-- Thomas Merton
Reading: from Awakening Alchemist documentary called “Everything is Energy”
The solidity of the world seems indisputable. As a fixed thing that you can see and touch, your body is also reassuringly solid. But beginning with Einstein modern physics has assured us that this solidity is a mirage. After all the body is made up of atoms. These atoms are particles that are whirling at lightening speed around huge empty spaces and the particles themselves aren’t material objects. The particles themselves are fluctuations of energy and information in a huge void of energy and information. If you could see the body as it really is you’d see that 99.9999% of it is mostly empty space and the .00001% of it which you see as matter is also empty space. If you could take all the real matter that makes up the atoms of our bodies: the protons, neutrons and electrons and press them all tightly together, they would all fit onto the tip of a needle. The matter is just an illusion, an artifact of our perceptual experiences. As you sift through this very solid looking material body you only have to go so far before you end up with a handful of nothing. This is a scientific fact. The essential stuff of the universe is non-stuff because an atom which is the basic unit of matter is not really a solid entity. It’s a void.
Reading: Chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tsu
Thirty spokes unite in the hub of the wheel
It is the emptiness of the center whole
That makes it useful.
Shape clay into a bowl
It is the space within that allows it to be useful
Cut out doors and windows for a house
These created openings of space give it usefulness
Thus, physical form is beneficial
It’s usefulness comes from creating a space.
Reading: by Marv Hiles from her essay "The Way Through” No. 31, Winter 2009
I am discovering that Silence is not a concept, an idea, not the familiar "absence of sound." Instead, I "enter" silence as if I were to open a door, cross a threshold, and enter a room. Silence is substantive, tactile, like material. I feel its layers. It has depth like water, shallow or deep. I immerse myself in it. It is like water, supportive. I lay back in it. It is buoyant or it can draw me down. I think about whether or not it has a bottom, a ground. Perhaps its bottom turns into a top at some point, just as going east eventually leads west. I feel secure in the way it totally envelops. It is pleasurable yet mysterious. ... “ancient and full of grace.”
Space
A Sermon Delivered on September 14, 2014
By
Pam Blosser
In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames, designers and film makers, created a film called “The Powers of Ten.” This work depicted the relative dimensions of the Universe according to a logarithmic scale based on a factor of ten. It begins first with a couple having a picnic near Lake Michigan in Chicago, and then every 10 seconds it expands out 10 meters until the entire earth is in view. The picture moves out from earth bringing our solar system into view and then our Milky Way Galaxy further and further until the entire universe is surveyed. At this point in the film the narrator explains, “This lonely scene, the galaxies like dust is what most of space looks like. This emptiness is normal. The richness of our neighborhood is the exception.” The film continues, quickly returning us to the two picnickers in Chicago then entering the man’s hand to reduce inward smaller and smaller until a single atom and its quarks are observed. “We are in the domain of universal modules”, the narrater explains. “There are protons and neutrons in every nucleus. Electrons in every atom. Atoms bonded into every molecule out to the farthest galaxy.” In a relative short period of time the film shows that we are able to view the macrocosm and the microcosm of our universe and are reminded by the narrator that both are made up of atoms. The atom itself is in some ways similar to how the narrator explains the outermost reaches of the universe, “This emptiness is normal.” Emptiness is in fact, the normal condition of all of physical matter.
There is a common analogy about the structure of an atom. Imagine with me now that the nucleus of an atom is like a fly in the center of a sports stadium and the electrons are tiny, tiny gnats circling the stadium.
The truth is we live in space. We live on a spaceship traveling, moving, floating in waves of silence. We are made up of space. Space is in around and through us.
The Tao states that it is the space within the form that gives it meaning --- the hub of a wheel, a cup, a house. These would not be what they are without the emptiness at their center.
Look around you at the space here. The space within the structure of this sanctuary and building is what gives our experiences here meaning. Within these walls we are moved by the beautiful music. We listen to thought provoking and inspiring messages and are educated, enriched and transformed by their profundity. We connect with each other here through community and our innate urge to serve each other and our cities and create together. Within these walls is laughter, friendship and questions and answers where we seek to understand and make sense of life --- a life that asks us to think more deeply and mindfully so we may cultivate peace, gratitude, equanimity, wonder and love. This space, this emptiness teems with life and humanity filling our lives with meaning.
