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A Path in the Wood
Bath, Maine
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... being brought into the Truth ...
*George Fox. Selections from the Epistles of George Fox. Letter, 1656.
Opening Queries... Do we find truth? Does truth find us? Do we see truth when we are prepared to - not until? What do you see as the implication of Fox saying "brought into"? Who or what would do the bringing? Can you - anyone - name that?
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She spoke to the Sage about his teaching the prior evening, challenging him on a particular point. Afterward, she asked, "What do you think about that?" "I think," replied the Sage, "what I can't think is most important, not what I think."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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Someone said, "The greatest distance you'll ever travel is from the head to the heart." "Heart" is usually a metaphor in spiritual paths, but some traditions have teachings on dropping awareness from the brain to the physical heart. Most of us locate our sense of self between the ears; we live from there.
Sufis teach about dropping awareness into the area of the physical heart when in conversation. I find this a helpful practice. Eastern Orthodox Christians teach reciting the Jesus Prayer in the heart region. Some teachings locate the seat of wisdom in the physical heart.
The left side of the brain is the center of linear reasoning and goal-orientation, and is directed to knowledge as an object to acquire. It does not like paradox; it wants truth in yes or no, right or wrong terms. That side of the brain prefers a felt-safety of knowledge to mystery. With this orientation, we seek to captivate truth in concepts. We argue or debate, not truth, but what we think. Truth is replaced with thought, the real with the shadow.
Outside of thinking, true heart communion takes place, not by thought. However, thought, when arising from the heart, bathed in its light, its inspiration, can be a means. This is a reason for spiritual teaching.
The French Philosopher, René Descartes (1596-1650), seems to have been right, "I think, therefore I am." But spiritual adepts have taught truth is not a right or left side of the brain affair. The heart speaks. "I am, therefore I think" is closer to the truth.
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Zen Buddhists teach "beginner's mind" (Japanese 初心, shoshin): a common usage in martial arts. Shoshin is not the mind Westerners refer to. So, Buddhists often speak of "Buddha Mind" or, sometimes, "Big Mind." We can translate this as "heart." Heart as metaphor speaks of an unmediated, spontaneous knowing, not about a biological location inside the body or an organ.
In fact, the heart is not inside or outside you: it is neither, or both relatively speaking. That we experience reception of wisdom as inside is due to our conditioned sense of locality - wisdom is nonlocal.
"Beginner's mind" is not thinking like a beginner. We do not search for truth, we become receptive to truth. We do not uncover the truth; truth is not hidden to begin with, though we may be hidden from it.
Buddhists speak of cleaning the mirror. If you look in a mirror covered with dust, your reflection will not be true. Clean the mirror, and it accurately mirrors.
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Jesus said in the Gospel of Thomas, "Lift the stone, and you'll find me there." This is saying, "When you see clearly, you'll see I'm (or, I am - referring to the I AM) anywhere and everywhere." Of course, we do not see the man Jesus. But seeing plainly, we see what he means, though we cannot put it into words to tell anyone else. No one can see Christ and show others. We each see for ourselves.
Here, we see truth is nonverbal - always. No one has ever spoken the truth, only indications of it. Jesus - form - as all who embody supernal wisdom for us - is a means to experience and love the formless.
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In relaxing thought, we welcome the functioning of the right side of the brain. We invite paradox. Paradox mutes thinking, throwing us, so to speak, outside thinking. It humiliates thinking. Awareness, then, drops into the heart - we become receptive to subtle truth, beyond truth as ideas, as objects of thought. We could indicate this as a movement from object consciousness, for here the object - what I think, believe, theorize - dissolves in pure consciousness - objectless consciousness, or formless consciousness.
It is best not to refer to our dropping thought. Thought drops or drops itself. When thinking can find no ground, we can, however, cooperate with its dropping through thought that facilitates it. This dropping is a big step for most of us, and we feel insecure.
We can witness the retreat back into thinking and out again, appreciating this back-and-forth as becoming more and more habituated to non-thinking. In time, we grow more to sense the joy of freedom from thinking. Thinking becomes a tool, used as needed, set aside when the need is not present.
Then, we bring the formless back into form. We word the untold and unspeakable in art, music, dance, ritual, teachings, ... The best language is silently allowing truth to shine through you. Truth speaks itself. Truth transforms us into truth. By loving truth, we become truth.
Who are you when you are not thinking of yourself - i.e., self-aware? What is truth when you realize you never had it and cannot get it? How do you cooperate for the heart to speak forth its wisdom? What is the felt-difference between arriving at truth as an idea (i.e., thought through) and the spontaneous arising of wisdom, or insight?
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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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