Along With The Why...

“The journey that tries our souls brings the Y in the road along with the Why?...” -Katherine Kemick

Came in an email recently, a letter, which included the above query. And in seeking to answer the sender, I find in my heart an answer that has found it’s way into this essay…

We imagine that it all matters, “the journey”, “the Y”, and the “Why” of it all….we often find ourselves caught in the mind stream that believes that the path we take and its many twists and turns, will somehow mean something to the future we are planning for ourselves, hoping for ourselves, projecting ourselves into, and/or running towards, often as a way of running from the past.

Let me submit to you for your consideration, that it doesn’t really matter whether that Y takes you left or right…not really, not to your deepest self…

I remember long, long ago, my teacher, ever the Master at providing lessons from moments of experiential process, caused a phone to ring on cue in another portion of the building, from the training class in which we sat, which we of course did not know.

It was a disturbing and curiously disruptive sound. We had all been so immersed in the work and the world that work produces, gathered together for the purpose of trying to find our way out of the dark…that when the daily grind interrupted us, with its shrill tone and demand for action, I remember being piqued by it.

He stopped, cocked his head toward the sound…thus indicating that somehow it was important beyond the dredge of tasks that accompany any modern day human life, and listened, with that quiet and calm countenance I so love about him.

Many moments passed, and on the face of some, you could see the irritation building…and almost read the thoughts, “why isn’t someone answering that phone?” …”where is the staff that they are not taking care of this?”…. “isn’t someone going to do something about that intrusion?”…

And then in that quiet and commanding way of his, he said, “you will never find your way home until you know, truly know… that the phone, it’s ringing, and the room it is ringing in, are all inside you.”

Young and unwise, I tried my best to put that into some sort of “new age” context that somehow my molecules, and the phones, and the ringing, were all somehow protoplasmicly bound together. And of course, any scientist worth his salt, will tell you that we are indeed bound together, but that is not the point my Teacher was attempting to make.

We all get so routinely confused about the External and the Internal, about where the action is, and where to place our attention, and why it doesn’t matter where we are or what we are doing, or whom we are doing it with.

We might come up in the world in a “tribe” that bows to a wall, or bends to the east, or handles beads while we pray, or sits on a stone in a beautiful garden, or any other vast array of external peculiarities that locate us in a given time, or place, but which ultimately have nothing to do with whether or not we discover that the ringing phone is inside us and nowhere else.

On the day that I discovered, for the first time – and many years after I was first exposed to the idea, where the phone, and the ringing, and the room were truly located, I went to my teacher and tried to explain to him that I knew, that I finally I understood.

I have an odd personal idiosyncratic pattern of crying, and crying like my dog died, when I am infused with gratitude. For that reason, for many years, I couldn’t really talk to my Teacher without crying and sometimes embarrassingly so…

On this day, the day that I finally understood the difference between the futile search outside of myself for relief and salvation and the beginning of the inward move, toward an increasingly Silent Mind, I tried to tell my Teacher about my discovery, amidst tears, and sobbing, and the gulping of air, I finally sputtered…”I know, I really know, where the phone is ringing…”

I think back on that now and it makes me smile. I am sure he knew what I was referencing, but had anybody else been able to peek inside that moment they would have thought…”look at the grown woman crying until snot runs out her nose, because she found out where the phone is located…lawd, some people…”

It never matters where we are, what our hands are holding, what we are standing beside, or under, or with whom. Our great good fortune is that the Universal Intelligence that surrounds and infuses everything, needs nothing more special than a ringing phone, to awaken us to the interior of our being.

Take the job or don’t take the job, marry or don’t, run or stay, build an empire or scavenge for food from garbage cans, all things - everything and nothing - can cause you to finally get fed up, and stop the searching so that you may be able to uncover the Silence, that waits so patiently for your attention.

It is, paradoxically, both our birthright and our obligation to rise above the productions of mind. All the things we think about, believe on, manage with our need for control and dominance, direct by virtue of the force of our personalities, or acquire by commitment of our time and energy, are very pale substitutes for the Quiet Mind.

There is a form of nurturing in the Silence that carries with it a renewal that has no boundaries and no limitations. It is not a magic bullet, in that it automatically or somehow magically, changes things or events in the outer, nothing instantaneously happens in the outer….and yet everything of any importance at all, is entirely altered, and altered for the better in a most profound way.

