(The) truth is not only accessible to us, it is the ground on which all reality stands. To come to this reality we have to learn to be simple, to be still, to be silent, and to be attentive to what is. . . .So we must learn to stop thinking about ourselves. We must learn to be, to be in the presence of God, in the presence of the One who is, and who is the ground of being. We need to have no fear as we set out, as we leave self behind and set out to meet the other. We need have no fear. The spirit in our heart, the spirit that we open to in meditation, is the spirit of compassion, of gentleness, of forgiveness, of total acceptance, the spirit of love.
After meditation: W.W. Merwin, “Still Water” in GARDEN TIME (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2016), p. 58.
Clouds over the mountaintops were its ancestors
fine rain gathered in rills among the hidden crags
each vein finding its way to its own kin
joining them and gathering speed and finding its voices
taking along flakes of starlight moonlight
daylight down through the wild distances
through dreams of flying and forgetting
and dreams of belonging but departing
now it lies there at last by its green pasture
and cradles the stillness of the empty sky
this is the present it was flowing toward
this is the face that it can never see
Image: Orchard at Bonnevaux, Centre for Peace
