I want to quote Etty Hillseum once again. She writes: ‘One must keep in touch with the real world, and know one’s place in it. To live fully, outwardly, and inwardly, not to ignore external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse – that is the task.’
Sometimes people come to meditation and fall in love with their new-found sense of detachment. The practice can even become quite heady! But far from removing ourselves from the concerns and challenges of every day and of our neighbours we need to be reminded of the practical advice of Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, who said, ‘Put your hands to work and your hearts to God.’
I recall the remark made at the end of my last school report by our very gifted teacher of English literature, who wrote of me, ‘He has his head in the clouds; he must learn to keep his feet firmly on the ground’. These were words of sound practical wisdom.
It is all too easy, in any form of spiritual practice, to become inflated or detached, and think oneself superior to others. It is important to realise that we all travel at different speeds, that we are each of us imperfect, yet capable of learning and growing in wisdom. We have to persevere. And we have to pay attention to our feet as much as our head. In this way meditation will eventually lead us to the ground of being.
Interesting that the desert mystics didn’t consider themselves of privileged status for their ascetic detachment, but rather as weak, that the real work was in the streets of the town; they, in their capacity, were doing what they could manage to support that work.
THE TRUE MYSTIC REMAINS GROUNDED IN THE PRESENT REALITY,
WHICH IS THE ESSENCE OF JESUS’ TEACHING, WHICH HE DEMONSTRATED BY NOT BEING A HERMIT BUT ASSOCIATING WITH THOSE WHO, IN HIS TIME, WERE REGARDED AS BEYOND THE PALE.
A BOOK I AM RE READING ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1976,WHEN I FIRST READIT, IS ‘TRANSPORT OF DELIGHT’ BY JACK BURTON, WHO WAS THEN A METHODISTT PREACHER IN NORWICH, MARRIED, WITH CHILDREN, WHO. WHILE CONTINUING AS A METHODIST PREACHER IN NORWICH, CHOSE TO GIVE UP HIS S TIPEND AND PENSION, AND TAKE A JOB LIKE OTHE R PEOPLE. hE BECAME A BUS DRIVER IN NORWICH AND HIS BOOK IS HIS DIARY. IT IS FULL OF INSIGHTS AND DELIGH TS, AND DEEP SPIRITUALITY, AND WONDERFULLY EARTHED.
JAMES
I watched a behind-the-scenes video made in Varanasi, India, on the Ganges, the edge of death and life. A subject of the filmmaker was the Ashogi, one who have given up everything to seek spiritual liberation. They remove themselves completely from any attachment to this world’s attractions, attractions they call illusions. It seems that generally as people grow older, they grow more spiritual and less attracted to ambition, acquisition, attainment, recognition. Some people go there very young and others never leave the worldly delights, but mostly I think, we know as we age that we are drawing close to the inevitable leaving. The Ashogi immerse themselves in death, not the world. In choosing a lifestyle that lets go of the world and lives with the dead, the Ashogi precede us who now live in the world and remind us that all dies, and if we pay attention maybe we will live differently. Naturally we fear dying. An Ashogi in the film remarks how “when death nears, [people] start crying. So’ he says, ‘when you embrace death, welcome death, ‘death’ will not come to you.” And perhaps this is where meditation on death and meditation help us to live in the world in a better way, truly grounded in life because we are grounded in death. I was thinking the mandate of Frontier Theatre Productions addresses the same issue in that the ‘pathologizing of aging as decline’ is part of the denial of death and who we really are. And if we instead celebrate all life, and our aging, and not only embrace but celebrate the end of life, not fear and deny it, then wouldn’t that be something, something else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7kfnDKPEw
Dear Reg, thank you again for your contribvution to this blog. My neighbour, who is a Catholic, a retired French architect, came to me one day and she asked, ‘ Why is it that Christians are so afraid of dying?’ and i replied that perhaps it was that, unlike Buddhists, or Hindus, Christians do not sufficiently meditate on death, as being part of the nat ural process. Some individuals in age are indeed called upon to withdraw and devote themselves to prayer, but others find they still have work to do. One thinks how some of Jung’s most important writing happened in his eighties, and there is Matisse as another moving example of a rich creativity in age.
so it would be wrong to generalise or lay down rules. Each of us has to find or own path towards the rich and profound expe rience of dying ( and being reborn!)
with affectionate greetings.,James
Thank you, James. I have work to do. I hope to have a couple more decades to make sense of all my learning. It’s not in my hands, really. I will keep my thoughts on momento mori, but just to keep me attentive to the wonder that comes to me each day along with the work of that day. My immortality rests in the life of wonder and mystery right here.