‘Let down your nets into the deep!’ As always the words of Jesus carry a meaning deeper than the obvious. In order to re-connect with the inner core of our being we have to descend into our own depths. This takes courage and sometimes the need for gentle therapy. But it is in these depths that, whatever we may mean by the word ‘God’, we find an inner strength.
In the Darkness
The darkness before dawn is a time of waiting. As Hegel wrote, ‘The owl of wisdom spreads its wings with the falling of dusk.’ A seed grows quietly in the dark depths of the soil. Change comes quietly and invisibly on the inside. We have but to persevere in our practice of silence.
Dealing with Tensions
‘Contradictions have always existed in the soul of man,’ wrote the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. It is only when we prefer analysis to silence, he says, that they become constant and insoluble problems. We are not meant to resolve all our contradictions but to live with them and rise above them. As the Orthodox nun Mother Maria used to say, ‘Learn to carry conflicts, don’t force solutions.’ And so, patiently, through the practice of meditation, we learn.
The Gift of Wonder
After meditating we become more intensely aware of the being-ness of people and of plants, animals and things. The moment we open our eyes and see a vase of flowers, a glass of water, a lit candle, we see it with the intensity of a child or an artist. We sense the essence of the person or the object.
Thomas Traherne reminds us of this:
Is not sight a jewel? Is not hearing a treasure? Is not speech a glory? O my Lord, pardon my ingratitude and pity my dullness who am not sensible to these gifts. The freedom of Thy bounty hath deceived me. These things were too near to be considered. Thou presented me with Thy blessings, and I was not aware. But now I give thanks for Thy inestimable favours bestowed on me.
Moving on
This year I became 90 and I observe how the past several years have seen a great deal of stripping away: letting go of our home of 40 years in Wales; moving from the London flat where my partner, Hywel Jones, and I lived for some 50 years; getting rid of many items of furniture, thousands of books, scores of pictures, endless boxes of china, antiques, toys and curios.
And then, ironically, having to let go of my companion of 54 years, who died of a brain tumour.
This is not an argument to say we should have no possessions, many of which carry memories of key moments in our lives, but rather to realise that everything we have is a gift and there comes a time when the gift must move on. If we cling to things or to people we cannot move forward.
And so it is in the deep silence of meditation that we move forward when we are willing to let go and descend into the emptiness. In fact it is not emptiness — when we go deep enough we find pure being-ness. It is like those trees in autumn which, after their final blaze of colour, shed all their leaves and are revealed in their essence, trunk and branches against the sky. Still the roots go deep into the ground and the sap remains.
Find the meaning
There is a wonderful phrase in the Psalms which I asked John Rowlands Pritchard to calligraph for me. It is simply this: ‘Then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.’ St. Benedict says: ‘Listen with the ear of the heart.’
It is in the deep stillness and silence of meditation that we find our true centre. As Jung put it, ‘Find the meaning and make the meaning your goal.’
Dealing with loss
There are many kinds of bereavement, not just the loss of a loved one by death. We each die many times in a lifetime. We may experience the death of an ambition, a love or a relationship, the loss of youth and, perhaps most common of all today, the loss of one’s job. Being declared redundant is for many a loss of identity, for if I can no longer say I am a builder, a mechanic, a teacher, a postman, then who am I?
How we deal with each death will determine how we deal with our eventual departure from this life. I recall what a physiotherapist who worked at St Michael’s Hospice in Hereford once said to me. She observed how those who had learned to let go with each minor death were the ones who were able to die simply, whereas those who had resisted every change in their life and had not learned how to let go, had the hardest deaths. We have to learn how to be flexible, as in the Shaker hymn, ‘Simple Gifts’:
’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be …
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning, we come round right!
Negative silence
In the practice of meditation we work to find for ourselves a deep inner silence, but there is also negative silence which can happen between couples when each is so aflame with anger that neither can speak. This silence can be deeply wounding. In all relationships we have to learn how to talk things through, quietly, when difficulties or misunderstandings arise, which they will, as two temperaments are likely to clash from time to time. But a brooding, sulking silence will achieve nothing other than more psychological damage. At such times it is necessary to sit down and gently, however painfully, talk through the problem.
If the couple are in the habit of meditating then it may help them both to meditate before talking. In Finland, before each Cabinet meeting, all members have a sauna, the heat from which helps to eliminate aggression and hostilities. As Erich Fromm says, love, like life, is something we have to work at constantly.
The art of loving
On the audio attached to this blog where I read some of the prose and poetry that have shaped me during my life, I say at one point that I regard Love as the greatest of all the arts. Erich Fromm in his remarkable book The Art of Loving writes about this at length. Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of their being. No-one can become fully aware of the essence of another human being unless she/he loves the other. And more than that, one perceives in the loved one that which is potential and yet to be realised. The challenge of all committed relationships is to allow the freedom of individual growth within the container of the relationship. Just as we have to work at life, so we have to work at love.
Anywhere!
When we are first learning to meditate it helps to find the right setting where one can be silent and alone. But as we become accustomed to the practice we should be able to meditate anywhere, alone or in company, in silence or amidst much noise.
We have first to learn how to subdue the wandering mind and our innate restlessness, but slowly out of the inner calm emerges freedom from all disturbing emotions, anxiety, grief or depression.