To start my journey I begin with Anthony Lawlor’s blog. On Saturday I put out a call for topic ideas to integrate into my freestyle rap session and he chimed in. His ideas were wonderful and I appreciated their arrival.
His tweet:
Topics @checkback : Unity in Diversity; Facing the Unknown; Living Bigger than Your Separate Self; Appreciating What Is...
This causes me to make his blog the jumping off point for my second exploratory phase and I begin with his most recent entry about Silence being the Real Secret. I once again knew I had come to the right place when I saw mentioned in the first paragraph another wonderful Twitter presence Linda Hollier, an Integral thinker living in Dubai who has fantastic insights.
This brings me to my first thought before I go into Tony's blog, which is leaving open space to intuitively follow our hearts messages. By following the breadcrumbs of life we find new spaces and experiences. Then as we pass through these intuitive spaces we should continue to be alert to the signposts along the way. By staying in the flow of our heart, letting ourselves go beyond the dictates of conventional mind. You don’t have to hold onto your intelligence like a wayfarer to a raft in turbulent seas, our existence needn’t play out so crudely. We can dance on the stage of openness to an audience of light-beings unseen and forever attentive. I don’t mean to sound so new age-y but I am only accessing the words as they arrive. I don’t fear the assembly of mind’s toy soldiers jumping around in the popcorn popper waiting for recognition.
The following approach may seem tedious as I go through Tony’s entry line by line but this is where I am in terms of approach. I aim to take the time to soak up the words and give my reflections on each striking thought. The entry gets going referring to being tired and alone, preparing for a dismal evening until with calm acceptance the power of silence enters into Tony’s mix. This is of note to me because I have often had similar feelings where meditation or just sitting silently has carried me out of a funk. I love the immediacy of settling that can carry me away from the ordinary pain of exhaustion or isolation.
Tony calls the one line bulleted statements Silent Sutras, and the first one talks of how at times silence speaks volumes compared to the accumulated wisdom, experience, and inspiration which can lose meaning. I’m not sure that these things actually become meaningless because it is these very things that bring us to our silence. They begin to rest and settle in the present and lose their outlying significance. No longer are they the solid tangible building blocks of being but become silent players in the settled space of contentment. This is a comfy place to be especially when you realize that this is all from an outgrowth of feeling tired, alone, and possibly having a dismal evening.
Tony’s 2nd silent sutra remarks that there is no physical silence, that even in an isolation chamber we hear the blood as it circulates in our ears. I am not sure I have ever truly experienced such a sound but maybe I need to listen more, or get myself into an isolation chamber and check out the sounds. No of course that is not the point at all. Tony likens true silence to the awareness of our thoughts, words, and actions. This is the centered being opening to the flow. I am brought to the concept of the witness. In spiritual circles we are taught to be aware of our experience and develop our watcher. By noticing consciousness, and the ever-present self that observes our world passing through us we begin to glimpse the centered being beyond thought. Of course there is the further stage of development where we don’t stop at the watcher but also need to learn to kill the witnessing altogether. It is taught in the books of spirit by many sojourners that there is an even deeper experience that exists past the witness entirely. Since most of us are not super advanced 40 years of experience black belt mediators we need to grasp into the fray with lots of little techniques and tactics to get to that ultimate and complete open space. It is good to get in there as much as possible but as any practitioner can attest we won’t have very much success trying to force it to happen. This is why there are so many forms of recognizing what is inherently an absolute expression of openness to being.
This is what Tony is referring to in the 5th Silent Sutra when he says silence is the groundless ground from which practices and creation arise. This is why it is beyond the comprehension of mind (#9). By finding the ever-present silence (#3) we connect to the spaciousness in between our thoughts. There is space everywhere. If there was no space we wouldn’t be able to breathe, and subsequently live. I marvel at the amount of space present when in tight quarters. Even in the rush hour commute sardined into subway trains there are pockets of space all around. All you have to do is look up or down and you begin to notice this. When people talk you can hear that it is the spaces in there speech that makes the words convey meaning.
I am going to leave this exegesis of Tony’s wonderful insights and allow you to explore the rest on your own. I found the words soothing and of value. I can think of no better starting place for my blog exploration phase than in the pocket of active silence this entry provided. Be well all.
***I hope I am not being too familiar in constantly referring to Mr. Lawlor as Tony but it flowed better in the rhythm of the essay so I stayed with it.
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