Blue Sky Meditation

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

What do I need is the question Thomas Merton asked of me this morning as I picked up his book instead of the Zen one. A simple question this one like the questions of most sincere seekers has no ready pat answer. The question was posed on a beautiful Kentucky morning as the monk wrote in his personal journal.

Merton’s answer, at least on that day as he wrote long hand into his moleskin or spiral bound there in his hermitage was, “If necessary I can get by with plenty of mornings like this. Seriously, I need silence, though and solitude to enter into myself and see and touch reality, to live a contemplative life.”

I can agree with some of what he has said. The air today right now is 63 degrees F, the air is pale blue and absolutely free of clouds and there is no humidity anywhere. As I look up I am filled with the thoughts I had as a young boy thinking of travelling great distances in spaceships and of kite flying and of going swimming to “waste’ an afternoon. I can get by with a morning like this. It is not enough my spirit wants something more but there is value to being here/being now in a day like this. We don’t get many like this in our lives now do we?

Staring into the pale blue morning sky is a Zen meditation in itself. It is also a prayer to an almighty God in his goodness giving thanks for all this is right with this world. It is an act of openness to possibilities that lie outside of my self.

One of my struggles with Merton is a thin line that I think exists in the realms of those who would live apart from the “world”. It is the divide between solitude to clear away the clutter of the world and allow us to focus on the core essential aspects of being or of the divine and solitude that becomes self absorption taken to its ultimate narcissistic conclusion. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think Merton crossed that line but pulling back from the world can easily result in the world becoming the boundaries of your own ego.

Like Merton I want solitude so that I may have a time to meditate, to think about the broader aspects of life and its meaning. I must guard against misdirection and complacency. I don’t want those times I find solitude to create my own little world. Sitting on a stoop, surrounded by a cacophony of sounds, staring into a blue sky with an open soul beats sitting on a mat in a dimly lit room where I am trying to clear my mind but instead refocusing again on me and my issues.