Give Your Mind To Your Heart

Give your mind to your heart

What is silent retreat? What are we retreating from? From all that we think we know! The beliefs, the ideas, the identities, the descriptions, the names, the categories, the agendas, the expectations, the demands, the choosing of sides. In retreat we have the opportunity to set the intention for discovery, listening with an undefended heart, an attitude of openness. To sit in position-less surrender is to BE peace. It is to BE silence. It is to BE discovery.

Why sit silently? The Silence inherent as the essence of Being is always and ever present. The silent, attribute-less ground of Being is here. Within the essence of all phenomena and also present in the absence of all experience. Silence does not come and go, Silence is. When it is noisy, when it is quiet, when you are sitting, when you are walking, when you are feeling peaceful, when you are feeling angry. We don’t have to meditate or sit silently in order to find or acquire Silence. It is impossible to acquire THAT which we are. Coming together in a quiet, intentional way is an opportunity to enliven the potential for recognition and realization.

Why spiritual awakening? The sun is always shining. The Silence all-ways is. In retreat, the potential for the clouds to part is amplified. So that a direct, conscious realization of the sun, the Source, may be embodied through conscious experience. Then what? Source shines through the thinning clouds of belief and permeates the embodiment, the individual expression, the layers of our perceived individuality. Through continued, intentional questioning and a renewed sense of purpose we begin to choose peace, to choose love, in our every day lives and in our perceived battles. We build the stamina to remain unknowing, open, undefended, and questioning in the midst of very heavy, foggy conditions. We recognize ourselves in the shining and BE-come the shining. We consciously make good use of our lives in order to shape the dream of a peaceful world.

Give your mind to your heart. Drop the stories of limitation into the infinite space of totality. Give your mind to your heart where there is capacity for courage, forgiveness, kindness, discernment, innovation and creativity. Surrender your sense of identity, your sense of me, to THAT-from-which-‘I’-comes. Return the idea, of a separate self, into the embrace of uncaused Love, uncaused Joy at the heart of Being. When one courageously and sincerely returns the idea of a separate “me” to the wholeness of Reality, as it is, a revolutionary journey begins.

The stamina and fortitude required for such a path is fueled by Grace, courage, sincerity, and a willingness to question. When the most cherished and tightly-contracted beliefs of separateness become penetrated and illuminated, one encounters the very challenging experience of allowing the deepest layers of “me” to be surrendered. In the tender, vulnerable experience of “i don’t know”, it becomes more and more imperative to live in an open attitude of discovery and an acceptance of unknowingness. If you find yourself brought to your knees by this process, then you know you are on the right path. Brought to your knees, not in an attitude of victimization, but with a sense of humility and awe. A sense of “i once was blind but now i see”. A sense of wonder and amazement. A sense of being delivered, through uncaused Love, into the realization of one’s true Self.

This willingness to walk, without demands, agendas and battles, into the fire is often where many spiritual aspirants "get off the path". We have an expectation that spiritual awakening should feel like ecstasy. The “what’s in it for me?” question may be front and center. We may complain (and then judge ourselves for complaining, wink, wink), when we leave retreat, and our jobs, our relationships, our families, our relative lives are right there waiting for us. Retreat feels more real than our everyday lives. The true challenge arises when we move into "the marketplace" AS the love we have discovered in quiet togetherness. We have the opportunity to practice and become aware of what we are believing and how these beliefs are shaping the story, the dream, of a separate “me”. The brief experience of of an individual life is the precious opportunity to evermore deeply root into and discover the Silence, the Peace that is. Life is a precious opportunity to consciously weave silent, pure, eternal Source into the fabric of the collective dream.

Contemplate the source of Being. Contemplate the heart of your existence. The Source of Reality. In this contemplation, the recognition of your True Nature, the revelation of THAT is available. As the sense of a separate self dissolves, a fresh world of discovery is embodied. Hard choices still exist, challenges still arise, ups/downs/ins/outs, and all the rest. But how are these coming-and-going-nesses of Life experienced when they are informed by and experienced AS Life itself. Rather than from a tightly contracted idea of “me”. Find out! The dream of the world awaits, it is waiting for you!