Hi Everyone

It seems to me that one of the subtle errors we make when engaging with wisdom traditions is that we believe that to arrive at Love, Nirvana, or Heaven… we must follow the rules and or practice as if the practice itself were the path. We treat the forms as formulas, the rituals as requirements. Only the source is not reached through what comes from it.

The following is a reflection: The Quiet Error

It is easy to chase the changing – the light and the dark, the thought and the deed – believing that by following their paths, we might arrive at the source. But the river does not return to its spring by flowing forward.

This is a quiet error we often make when entering wisdom traditions: we treat the practices as prescriptions, the teachings as tasks. We follow the forms as if they were formulas, believing that if we just get it right, meditate enough, love enough, surrender enough, we will earn our way into grace.

But grace is not earned. It is remembered.

It is not the practice that leads to remembrance it is remembrance that gives rise to true practice. When we rest in what is already whole, compassion arises as a natural fragrance, not as a commandment. And from that compassion, a deeper law reveals itself, not imposed from above, but unfolding from within. Not a rulebook, but a rhythm. A rhythm that when we forget we codify and fall into the error.

The sacred does not demand perfection. It waits in the stillness beneath all striving. It is the silence behind the sound, the breath between the breaths, the presence that was never absent.

We do not reach the source by effort. We return to it by stopping. By softening. By remembering.

Dear Anita,
You ask how it feels… I wonder what is “feeling” when there is no “I” to feel?

So I pause, because the space I speak of isn’t felt in the usual way. It isn’t measured in minutes or held in sensation. It doesn’t soothe the body like a calming substance might, nor does it silence the storm. It is not the embrace that calms the nervous system, but the one that holds even the un-calmed. Not the silence that erases pain, but the silence that listens to it without needing to fix it. A embrace that is both nowhere and everywhere, both felt and unfelt, both known and unknowable.

Perhaps the embrace isn’t something we feel into the body, but something that gently holds the body, even when it cannot feel being held. That, too, is part of the mystery. Maybe this embrace isn’t something we arrive at, but something we remember. Not with the mind, but with something deeper, older, quieter. A kind of contemplative remembering, not of a moment past, but of a truth that’s always present.

I recall a story Richard Rohr shared, about looking into his dog’s eyes… he describes how gazing into her eyes helped him experience the divine presence in all living beings. At first, I didn’t understand why he included the story in a book about spiritual transformation. But the image stayed with me as a something I “knew” but couldn’t name… A memory arises of a sad young boy returning from school, sitting with the family dog Duke, in silence, and feeling held… I wonder if Rohr included the story as it was a moment of experiencing the embrace I speak of. Not through dramatic insight or relief, but through presence. A quiet recognition. A softening. No words, no measure, just being met.

So, if you cannot feel it, Anita, know this: you are not outside the embrace. You are already within it and always have and will be.

You said the warm embrace caught your eye… what if you leaned into it… A invitation to feel the embrace in ways you may not yet have imagined. In the eyes of a dog. In the hush before a thought. In the way a tree stands without needing to be seen. In the breath that comes unbidden. In the silence that holds even the ache.

The valley spirt never dies.
Call it the mystery, the woman.

The mystery, the Door of the Woman
is the root of earth and heaven.

Forever this endures, forever.
and all its uses are easy – Tao Te Ching

A Breath held in the Stillness
In the hush before the breath, where no wind stirs, no word is said,
the valley waits, void not empty, full of becoming.

From silence, the question rises, a cry from morning earth.
No answer comes, only quiet spinning in stillness.

The seeker kneels, aching for comfort, but finds only the hush.
Until the hush becomes the comfort, questions held, the ache resolves.

Nothing is born here, yet all things arise.
Nothing dies here, yet all things return.

Held in the stillness, the world turns without effort.
Held in the silence, the heart remembers its source.

Forever this endures. Forever it flows.
And all its uses are easy.

Hi Anita

On a side note, I judge wisdom traditions for not being clear and straightforward. If they were clear and straightforward, they wouldn’t be so easy to misinterpret..

I don’t disagree, however the inner monk wants me to point out that one the teaching are realized they are straightforward. ‘We work for which no work is required’.

Wisdom traditions carry the challenge of using language to speak about what ultimately can’t be named. They point beyond concepts toward direct experience. That’s tricky, because the moment we use words, we enter the realm of duality, this vs. that, subject vs. object.

From childhood, we learn to use words to survive and belong, a development rooted in the lower chakras (1–3), which focus on navigating the external world (includes religious training). Language is essential, but it replaces direct experience with symbols. Over time, we forget what we once knew before words: that life is a single, continuous unfolding, not a set of opposites.

In Jungian psychology, the final stage of individuation is to come to terms with the problem of opposites, the tension of duality. Jung emphasized the heart chakra as the heart’s way of knowing doesn’t speak in definitions, but in images, stories, and felt experience. The heart holds paradox rather than resolving it allowing our judgments to loosen.

When wisdom traditions become institutions, they often forget that the path is not the destination. Hence those provocative sayings: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him,” or “One must lose God to find G_d.” Such teachings are reminders that clinging to the form of wisdom can obscure its living truth.

