Stillness Speaks

Not long ago, a friend asked me about some of my writings that focus on “wrestling with the Angel of the Lord.” It’s a theme drawn from the Old Testament that came to me many years ago, and parallels any number of points of feedback I’ve received about the path I have long found myself on. A therapist nicknamed me “Bulldog” because of how I engaged deeply on life challenges. My brother and sister have both noted that I’ve been this way for as long as they can remember. A spiritual teacher said that I would be “worked on and taught from within.”

So when my friend asked me whether I still “struggled,” it seemed like the time was right to give voice to these ideas.

“Suffering is not necessary for growth,” she commented.

I have ample evidence from many experiences that nothing goes away until we find our way to some kind of inner reconciliation or resolution. While we may not experience pain or suffering, anything within us that is unsettled produces some kind of disquiet or disturbance, even if we are not aware of it.

More importantly, anything that does not disorient in some way or another, and merely stays in our comfort zone is not transformational or transcendent. Plenty of small awarenesses and insights don't do that, yet the path to which some of us have been drawn leads invariably to gobsmacking, breathtaking, or heart-stopping moments where awareness and understanding take giant leaps forward.

Often there is a letting go that precedes those moments which can be anything from mildly disorienting to disturbingly disruptive when it resets some of our deepest attachments, orientations or beliefs.

What can change dramatically though is that the disruptions that come need not be painful or produce suffering. That doesn't mean we won't sometimes weep amid the letting go process - some strange mix of relief and sorrow, a prayer in itself. Still amid it all, there can be deep groundedness, humility and gratitude as things are getting reshaped within us, around us or beyond us.

Sometimes, there may be an immense stillness in which things are happening. We may have no words or means to explain those.

One of the great disruptive Tibetan teachers said that all real awakening is an experience, not a thought or even voiced.

In the meantime, each day is a practice space. Always there is much with which to practice.