Stillness

A pitch-dark rock nestling into the sand at the swirling edge
 of the surf in Kittery this week

Something about this stone enthralled me, taking me to a place of stillness beyond thought. As Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr has written: “Silence is a kind of thinking that is not thinking. It is a kind of thinking that sees.” It’s not surprising, then, that I can best capture this feeling with a photograph, not words.

If I could crystallize the spirit of such stillness with words, it would be in the form of a myth. Although not a mythologist, I tried composing the initial stanza of such a fable: 

“Long ago, when the ocean still believed itself master of all things, there appeared a stone on the shore: small, black as obsidian, smooth as if it had been polished by centuries of hands. Where other stones were swallowed, this one endured. It did not resist with brute force but with patience, nestling deeper in the sand, shifted subtly with the tide but always returning unharmed.”

Joan Halifax, the Buddhist anthropologist, tells us that indigenous people live this myth every day of their lives.  As such, they provide us with a proven guide on how to repair our falling-apart world. “This wisdom cannot be told, but it is to be found by each of us in the direct experience of silence, stillness, solitude, simplicity…and vision. [They understand] our interconnectedness with all of creation. They know as well as I do that these words are intellectual concepts until this self is directly experienced.^⁠⁠1

Seeking silence has been crucial in maintaining my sanity during these chaotic times, as our democracy teeters along with much of life on our precious little blue planet. I believe that acknowledging the wisdom displayed by indigenous people could be a lifesaver for us, serving as a bridge to a new spirituality—one that is able to heal not only our hearts but also our society and the natural world.

 

The Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr considers silence to be “the very foundation of all reality. He tells us it is from stillness that all being comes and to which all things return.” Unless we learn to live there, “the rest of things—words, events, relationships, identities—all become rather superficial, without depth or context.^⁠”^⁠2

In the religious world, God is considered to be “the foundation of all reality.” Some view God as universal consciousness. I believe Buddhists have always held this view. Here’s what  Larry Rosenberg recently wrote in Tricycle, a Buddhist publication: When the mind becomes silent, it becomes preconceptual, beyond words. In this state of being present, “we channel the energy that animates the whole universe.”^⁠3 

In what seems like an unlikely twist, over the last hundred years, science has been converging on the same conclusion. It started with Max Planck, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918 for radically changing our understanding of matter and energy by laying the foundation for quantum mechanics. 

Sounding like the Priest Richard Rohr  I quoted above, Planck issued the following declaration: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”^⁠4

Since then, Planck’s position has been steadily endorsed by more scientists.. In a recent book, complexity theorist Neil Theise provides us with a poetic description of this new view: “Our brains aren't fleshy computers that create consciousness but, instead, act like transducers that connect us to a single, all-encompassing consciousness in the same way my tiny transistor radio could link up to a rock and roll radio station when I was a teenager.^⁠”^⁠5

I’d say that’s a strong statement in support of spirituality. It aligns with the indigenous worldview that through stillness, we enter a world where we are all connected. I believe that it is this preconceptual wisdom that must be incorporated into a new myth if we are to prosper as a species.

xxx

¹ Joan Halifax. The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom (Kindle Locations 1417-1421). Kindle Edition.

² Rohr, Richard. Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (pp. 1-2). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.

³ https://tricycle.org/article/a-few-words-about-silence/

⁴ The Observer (25 January 1931) (via Wikiquote)

⁵ Theise, Neil. Notes on Complexity (p. 153). Spiegel & Grau. Kindle Edition.