The only reality we know is our concept of it.
Life is nothing till we call it something, and this is where mind training comes in.
Through it we learn to hold our concepts loosely, particularly those that allow unhelpful emotions to take over and cause us problems.
Karuna Cayton, The Misleading Mind
Silence is simply a state we reach when, like a fire deprived of fuel, distractions and restlessness naturally fade away. When a desert monk complained that he could not control his wayward thoughts, his teacher answered “Keep on sitting in your cell and your thoughts will come back from their wanderings“. In a way then there is nothing to achieve in prayer; we do not have to try to be quiet in order to be silent, we just have to be. Silence is a state of non-being that is being itself.
Nicholas Buxton, Tantalus and the Pelican
The deepest words of the wise …teach us
the same as the whistle of the wind when it blows
or the sound of the water when it is flowing
Antonio Machado, Spanish poet, 1875 – 1939
As the days begin to shorten, we are reminded that darkness is as much of life as is light. And each day we have moments of birth and moments of loss. They give an opportunity in the practice of taking some aspects of ourselves and our lives with less importance, of letting go or dying to our fixed sense of self:
Die while you’re alive
and be absolutely dead.
Then do whatever you want:
it’s all good.
Bunan, 17th century Zen Master.
The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves. By “cessation” we mean the cessation of hell as opposed to just weather, the cessation of this resistance, this resentment, this feeling of being completely trapped and caught, trying to maintain huge ME at any cost.
Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness
In most wisdom traditions there are practices where we remind ourselves of the fact that we will all grow ill and die, as a basic truth of human nature. In the Western Churches remembering those who have gone before us occurs at the start of November, as they took over the pre-existing importance of this time in the Celtic calendar. These practices are mainly designed to allow wisdom to grow and to encourage us to fully live each day, to see each day as a gift.
We must make good use of this life for the time we have left.
This brief flash of light, like the sun appearing through the clouds.
Kalu Rinpoche
This evening we celebrate Halloween which is based on the most important Ancient Irish and Celtic feast, that of Samhain. The Celtic year was divided into two parts, the bright half from the 1st of May until today, and the dark half, starting tomorrow. Today stood in-between, when Summer not quite fully over, but the old year was dying and winter was about to begin. On this in-between day it was felt that the normal barriers between the visible and invisible worlds were less strong. The normal Celtic sensitivity to the hidden world – their awareness that the other world was always there right beside them – was heightened, So for us too, it can be a day to be more aware of deeper dimensions, by not rushing past the “ordinary” or the routine, by not expecting real happiness to be elsewhere, but by tuning in to the “bits and pieces of everyday” as poet Paddy Kavanagh reminded us.
One comes to know the interior of the exterior. One comes to know the inside of every outside. It’s not only human beings that have an interior or an inside, but that the world around us as well can be known inwardly. Life is dense with those levels of experience, but we need to calm ourselves, get clear, get quiet, direct attention, sustain the attention, open up to what is normally invisible, and certain things begin to show themselves. Maybe gently to begin with, but nonetheless it deepens and enriches our lives. If we are committed to knowledge, then we ought to be committed also to exploring the world with these lenses, with this method in mind and heart.
Arthur Zajonc, Professor of Physics, Amherst College
