Key Takeaways
1. Silence is the inexhaustibly rich source of all meaning and prayer.
For those who know only the world of words, silence is mere emptiness. But our silent heart knows the paradox: the emptiness of silence is inexhaustibly rich; all the words in the world are merely a trickle of its fullness.
Beyond absence. Silence is not merely the absence of sound or words; it is a positive, profound presence—the matrix from which all words and meaning are born and to which they return through understanding. It represents a lucid stillness within the heart, a quiet depth that holds inexhaustible richness. This positive silence is the foundation of true prayer.
Formal and informal prayer. While formal prayers like the rosary, Angelus, or the Jesus Prayer offer structured ways to connect, they are but small scoops from the ocean of prayer. Informal prayerfulness, the "rich, black humus," is an inner attitude that allows us to hear God's "singing" in everything we experience—through our senses, in moments of stillness, and in loving action.
God's communication. God communicates not just through explicit commands but through a constant "singing" in every aspect of existence. Our heart, a sensitive receiver, can resonate with this divine song through all our senses. Whether in jubilant moments or profound sadness, listening deeply allows us to hear God's message and respond with gratefulness, entering into a dynamic, Trinitarian dance of Word, Silence, and Action.
2. The human heart possesses a homing instinct for limitless belonging and ultimate meaning.
Restless is our heart until it rests in you, O God.
Core of being. The heart, in a spiritual sense, is the core of our being where we are unified with ourselves, with all existence, and with the divine ground. It is the organ that perceives meaning, not as a dictionary definition, but as a profound sense of belonging and rest. This innate longing for ultimate meaning drives our spiritual quest.
Mystical moments. We all experience "peak experiences" or "mystical moments"—sudden, often unexpected, awareness of being one with the Ultimate. These glimpses offer a sense of limitless belonging, a homecoming where separateness dissolves. Such moments challenge us to live out this deep connection, transforming us into the mystics we are meant to be.
Universal quest. Every religious tradition originates from such mystical insights and aims to guide followers to this oneness. Paying attention to these fleeting moments of meaning provides a pattern for understanding the diverse expressions of world religions, revealing a shared human quest for belonging and meaning at their core.
3. Every individual is inherently a mystic, called to experience communion with Ultimate Reality.
The mystic is not a special kind of human being; rather, every human being is a special kind of mystic.
Beyond purpose. We often prioritize "purpose"—taking things in hand, controlling outcomes—but true meaning emerges when we open ourselves, passively receiving and giving ourselves to an experience. Children naturally possess this openness, a "longing to find meaning" that our purpose-driven culture often suppresses.
Paradoxes of insight. Mystical "peak experiences" are moments of elevated insight, where:
- We lose ourselves yet find our true selves.
- We are carried away yet more truly present.
- When most alone, we are one with all.
- To find the answer, we must drop the question.
This dropping of questions, an "unconditional yes" to reality, is a form of deep listening, or "obedience."
Mindful living. This deep listening, or "obedience" (from ob audire – to listen thoroughly), is the opposite of "absurdity" (absolutely deaf). It requires "mindfulness" or "recollection"—a wholehearted, concentrated openness to meaning without elimination. This mindful, recollected living is the essence of monastic life, allowing meaning to flow into our purposeful activities, transforming work into play.
4. True spirituality is embodied aliveness, a full wakefulness in body, mind, and spirit.
To be vital, awake, aware, in all areas of our lives, is the task that is never accomplished, but it remains the goal.
Spirit as aliveness. Spirituality is not a separate compartment of life but a pervasive aliveness, a vibrant wakefulness that extends through all realms of our being. The root meaning of "spirit" in ancient languages is "life breath," signifying a profound aliveness that goes beyond mere bodily functions, encompassing a fullness of mind and a deep rootedness in our physical existence.
Mindfulness and bodifulness. This aliveness manifests as "mindfulness" – a full, deep awareness – but also implicitly as "bodifulness," a complete rootedness in our physical selves. Moments of greatest aliveness are those where we are fully in touch with reality, our bodies blazing with vibrant awareness, as described by poets like Yeats. This profound connection to reality is a "common sense" knowing, deeply embodied and limitless.
