The Royal Pathway to Being

Be aware of what’s present – tastes, thoughts, feelings, etc. Then be aware of silence, not just sound’s absence, but what lies behind experience. Now be aware of being – the silence behind silence. This is the royal pathway from experience to absence, and absence to presence – from form to emptiness, and emptiness to fullness of being. Sufis call this ‘the passing away of existence and the passing away of that passing away’, Christian mystics name it ‘practice of the presence of God’. Resting as being is not something a person does. We are essentially aware being, and being need not practice itself – it effortlessly is. For those who through habit find themselves lost in experience, it is legitimate to practice returning to being. This remembering is the essence of prayer and meditation, the non-meditation for which all others are prelude. Rather than living in experience and visiting being, abide in being while experience visits you.

Be aware of what’s present – tastes, thoughts, feelings, etc. Then be aware of silence, not just sound’s absence, but what lies behind experience. Now be aware of being – the silence behind silence. This is the royal pathway from experience to absence, and absence to presence – from form to emptiness, and emptiness to fullness of being. Sufis call this ‘the passing away of existence and the passing away of that passing away’, Christian mystics name it ‘practice of the presence of God’. Resting as being is not something a person does. We are essentially aware being, and being need not practice itself – it effortlessly is. For those who through habit find themselves lost in experience, it is legitimate to practice returning to being. This remembering is the essence of prayer and meditation, the non-meditation for which all others are prelude. Rather than living in experience and visiting being, abide in being while experience visits you.