7/19 Meeting Notes

on practicing silence and abiding in the void

“The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.” - Thomas Merton

After every spiritual direction appointment, I type up comprehensive “meeting notes” over what we addressed in that session, any resources I referenced, and what we’re working on before we meet again. I do it with my women’s circles too, every week twice a week. I have a tremendous library of these notes from the past four years, often thinking, this is the book I will one day write. In fact, it’s already written.

Today I’m typing up my own notes. The notes of my most recent session with my greatest spiritual companion: Life. It was a rich one and we went so many places, turning over all kinds of inner stones, plucking worms for our next fishing trip.

We spent a lot of time probing the big questions, namely: What the fuck is happening on earth? Why are we here? Did I choose this? Is it real?

I ran away with my intellectual center, mining these unanswerable mysteries, and it’s as if my head ballooned away from my body while the rest of me ate breakfast and kept house. I started to doubt every spiritual hypothesis I once believed regarding the purpose of things. I lost faith in the possibility that I contracted to come here, unconvinced we would agree to hurt each other for our higher realization. What kind of God devises a sick game like that?

I considered that most of us are robots - a construct of the matrix meant to provoke the sentient ones who did, in fact, agree to this experiment for the evolution of their souls. This thought carried me off and I manufactured a series of credible explanations to support my projection, thinking I was *this close* to ripping the veil. I even tried to present the theory to the women in my wisdom circle (I really did that) and in the middle of it I just stopped, affronted by the blatant fractures in my understanding.

I had a string of anxious dreams and after the one where Andrew got shot, I woke very, very tired of holding the questions-never-to-be-answered. I told everyone it felt like free-falling through a portal in a movie, you know, the ones with a psychedelic background in which you lose spatial awareness and flail around screaming. I heard myself say at least twice that I do not have any ground to stand on.

Then on Tuesday night, I sent a text to my Work Partner saying: I think my inner work right now is quieting the questions. I see that they trap me in the intellectual center. I still find them important and I still deeply wish to understand. But the search for answers keeps me from Presence and fragments my attention. I am here, whether I know what I am or whence I came.

I recommitted to the aim I have held on and off for months now, lifted verbatim from Madame de Salzmann in The Reality of Being: “So, the only reality for me today is in my effort to stay present to myself.” Which means, for me: all I can do is keep returning to this moment, untaken by my habituated stories, feelings, quandries, and reactions. All I can do is abide in the void of my unknowingness.

On Thursday I saw a client who I love. She wanted to talk about her pain and I doubted I could hold the space, doubted I could supply what she needed, doubted I had any offering to make. So I set my aim in front of me and wished to enter the void - that vast dark emptiness behind all my pretense - and I decided I would not reach for any answers or regurgitate anything I thought I knew because I read it once.

I practiced releasing the tension in my belly over and over again. I did what I could to listen without any thoughts.

Now I always experience this woman’s inner beauty when I see her, but this time she was a real vision… She appeared utterly radiant in my sight as if haloed in light, soft and glowy around the edges, and maybe, for once, I actually heard every word she said. The magnitude of my tenderness for her condition multiplied. Everywhere there was the quiet, bright with love.

Toward the end of our session, an image arose in my awareness that I did not construct. I put it before her like passing a twenty to someone on the street - awkward and yet blessed I had it to give. Whatever it was, it proved useful and it meant something to both of us and we concluded our exchange with a lil saltwater baptism. If there hadn’t been a screen between us, I think I’d have kissed her face.

I saw, not for the first time, that my fallow field is the most truly fertile thing, and that’s what Paul meant of course when he said, For when I am weak, then I am strong.

And Madame said it too, with more words: “Solitude from what is ordinary, imaginary and false is something very great… It is a solitude from all the known and from all that is not right now, in the present moment outside of time. This solitude appears as a void. But it is not a void of despair. It is a complete transformation of the quality of my thinking. When the mind is free of all talking, fears, desire and pettiness, it is silent. Then comes a sense of complete nothingness, the very essence of humility. At the same time, there is a feeling of truly entering another world, a world that seems more real. I am particle of a greater reality. I experience solitude not because something is missing but because there is everything—everything is here.”

I concluded this session, first of all, with the acknowledgment that this session never concludes, and secondly, with a resolve to reclaim my silent meditation practice. I noticed all the little janes in here that do not wish to meditate or make this resolution; I did what I could to look them in their beloved faces and thank them for their concern, and then I decided to practice anyway.

I bowed to the fact that I always have a choice.

☼

This reflection is dedicated to Pat, June, Marnie, Whitney, Joey, Andrew, the women in circle with me, and all my clients - thank you for companioning me with enormous tenderness, generosity, and mercy. I love you.

MAY WE DO WHAT WE CAN, STAY PRESENT TO OURSELVES, SOFTEN THE QUESTIONS, EXPAND THE SILENCE, CONSENT TO THE EMPTINESS, ASK FOR HELP, AND CHOOSE WISELY 💛