Authority and belonging. This common sense, rightly understood, is the true authority—a firm basis for knowing and acting that builds others up, unlike authoritarian power. It fosters a morality of limitless belonging, where we act towards everyone as we would towards those in our own "earth household." This ultimate spirit, exemplified by Jesus, cannot be killed and continues to inspire genuine aliveness, even as the body ages and declines.
5. Encountering the divine happens through fully engaged senses in daily life.
God’s inexhaustible poetry comes to me in five languages: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting. All the rest is interpretation—literary criticism, as it were, not the poetry itself.
God as "Yes." A personal relationship with God can be understood as a mutual "Yes"—God's affirmation of all existence and our reciprocal affirmation. This divine "Yes" is experienced as limitless love and belonging, a dynamic interplay of longing and belonging. God "speaks" through everything, each moment a unique "Word" challenging us to respond.
Sensuous wakefulness. To fully respond to this divine "poetry," we must cultivate wakefulness, keeping all our senses wide awake. Our senses are the primary languages through which God's inexhaustible beauty and love are revealed. From the fragrance of jasmine to the taste of a strawberry, or the feel of wet grass, every sensuous experience can be a divine revelation, a spiritual encounter.
Responsibility and solitude. Engaging our senses fully connects us not only to beauty but also to social responsibility. A truly awakened heart hears the cry of the oppressed and tastes the tears of the exploited. Solitude, like a hermitage, is essential not for escaping the world, but for cultivating mindfulness and hearing the world's heartbeat, allowing us to attune our senses and respond with vitality.
6. Cultivating gratefulness is the essential key to unlocking profound and lasting joy.
To recognize a gift as gift is the first step towards gratefulness. Since gratefulness is the key to joy, we hold the key to joy, the key to what we most desire, in our own hands.
Sacred sensuousness. Jesus exemplified a zest for life, experiencing God's liberating presence through all his senses. This perspective affirms that sensuousness is sacred, a divine revelation, rather than something to be repressed. True joy, the "gist of the Christian Good News," flows from opening our senses wide to the world.
Beyond sensuality. While sensuousness thrives, sensuality—getting lost in mere pleasure—chokes and withers. True joy surpasses fleeting pleasure, lasting beyond the senses' eventual decline. Humans possess a dual citizenship, bridging the realms of senses and what lies beyond. Our task, as Rilke's "bees of the invisible," is to deeply impress the impermanent earth upon our being, translating visible nectar into the invisible honeycomb of meaning.
Practice of gratefulness. Many of us live half-blind and numb, missing life's splendor. We can reverse this dullness by deliberately paying attention to one new smell, sound, color, texture, or taste each day. Gratefulness, a practice that can be cultivated, transforms our perception. By stopping "taking for granted," we discover endless gifts, fostering a creative attitude and strengthening the bond between giver and thanksgiver, leading to a joy that does not depend on what happens.
7. Contemplation means attuning oneself to the dynamic, universal order of love.
To measure one’s step by a universal rhythm and thus to bring one’s life into harmony with a universal order—this is contemplatio in our tradition.
Universal harmony. Contemplation, rooted in the Roman augurs' practice of observing the templum (a marked area of the sky), involves attuning oneself to an immutable, sacred order. This echoes the biblical pattern of Moses building the tabernacle according to a heavenly vision. It is a deep human longing to bring one's life into harmony with a universal rhythm, a "dynamic order of love" that moves the entire universe, as expressed by Augustine and Dante.
Asceticism as training. While the cosmos moves gracefully, humans often struggle to attune themselves. This requires effort, particularly the "supreme effort of making no effort," by overcoming attachment. Asceticism, in its positive sense, is training in detachment for the sake of alertness, wakefulness, and aliveness, freeing our movements to learn the steps of this cosmic dance.