The world is filled with change. Every day we face something different to respond to. Our world is filled with words --- words from TV and radio announcers, words from advertisers, words from our friends, colleagues and family. Sometimes the words are the same; sometime they change. Between the words is silence that allows the words to be what they are. You are always thinking. Sometimes your thoughts are the same and sometimes they change. The space between your thoughts is who you are. The silence is your birthplace. And the spaciousness between your words and thoughts, your presence, is what you bring to the world.
Many holy works describe silence as a doorway to the mystical.
The ancient Hindu writings the Maitri Upanishad tells us, “There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the Supreme Mystery beyond thought. Let one's mind and one's subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else.”
From another sacred Hindu writing, the Atharva Veda we hear, “By the grace of wisdom and purity of mind, He can be seen, indivisible, in the silence of contemplation.”
Confucius tells us, “Silence is the true friend that never betrays.”
From the Buddha we hear, “When a man knows the solitude of silence, and feels the joy of quietness, he is then free from fear and he feels the joy of the dharma.”
The Psalms, a writing for both Judaism and Christianity, tells us, “ Be still, and know that I am God.”
From the writings of the Sufi poet Rumi we are instructed, “Now be silent. Let the One who creates the words speak. He made the door. He made the lock. He also made the key.”
Richard Alpert who came to be known as Ram Dass and the author of the famous book of the 1960s “Be Here Now.” was an eloquent speaker. He once said, “One of these days you’re going to come and hear me speak, and I’m going to stand up here in complete silence the whole time. Afterwards you’ll say to me, ‘Great talk!’”
A few years later Ram Dass had a massive stroke. At one of his first talks during his recovery, there were large gaps of silence as he searched for the words to say. Upon hearing him, I thought, “How beautiful. His talks have now become meditations and dances with silence in which we must move with him as his partner out of our intellect and into our beingness.”
Beneath the words, the glances, the movement, the tears and the laughter there is a depth of silence that is unfathomable. How often do we allow ourselves to go there. Most of the time we stay on the surface hardly recognizing a deeper dimension that continues to exist irresponsive of our awareness.
At the headquarters of the School of Metaphysics we have a practice of reading or reciting a sacred document every morning at 5:45 in the upper chamber of our Peace Dome. It is called the Universal Peace Covenant. This is a document we wrote back in the mid 1990s and it has special meaning for me. When I participate in this ritual of reading the peace covenant, I see in my mind busy street corners in different parts of the world with the sound of traffic and the people bustling in the brightness of the sun. The silence underneath this ever-changing busy-ness is where I place the thoughts that this covenant conveys --- supporting, comforting, giving hope and resolution. I would like to recite the conclusion to give you an idea of its scope. It reads, “We stand on the threshold of peace-filled understanding. We come together, all of humanity, young and old of all cultures from all nations. We vow to stand together as citizens of the Earth knowing that every question has an answer, every issue a resolution. As we stand, united in common purpose, we hereby commit ourselves in thought and action so we might know the power of peace in our lifetimes.”
Right now, right here, there is silence. Beneath the surface of life is a spacious ground of being. It’s inside the rain you hear outside. It quietly waits within the rainbow of colors that surround you. It lies beneath the smell and taste of your morning coffee. underneath the feelings of love and passion as well as disappointment and devastation. It rests within painful, argumentative and hateful words and within the pain of bearing those words. It waits everywhere to be heard, to be seen, to be touched. It never goes away, constantly changing yet always the same. It’s inside you. It’s inside everything. All you have to do is be still. Let go of whatever it is you chase after because you think you don’t have it. What’s your hurry? Where are you going? What are you trying to figure out? Who are you trying to please? Who are you trying to impress? Nothing will get done any faster because of your worry. Nothing will be resolved because of your regret. Turn your attention away from your thoughts, away from the details of your life. Within the silence comes forgiveness, understanding, wisdom, peace and grace.
Right now take a long, deep breath. Close your eyes. and Open the door into space. Cross the threshold. and enter the room where everything is the spaciousness of who you are. Right here accept life as it is. Let everything be as it is without needing to do anything. Now slip down into the depths of your being. Feel its layers. Immerse yourself in its depth. Lay back in it. It is buoyant or it can draw you down. Feel secure in the way it totally envelops. It is pleasurable yet mysterious, ancient and full of grace. Listen. Listen to the light within you. Touch the sound of space. Be aware of awareness.
Be aware of awareness.
Be aware of awareness.
Be aware of...
Be aware....
Be.....
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