Cultivating Silence

In a recent program, we invited highly active and reflective people to spend 24 hours in silence.  It was quite a moving experience to hear the reflections afterwards: unnoticed things became noticed, ordinary became extraordinary, internal doors were opened and new spaces were discovered. 

Inviting people into silence is really inviting people into their own inner silence.  We can think of this inner silence as a space, a space that needs to be uncovered and maintained.  Each of us already has the inner silence space, we just need to find it and help it grow.  Meditation, yoga, walking in the woods, taking a hike in the mountains, looking at the ocean, listening to music are among the many ways we can enter into that space.  Sometimes we need to be a bit more active to create the conditions so that there is room for this inner silent space: not talking, unplugging, going to a different location without books and major distractions.  For many people it is easier to experience silence as part of a group rather than alone, especially initially.  Deep down we know what helps us cultivate our inner silent space and what distracts us from it. 

Initially this internal silent space may not be so silent given the million thoughts racing through our mind, but eventually things will quiet down a bit.  Then the silence becomes a space in which awareness is heightened.  We notice this through our senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.  We experience the world around us in a different way than we normally do.  We may observe that there are indeed many shades of grey, we may give attention to sounds we normally tune out, we become more aware of what goes on around us, both being part of it and one step removed from it at the same time.  Our senses are heightened and our sense making also changes.  It is not unusual to get a different perspective on familiar situations and challenges.  Spending time in our inner silent space slows us down and helps us notice, it brings us to the core of our internal energy, our essence.  Spending time in our inner silent space is often healing and rejuvenating. 

An inner silent space that is well maintained and cultivated will serve as an inner garden where we like to spend time.  Eventually we can visit this space at any moment of the day, it will strengthen and console us, it will give us courage and hope, it will be a source of joy and energy.  Spending time in this inner silent space will also influence choices and decisions and help us stay close to our essence.  

Emergence

This past weekend I spent much time reflecting on, thinking about, engaging with, practicing and witnessing emergence. It appears a very fluid process that as soon as one grasps a hold of, changes directions and becomes part of the process of emergence rather than what emerged. It is much like trying to live in the moment: holding on to the moment is holding on to the past – this moment already belongs to the past. Eventually we can look at our history, or we can look at what emerged.

Of course things emerge all the time: an idea, a new book, new connections, a new company. And yet, spending time with the concept of emergence this weekend, one of the things that became quite clear is how difficult it is to let emergence in the moment happen. It is not unlike a brainstorming session in which sooner rather than later a person says “no” or judges another person’s idea. Our set patterns and routines in behavior, thinking, feeling and even sensing lead us to the same conclusions over and over again. Our knowledge and attachment of what is and how it should be, makes it very difficult to be open to what could be.

Awareness of our patterns is the beginning of changing them, and let emergence emerge. Questioning our patterns, making different choices, reframing our stories and our reactions, using our resources differently and using different resources, engaging what is less familiar – our shadow, body, imagination and intuition, are all ways to broaden the range of what is and what could emerge. In many ways it is simply trying to do whatever we do slightly differently than we are used to and see what emerges.

A concept related to this is the one of responsibility, response-ability, the ability to respond in the moment. What became clear is that our ability to respond is often clouded by what is expected, what is familiar or what is ‘normal.’ If we could really sense what is needed in a certain situation, rather than letting our default settings kick in and respond in an automated way – we help co-create this field of emergence. Emergence is not only an individual challenge, but especially an organizational and societal challenge.

This weekend I have had some amazing experiences and have seen some amazing things through working with emergence. I trust that the ripple effects will be ongoing. For now, the question is how do I respond in this very moment...?

Being in the Moment

I’ve been wondering about my search. I’ve mentioned in the past that I am not sure what I am looking for. And in fact it’s more of journey than a search. I am realizing that searching is more active and that in some ways it denies the current moment. It implies trying to find rather than being with what is. In many ways I have known this for a long time through meditation practice, and yet there is a newness to this discovery. Being in the moment in the mind is a wonderful and difficult practice and definitely prepares for being in the moment in life.

Being in the moment in life is what pre-occupies me these days. It is in part related to our recent move from the Netherlands to San Diego, and in part to the realization that my choices become more precious as I get a bit older. Being in the moment in life is – unlike in meditation – to fully live life with all its ordinary and extra-ordinary moments and at the same time be fully aware of what is happening in those moment. Although this may seem relatively impossible, with the help of meditation, slowing down and reflection we can reach a new level of consciousness and become more aware of the field that we and our experiences are part of. This field is filled with connections that for the most part we don’t see, but start to become more visible through the process of stepping back. When an airplane takes off and we look outside, the messy neighborhood looks orderly in the larger context and a seemingly impenetrable forest is a well-bounded patch of green. Fields, cities, mountains, water and desert rhythmically move by. Taking some distance helps to gain a different perspective. What I am learning from trying to be in the moment is that people, events, experiences and things that are seemingly isolated are actually way more connected than I imagined – all these things together make up the field.

