Going Deep into Silence
Over the last three years, I have immersed myself in the teachings of Adyashanti. I recorded and edited his most recent audio program and book, Resurrecting Jesus; I’ve attended several weekend intensives in the Boulder area, and I’ve listened to countless satsang recordings and online broadcasts. But until a few weeks ago, I had never attended a silent retreat—with Adya or any other teacher.
Now, I can be a loud guy—just ask my family. If things around me (or inside me) are noisy, I tend to respond with more noise. Still, on retreat, despite my fears, I found it easy to slip into silence. And the more I let go into the daily pattern of silent sitting—six sitting periods of 30 to 40 minutes each, the first at 7:30 in the morning and the last at 9:30 at night—the more I felt the noise inside me abate.
The retreat was held in North Carolina, and most days the skies were solid gray, with a light rain falling. Though the oaks had not yet unfurled their leaves, the redbud tree in the courtyard of the dining hall was in full bloom, and when the rain abated, its branches hummed with fat, fuzzy bees. At each meal, eating in silence, I positioned myself so I could see that redbud tree through the banks of windows.
I loved the morning dharma talks and evening satsangs, when retreat participants could bring their questions to the microphone and dialogue with Adya. I loved to sit in silence, sensing that vast space inside as it slowly emerged into consciousness. (Of course, it had been there all along, but thoroughly hidden by the noise of activity, both inner and outer.) And I loved that tree.
One evening, answering a question, Adya said, “Allow the world to find itself in you.” For some reason I couldn’t quite pinpoint, these words resonated deeply for me. There were times, rising from meditation and walking into the soft light of afternoon, when it did feel that the trees in bloom and the loamy smell of the earth and even the birdsong all arose and subsided within me—which is to say, within that open, aware spaciousness we share. As the days flowed by and the silence inside grew more accessible, I noticed something. From that silence, words began to emerge, images rise slowly to the surface. The world found itself in me, and I found this poem.
The Redbud Tree
The fat bees browse
the spindled branches of the redbud tree,
their humming heavy as fruit.
They dwarf the purple blossoms.
Late afternoon, and when
the clouds part, the light
pours thick as honey over the blossoms,
the bees, the mossy branches.
Everything is heavy
and everything barely here.
Long before my birth, bees swarmed
the flowered tree,
bees already ancient
and born again each spring,
rising among the blooms.
And someone—dust now—stood
where I stand, and stared
at their slow dance
among the delicate
petals the wind scatters.
