At a Quaker Meeting

A moment of quiet. A collection of my thoughts - a ragbag stuffed with the past: overfull sometimes, memories spilling out of it and spitting venom at me. Then the silence of the moment begins to absorb them all like old-fashioned blotting paper. There is the sense of others settling and finding their own inner peace, of their quietening as they sit, almost radiating their inner calm.

There is something so very infectious about sitting with others in a Meeting*. That silence is not yours, not theirs – it is something other; something shared and created, and at times tangible; a bit like a sheet spread over the room with each person holding a corner and helping it to unfurl and open until the whole space is enveloped.

It is in that space, in that quiet, in that stillness, that you are confronted – confronted most by its peace, by its acceptance, by its inclusion of all, and of all that is thought, or felt, by me, by others, by, one might almost venture, the very universe itself.

The language of Meetings is old and flavoured with words that I often find hard. They are from a mindset and time that is not mine. How could it be? I have been born the other side of massive intellectual divides – The Enlightenment and the continuing revolutions in science. They are sometimes discordant and often jarring. I do not find them in the least bit easy. They are a wrapping that could so easily blind one to what is to be found within. What I find within is peace, a peace that is so meaningful, so giving of succour, so healing.

You may ask why I should go and sit, time after time, in Quaker Meetings? I am a well educated, rational, sceptical and largely atheistic person of some years – enough years to give me white hair – who has never shown any inclination towards taking part in, or tolerance of, organised religion. The answer can be given in one word: peace. That inner and outer peace. That shared peace. That peace that comes in the silence. That peace that speaks so deeply to that which is within. 

Is it comfortable? No. That peace asks questions. It demands your being and your attention. It asks of you; of who you are and of how you live; of others and how you are with them; of the world and how you add to it.

Are the Meetings full of others who are like-minded? No. Every person has their own way of seeing and of being, of believing or not believing, of speaking and of understanding; and often they are challenging to accept. But that, too, is to the good. To listen fully and deeply to their honestly spoken words; to consider them and to try to come to terms with why they are so moved; why they feel and understand as they do; what it is that has touched them; to take all of that in whilst keeping true to your own inner integrity of feeling, of thought, and of belief; that indeed is a challenge, but one that makes you grow. To only ever be surrounded by those of like-mind, although comfortable, is not wholly beneficial: if anything it is even ossifying. We need the challenge of others and their way of being to shine light into our own.

*Quakers traditionally call their meetings "Meetings for Worship"
(This is a slightly re-edited version of the one published in "The Friend" of 13 January 2012)

Houses of words

We build houses out of the words we believe so that we made hide inside them safe from the unknown, safe from the uncomfortable, safe from the threatening, safe from the questioning, safe from exposing our utter nakedness and want of coherence in the presence of a universe so vast that we cannot encompass it or comprehend it. “God” you utter and yet another brick is forced into place shielding you from all that you would keep outside. You offer me this brick and I have no idea what to do with it.

Have some regard

Have some regard for anyone who has loved you in this life, for each has loved you as best they may within the limits of who they are; and you, within your limits, have loved them too, each and every one - at least for a while, at least for a season.

Just maybe you might feel the same too?

Why I am a unitarian*:

Because of the connectedness that underlies all things.

Because of the inseparability of the material and the divine.

Because seeking and not knowing is the path.

Because all paths are as one path.

Because of the partiality of any understanding.

Because of the inexpressibility of the truth.

Because of the life-light that burns through all people.

Because of the understanding that goes beyond words.

Because of the peace that passes all understanding.

Because of the temporarily of the self.

Because of the temporarily of humanity.

"We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically" Carl Sagan

http://bit.ly/cDZhrY

 * unitarian with a small capital, not Unitarian with large one, because the word denotes a way of seeing our place in the universe and not the membership of a particular faith group - as admirable, or otherwise, as their beliefs may be.

From your first breath to your last

From your first breath to your last you will vie with the complexities of living; the multi-role-playing, many faceted torrent of each day pouring through you, like it or not. Staring blankly at a wall will not free you from this, nor from the obligations that it will trust upon you. But it was this torrent of meaning suffused life that brought you to the threshold of Zen, even for those born into traditional Buddhist societies.

It is in the dynamic tension between intelligent engagement with the everyday and meditative detachment that the path of growth lies. Each should inform the other; a dialogue between meaning and silence in which neither has the last word. Empty headed wall-staring is, ultimately, nothing more than self-indulgence - I would take a stick to anybody so obsessed.

Now get dressed again!

Although, in Western terms, ultimately Heraclitan, the no-self of Buddhism points to the impermanence and transience of all that may be experienced - even the qualia of your sense experience can vary depending on your state of health, or as an effect of taking psycho-active substances; or, for that matter, the impermanence of conciousness it self, which can be turned on or off by accident, as in coma, or by the use of anaesthesia; or can be fractured into the unintelligible kaleidoscope and meaninglessness of dementia.

But it may also get you to dig deeper, to see the whole “you” package as no more than a temporary phase that is to be passed through, perhaps to be replaced by another “you” at some other time or place. This is in part a mind-trick that in Buddhism lends plausibility to the doctrine of re-incarnation - but beware, it is a mind trick. 

So, strip away everything until your Buddha-nature stands naked – but then know that Buddha-nature is also an illusion.

No-mind is in itself just as phantasmal as mind.

Now, having totally undressed yourself and discovered that you are not your cloths, get dressed again.

Some Buddhist Scatterings

How can we be compassionate if we have never known suffering?
How can we help others if we have not known joy?

If we do not radiate joy others do not take light. We are the light in their darkness as they are the light in ours.

Your time is meditation is not an end in itself. Nor is it there just to enrich you.

The tranquillity of detachment is only meaningful in the context of passionate engagement. Passionate engagement is only meaningful against the background of the tranquillity of detachment. Each feeds the other in a virtuous spiral.

Realms of rebirth? Reincarnations? Who's fantasies are these?