Two nights ago, I opened my door, and a moth flew in. She flew straight to my kitchen lights, as moths do, drawn to any source of illumination as though it were the sun. To direct her out of my house, I turned off my kitchen lights, turned off my living room lights, and turned on the garage light. When I opened the door again, she flew out.
Sometimes, when we discover a source of illumination that looks like the sun but is merely reflected light, the only way to redirect us back to the true source is to turn it off.
In the past few weeks, a light that drew me like a moth was turned off. I cannot say precisely who or what that light was, because whatever I write will give the wrong impression. I turned to words in an effort to reconnect, as I always do, to clear the skies, but words are often precisely how I muddy the waters of love.
Words of response did not come. Frustrated, I grabbed a book, prayed for wisdom, opened to a random page and read these words from Zen master Mumon (1183-1260):
“Words cannot describe everything,
The heart’s message cannot be delivered in words.
If one receives words literally, he will be lost.”
A few days later, my mountains of words were still met only with silence. I was still wielding words in an effort to connect, and they still seemed to fall short of conveying my understanding and love. I grabbed another book, opened to a random page, and read these words from The Tempest by Kahlil Gibran:
“We were both silent, each waiting for the other to speak, but speech is not the only means of understanding between two souls. It is not the syllables that come from the lips and tongues that bring hearts together.
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to heaven.”
The same message a second time. When such a coincidence happens, I give the universe all my trust. I need to learn to communicate with my heart, not my mouth, I thought.
Finally, yesterday, I realized that I was using words to speak to egos, not to hearts. There is little point in speaking to egos about matters of the heart; no amount of analysis will impart to an ego what only the heart can receive.
It was an ego I flew towards, forgetting that the light I originally saw was not the same as the ego encapsulating it. (Great Scott, he was right.)
I realized just how little interest I have in getting other egos involved in issues of the heart, and I dropped it. In the very minute that I dropped it, I received a call; the silence was broken. And I felt more clear about everything than I had been in months.
An hour later, I drove to a forest retreat for an impromptu period of solitude and silence. I was, like a moth to a flame, drawn like mad to the true light, the Source. I could feel it.
“You have loved my reflection in forms so well that now there is no meditating.”
~ Rumi
I sat in the meditation room, a beautiful circular room of dark wood and candles with enormous windows looking out into the woods. I let the words die.
I thought I would be sitting in a soup of pain. My dissertation failed. I discovered a mistake yesterday, corrected it, and realized that nothing had actually worked. At the same time, a fellow student informed me that another research group had published several studies just like the ones I had tried to do as a student. It was not the first time I received such news. I struggled for so long, fifteen years, to communicate a deep set of ideas, losing much in the process, and others beat me to it. Raining maggots indeed. I cried to my friend on the phone: “For fifteen years, I have wanted with every part of my being to understand the mind and heart, to understand suffering, find some way to heal suffering, and tell others about it so that they could read my words and heal.” I’ve always put it that way, exactly, emphasizing the act of writing some sequence of words that could impart healing.
“Everything I’ve done has been for nothing,” I said.
…And what a wonderful nothing it is.
I thought I would be sitting in a soup of pain. Instead, I was opened by some incomprehensible grace to a river of bliss. Divine nectar. I sat on my cushion feeling love shooting through me, and somewhere in that river was understanding. So much understanding, I could never ever hope to capture it in words. I thought I would be sobbing, but instead, I only laughed.
While on retreat, a book by Thomas Merton caught my eye, Choosing to Love the World. This book is so beautiful. It begins with the following quote:
“The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.”
I turned to a random page to a chapter called “Dialoguing with Silence” and read this:
“It is not speaking that breaks our silence, but the anxiety to be heard. The words of the proud man impose silence on all others, so that he alone may be heard. The humble man speaks only in order to be spoken to. The humble man asks nothing but an alms, then waits and listens.”
Skimming the pages, I came across this as well, which captured this transition from words of the ego to words of the heart:
“The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. So what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”
So with that, I let go of words and send to you, dear Reader, all the love in my heart. When the lights have all gone out, and the wind stops speaking to you, know that you are loved, and you are not alone.
