February 26th – Winter Retreat

You Think You Are More Holy Than You Are

No one should aspire to gain a reputation for holiness.  First of all, we must actually become holy; then there would be some truth in having a reputation for it.  The way to become holy is faithfully to fulfill God’s commandments every day by loving chastity, by hating no one, by avoiding envy and hostile rivalry, by not becoming full of self but showing due respect for our elders and love for those who are younger, by praying in the love of Christ for those who are hostile to us, by seeking reconciliation and peace before the sun goes down whenever we have a quarrel with another, and finally by never despairing of the mercy of God.

 

While these essays were being composed, I received from my teacher, also the editor of the essay, a recommendation that I scrap the piece I had written to accompany this quote from Benedict, and begin again.  Her advice was accompanied by thoughtful comments, the gist of which were, “You think you are more holy than you are.”

My mood plummeted.  How could I have been so self-important as to declare myself holy in any way?  I did not like being someone whose ideas were seemingly rejected wholesale.  My teacher suggested that my next attempt focus on my experience of being re-directed. I felt exposed, and daunted by the task ahead.  I wanted to disappear into a hole and not come out until spring.

Instead, I got out my knitting.  I willed myself not to think, just to knit, focusing on each stitch as it made its way from one needle to the other, on the jeweled colors in the yarn as they emerged from the skein. After a few rows, it became clear that I was feeling humiliation, not humility.  OK, I thought, I am caught in my ego.  This clear-seeing was a little beacon of light in the darkness.  I began to trust what was happening.

In the middle of the night, I awoke, already deep in contemplation about the essay.  My first thought: Gratitude for the instructions, “You are still operating from your ego.”  More gratitude for the specific feedback that detailed how the first draft was riddled with self-absorption.  I would have these teachings to work with in the weeks ahead.  More gratitude for my teacher’s mercy, her willingness to instruct me despite my failures. The gratitude was another beacon of light within the darkness I felt.  Gradually, through the hours before dawn, more was seen and understood.

Spiritual practice is primarily a deconstruction project.  We aspire to let go of everything, to know nothing.  We write these essays to show the how of this deconstruction, the how of the Way toward holiness. We want to be holy, yet the eyes we see with, the mind we think with are  SELF absorbed.  We need a way out of the familiar conceptual territory that locks us into the ego.  Sometimes we have to get the rug pulled out, the road blocked.  Having my essay returned with a “false holiness, start over” stamp was such an opportunity.

Past experience with this bottom-dropping-out state has provided me with some tolerance for it, though it remains excruciating in its emptiness, its dark and desolate-ness.  It is uncomfortable there, where what one has always known and relied upon is gone.  Could I continue to trust it?

Over the next few days, the sense of being without a compass returned several times.  It was always unnerving.  I wrote some paragraphs, then discarded them.  Perhaps I needed help.   One morning as I sat with my eyes glued to the computer screen, trying to find a way forward, my eyes came back to the words I had used to describe this lost place as “empty” and “desolate.”  Something inside came together.  This place isn’t dark or desolate; it’s just empty of my thinking about my ego.  I embraced the emptiness, entered into it.  It felt as though my head expanded as my mind too became spacious and open, but also settled and still.

The defeat of the ego is a precious gift.  Both the Buddhist precepts and Christian commandments, as articulated by Benedict, above, are opportunities to hand the ego more moments of defeat.  They are, when faithfully executed, a disengagement from our conceptual mind with its sticky feelings of right and wrong, good and bad; a clear map for how to pull the rug out.