This is an outline of a talk given to the Blooming Heart Sangha on 4/27/2023
Close your eyes and remember.
- Remember what it was like to stare up into the dark sky, away from lights, away from anything blocking your view.
- Remember the strong attraction, the invitation to be pulled into the darkness, into the vastness; remember the invitation to experience the whole cosmos around you, to be swallowed up in the darkness.
A couple months ago, I got such an invitation from Rilke.
- Not from a night sky, but from a few lines of poetry:
You see I want a lot; maybe I want it all:
The darkness of each endless fall, the shimmering light of each ascent.
Tonight, I want to pass that invitation on to you: an initation into darkness…….now you can open your eyes, but I still invite you to enter into the darkness. an invitation to experience it all.
This is not easy: First of all, I am aware that we have subtle ways of avoiding darkness.
- We call some of our history the “dark ages” because, frankly, we don’t know a whole lot about them.
- Only recently, within the last century, it was discovered that 96% of the universe is unknown, made of what we simply call dark matter and dark energy; we only “see” the atomic part, 4% of what is there.
- I have learned to dread the “dark night of the soul” some western mystics described.
- Most of us light up our streets and our yards because of the presumed dangers lurking in darkness.
Like Rilke, I want it all, which means embracing the dreaded darkness.
I’ve wondered how have I come to avoid the darkness? There are numerous ways.
– I think that when I was born, my culture gave me a mask that attempts to shield me from a fear of the Unknown, the Unseen, Unsafe
– I have learned to live in an artificial atmosphere of hierarchy, racial stratification to keep me safe; I live with cultural blinders on.
– Like most of us, I have learned to celebrate speed, action, productivity, attachment, success, destination, linear time, rationality, logic. ….rather than relax in to the darkness.
– Sometimes we even engage in a kind of spiritual bypassing: to escape the messy world, seek transcendence, crave calmness, even celebrate out of body experience. The darkness is not a calm, energy-less place
– The bias is to the light over darkness; we seek enlightenment
– All help me avoid the darkness.
I think that the opposite is my destiny; darkness is our destiny.
– I can find freedom by turning to darkness, letting go of fear, turning to where my fears lurk.
– Metabolizing, ommuning with, plunging into darkness opens me to an unwavering, luminous, inner light; enlightenment in darkness; everything is there.
Examples: What does turning to the darkness mean in practice?
– I think it often means simply answering the question: ‘What would Thay do?’
– Entering in to darkness means my deeply experiencing grief for the planet, its people, plants and animals. Opening up to the possibility of a passionate, caring response to the plight of the planet, expanding my capacity to love, yielding to deep intimacy with the world.
– Entering into darkness means deeply experiencing the trauma of my racism; my own; it means I enter into the dark realm of my own racism.
– It means I allow myself a more relaxed relationship with those MAGA , sleazy politicians or family members.
– Entering into darkness means welcoming the trauma of my childhood; it means befriending those troubling seeds that Thay speaks of, those seeds that frighten me, that I don’t want to grow.
– It means embracing my shadow side; all the things Jung spoke of.
– Entering into darkness means deeply experiencing my fear of “other”, entering into my fear of anything different. Fully absorbing the awareness of the binary nature of our culture.
How do I do this? How do I enter into darkness: for me, the doorway is not a bunch of concepts, but the doorway to darkness is through the body.
– I begin by allowing myself to feel the vast spaciousness within my body; the darkness within, the vast storehouse of energy within my body.
– It means I slow down; allow the feeling of spaciousness to open inside; feel the darkness of each endless fall.
– It means that I accept there is no need to find answers; let go of pursuits.
– It means that I become open and curious; cultivate and develop “beginners mind”
– I Trust what I experience within; no resistance; no preconceptions; embrace my internal authority.
– I be patient with the arrival of darkness; remember that I have been conditioned otherwise.
– I abandon convictions and beliefs; rely on my intuition of the present.
– I be gentle on myself; allow myself to feel fully what arises in the moment.
In summary: For me, it is a transformation of consciousness,
– To enter darkness allows everything to enter with me: fear, aversion, joy, illumination.
– There is a deep form of intimacy in darkness. a deep form of awareness.
– For me entering darkness is the key: I want to become intimate with everything.
– I offer you the invitation to enter darkness.
Questions:
– What is it like for you to walk in the woods in the dark?
– What waits for you in the darkness?
– Is there an alternate way of understanding Darth Vadar’s attempt to draw Luke into darkness?
– Are there ways of embracing fear rather than be controlled by it?
– What do you want to metabolize in the darkness?