Environmental obedience. This training extends to an "environmental asceticism of space and time," learning to be fully present where we are, rather than being pulled by past or future. Monastic bells, for instance, serve as reminders to act "when it is time," not when we feel like it, helping us transcend chronological time and enter the eternal "now." This process dispels confusion, leading to tranquillitas ordinis—the dynamic stillness of order and peace.
8. All of life is sacramental, revealing the Holy One in the midst of the familiar.
The thornbush burning, yet unburnt, is a daily sight—daily, yet ever amazing—for a heart that sees all things aflame with divine fire.
The Burning Bush. The biblical story of Moses and the Burning Bush serves as a profound metaphor for sacramentality: encountering the unimaginably "other" Holy One in the midst of the most familiar. This paradox, a bush ablaze yet unconsumed, is a daily sight for a heart open to seeing all things aflame with divine fire.
Beyond blindness. Two attitudes obscure this encounter: "worldliness," which sees only the mundane "bramble," and "otherworldliness," which sees only the transcendent "fire." Sacramentality is the secret of seeing both intertwined, recognizing that God's life is communicated through all things, making everything whole and meaningful. This insight is a deeply personal, yet communal, experience.
Thanksgiving and service. Sacramental life unfolds in community, where all beings communicate the life of the Holy One. Christian sacraments, like the Lord's Supper, are focal points of this universal divine fire, mirroring the law that life gives itself to feed new life. The sole condition for seeing life sacramentally is to "take off your shoes"—a gesture of thanksgiving that grounds us in direct, grateful contact with the earth and its healing power, revealing the inexhaustible fire in all things.
9. Word, Silence, and Understanding are interdimensional paths to ultimate meaning across traditions.
Only by the tension between word and silence is meaning upheld.
Meaning as "no-thing." Happiness and a meaningful life are inseparable, with meaning being the "no-thing" that gives us rest, constantly received like light. Like the empty space within a vessel, meaning is defined by presence, not absence. Silence, in this context, is not emptiness but an incomprehensible Presence that renders us speechless, imparting meaning.
Three dimensions of meaning. Meaning is upheld by the tension between Word (everything that embodies meaning) and Silence (the incomprehensible Presence), united and distinguished by Understanding. True understanding in dialogue involves an exchange of silence, where the silence within comes to word and touches the core of silence in another.
Interdimensional traditions. This framework allows us to view the world's spiritual traditions not as complementary, but as interdimensional, each being "the real thing" in its own right.
- Western traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam): Focus on the Word.
- Buddhism: Focuses on Silence (emptiness as fullness).
- Hinduism: Focuses on Understanding (yoking Word and Silence, Atman is Brahman).
Each tradition, though unique in its accentuation, contains aspects of the others, challenging us to rediscover neglected dimensions within our own heritage to become truly universal.
10. Organized religion, at its core, springs from and must return to mystical experience.
Every religion has a mystical core. The challenge is to find access to it and to live in its power.
Democratized mysticism. Mysticism, understood as communion with Ultimate Reality, is a nearly universal human experience, not limited to extraordinary phenomena or past figures. This recognition challenges us to translate the bliss of universal communion into daily human community, often creating tension with established religious forms.
Inevitable formation. Mystical experience inevitably leads to organized religion through three processes:
- Doctrine: Intellect interprets mystical experience, forming beliefs (even "no words" is a doctrine).
- Ethics: Will commits to the goodness glimpsed, leading to moral precepts (acting as those who belong).
- Ritual: Emotions celebrate the beauty, establishing practices (remembering and renewing belonging).
These expressions, though imperfect refractions of the heart's wholeness, connect us to truth, goodness, and beauty.
Renewal and transformation. Over time, religion can "cool off" like lava, turning into rigid "rock": doctrine becomes dogmatism, ethics become moralism, and ritual becomes ritualism. This fossilization separates us from the fiery mystical magma. The task of every generation is to find the fissures and hot springs—the reformers and renewers—to access the mystical core and make religion truly religious, transforming polarization into a mutually vitalizing polarity.
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