The way of the monastic life is not simply an escape from ‘reality’. It can be a genuine attempt to remove the bricks and dismantle the walls that exist between us, for the truest form of connection between sentient beings does not occur through any expression of self.
No sound, no movement, no glance, no gesture is as powerful as the presence of silence.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
We are in our comprehension of, and interaction with life, truly alone. This is the angst of existentialism that once, years ago, drove me to paralysis. When I truly realised that no one else experienced life as I did, I closed my mouth, put down my pen, and stopped still. It was not that I was afraid of being so alone, nor was I overshadowed by the huge responsibility that comes with knowing my aloneness.
My solitude and my silence came about because in that moment I didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden I knew, and have known ever since, that every word, every gesture, every attempt at communication is potentially just another brick in the wall.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
Meditation and mindfulness help us to be free of the day to day distractions that we create. These distractions do not exist outside of ourselves. The noises we hear, the sights we see, the smells we inhale are exactly that. They are ours, and ours alone. No one else sees what we see, hears what we hear, smells what we smell, and feels what we feel. Our uniqueness does not stop at our fingertips, at the individual whirls and patterns that each of us have on our skin. We are all different from each other. We exist in our own worlds; of our own creation and re-creation. In this way what I see, hear, taste, smell and feel is not the same as what you experience. My experience of ‘life’ is just one version among billions, as is yours.
An objective reality; a Truth of the things outside of us does not exist. How can it when each of us, every single one of us, human, animal, insect – every sentient being, compehends and interprets these outside things differently.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
I know that I create my future. My future is here now in what I wish for, in what I envisage, in what my mind settles on. I have come to realise that my mind frequently settles on things, images, words, phrases, melodies and visions that I have not consciously chosen. I have walked around for days with a song playing in my head that I just can’t seem to get rid of. I am not fooled, I know that just like that song, my destiny lurks there in my mind. There are images and ideas playing out in my mind, in all of our minds, often so deeply layered over with trivial day-to-day concerns that we do not see them. And they are there, our future is right here in our heads. We all hold our futures within us.
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
