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Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such
wisdom and learning.
*Proverbs 1.7, The Message
LIFT up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look the loath to think on aught but Himself. So that nought work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but only Himself. And do that in thee is to forget all the creatures that ever God made and the works of them; so that thy thought nor thy desire be not directed nor stretched to any of them, neither in general nor in special, but let them be, and take no heed to them. This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God. ...
Let not, therefore, but travail therein till thou feel list. For at the first time when thou dost it, thou findest but a darkness; and as it were a cloud of unknowing, thou knowest not what, saving that thou feelest in thy will a naked intent unto God. This darkness and this cloud is, howsoever thou dost, betwixt thee and thy God, and letteth thee that thou mayest neither see Him clearly by light of understanding in thy reason, nor feel Him in sweetness of love in thine affection.
And therefore shape thee to bide in this darkness as long as thou mayest, evermore crying after Him that thou lovest. For if ever thou shalt feel Him or see Him, as it may be here, it behoveth always to be in this cloud in this darkness. And if thou wilt busily travail as I bid thee, I trust in His mercy that thou shalt come thereto.
*Cloud of Unknowing. Evelyn Underhill. 2d Ed.
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In Buddhist Tantra is a method of using a seed syllable, imaged as a single letter and representing energy symbolized by a deity, to open up to and in oneself the energy of enlightenment. Chōgyam Trungpa taught that the energy of confusion and ambiguity works as a seed syllable, also.
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I contrast with the reason most of us enter meditation practice. We want to have relief and solidify our certainty, or we want to return to an old faith that we seem to have lost along the way. Sometimes, we want to get back to a felt sense of closeness with God.
No meditation student I have ever had, upon entering the class, would have said, "Brian, I am here to get confused and enter profound ambiguity. I am here to lose the faith I have thought I have had." Rather, we enter for other reasons: feel close to God, have more peace, renew our lost faith, …
And, indeed, that is okay, for where we enter the Stream is fine, but the Stream will surprise us, for it has a direction of its own. I try to "warn" beginning meditation students of this; I even tell them they will, likely, come to get angry with me as teacher. I want them to know that the motives they enter the Stream with are fine, often noble, but the Stream will take them elsewhere, also. That is Grace. Our entering priorities are not the ultimate priorities of the Spirit of the Stream.
The Stream keeps going. We have respites along the way, as part of the flow, but we do not stop the current, for the Stream has the nature of life as vibrant and in process. God is in the process, the author of the process. We trust the process and, thereby, trust God.
Meditation, as process, has a mind of its own, so to speak, or the path has a wisdom that will not comply with our initial interests. What we discover, if we keep practicing, is the wisdom of confusion, ambiguity, and uncertainty. That is right, "wisdom." Just look at so much evil in the world resultant of those who are "certain," and have no "ambiguity" about their religious or political faith. How sad the person who is immune to "confusion."
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