Through studies we have explored how things and people are connected and related to each other. What is more complex is to explore how our experiences and how events are related to each other. It is invisible to the eye and inaudible to the ears. The way I think about it is of an energy field with magnetic forces. If we as people, but also through our actions and thoughts are all magnetic forces who attract and repulse each other and our experiences, we are part of and create an energy field. I believe that this field of energy can become more conscious and that the potential of it is unimaginable.

Being in the moment.... today ... A Solstice Moment

Foreground and Background

Last month, I had the luxury of spending three days walking on the beach on one of the Dutch North Sea islands: Texel. A Winter Walk to pause and be still. We listened to the sound of silence and resonated with each other’s stories. The metaphors, images, poetry, pictures and songs we shared at the very end with each other about what we experienced indicated that the depth of silence had a revealing aspect to it. We went inward to go forward differently - moved by creativity and curiosity, chaos, confusion and clarity, dreams and desires, insight and inspiration, pain and pleasure, consolation and connection.

For me the experience was a modified and somewhat upscale version of the Venice Beach desire I wrote about in my previous post. We listened to the sound of silence, to ourselves and each other accompanied by the interplay between earth, sea and sky. I pondered the life of a snowflake and the relationship between a drop of water and the sea. I was reminded that the Search is really the Journey, and was confronted with the depth of the desire for silence and solitude.

One insight was through an experience of painting. At home I have been working on a painting - the sketch above gives an impression of the actual painting - but the painting does not quite work. I kept working on the piece, quite a number of layers over previous layers, yet the painting does not emerge. It just does not let itself be painted. I did not understand why, but suddenly it became clear to me: I thought I was painting the painting, but I am actually only working on the background of the painting. It is a very powerful realization especially related to life.

At times our experience that seems so important in the moment is actually only the preparation of the next experience, background instead of foreground. Eventually all experiences fade into the background, except for a sliver here and there. Like in a painting, the background ‘colors’ the foreground or current experience – the one cannot exist without the other. During painting – and during life – it is not always so clear what is background and what is foreground, but it is helpful to question which is which.

The insight makes me think of capturing this in some art form. I would like to do a painting and keep working on that same painting for the rest of my life. It will change all the time. Once a month or so, I would take a picture and once a year exhibit the painting, the same – yet different – painting.

The moments that we don’t paint are possibly the reflective moments, the moment of the Winter Walk when we look at our lives and can make room for discovery and distinguish foreground and background.

To be continued…

Group Relations International organized this winter walk. This was the invitation…

Winter Walk



Pause and be still


with what was 


what will come



Give space

to a moment of reflection in our life



Be still



Meet the other and our self



While walking on the beach

with a small group of people 



Around the Winter solstice



When the days 


lengthen and
change

from shorter to longer

from dark to light



A moment of reflection on 


how we spend our days



A still journey

Will you join our walk

Simplexity

The desire to live a simpler life shows up quite often. My picture of it is to be a homeless person at Venice Beach in California, to make enough money every day to eat and drink a nice cup of coffee, for example by telling people about themselves using my intuition, reading tarot cards, being silent with people, or having spiritual conversations of some kind. I would sleep in the warm open air, meditate, look at the sea and look at the sea of people, ponder life and try to be in the moment. The desire is a bit extreme, yet quite real. It is a different version of being a monk, trying to find meaning through the simplicity of life. Herman Hesse portrays it so beautifully in his book Siddharta when he describes how Siddharta lives at the river and learns from the water while taking travelers across the river with a ferry. The desire is real and at the same time a mixture of fantasy, projection and escape.

The fact is that I have created and live a complex life. I left my family’s life style and moved abroad to become a celibate priest and spiritual director, subsequently left the priesthood to share my life with a man, a man with a different color, nationality and language. Eventually, we decided to adopt children and entered a set of unusual relationships with the mothers of our boys. The navigation of the legal system and agencies seemed like a walk through the wilderness. Currently we live in Holland, yet work abroad and created an international organization. There is nothing simple about our lives.

The tension between the desire to live more simple and the creations of a more complex life is at times a serious challenge.

And yet, in my better moments I can see how the seemingly extreme opposite sites of the spectrum inform, enrich, inspire, and influence each other. The complex becomes more manageable applying the concepts of simplicity. And simplicity becomes richer and fuller knowing about and living complexity.

