You must be still and offer
your palmful of secrets
like delicate seed.

As she eats your secrets
no longer secret
she glows
and you lighten
and her voice
which only you can hear
is your voice
bereft of plans.

And the light
through her body
will bathe you
till you wonder
why the gems in your palm
were ever fisted.

Others will think you crazed
to wait on something
no one sees.

But the clear bird
only wants to feed
and fly and sing.

She only wants
light in her belly.

And once in a great while
if someone loves you enough
they might see her rise
from the nest
beneath your fear.

by Mark Nepo
This seems to me to be a companion poem to the Bluebird by Charles Bukowski of earlier this month. The metaphor is the same – both speak of a bird in the heart, a beautiful bird that is untouched and sings the truest song of who we are. Yet, for me, the feel of the two poems is different. Bukowski’s one is melancholic, full of pathos. The man, perhaps Bukowski himself, is only relating to the bluebird under cover of darkness and there is a shadow of grief at the edges of the poem. In Nepo’s poem we are being deliberately tutored on how to be in relationship with our bird, it feels hopeful – there is an instruction to follow.

What is the instruction? To feed seed to our ‘clear bird’ heart. To give her life and light through an intentional ongoing relationship of nourishment. It’s striking how the seeds are also gems, gems of precious potential, that we have until now ‘fisted’ – enclosed and hidden from ourselves and the world. Now in the poem, they are being shared and brought to light.

Don’t we all long for this? To open our long-tense fist and find within the life-giving gems of our true selves, so to feed the starved innermost being within? Can we release the burden of shielding our true face from the world – like how in the poem the bird ‘eats your secrets no longer secret’?

I like how, in a commentary on the poem, Nepo describes the heart as ‘the aliveness that lives below all names’. Perhaps we are all on a quest to find the seeds that awaken our aliveness – the mystery and wonder of who we are. In my experience I’m always following a trail of seeds. My heart comes alive here and there, then is quiet a while, then I stumble upon something or remember the way and that aliveness is back, and gradually I’m knowing myself better so that I can follow Nepo’s instructions more faithfully. Knowing my own particular heart enliveners means I can bring in that intentionality. I can seek them out and can give time to them. What are your heart enliveners? Could you devote yourself to them sometimes?

To finish, let me allow Nepo to explain more deeply:

‘Under all our plans and goals and secret desires, the heart only wants to inhabit its aliveness. This is the seed of our deeper self. And whether we get what we want or not, the life-force within us only wants to stream from Source to mouth, the way a river doesn’t really care where it goes or how long it takes for its water to get where it’s going.’

Ps. Would you like to embark on an in-depth journey to bring your heart alive? Check out our 4 Level Meditation Training here.

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name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

by Thomas Merton

There’s something about this poem, by American Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968), that helps me to feel a sense of stillness and silence that is fathoms deep. There is groundedness (the stones seem to take me there) and there is also mystery (the stones speaking, the Unknown). But then, all of a sudden, in the last stanza, there is a raging fire. What a contrast! I’d like to attempt to reveal to you, and to myself in the writing, what this means to me.

To begin with, I’m fascinated by the phrases in brackets, which seem to be speaking with another voice, maybe from within the poet. Is it the cynical, unbelieving, reticent part of him? Or maybe he’s taking account of the reticent response that could come from the reader. One of my responses to the poem was indeed something like: “Stones speaking? World on fire? I don’t get it. This is all too ‘poetic’ for me! Stones don’t speak!”

Merton’s answer to someone in this position is an encouragement to trust yourself to be able to leave the literal meaning of the words behind and to listen beyond the words – in short to be mindful. To ‘let the words become transparent to the depths that lie beyond’, as priest Simon Small beautifully puts it when speaking about the art of contemplation. When I listen to the poem like this, this is what happens: I’m taken into silence and stillness with a solid, ancient feel. But there’s a voice that keeps questioning. Then I’m on the edge of the unknown and need to release the voice and dare ‘to be my own silence’. I do so, and a sense of the wild wonder of existence roars in and is within and all around me. I give myself to the feel of this awesomeness.

For a long time, I’ve not really understood the last stanza and have even missed it out when sharing the poem because I was attached to the stillness and didn’t want the fire! But I think I’m getting there with it now after pondering, observing my response to it and allowing the words to become transparent to the depths beyond. Perhaps when you’re still enough, you can, on occasion, feel the incredibly intense wonder of existence as if it were like a fire – the creative and destructive force of life. This reminds me of T.S. Elliot’s famous lines ‘And so the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing’.

