This morning while meditating the idea of acceptance came into my mind. It suddenly seemed very important simply to accept – what? Everything. State of health, the weather, financial situation, injustice in the world, the state of rural Ireland – all the things we complain about and moan about, simply the way things are. This is very Buddhist of course. It is very easy to give an intellectual acceptance to Buddhist philosophy, to acknowledge the validity of much of it. It is another matter entirely to welcome without resistance the slings and arrows that reality throws at you. To say simply about all the things over which you have no control that that is the way things are – and to move on.
It must not stop with acceptance. That is only the first step. The second step is to realise that your being is not circumscribed by the material events of everyday. Nor is your being circumscribed by the people in your life, important though they may be, part of your very being though they may be. They are not the whole of you. There is a deep part, a core, a kernel, so deep down that it is not accessible even to you. This is the cave of the heart, the guha, as the Hindus call it. It is the aidagara, the betweeness of my relationship with God, where God and I merge. ‘Merge’ is much too big a word, implying some sort of parity. God is. I am not, except in so far as I am in Him.
Acceptance is important because it is only when the empirical realities in life have been accepted, the good and the bad, that they can, mentally, be put to one side. Until then they are a distraction, a big distraction, drawing the mind, feelings and emotions into a futile struggle. Meanwhile what is important, that which will remain when empirical reality ceases to be for me, is ignored. I don’t want to give the impression that I am advocating some sort of retreat to the desert and solitary contemplation. Of course empirical reality is important and it is important that we deal with it. But it should never achieve a sort of absolute importance where one is devastated when things go wrong and ecstatic when they go well. Paradoxically, it is only when these are seen for what they are, temporary and ephemeral, that they can be dealt with ease and confidence, without being overwhelmed by them. And when they are not pressing for immediate attention the mind can all the more easily turn to contemplation.
It is so important not to be afraid of silence, not to shun the dark. Let the distractions go. Let the cares and worries go. Deal with them when they have to be dealt with. Learn to listen to the silence. Learn the descent into the cave where all is darkness but there is nothing to fear. There in the stillness be still.
Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.
(R. S. Thomas: Via Negativa)
Like water boatmen insects we only dimple the surface of reality as we scurry about our lives oblivious of the depths beneath.