Maundy Thursday 2020

The tradition of silence has a long history and many masters from whom to draw inspiration . The opportunity is ever present to take time to be still and to be silent and the basic monastic ideal is not reserved simply to the cloistered. It is for all as is the call within the silence to listen. The Moslem scholar, mystic and Sufi Rumi (Jelaluddin Balkhi or Jelaluddin of Konya) wrote:

Muhammad said, "Don't theorise

About essence!" All speculations

Are just more layers of covering.

Human beings love coverings! 

They think the designs on the curtains

Are what's being concealed

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.

Don't claim them. Feel the artistry

Moving through, and be silent.

Or say, "I cannot praise You

As You should be praised.

Such words are infinitely

beyond my understanding."

Silence and stillness are not for theorising.

What are they for? I have no idea.

How does one achieve them? I have no idea.

Whom do we follow? Who shows us the way? I have no idea.

When do we act or refrain from acting? I have no idea.

How do we react? How do we think? I have no idea.

What do we believe? I have no idea.

What system, what method do we use? I have no idea.

What, who do we trust? I have no idea.

I would bring before you the image of the door keeper, simply keeping the door. Or the night watch man, simply watching. Or the look out, looking or the servant waiting his mistress. 

Be still and silent, listen and wait.

Nothing, something, void, hollow, echoes, sounds of silence: you, uniquely, follow the tradition, you are in it. But be warned.

T.S.Eliot wrote:

"Words strain, 

Crack sometimes break,

Under the burden, 

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish

Decay with imprecision

Will not stay in place,

Will not stay still."

We so wish for everything to be packaged, controlled, rational, understandable, described and proscribed...No. Wait attentively. Even nothingness has a meaning. Sometimes words do not.

Break bread with the silence. Absorb the stillness or be absorbed by it.

Rumi:

"Always check your inner state

with the Lord of your heart.

Your loving doesn't know it's majesty

Until it knows it's helplessness."