by Donna Quesada: Old Wounds and Dynamics—
It was the day after Christmas. I knew that Kate was going through an incredibly difficult time with her recent divorce, but when she snapped at my mother, for what seemed like nothing, I was dumbstruck. She always asks too many questions, Kate said. Or, perhaps she asks the wrong sorts of questions.
More likely, it was a case of old wounds and old patterns taking the place of the present moment. The holidays are ripe for flareups of all the old tensions. Dynamics from the past become the default and prevent us from seeing old faces with fresh eyes.
Later that evening, Kate and I took the dogs for a walk, just the two of us. I didn’t say a word about the incident. We simply walked in silence for a good, long while. The wordlessness was like a silent bath of healing waters. Suddenly, I no longer felt the need to ask her what was wrong, or tell her she was wrong, or make any kind of statement or inquiry, at all. It was all stillness. I knew she and Mom would be fine without me or my righteousness. I didn’t need to fix anything, for it wasn’t mine to fix.
Stillness Heals—
Entering into the plane of stillness allows you to discover a boundless field, a tranquility and a vastness that wasn’t apparent before, because the noise we are so accustomed to crowds it out. We’re habituated to continuous action, and to the idea that things must be properly fixed. We’re compelled to fill every gap with words, which we consider to be the only valid source of communication. We’re told that to exist is to do, to live is to accomplish, to repair is to fix, and to resolve is to solve. And our expressions echo this tendency, such as when we call that normal break in conversation… “the awkward silence.” But silence itself is often the best tonic.
When we get comfortable with silence and with completely immersing ourselves in our experience of this moment, we suddenly see that discussion of that experience becomes immaterial. The endless chatter just falls away. It is seen as secondary, as debris in the crystal-clear waters. It suddenly becomes insignificant, and fails to do the experience justice.
Discourse has its rightful place and purpose, just as every good tool does, but often the most significant moments in our lives exceed the potency of these tools. For example, the description of love can’t relay the divine experience of love, nor can the explanation for floating convey the feeling of weightlessness in the water. Describing these moments with words sometimes feels as absurd as using a wrench on the sky to stop the rain.
Experience the experience. -Guru Singh
One of my spiritual teachers always reminds us in his public talks to experience the experience because strangely, we need cajoling to do the inevitable. He knows it requires courage to enter into the silence that all spiritual traditions speak of. It requires courage to fall into that space where we are no longer clouded by the noise of our own thoughts and by our need to prove anything. It requires courage to let go of the only way we have ever been taught to do things. It requires courage to simply be here, and to trust that, often, that is enough.
