry can be done anytime as a backdrop to the activities in our lives.

We may have a similar feeling when we have accomplished something. There is an uplifting sensation and a feeling of happiness from a job well done. We may experience the same feeling when we find an item we have been shopping for. This happens because for a short period of time, the mind is steady and untroubled due to its momentary satisfaction. The mind stops and allows the peace of the self to come through. The bliss is not from the project or the object we have bought. It is from the self.

One method of coming into touch with the self is through the process of witnessing. Thoughts arise spontaneously. The mind is perpetually active. Its nature is continuous like the waves coming onto the shore or the cars going by on the freeway. One thought stays only for an instant and another one is waiting behind it. Witnessing is simply stepping back and observing ourselves. We watch our thoughts and feel our feelings. We witness ourselves moving from place to place. We become aware of our entire situation.

A simple way to get in touch with the witness is to sit quietly, while being aware of how we are sitting, where our arms are, and how we are positioned in the chair. We can observe how we are breathing and whether we are tense or relaxed. When we widen our awareness, and take in the entire room, the witness is the part of us that is simply observing. A passage in the Upanishads, one of the ancient sacred texts of Hinduism, describes the witness:"Two birds, united always and known by the same name, closely cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruits; the other looks on without eating" (Nikhilananda 134). The bird that eats the fruits of life is the personal, everyday self. It experiences the highs and lows of the emotions and the mind. The other bird, who looks on without eating, is the witness. It is the part of ourselves that watches what we do from the level of our awareness. It does not think—it is the silent watcher of all we do, think, or feel.

Witnessing allows us to stay detached from the affairs of our lives. If events happen that bring sadness and grief, the witness helps ease their sting. It allows us to rise above the plane where emotions are experienced, so that we can be influenced by the serenity of the self. It gives us perspective, which allows the wisdom of our higher minds to filter through. Witnessing can be done anytime—while walking, talking, thinking, or listening. The more we do it, the more it becomes a part of our nature.

The experience of the witness is soundless. We hear sounds in our environment, but the awareness itself is silent. Getting in touch with the witness is a form of meditation and a doorway to the self. The Bible describes this process in Isaiah 26:3,"Thou dost keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in Thee." The reference is to God, but it is the same process of witnessing, that raising of our awareness so we can remember to be quiet. The Koran offers a similar teaching in verse 13:28:"Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." This rest is the peace of the self.

In the Sufi tradition there is a story that also teaches about the detachment of the witness. It tells of a man being chased off a cliff by a tiger. As the man falls, he manages to grab hold of a branch. Six feet above him is the snarling tiger. One hundred feet below are the jagged rocks at the ocean's edge. To the man's horror, the branch he is holding is being chewed away at by two rats, one black and one white. Feeling hopeless, the man cries,"Lord, save me!" and the Lord answers,"I will, but first let go of the branch!"

By letting go of the branch, we give up the attachments we have in our lives—our desires and hopes—to have life go a certain way. The teachings say it is okay to want things, but that we should have aloofness and objectivity about how life proceeds. Normally, we deal with the contrasting qualities of happiness and sadness that are represented by the black and white rats in the story. Life may go along fine for awhile, but then a problem upraises, causing our emotions to range from contentment and peace to stress, frustration, or fear.

As long as the polarities, represented by the black and white rats, prevent us from fully experiencing life, we are outside the realm of peace. Mabel Collins in Light on the Path advises us not to pick any flowers in the garden of life, so the"pollen that stains" (the attachments) do not keep us from realizing peace. It is the witness that helps us keep track of all of this so that we can carefully choose our desires and review the contents of our thoughts.

The Gospel of Philip addresses the benefit of rising above the everyday world of changeable emotions and thoughts:"Light and darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this, neither are the good good, nor the evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason, each will dissolve into its original nature. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal" (Barnstone 88).

This passage speaks about transcending the everyday world of the personal self by not identifying ourselves with it. It means viewing ourselves as more than just our personalities, and realizing that each of us is a being, using the body and mind as vehicles, to learn as we experience life. We can forgive ourselves for our mistakes, and recognize that anything we accomplish is by way of the self. To be exalted above this world is to identify with the spiritual, higher self while still going through our daily actions.

