"The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not." Albert Schweitzer
A few days ago, meditating on Chapter 11 of the Tao, I was reminded of conversations when you learn more from what is not said than from what is said. And I began to reflect on the value of empty space in my life,
“A wheel is useful, because of the hole at the centre of the hub. A clay pot is useful, because it contains empty space. Doors and windows are useful, because they are gaps in walls. The value of what is there, lies in what is not there!” Tao de Ching Chapter 11, translated by Timothy Freke
As restrictions are relaxed, the roads are becoming busier with cars, the streets are becoming busier with people, rush rush rushing about. I am very happy to be able to gather together with more people in person again, but my thoughts are also drawn to how to maintain a sense of spaciousness as life becomes fuller.
I can only speak for myself of course. Different people have had very different experiences of the last 15 months. If you work in the NHS I very much doubt there has been much spaciousness in your life. Some people have had too much spaciousness imposed upon them by losing their jobs. I am very lucky that I have not had to face that kind of void. I am lucky that I do not live alone and I live with someone I love. I have spent more time in my own company over the last 16 months than ever before in my life.
Sometimes being alone has felt like loneliness and sometimes like solitude. What's the difference? I found this explanation by writer Kent Nerburn helpful,
“Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. Loneliness is small, solitude is large. Loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. Loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nobody answers; solitude has its roots in the great silence of eternity.”
In reflecting on my journey with solitude I resonated with Maya Luna's poem, The Path of Unbecoming, which includes the lines, "Some walk the path of Unbecoming. They are traveling the road Backwards, Seeking the core, What is basic and essential, What has been there all along."
In March 2020, my experience was shared with many others – in lockdown, the fabric of my everyday life unravelled in an instant. At first there wasn't much in the way of spaciousness and solitude – I was so busy trying to harness technology to help keep community connections going online – learning how to use Zoom, setting up WhatsApp and Facebook groups, and starting my thought for the day emails.
Then my husband went back to work in June and suddenly I was alone most days. I am just over the line from extrovert to introvert – I find being with other people both energising and tiring. I was used to being able to arrange my life so that I alternated between company and solitude, both in small doses. And then I had the added complication of post-viral fatigue, which meant that everything was much more tiring than it had been previously. I found the intensity of Zoom both uplifting and draining, and I had to start rationing my participation in Zoom meetings.
For most of my life, my pattern has been to fill space as soon as it appears, to say yes to every invitation, to avoid the void. My working life has been one of endless 'to-do lists', driven by a self-worth grounded in doing rather than being. Slowly but surely, I am unravelling this pattern, and others that began in early childhood, unravelling the layers of false identity and the stories I have told myself about who I am that I now realise are untrue. This kind of awakening isn't a spontaneous experience, it's long process and not a linear one.
Writer Angela Dunning says, “We tend to assume that shedding our skins is a one-time process. That when we’ve done it once, that’s it; we’re done. In truth, shedding our many layers of beliefs, behaviours, habits and defensiveness practices built over the decades, especially those developed from our earliest traumatic experiences, takes a long, long time. It is a slow, infinitesimally gradual process as we painfully remove one tightly wound skin after another . . . . If we can accept this then we can ease up on ourselves and we can sink into a lifelong journey of release and growth. At times it feels like we’re making no progress. But in fact, when we look back with self-compassion we can see just how far we have come. Yes, there's probably still a long, long way still to go but that’s the point: it’s the journey of a lifetime to become who we truly are. To remove our many skins of pretence, falsity, protection and harmful self-beliefs and behaviours is a slow, gradual revealing of our true, fullest rainbow colours once more.”
The deeper I go into the heart of solitude, the more my sense of a separate self dissolves into the awareness that we are all One. It is hard to put it into words, this experience of the double spiral of the spiritual journey – inwards and outwards simultaneously – discovering the divine in the innermost emptiness of the self and in the world. Thomas Merton, who combined the spiritual path of a Trappist monk with Zen Buddhism, wrote of his mystical experience at a Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka shortly before his death, “everything is emptiness and everything is compassion.”
In Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, Mirabai Starr writes about Rabia, the 8th century Sufi mystic, "At the end of her life, Rabia attained a state of no-self, and all her striving dripped into the sands. “What is the secret?” the people wanted to know. “How is it that you have met the Beloved and dwell with him here?” “You know of the how,” Rabia said, “I know only the how-less.”"
I am not Thomas Merton or Rabia. I have not attained a state of no-self. But some days I get glimpses of the freedom of emptiness that Rumi wrote about, "For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over. Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting."
I have found a kind of freedom in the restrictions. I have had the opportunity to reflect on what is core and essential for me, and what is not.
As well as being US Independence Day, today is the anniversary of Transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau moving into his log cabin in the woods at Walden Pond in 1845. In Walden he wrote,
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
I am not quite in a log cabin in the wilderness, but I do now lead a very simple life. My mornings start with a simple body prayer and singing meditation, followed by thought for the day, and then I go out for a run or a walk. I spend my afternoons and evenings at my desk, writing and in Zoom meetings, and increasingly now, thankfully, meeting people in person again.
Now that life has the potential to become more complicated again as we begin to return to 'normal', I want to hold on to the simplicity and spaciousness, to keep contemplating what is core and essential, to my life and to the life of our community.
As life begins to change rapidly again, I would like to invite us to keep reflecting on what is core and essential to us – as individuals and as a community. And, as we may often learn more from what is not said than from what is said in a conversation, perhaps also to consider what is missing, and who is missing from our community? Whose voices are not being heard?
Unbecoming: Trail Mix for the Non-Linear Path by Monica Rodgers,
"A recipe to untangle the threads of what is not you, to reveal: the true YOU.
1 1/2 Cup Questions
2 Cups Curiosity
1 Cup Noticing
1/2 Cup Courage
1/2 Cup Self-Compassion
A Heaped Tablespoon of Humour
2 Teaspoons of Rest
1 Teaspoon of Woo-Woo
A Splash of Wonder (add to taste)."
