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A River in Winter
Damariscotta River; Damariscotta, ME
Note: Below, "presence" and "Presence" alternate. In the Unity, we cannot separate that we are essentially (i.e., presence) from the source of presence, the Presence. In this writing, based on context, you may read the reference being to Presence, in others presence, or both.
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Emptiness and silence and energy are immense, really immeasurable. But there is something - I am using the word, greater, than that.
*Jiddu Krishnamurti. On God.
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The Sage, seeing how some followers seemed unable to remain quiet outside of scheduled times of silence, spoke: "We can say a lot and say nothing. We can say nothing and say a lot, often even more."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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Some persons serve a vocation of silent presence, a sign to others, not to live the same calling but of the importance of intentional times of silence, to some degree, being part of everyone's life. What happens anywhere when persons are deathly afraid of quiet, and talk is assumed to be the necessary norm of community, communion, and communication? What happens when love is reduced to chit-chat in which people hide not only from others but from themselves behind a plethora of words and a bulwark of noise?
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In that day
you will know
I am
in my Father
and
you in me
and
I in you
*Gospel of John 14.20
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[W]hen it is our responsibility to pick it up, garbage is the most important part of our practice. ... We communicate [in silence] through raking the paths, stacking the wood, and making the fire that heats the sangha house during our meals. We can see and feel the awareness behind the task. It's the ultimate Internet or World Wide Web.
*Jakusho Kwong Roshi. No Beginning, No End: The Intimate Heart of Zen.
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A follower asked, "Why don't you communicate more with us." The Sage said, "Communication is unceasing. The question is, 'Are you listening?'"
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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To consider talk is communication - which is common - is to miss the essence and intent of communication. People can talk back and forth all day and night, and no communication happen. One can be silent all day and night, and communication occurs with others and the whole environment.
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Quakers sit quietly, receptive for the Light to manifest. A friend, head of a Quaker fellowship, spoke of when there arises a strong sense of this presence. When this happens, the gathering is called a "covered meeting" or "gathered meeting." This is communication with no words spoken. Many times I have felt this occurring when with others sitting in silence.
Rarely does such a palpable sense of presence gathered into oneness - community, communication, communion - arise when people talk back and forth. Community happens, in contrast to speaking of a community, when communication or communion is a trait of sharing.
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Daily sitting in the Quiet is an invitation to this communication, this visitation-of-presence. Such entering the Quiet entails becoming more tolerant of receiving it, especially as little has prepared us to receive it or even consider it possible.
I recall first beginning to engage in contemplation called Centering Prayer. I went to an ecumenical prayer house for training. About this time, I accepted an invitation to serve as interim pastor of a Southern Baptist Church. I enthusiastically decided to begin worship meetings with brief, prayerful silence. This quiet time lasted one Sunday meeting. I saw the people had no preparation to receive this.
Years later, when a United Methodist pastor, a member visited another member. He expressed concern that my work in Christian meditation with membership and times of silence to lead worship was demonic. When I began practicing, I learned quickly how religion often had done little or nothing to prepare its adherents for spiritual communication free of expounding with words human ideas and hand-me-down explanations.
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Every act and movement, with no words added, can be communication. This transmission, sensed as quiet and subtle, depends on where action and movement come from. This communication arises from the background of all, not action itself or the self as a self.
We cannot work or talk or do-good this communication into existence: we are already part of it. Yet, if we do not one ourselves with our work and with the presence, how will it come forth into the foreground? As long as we demand to be in the foreground, how can Spirit spread itself within the whole context?
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What is being communicated in communication in contrast to talk? You are. Yet, not you as a person or a self-presentation or performance. Our efforts to present ourselves in a certain way easily block communication. We might perform well, but communion is negated or diluted, and often we please the other's wish for entertainment. People need Presence much more than us, but we can choose to be a means of Presence, which is, also, a communication of the nonself we are together.
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Spiritual contemplatives aim to live, act, and move from the heart. Some would say that the heart is our core, our True Self, God in us, the soul, Buddha Nature, Holy Spirit, or spirit. This communication, unlike words, is intangible, though words arising from silence point us back to silence. Communication becomes a felt presence - not emotional... more subtle... deeper, richer, more alive.
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A principal quality of Presence is connection. Its nature is this communication. It finds fulfillment in sharing with the same in others, which is a communication of itself.
When one becomes sensitive enough to this subtlety, she recognizes it intuitively, can consciously appreciate it, and consciously participate in it. Likewise, she can be a means of Presence communicating itself to others independent of their awareness of it or conscious welcome of it. After all, Presence is always happening.
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2023.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
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