To become proficient in the discipline of contemplation, we must be willing to live in the midst of paradox. For we can only know the Mystery by letting go of knowing, and by putting aside our reason, our thinking, our too quick words. We must sit still, doing nothing at all. We must wait, allowing things to reveal themselves to us, and seek by allowing ourselves to be sought. In contemplation we must take Thou in by allowing ourselves to be taken in. By doing these things, we will gradually become "modern" contemplatives and find ourselves living at the still point of the turning world.
... as happened a few months ago, the old question of what to do returned. Is there anything to be done? Anything I can do? I put it directly to myself -- aloud: What ... can ... I ... do? I listened. No answer. I waited. Nothing came ... nothing. The emptiness remained. Then, in the silence, quite suddenly, came the realization that the wholeness that I had been seeking and not finding was present -- not "out there" in time and space, not somewhere else, but intrinsically here and now. Silence danced through me. I saw that when the brain-mind stops churning and is still, the longed for blissful dimension is already here ... All this was seen because consciousness was not occupied. That was all. A thrilling aliveness had become a dynamic emptiness that is not void -- space filled with energy ... (with ecstasy)!
~ from TRUTH IS A PATHLESS LAND by Ingram Smith with thanks to Elaine Simard
