Minute Meditations

We tend to diverge from the truth the more we analyze, complicate and define. We usually speak too much about things we don’t understand but much less about things whose truth we really feel. This is why meditation is so economical, cutting out the waste of thoughts and words in the work of silence and getting directly to the simple end. In the Transfiguration story, Peter (typically) got it wrong by talking, but without knowing what he was saying because “they were terrified.” Why does the truth—and the simplicity that is the medium of truth—scare us so much? Why is silence (the letting go of thoughts) so challenging? Why do the simple disciplines of Lent that we started recently often seem too much? Is it because we find it too simple to harmonize the means and the ends in a way that brings us to ourselves in the radiant glory of the present?

Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you "There must be a catch." Of course there is. Do you think God, the universe, whatever, is going to give you what you want, when and how you order it, like a home delivery? Is God a pizza boy? No, of course not. You're thinking, "If I get what I ask for I will be a really happy person and then it will be easy to be generous and nice to others. Material and emotional security, good health, and a nice home in which to enjoy it all. I could do so much good in the world if I had that." Well, it’s not impossible you will get that—even for a few decades if you’re lucky. But you know you asked, “Is there a catch?” Yes. Here it is: Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. "Now? Even before I get the delivery?" You said it.

To change a small thing makes some people feel insecure about many things and even sends warning signals down deep into the caverns where their fear of death lurks. When it comes to our character or personality, as shaped by years of experience, it seems even more difficult to effect change. We have all kinds of means to resist changing our mind—denial, aggression, and procrastination being among the favorites. To change or repent means not only the content of our beliefs and ideas, but the actual mode of perception by which consciousness operates. Saying a mantra in our daily Lenten practice tricks us out of these resistances and fears by first affecting the quality of awareness through seeing what is really there. Then behavior changes. Then thoughts. Radical change without force. Radical simplicity with unbounded love, in daily increments. The meaning of repentance.

Why do we want to make God such a powerful force that works (as we like to imagine) by intervening and controlling situations and making things turn out comfortably for his favorites? What if the true nature and “power” of God was expressed in quite different human metaphors? What if heaven was a place where there were no social distinctions, where the vulnerable was more powerful than the oppressive? Fragility, tenderness, the marginal, the simply beautiful rather than the magnificent? These are much more difficult to believe as symbols of what “God,” the verb, and “heaven,” the non-spatial place, mean. Yet they speak to us with greater truth and leave a deeper impression. They bring us closer to seeing what the truth is by helping us to see things as they truly are in a world where we habitually weave illusions of success to conceal our fears and insecurities. In a day balanced on the twin levers of morning and evening meditation, the strong, true subtleties of life win out over the habits of fantasy. In Lenten days when the spirit of self-control and careful attention to detail sharpen our perception and soften our anxiety, God and heaven come down to earth.

Compassion is more than behavior. It is the way that things are done, the fundamental current through which action flows toward self and others. And the source of compassion is not less than the true self, that irreducible “I” in which the ego has been fully absorbed and therefore is invisible and casts no shadow. When action flows from this non-geographical point of pure identity, it is unconcerned about what it looks like and even about whether it is good or bad in the eyes of others. Compassion is pure action issuing from purity of heart. It is carried along toward others by a force of generosity that is too complete, and too fulfilling for it to worry about what it is going to get in return. We have to learn and relearn to stay centered and be simple. We have to remember when we forget.