In Light on the Path, Mabel Collins writes of the flower that"blooms in the silence that follows the storm." The storm is the stressful events of our lives. Outbursts of anger and confusion arise again and again. They are like the recurring storms of nature. The blooming of the flower is when we first become aware of our true being. We pause in the wonder of it. Then we experience the silence. With it comes the realization of bliss. Mabel Collins compares the silence to the calm that comes in a tropical country after a heavy rain. The calm soothes the harassed spirit and gives it strength to go through the next storm. It brings confidence, knowledge, and certainty. At a deeper level, there is a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Light on the Path instructs us to"Listen only to the voice which is soundless." This refers to the silence of our inner, spiritual self. H. P. Blavatsky in The Voice of the Silence tells us that"There is but one road to the Path; at its very end alone the 'Voice of the Silence' can be heard."

Blavatsky continues, but changes the metaphor to the climbing of a ladder. She says,"The ladder by which the candidate ascends is formed of rungs of suffering and pain; these can be silenced only by the voice of virtue." The suffering and pain on the ladder are like the storms in Mabel Collins' Light on the Path. Life's struggles bring emotional turmoil. The Voice of the Silence informs us that to ascend the ladder, and put an end to the pain, we must lead a life of virtue. Virtuous living helps release the grip of personal desires and attachments, so we are one step closer to the true self. (Of course, this is not an easy task, hence the metaphor of climbing a ladder.)

Virtuous living means building up our positive qualities such as compassion, kindness, perseverance, and responsibility. It means perfecting our nature and doing good things. Suffering and pain are silenced because the foundation for virtue is selflessness. When we are focused on someone else, our own problems become insignificant. As we develop virtues within, we lessen our suffering because virtues are other-oriented rather than"me-oriented." When we are concerned about others, our attachment for how things turn out lessens.

Virtues extend help and support to others, in sympathy and thoughtfulness. They keep us focused on doing our best, in trustworthiness and responsibility. They make it so people can rely on us, and insure we are not a burden to others. Virtuous living brings us closer to the self, because we are living as one with the unity of all life. The Voice of the Silence lists the virtues (paramitas) we are encouraged to develop, such as"charity and love immortal" (dana);"harmony in word and act" (shila); and"patience sweet, that nought can ruffle" (kashanti).

The Buddha also taught the value of developing virtue in his Noble Eightfold Path. He explained the process of attachment and suffering in his Four Noble Truths. He said that suffering exists in the world, and there is a cause for that suffering. He went on to say that the cause is attachment, and the cure is following the Noble Eightfold Path in which: Right View (we can't do anything right unless we see things with the right perspective); Right Intention (having seen things rightly, we must resolve to do right); and Right Speech (speaking or thinking properly precedes action) are included in the Path.

Developing the virtues and living up to the standards of Buddha's Eightfold Path releases us from the clutches of our personalities. When we work on self-improvement, the mind is turned away from being preoccupied with our personal wants. Our wants melt, bringing us serenity and peace.

The same message that is imparted in The Voice of the Silence is exemplified in Native American teachings. Dr. Charles Eastman, known as Ohiyesa, of the Sioux Tribe, writes,"Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood is forever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence . . . you ask him 'What is silence?' he will answer, 'It is the great mystery. The holy silence is His voice.' If you ask him about the fruits of silence, he will say, 'They are self control, true courage and endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character'" (Exley 4).

Like Mabel Collins in Light on the Path, Dr. Eastman talks about the storms of existence that we experience in life—the troubles that cause us anguish and stress. He speaks of the silence that brings about a balance in body, mind, and spirit—an equipoise that allows the influence of the spirit, or self, to enlighten our minds. This aids us so that we can look at ourselves objectively and see the qualities we need to develop. The fruits of the silence that Dr. Eastman refers to—the qualities of character and integrity—are the virtues taught by the Buddha and the paramitas.

The silence of the self can be experienced anytime. All we need to do is be still. Whether it is reached by seeking the source of the"I thought" or pondering the answer to a koan, the self is always there. It just gets buried by our thoughts and desires—a process that can be observed by the witness. With the help of the witness, we can replace the desire for worldly objects with the desire to be one with the self—a purpose above all others. We can elect a life of integrity and grow to be a living expression of the spiritual higher self—at peace in the bliss of simply being.


References 

Barnstone, Willis, ed. The Other Bible. San Francisco: Harper, 1984.  

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Voice of the Silence. Chennai, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1968.  

Collins, Mabel. Light on the Path. Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1911.  

Dikshit, Sudhakar S., ed. I Am That—Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Durham, North Carolina: Acorn Press, 1982.  

Exley, Helen, ed. In beauty may I walk...words of wisdom by Native Americans. New York: Exley Publications, 1997.  

Fox, Matthew. Meditations with Meister Eckhart. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear & Company, Inc., 1982.  

Godman, David. Be As You Are—The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. Boston, MA: Arkana, 1985.  

Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching. New York: Harper Perennial, a Division of Harper Collins, 1988.  

Nikhilananda, Swami. Upanishads. Vol. II. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1952.  

Poonja, H.W.L. The Truth Is. Prashanti de Jager, editor. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc. 2000  


Sue Prescott, MSW, is a psychotherapist and frequent lecturer at the Seattle lodge and surrounding area. She is author of Realizing the Self Within—an overview of the concepts of spirituality that can be applied to relationships and self-improvement. She has been a member of the Theosophical Society for over twenty-five years.


Soundings of the Presence of God: My Contemplative Path

By Robert Trabold 

Originally printed in the SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Trabold, Robert. "Soundings of the Presence of God: My Contemplative Path." Quest  94.5 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006):180-184.

Theosophical Society - Robert Trabold has a Ph.D. in sociology with specialties in urban issues and the religious expressions of people in transition, especially immigrants. Presently he is active in many prayer movements. His reflective poetry and articles on contemplative prayer have been published in Quest and other journals.

Reflecting on the years I have spent working and being active in the world, I have noticed a contemplative dimension to my life. Something has called me and I have felt its presence in various ways. I first became aware of the presence as a young man studying at the university. Between my busy schedule of classes and laboratory experiments, I was drawn to search out places in the different university chapels and sit in the quiet. I experienced the presence of God and from that time on, I looked for places of quiet where I could reacquaint myself with His presence. I was blessed with the Prayer of Quiet from my early years and this has never left me.

This resting in the quiet and silence grew in tandem with another aspect of my life. For the last fifty years, I have spent most of my vacations hiking in the woods and mountains, climbing the surrounding peaks to admire the beautiful views. Nature has always been a source of wonder to me. However, as I examine and reflect on this experience more closely, I realize why I have been drawn to this type of vacation. While walking through the forest or climbing the peaks, the beauty of the woods and the silence of nature provides me an opportunity where I can encounter that other presence and have an epiphany from God.

Living on the East Coast of the United States, I often hike in the Adirondack State Park of upstate New York. The park lies close to the Canadian border and the St. Lawrence Valley. The mountains and lakes of the Adirondacks have their own type of beauty, accentuated with various kinds of pine and aspen trees that make up the woods. There are times when the mountains are not crowded with hikers so that there is silence as I walk through the forest and climb the peaks. In the quiet of the forest, as the sun streams through the branches and leaves, I feel the presence of God among these beautiful things and feel His presence accompany me on the journey to the peak. Interestingly, though the forest is still and quiet, it is never empty. It is always filled with this presence.

When I walk alone, I deliberately do not talk with other people so my body and person can be attuned to the presence of God. Of course, the strenuous ascent and the sweat and labor that I must exert to reach the peak are their own distractions, but they do not disrupt the serenity of the silence of the forest or the quiet within myself.

Reaching the peak, the exhilaration of the view and experience of the winds cooling my overheated and sweaty body make me forget all the pain endured and effort made to get to the top. The time on the peak allows me to have lunch, which gives my body the strength for the long walk down. On peaks that are not so popular with hikers, there are quiet spots where I can look at the lovely view of the mountains, lakes, and valleys in the distance, and appreciate the vast spaces and heights of the mountains. I am often greeted by the sharp winds that blow in from these spaces, and at times, have the privilege of watching the hawks glide on the air currents that come up over the peaks. Depending on the day, one can watch the play of the sun and clouds as they cast shadows and sunlight over the peaks and the forest. I experience a sense of silence and quiet which pervades the grandeur of nature and the view in front of me and I feel God's presence. I am drawn to open the bible and read certain verses appropriate for the occasion:

You, the heavens, praise the Lord!

And you, sun and moon, praise the Lord!

And you, night and day, praise the Lord!

And you, mountains and hills, praise the Lord!(Daniel 3)

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things.

(Psalm 97)

In the history of religions, men and women have been drawn to the wilderness, such as the forest and desert, to encounter God in solitude. John the Baptist, Jesus, and the early Christian monks are prominent examples in the Judeo-Christian history. I am grateful that from where I live in New York; the Adirondack Mountains are close by, so I am able to encounter God in the silence and beauty of nature.

Since I speak French, I take the occasion to visit Montreal and the St. Lawrence River valley. Beyond the enjoyment of experiencing the French speaking world, I have found my visits to the St. Lawrence River valley to be an intense spiritual experience. The river is large and its valley takes advantage of the climate, which is milder than other parts of Canada, to grow grain, vegetables, and fruit on the many farms. The river has a wonderful blue color as it reflects the north country's intensely blue sky, and its size and depth are a host to ocean going vessels on their way to and from the St. Lawrence River canal. Over the centuries, the French-Canadians have built many churches on the shores of the river that add to the beauty and spirituality of the valley; many pilgrims, even from the United States, visit these churches asking God and the Virgin Mary for assistance with the many problems of their lives.