This poem is a journey. As many poems are. This is where it took me. I wonder where it might take you?

Ps. If you feel attracted towards receiving the wisdom of the world’s poets both ancient and contemporary and you’d like to experiment with how mindfulness can enable a deeper experience of it, come along to the next Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry 6 week course starting in late May, or to a day long retreat in July (both online). Both are open to all.

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by Jeff Foster

Well here we have the paradox at the heart of mindfulness and meditation practice. Jeff Foster (a British meditation teacher and poet – find out more about him here), is speaking of the difference between as he puts it ‘I used to meditate’ and ‘I am meditation’. In the first line there is a certain doing, in the latter only being. So as beginners or even those with a good amount of experience behind us – how do we negotiate this paradox?

For a start, meditating is a bit like tuning the string of a lute – we don’t want it too tight (too much striving) or too loose (a lack of focus and clarity). Sometimes we’re tense and unable to let go of doing, sometimes we’re sleepy, dreamy or in a daze.

Many of us don’t know how not to try – is this so for you? This was certainly the case for me at first. I gradually learnt to see the striving and let it go. There is a delicate balance here of holding a clear intention for the practice, while at the same time releasing the habit to do the meditation or try to achieve the intention of the practice. On top of this if we go off duty completely we’ll just space out! So where is the happy medium?

We’re given lots of forms and structures to guide us in our practice – Settling, Grounding, Resting and Support (S.G.R.S.) being the core one taught by the Mindfulness Association, and we’re also encouraged to practice formally and regularly. It’s certainly been my experience that the more I practice ‘on the cushion’, the more benefit I experience naturally in daily life. But I also think it’s important not to sacrifice our journey towards finding what is essential, what is there when there’s nothing added. The forms and structures may be a means to journey in this direction, but they are not the destination. The metaphor which is sometimes used here is of a finger pointing at the moon. The moon is our basic aware nature, the finger is all the signposts we need to point ourselves in its direction and not get lost too much on the way. S.G.R.S. is not the destination, it is a skilful means to facilitate ourselves towards something which is beyond the word destination.

Jeff Foster seems to convey how it would be to already be ‘there’, where the finger is pointing to, to already have stabilised this as a way of being moment to moment. I think this poem can serve as inspiration to us about how this might feel and I’m sure we all have glimpses of the wonder of the ordinariness that he speaks of here and there, which can serve as inspiration from within too. I also think the poem can serve as a meditation instruction. Which line would you like to take away with you as a mantra for living mindfully in daily life?

Ps. Spend 6 weeks immersing yourself in how poetry can teach us universal wisdom and guide us in our meditation. We have the popular Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry course starting again in September. Find out more click here.

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Slow down, breathe deeply,
and open your eyes because there’s
a whole world right here within this one.
The bush doesn’t suddenly catch on fire,
it’s been burning the whole time.

Moses is simply moving
slowly enough to see it. And when he does,
he takes off his sandals.

Not because
the ground has suddenly become holy,
but because he’s just now becoming aware that
the ground has been holy the whole time.

Efficiency is not God’s highest goal for your life,
neither is busyness,
or how many things you can get done in one day,
or speed, or even success.

But walking,
which leads to seeing,
now that’s something.
That’s the invitation for every one of us today,
and everyday, in every conversation, interaction,
event, and moment: to walk, not run. And in doing so,
to see a whole world right here within this one.

by Rob Bell

How does Rob Bell‘s symbolic suggestion to walk rather than run, land with you? To me it feels like a reassurance, the old ‘less is more’. I receive so many messages on a daily basis that say efficiency is important, speed is good, busyness gives kudos and success is essential in order to be happy, that it’s a relief to hear someone sing the praise of slowness, of seeing and discovering. I wish this invitation was offered more widely, because surely more happiness and meaning are found by living this way.

It certainly is in keeping with the practice of mindfulness – noticing what is happening, while it’s happening no matter what it is. And this present moment awareness leads to seeing the preciousness (or even holiness, as Rob Bell calls it) in each moment, each encounter. Let’s see!

PS if you’d like to practice walking, and seeing, together with others and guided by experienced teachers, there are many opportunities for doing so, here…

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