I wanted to share an experience that has been happening to
me, more and more often.
It begins in my heart and surges upward as a feeling tone
that soon surrounds and engulfs my entire being. It isn’t until it reaches my brain that I can name it and it
always comes with deep tears, and soft mewling sounds issuing from my throat.
Its name is gratitude.
When my brain becomes engaged and wishes to describe for me
this up swelling of deep appreciation, it always carries with it my Beloved
Teachers name. Gone now for a
year, his effect on my life will live until my last breath is taken…and likely
long after that…
My gratitude is for the fact that I could not have imagined
what my life would be like now, just weeks before my 58th year
begins, given the intense suffering that characterized all of my days until I
was nearly 40. Nothing outwardly
has changed at all. I still make
just enough money to meet my bills and not a penny more, I am still obese, and
I still live a life that is singularly alone, but not at all lonely.
So why, you might be wondering, should I be so gosh darn
grateful for a life that most people struggle greatly with…(nearly broke, fat,
and friendless)…
It is because the silence of mind, that began just a few
years ago, is growing, stabilizing, and deepening. With that silence comes control over the speaking portion of
my brain that I once imagined was me.
Old, tired, useless habits of mind are dropping from my life
like so much unusable debris; they slough away and leave me feeling pure,
innocent, free, and deeply alive.
On a recent road trip for work, I drove almost six hours in
complete internal and external silence.
I have become so accustomed to the wonder of internal emptiness, that I
marvel at the ease of it…the relaxation and rest and care that can be deeply
perceived, when the static of the speaking mind is not there to interfere.
I discover that the mind that narrates, (the one that
everyone imagines that they are), is a turbulence and a drain on your
vitality. It causes irritation and
discomfort that can drop cleanly away, when the silence that we naturally are,
is surrendered to, and allowed to have dominion in our lives.
And of course, it must be pointed out, that with silence
comes a complete and total end to suffering of every kind.
During this long drive, sitting in such an empty, yet vital
interior, my lower hip began to ache from my posture, or the long drive or,
perhaps just old age. As it began
its dull throbbing that started just below my waist and coursed down my leg to
just above the knee…my silent mind merely watched it.
I went from gazing at the kaleidoscopic color palette of the
high desert, to intense engagement with the pain. It was as though my silent mind finds everything useful, or honorable, or valuable, or awe inspiring, or
some combination of all these attributes.
Without the parsing, divisions, comparisons, and competitions of the
speaking mind…the quiet mind accepts all, and finds nourishment in all.
It was about that moment that the, now familiar, feeling of
gratitude overwhelmed me.
Gratitude has always made me cry…and sometimes it can make
me cry so hard that I cannot speak, as was often the case when I tried to
communicate to my Teacher the enormity of the gift that he had brought into my
life.
Many, many times over the years, that I was his dedicated
and appreciative student, I would try to express my gratitude to him. I would start with speaking the words,
and would invariably begin to cry, and more often than not, the tears would
become a flood of emotion that would be so intense that I would bend over at
the middle, as though I needed to be closer to the ground in an attempt to
manage the fierce flood of gratitude that was overtaking my nervous system.
As these episodes would calm down, I would invariably raise
back up, to see him merely watching me, impassive, calm, quiet, undisturbed…and
now…finally, I know why.
His mind was so quiet, that all near him could feel it.
His caretaker, in his old age, would often tell stories of
how much people were drawn to him.
How the dentist would not let go of him and needed to wheel him, in his
chair, back to the car, rather than let her do it. Or how if she would stand in line with him at a check out
counter, where someone was angry or disturbed, how those around him would
become calmer and quieter as well.
I saw it and felt it, every time he was nearby…but I did not
know what it was that made him so different and unique, to all others I met in
my everyday life.
It is only now that silence is becoming a more stable and
accessible experience in my own life, that I fully understand, why he had such
an enormous effect on me.
I cannot remember ever missing an opportunity to sit in his
presence. If he had not been
teaching… I would have been just as content to merely sit with him, and bathe
in his calming influence.
And I know, as an absolute certainty, that silence would not
now be growing in my own mind, had it not been for my proximity to his presence
and to his teachings.
So you can see why I tried so many times to tell him of my
gratitude, while also sobbing like a child…
I, as yet, have no experience with the “Universality” that
he would often speak of. The union
of all things everywhere that he could experience and express, and the place
from which he taught. I have no
idea if that will come into my life, or if I will share in that measure of
depth…. and I do not need to know.
As George matured and ripened, as a teacher, he strove
always, to simplify his lessons. In
the early years his written lessons would often be narratives, describing the
awarenesses that life was giving him direct experience of. But as he advanced and deepened, his
lessons would get shorter and shorter, more and more simple. As this one, that I still feel so
deeply…”Don’t compete, don’t compare, give up the need to know.”
As I traveled through the desert, driving in total
silence, I realized in a deep and profound way that I need know nothing, about
life, about my life specifically,
about the way things work, or how it came to be thus.
As a direct and intense experience, I could feel the
absolute wonder of not needing to know.
The silence, that has become my most valued experience, was not
something that I could have brought into my life, by virtue of a plan, or a
goal, or a need, or even a want. I
have no idea how it happened, or why.
I do know, without doubt, that it is the only thing worth having in a
lifetime. I know that it ends
suffering and fear, that it bestows trust and faith, like a bloom bestows
beauty and fragrance.
If all that ever comes my way, is a continuing development
of this silent mind…a deepening of relationship with it, and to it. I will have been gifted with all that
matters in the world.
I look forward to the day that it no longer comes and
goes. I have no idea if that day
will dawn for me, and I have no way of doing anything at all to encourage it to
be so. I must wait and see if it
continues to unfold, but, if all I ever get, is what I have already experienced…then
my life has met with more grace, than can be described or expressed.
And thus the enormity of my gratitude, for a life so well
used…
Adayre R. Miller
7/23/13
photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and meli_bee; to see
more of this artist’s work, please follow this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23385506@N06/2257819205/in/photolist-4rvUZk-cuGbXh-cL5cFE-6zF8oM-9hA7Yb-87Ygch-UHZvx-9CrSAf-3icfqH-81CxxW-boo4a8-sxGY7-7sLhoM-36XKRK-9pkojb-eREuSp-e88uvq-dd9Kc9-evSaCm-a9hx62-4xDrzy-9qGs5m-9sPbfM-dmViC6-p6ThU-9jHzMS-9dFad5-JHYz5-5KTHtu-7u5mpz-bYXCg7-aAGSK-d27EeQ-7qJLCQ-8A1F1J-7EmTR7-fd56DJ-8fDSav-dRiH2F-8p2BpJ-9syTJz-NKWpH-7emint-2e3mFL-KDxhk-f4U5A8-7xycfk-6Uizq7-p2oku-feVMXp-r9Uii#
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