At different times of the day, I assisted at the office of hours, sung seven times a day by the monks. The chanting exuded a sense of silence, quiet, and the praise of God. The small brochure of the monastery explains that the monks are watchers in the night waiting for God and that they encounter God through a life of silence and manual labor. Assisting at the chanting of the office allowed me to experience this silence and darkness where I could meet the Other.

My few days of hiking through the farmland around Oka and attending the chants of the monks were a two-pronged experience. The chanting of the office stimulated my experience of God in the lovely countryside, and the quiet beauty of nature helped me to appreciate the silence and peace that surrounded the chant.

The important element for me was the silence, because it led me deeper into the mystery of God and the Godhead. Meister Eckhart writes that we have to go beyond the Trinity to reach the Godhead and that in the face of the latter's nothingness, unknowability, and emptiness we sit in silence and in that silence, the Godhead manifests itself to us.

Marie-Madeleine Davy, a French writer on spirituality, in her book, Les chemins de la profondeur, puts it well:

Most deeply, that which interests me, grasps me and seduces me, it is the Godhead of whom we can say nothing. There is a total, complete, rigorous and absolute silence; in fact, one discovers, one understands, one penetrates...There is not the possibility of words; this is lived in the intensity of a secret, in the intensity of life and perhaps of death. (my translation, 187)

Another dimension to my contemplative path occurred in my middle-aged years when I encountered suffering and conflict. Many problems and trials suddenly burst into my life and I was forced to make changes in my work and lifestyle. There were times when I felt that God had abandoned me and I did not know where to turn. During these years of suffering, I slowly noticed a presence and a silence deep within me. I had never experienced a presence at the core of my being as I did then. I slowly realized that this presence was part of my faith and that despite all the problems, I had always held on to my faith. God was present at my center and a source of hope that helped me to hang on, in spite of it all.

At the end of my years of suffering and problems, I had two experiences that helped me come to grips with these trials. First, for about six months, I had a continual sense of the presence of God and that permeated through my whole person and body. At first, I did not know what I was feeling, but later I realized that I was experiencing God in a very explicit way. In all my activities and even when I was working, I could feel Him touching me and being within me. Contemplation and meditation were easy and full of consolation and I had no distractions; I just had to sit in God's presence and enjoy it. I remember when the continual presence of God seemed to diminish. It took me a while to come down from the glow that went away gradually. I believe that God gave me this experience of His presence in order to build me up after so many difficulties in my life. His presence gave me hope and consolation after going through so much.

The second experience I had, brought closure to my years of suffering, if such a thing is possible. In 2002, I made a silent pilgrimage to Spain to visit the graves of John of the Cross in Segovia and Teresa of Avila in Alba de Tormes. Teresa of Avila while fell ill while traveling and died in a small farming town south of Salamanca. I had visited the chapel where she is buried in 1982 for the first time and decided to return there in 2002. When I arrived at the chapel and visited her burial place, I asked her if she remembered me from twenty years ago. I mentioned to her that since 1982 many things had happened to me including much suffering. Immediately her famous poem "Solo Dios basta" ("Only God matters") came to mind, and I just happened to have it with me:

Nothing should bother you.

Do not let things get you down.

Keep in mind, patience

accomplishes all.

If you are with God,

you will lack nothing.

Only God matters.

(my translation)

For the few days that I was in the town, I remained in silence and would occasionally read the poem again. I believe that Teresa and her poem led me into God's presence, healing the wounds of my suffering. Since then, I often go back to the poem to strengthen my confidence in God, in spite of all the ups and down of my pilgrimage on earth.

The third movement of my contemplative life occurred recently when I began to lose interest in the usual human activities of work, art, and so on, and instead found myself withdrawing more into silence and solitude where I can touch God's presence. This tendency has become very strong and I feel it as a cultural shock. I have been a very busy person in the world with my education, work, and other activities; I have always felt the need to produce. Now on the initiative of someone else, I am leaving these things and am called to sit in silence and solitude, in a presence full of mystery and transcendence. I am now semi-retired so I can make space for this. There is a phrase in German describing this experience, "Gotteswirken ist ein wirken der stille und der nacht" ("God's works are works of silence and the night.") All my life I have taken the initiative to keep ahead in my work and activities and now someone else is taking the initiative and revealing Himself to me. With time, this cultural shock may abate, but we cannot change our human nature or history, so this tension may always be with me. John of the Cross, in his commentary on the dark night, describes this experience saying that when in contemplative prayer, God weans us away from the things and activities of the world and attach us to Himself. I am led to sit in the quiet of His presence and find peace there. In my life, I am losing something but gaining something else, and I feel the energy of this change.