At their best, when we hold language lightly, wisdom traditions invite us into a different way of seeing one that can’t be reduced to a formula. That’s why they often speak in metaphor, myth, and paradox: not to confuse, but to awaken us to the experience itself.

Beyond institutional constructs, these teachings don’t actually ask for belief, they invite participation. They’re not doctrines to accept, but mirrors reflecting us back into direct awareness.

For fun: find the simplicity with the Ask that we “love God completely and to love your neighbor as yourself” and merge it to Buddhist teachings. Play with the word ‘God’ as a noun, and then as a symbol/verb and notice how everything changes.

Hi Anita

“There’s method to the madness when the wisdom traditions warn us not to judge. The truth is, we’re really not that great at it.”- maybe wisdom traditions would be wiser recommend less judging rather than no judging at all..?

I mean, what I read comes across as Thou Shall Not Judge! The hyena in me cannot not judge for long, can yours?

You’re right wisdom traditions, especially when codified, are often interpreted as saying “Do not judge.” But I think that’s a misreading. Look closer, and it’s less “Thou shalt not judge” and more “Judge with care.” as Jesus warns, “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” and then goes on to teach how to judge with humility and self-awareness. That lands in a similar space to what you’re pointing toward.

For me, this aligns with the call to love our neighbors as ourselves. Through the lens of nonduality, everything is connected. So when we judge our neighbors, we’re also judging and revealing ourselves.

As for the hyena: if we’re speaking in Freudian terms, that sounds like the Id. But the Id doesn’t judge, it wants, it craves. It’s the Ego that judges, and the Superego that moralizes. The hyena doesn’t weigh morality; it just pounces.

Personally, I don’t see my Id as a hyena. I think of it more like a Labrador Retriever — enthusiastic, loyal, and occasionally getting itself into trouble. But judgment? That’s the job of the inner monk, not the inner puppy. And the puppy? It can be house trained 🙂

Its not always noticed but language has a huge role when it comes to duality and often creates much of our suffering. The “fall” into ego consciousness can’t be separated from language leaving me to wonder if language is the ego’s or ‘Life’ way of trying to explain and know itself.

Language is powerful, but it relies on duality, it needs opposites to make meaning. We say “light” because we know “dark.” We say “me” because we know “you.” In this way, language itself is born from the awakened awareness of separation and complicated things further. The moment we speak, have a thought, we divide and exit any pure non-dual state.

Think of the experience of AUM, surrounded by silence, the sound of Life itself, rising and returning to stillness. The rhythm of being. The breath of creation.

Contemplative traditions honor silence because silence remembers what came before words. It touches the unity that existed before we began to name and divide. God and silence… interconnected?

Last night I watched a show about a priest who left the Church after a tragedy. He had prayed and pleaded, but God’s response was silence. He judged silence as absence, as a non-response.

Today I wonder if the Priest understood… That perhaps silence was the only place God could still be found, not to give answers, but to offer a return to the whole… Beyond the noise of certainty. Beyond the language of explanation.
Maybe silence isn’t what remains after tragedy, it’s what holds it and us?

Hi Anita

I’ll try to answer the question simply. (you should see my initial response as I tried to sort though my thoughts which I may share after) 🙂

Imagine you’re a child playing with building blocks. At first, there’s just the blocks and the joy of playing. But then, you start sorting them: red blocks here, blue blocks there. You say, “This one is mine,” and “That one is not.”, “This one I like”, This one I don’t” That’s the moment the mind begins to divide into “me” and “not me,” “good” and “bad,” “us” and “them.”

Or imagine you’re a child standing in front of a mirror. At first you don’t know the difference between you and your reflection. You just see movement, light, presence. But as you grow, you learn to say “me” and “not me.” That’s the beginning of separation, of seeing yourself as one thing, and everything else as something else.

Hyenas, like you said, act from instinct. They haven’t “fallen” into consciousness. They flow with life as it is, responding from instinct protecting their space and chase away others. That’s nature doing its job. Life being Life. But humans have something extra: we can watch our thoughts. We can notice when we’re sorting the blocks too tightly, or when we’re afraid of a block just because it’s different.

Humans have a special kind of awareness. We think we name, we measure. We say “this is right,” “that is wrong,” “you are different from me.” This kind of thinking, what some call ego-consciousness is duality which helps us build language, culture, and meaning. But it also creates division and suffering. It can make us feel separate, alone, or afraid.

Non-duality doesn’t mean pretending everything is the same. It means remembering that before we started dividing the world into pieces, we were part of something whole. It’s like looking at a forest and seeing not just trees, but the life that connects them all and we are part of that All.

Mystics and contemplatives say that silence helps us remember this wholeness. Not because our thoughts our words are bad, but because silence touches what came before words, the deep unity beneath all our naming. In that light compassion naturally arisen.

So what do we do with this? We don’t need to undo nature or stop thinking. But we can soften our judgments. We can live with more presence. We can see others not as “not me,” but as part of the same light, the same life.

At the deepest level, there’s no “me” and “you,” no “inside” and “outside.” Just the dance of being.