The Sage replied to someone having said, "Life is really complicated." "No," he said, "life isn't complicated, you are, meaning your mind is filled with complication. We create complication where there is no complication. Simplify your mind, and you'll see life is simple. A mind made simple sees simplicity everywhere and can't do otherwise."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
* * *
Peter Robertson, in The Abbot's Shoes: Seeking a Contemplative Life, writes of his tenure, as an outsider, at Our Lady of the Southern Star Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in New Zealand. He recounts his experience of the monks gathering for silent contemplation.
In the monastery, in the pre-dawn darkness the whole community would gather every day for an hour of meditation. I do not remember anyone ever saying much to me about this by way of high-falutin philosophy or technique. I'm glad of that. As a result, I sometimes just sat there and thought. At other times I just sat … and watched the clock, lit by the one light always left on in the church, tick off the minutes.
This time was not totally devoid of diversion or entertainment. One elderly Brother's digestion had been manifestly affected by a lifetime of Trappist fare. I'm not sure if it was the time of day or the great stillness, but his gastric malfunction would often manifest itself in a string of extraordinary, hiccoughing eructations. I childishly waited in the fond hope that others might join him to create a symphony of even more tuneful blasts. I report such events respectfully, as I was always profoundly reassured and encouraged by such routine, easygoing outbreaks of earthiness within our sanctuary.
* * *
Robertson comments on this remembrance -
For some people, meditation is understood as a quest for enlightenment or even a supernatural experience. Particular methods and postures are advocated. Sometimes the goal appears to be trying to empty out the contents of your head or mind in the belief or hope that the void or vacuum will be filled with light or wisdom … or whatever else is being sought. Such esoteric possibilities flew well over my head. The memory that I prize of these times, some forty years on, is much more down to earth.
* * *
If I had one morsel of advice for anyone beginning meditation or having meditated for many years, it would be, "Keep it simple." Spiritual contemplation is an exercise in keeping things down to Earth, even if you sometimes feel uplifted from Earth.
No matter how your spirits soar, and it is natural to feel that occasionally, the ground is where you will return. Spirituality is not about straining to levitate beyond the common.
The amazing is under your feet, above your head, and all around you. You cannot escape it, but you can fail to see and appreciate it.
The Way is simple, the mind tends toward complexity, the ego finding itself guarded by a cloud of complication and conflict. "Keep it simple" is sound wisdom for all of life. It takes training for most of us. Spirituality is training. So, could you keep it simple? This means, too, to keep yourself simple. Simplicity within and simplicity without complement each other.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photographs.
*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.