In this growing tendency to seek silence and solitude, I feel fortunate that I live close to the Atlantic Ocean and many state parks on the south shore of Long Island. In my hours of solitude and silence, God is calling me to a relationship of love with Him. It is a very deep one because God is present at the core of my person and there is no one closer to me than He is. I constantly reread the two poems of John of the Cross "The Dark Night" and "The Living Flame of Love" where he beautifully describes this love relationship. In the last line of the latter poem, John says that God woos us to love Him and that is why he calls us into silence and solitude. In my frequent walks on the seashore, I am called to let God do this and grow in this love relationship.

Here again, I feel a tension in the contemplative experience. This experience of God is a mysterious one because He is transcendent and always beyond me. God will always be the Other and that is why it will always be at night as John of Cross so well describes in his poem "The Dark Night." I have to live with the tension that no one is closer to me than God, but that God is also out of my grasp. In the same vein, William Johnston writes in the book The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling that we cannot know God with our intellect but can have a relationship with Him through love. Our senses and intellect have to be emptied of created things so that God can pour His light into them. "It is impossible to see and possess God fully in this life, but with his grace and in his own time, it is possible to taste something of him as he is in himself" (60-61).

In many of the contemplative traditions, writers mention that we are called to a spiritual marriage and union with God. The imagery of a human marriage is used to help us see where God is leading us. In the Christian tradition, there are two persons who had this spiritual and interior marriage with God. On November 18, 1572, in the chapel of the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila, Spain, Teresa of Avila experienced her interior marriage with God in the presence of John of the Cross. In her book, The Interior Castle, she mentions that in a spiritual marriage, God comes and makes a special place in the center of the person where He alone dwells (261).

A French woman named Barbe Avrillot, who later became known as Mary of the Incarnation (1599-1672), on three occasions experienced a spiritual marriage with the Trinity and Jesus. On Pentecost 1625, she had an interior marriage with the Trinity. On Pentecost 1627, she experienced a spiritual marriage with Jesus, and on March 17, 1631 she had an ecstatic vision of the Trinity and a mystical marriage with them. A few years later, she took the name "Mary of the Incarnation" in honor of her husband, Jesus the Incarnation. In her letters and writings, she writes beautifully of the depth and intimacy of her union with God, the Trinity, and Jesus. She experienced the continual presence of God at the core of her person. She refers to God being present at her center as a love nest, where God and she meet. Through this union with God, she received the gift of peace which remained with her even during trials and difficulties, and she treasured it throughout her life.

The contemplative path of my life is a pilgrimage of walking with someone or rather I am being drawn by someone who is leading me on. Someone has taken the initiative to have me enter into His presence. The lives of Teresa of Avila and Mary of the Incarnation show me that our contemplative path should lead to an interior marriage with God. John of the Cross advises that we have to be silent and listen. A chance visit to el Convento de Santo Domingo, a restored monastery in Oaxaca, Mexico, left me touched by God, although I did not recognize it until I had retuned home to New York. When meditating on the pictures of the monastery, alone and silent, I was once again ushered into the presence of God. We are not in control so we have to be open and vigilant in silence. John of the Cross in his poem "The Spiritual Canticle" points to where God will lead us in our contemplative path:

Love, let us now

Rejoice and through your beauty

Travel hills and mountains

Where clear water runs;

Let's push into the wilds more deeply.

And then we'll go on up,

Up to the caverns of stone

That are so high and well hidden.

And there we will enter

To taste wine pressed from pomegranates.

 


References

Davy, Marie-Madeleine. Les chemins de la profondeur. Gordes, France: Editions Questions de, 1999. 

Johnston, William. The Cloud of Unknowing and the Book of Privy Counseling. New York: Doubleday, 1996. 

Marie de l'Incarnation. L'experience de Dieu avec Marie de l'Incarnation. Edited by Guy-Marie Oury. Paris, France: Editions Fides, 1999. 

St. John of the Cross. The Poems of St. John of the Cross. Translated by Ken Krabbenhoft. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1999.  

Theresa of Avila, Saint. The Interior Castle. Translated by Mirabai Starr. New York: Riverside Books, 2003.


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