To find yourself breathing in an entirely silent mind is to know yourself in a way, and with an intimacy, that cannot be duplicated by any form of outer experience. It provides you with - what I imagine can mature into - an unlimited supply of courage, a courage born of the knowledge that nothing that happens to you is, or can be, exempt from the soothing salve of Silence.

I know that Silence would not now be available to me, had I not found and committed myself to my teacher. That ringing phone would have forever remained beyond my reach, had I not sat in front of him for so many years. I first met him 28 years ago and the seed was planted then for the last eight years of my life, in which, I have sat in front of him at every opportunity that presented itself. In the book, The Monk and The Philosopher, written by Matthieu Ricard is the best explanation I have ever heard of the need for a teacher whose mind has met the Silence.

Describing his own teacher, Ricard says…” In his presence, however, I’d intuitively discovered one of the basic things about the teacher-disciple relationship, putting one’s mind in harmony with that of the teacher. Its called ‘mixing your mind with the teacher’s mind’, the teacher’s mind being wisdom and our mind being confusion. What happens is that by means of that ‘spiritual union’ you pass from confusion to wisdom. This purely contemplative process is one of the key points of Tibetan Buddhist practice.”

Until I read this book I had no idea of the ancient understanding which prescribes the “mixing of your mind” with that of the Teacher’s. For there is no doubt, that blending your mind with that of one who has opened to Silence, does indeed allow you to pass from confusion to wisdom.

The same is true of some artist’s and creators, all of their work becomes infused with the Silence out of which their particular artistic endeavors take shape, and can pass to the observer or the listener at the very least… the flavor, or echo, of Silence.

The first time I ever heard Bobby McFerrin, I was wandering around Scottsdale looking for something to do on a warm Friday night. Alone, I didn’t want to go to a bar or some more boisterous form of entertainment, and in this search I found a small theatre hosting an “improvisational and inspirational” singer.

I purchased a ticket, sat down near the front…and soon, onto the stage, came a handsome, lean, black man with a microphone and a green glass, bottle of water. He began a type of singing I had never heard before… part humming, part warbling, part words, while thumping his chest to provide base, sometimes making clicking noises to provide percussion, sometimes the sound traveled thru his nose to provide a new tone, all issuing from one man…and sounding like an orchestra was there in the room with him.

I have never forgotten him, never lost the wonder of watching his performance, never missed an opportunity to search him out and follow his extraordinary career and artistic expression. I believe in my heart, that he so captivated me because his work is born in Silence.

I saw him recently on YouTube, a small sampling of the wonder of his work, in a concert in Russia in the company of Yo-Yo Ma…and together they made music that would open the doors of heaven.

The best thing to know about the Silence is that it holds no favorites, knows no limitations, withholds itself from no one “sinner or saint” alike, is available for the asking, and entirely ends the fruitless and painful search for “meaning” and “purpose” and “greatness” and “approval.” Of course, it also ends any and all beliefs, most importantly the belief that we as individuals are somehow special or important… except as the Witness of the Silence, in that, we are the supreme pinnacles of creation. Once Silence has been touched, it slowly or sometimes quite suddenly, melts away the personal self. Silence then reveals itself to be the true self and that all personal characteristics, idiosyncratic behaviors, achievements, and all other forms of the personal are contained within the Silence, and therefore secondary to it.

Matthieu Ricard goes onto to describe the role of the teacher of Silence in this way…

“If a prisoner wants to free his companions in misfortune, he must first break out of his own chains. It’s the only way to do it. You have to gain in strength to act appropriately. An artist has to begin by discovering the roots of his art, acquiring a technical skill, developing his inspiration and thereby become capable of projecting it on to the world. The sage’s approach is similar, even if it doesn’t have the same goals. The spiritual path begins with a period of retreat from the world, like a wounded deer looking for a solitary, peaceful spot to heal her wounds. Here, the wounds are those inflicted by ignorance. To try to help others prematurely is like harvesting wheat when it is still grass, or like a deaf musician playing beautiful tunes that he can’t hear. To be able to help beings, there should no longer be any difference between what you teach and what you are. A beginner might feel an immense desire to help others, but generally doesn’t have sufficient spiritual maturity to be able to do so.”

It is my great good fortune to have found, and followed, a Teacher for whom there were “no longer any differences between what he taught, and who he was”…

It is my hope that all the world will find a one such as he…

Adayre R. Miller

2/26/11

photo courtesy of Jody9 and flickr photo sharing to see more of this artist work please follow this link… www.flickr.com/photos/jodymiller/2341945277/in/gallery-58398502@N05-72157626144720522/