[Oe List ...] Response to Zahrt

[Len Hockley]

David,

I too have many of the questions and concerns you raise.  It has been 
helpful for me to look at "Spiritual Practices" as tools in the big 
picture.  Sometimes they work and then there are other times.  I ran across 
the following from a well known mystic and found it instructive:

G&P
Len

.
Silence, Word, and Action:

A MYSTIC'S GUIDE TO PRAYER

Prayer happens whenever we open up to that infinite More that gives meaning 
to the finite reality in which we live. In a Peak Experience, we perceive 
this More in a flash. However, we can prepare ourselves through spiritual 
practice to receive it as a steady light.

Let silence, word, and action be our guide. Silencing our mental noise 
prepares us for an encounter with the More. Too, we can learn to listen so 
deeply to what our senses perceive that the More, which goes beyond 
sensuous reality, speaks to us through sight, sound, touch, smell, and 
taste. And any activity with which we become fully one can open us up to 
its More - in an understanding that comes only by doing.

1
Silence is hard to come by. Most of us live under a constant bombardment of 
sound, taking for granted traffic noise, Muzak, and constant chatter. Have 
you left your TV on, unaware that no one is listening? Take this as a 
warning signal that noise pollution is endangering your health. "All that 
lasts long is quiet;" says the poet R.M. Rilke. We wouldn't last long 
unless our bodies insisted on quieting us down in sleep. For our inner 
health, too, we need periods of being still. Stillness heals. A broken arm 
needs a cast to keep it still, or else it will not heal. To heal our inner 
restlessness, we need a spiritual practice that has for its goal silence. 
Spiritual silence is more than the mere absence of inner noise. It is the 
More that we experience when we go beyond the reach of words and thought. 
Many different practices belong to this world of prayer, called Prayer of 
Silence. All of them aim at leaving the world of the senses behind in order 
to dive into a fathomless More, an ocean of wordless meaning. Don't let 
this scare you. Just making room in your schedule for a few minutes of 
deliberate silence is a good beginning. You will soon witness how much this 
does for your inner and outer well-being.


2
Another whole world of prayer consists of spiritual practices that go in 
the opposite direction from Prayer of Silence and yet, paradoxically, lead 
to the same goal.
There, we left the world of the senses behind; here, it becomes the gate 
through which we enter the More. This, too, requires spiritual practice, 
since normally we live merely at the surface. But when we turn our deep 
attention, our heart attention, to the smallest part of reality, it speaks 
to us. We receive it as not just, say, a dandelion, but as the More 
speaking to us in unique and untranslatable dandelion language. Thus we 
find meaning, which is essential for human well-being. We cannot survive 
without it. And "meaning" in this sense is not the significance of a word 
which you can look up in a dictionary. What is truly meaningful to you? It 
is some encounter or activity in which your heart finds rest - for a while, 
at least. "Restless is our heart" until it finds rest in the More, as 
Augustine pointed out. We can tap into a second world of prayer by turning 
to any one of the innumerable things around us and being nourished by its 
meaning. All such different practices are called Living by the Word.
3
Understanding comes through doing. In doing anything with total attention - 
like the concentration of a dervish's whirl - we discover there is more 
involved than our own effort. The very vitality of our bodies is a mystery 
to us; the body "has us" as much as we "have it:' When we are "in" love, we 
are immersed in More. We somehow understand love only by loving, vitality 
only by being alive and active. Another name for this participation in the 
More is "blessing;" whose English word comes from the same root as "blood:' 
In peak moments we are blessed and can bless. At other times, we can 
deliberately let the bloodstream of blessing flow through us, breathing the 
life-breath of the universe. The term for practices that foster experience 
of the More through full attention to what we're doing is Contemplation in 
Action.

Prayer as silence, word, and action is the very core of spirituality, the 
very essence of health. It calms, nourishes, and enlivens body and soul 
through communion with the More.

-Brother David Steindl-Rast.


Witness by David Zahrt

>ASTOUNDING WITNESS. I have yet to find a way to include such solitary 
>discipline in my life. Lin may even say I have yet to include any kind of 
>discipline within my life!
>Do you have recommendations about how to adopt such a discipline?
>When we first returned to Iowa City (1985) we did visualization exercises 
>around the meal time.
>When I returned to the Homestead (1990) I fashioned daily meditation 
>sitting. I wasn't able to keep it up. Either I didn't see the value in it, 
>or didn't find the need for it, or couldn't identify the need it fulfilled.
>I've read  THE ENGAGED SPIRITUAL LIFE by Donald Rothberg (2007). I haven't 
>been able to sustain a meditative practice. If/when we get moved to Carson 
>City, NV, I may have a bit of incentive to keep a practice going. My 
>sister, Chris, has established a Sangha there. It may help to have a 
>congregation of people that will provide external accountability for practice.
>
>Have I told you the story about my being 63? I was singing in a Barbershop 
>Quartet and asked the quartet to learn WHEN I'M 64, so I could sing WHEN 
>I'M 64 when I'm 64 (2001). They wouldn't agree to work on it. So I learned 
>all four parts, went to a local fellow who has a recording studio, and 
>recorded the parts one by one. I recorded the melody line (Lead) first. He 
>played that back in my earphones and put the recorder on a second track. I 
>then sang the remaining parts one at a time and when I finished he played 
>all 4 parts on one tape. So now I have my own quartet. Trouble is there is 
>not much market for a one-man quartet!
>
>David
>
>David & Lin Zahrt
>Country Homestead B&B
>22133 Larpenteur Rd.
>Turin, IA 51040
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