In a meeting with a dear friend today, we talked about complexity and simplicity. In a moment of insight a new word came: simplexity. Simplexity is when simplicity and complexity are complimentary (thank you Anjet and thank you Wikipedia), when the complex is in the service of the simple and right. Adopting our children was a complex and simple act. Being a shoe fairy for a family in need requires the complexity of enough money being made to let the shoes magically appear. Being the chair of the local arthritis foundation is an act of simplexity. Creating a silent event in a chaotic 90-people conference is also about simplexity, and so is the five-minute meditation together before the children go to school. Understanding and valuing the complexity of the simple acts and bringing some simplicity to complex acts is simplexity.

This simplex life that we have created seems - at least for the moment - less challenging and more inviting.

Waiting

Waiting is a central theme in my Search. Wait and see. It is not quite as passive as it sounds. Of course there is the negative or passive side of waiting that can lead to the emotional abyss: the depressive, absent, desolate, pathetic, lethargic side of waiting – where it seems like nothing much matters anymore. That is not the waiting I am talking about here. It is about the more healthy aspects of waiting, which at times may not feel so good either and cost us some patience. It is important to distinguish between the healthy and creative side of waiting and the more destructive side of waiting.

It is about letting what is, unfold and reveal itself, about letting things be: what is that is. It is about reflection, growing, maturing, ripening, the process of creating, about realizing that at the end of the day light and shadow merge. It is about not interfering and about restraining: not being in the way of the process that is happening. Trust that it will happen, it will emerge, what is that is.

The journey of waiting turns into a journey of discovery, of sitting with, meditation, revelation and creation. Discovering that it is less the outcome of the waiting that is important, more the waiting itself. Our attention focuses on different things than normal, sometimes seemingly unimportant details; ordinary things become more meaningful and seem to contain a message, things and situations take on additional and different meaning, priorities shift, awareness increases or is sharpened. Waiting creates room and space and openings. Waiting is a bit like meditating, it appears that nothing much happens, yet everything is different.

Some waiting we endure more easily than other waiting, but generally speaking waiting is viewed as a negative or distraction. And I totally understand, when my father was in open heart surgery recently and subsequently in the Intensive Care Unit for four days, there was many a time that I wanted to end that waiting. And yet, the week was filled with moments of reflection, thoughts, emotions, intimacy, silence, shifting priorities and insights while waiting. There are many other situations when we are more in control of how long we choose to wait, while making decisions for example. It is a bit counter cultural to wait and see, to take a bit longer to decide, to not know, or to know and not to act just yet, to be patient, to wait until “it” would reveal itself or the right moment comes. We don’t know if we will be here in the Netherlands for one or five more years or perhaps for the rest of our lives. We will see what will happen and we trust that at some point we will know, like when buying a house: you may go house hunting with a whole list of requirements and as soon as soon as you enter “your” house, you know despite the requirements.

Active waiting is searching.

To be continued...

Painting

This is a detail of a painting I created a number of years ago. The process of painting is a wonderful illustration of one aspect of what I learned during my Search: to embrace the unknown.  When I started this painting I knew what was to appear on the canvas.  Although it was an abstract painting, it was thought out, planned in terms of color and composition and all in all quite well organized, in some ways I was about to realize what I had dreamed of for this painting.  The ideas were important to get me started.  

The finished product looks very different than what I had in mind and not only because of my limited painting ability. Something else took place as well. When I thought a painting was done, my teacher encouraged me to continue, to let the painting paint itself.  The result was often that I started with one idea and ended up with a different outcome altogether, often richer, quite beautiful, more meaningful and mysterious as if the road to getting to the result was contained in the result. 

The process was not easy.  Crossing the space from the known to the unknown, from what was to what could become is one of letting go, giving up and saying goodbye.  The next brush stroke is an act of destruction as well as creation.  There is this terrifying moment when the painting is already destroyed and not yet newly created, and it is not easy to put oneself voluntarily in this moment, it is easier to hold on to the known.  This process of creation and destruction and creation is happening all the time.  Perhaps it is just 'growing', or 'evolving' or 'searching'… What is particularly important to me is the intention of destructing in order to create, the choice of leaving behind in order to embrace and always with this terrifying moment - that sometimes last years - of not knowing. I have left organizations, family, friends and loved one’s, ideas, languages, work, religion, habits, parts of my ego, realities, ways of searching even... and embraced the unknown.  All of this as part of the search and often with results that I could not have dreamed.

Georgia – a precious person in my life from the group relations world – alerted me to this story once, which I see as another illustration of the same process.  It comes from the Dr. Seuss’ book On Beyond Zebra.  It is about a boy who challenged his playmates to stretch their imagination beyond the traditional 26 letters of the alphabet – from A (Ape) to Z (Zebra) to create an extended alphabet. 

In the places I go there are things  that I see

That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z 

I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re one of my friends 

My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends

 To be continued…