It seems that inner growth requires a letting-go rather than an accumulation, a subtraction rather than the addition of various things to our life. For example, suffering is made up of what we add to our pain - it is the commentary, the self-absorption, the anxiety that cause our suffering more than the pain itself so the way we learn to deal with suffering is through a letting go of all that we have added. Many of our internal problems are ill-served by our attempts to tackle them head-on. The more we worry away at our anxieities, the bigger they grow. Sometimes, the only way through a problem is to sit it out patiently and let go of our frantic attempts to understand and master a troubling thought or feeling.
Bonnie Thurston's excellent book on contempaltive prayer, For God Alone, stresses this aspect of passivity. Drawing on the biblical language of waiting on God, she talks of the vital place of passivity and of the difficulties we find in achieving it.
Our whole culture is profoundly resistent to the idea of passivity and waiting. Indeed, we tend to ascribe a certain moral inadequacy to passivity. Achievement is praised, action is demanded, technique is sought, intervention is the answer. We need to be in control if we are to get anywhere and those who are most in control gain most. Waiting is something we endure if we must, not something we embrace. I don't want to make a general principle of this, and it is clear that immediate action is absolutely right in many circumstances, but in the inner life, and in the matter of human maturing, the hard path of passivity is essential.
I call it a hard path because it is so counter-cultural. It takes a great deal of practice and attention to wait contentedly. Here are some wise words from Thomas Merton:
The problem here is that habit is strong and automatism speaks with the authority of a pseudo-conscience. One feels guilty in relaxing and resting in darkness. There is no rational basis for this guilt, once one realises that our 'reaching' into the darkness really implies a serious and energetic effort of faith, and that our persistence in arid prayer requires a great deal of courage and patience. [The Inner Experience p.91]
Our addiction to results causes us great problems in the inner life, because this work is the work of a lifetime (at least) and that work is the hard work of placing ourselves entirely in the mode of receiving a gift rather than attaining success. I guess it is no surprise, then, that all the great teachers of the spiritual life stress humility as its greatest virtue.
It was said about an old man that he endured seventy weeks of fasting, eating only once a week. He asked God about certain words in the Holy Scripture, but God did not answer him. Then he said to himself: Look, I have put in this much effort, but I haven't made any progress. So now I will go to see my brother, and ask him. And when he had gone out, closed the door and started off, an angel of the Lord was sent to him and said: Seventy weeks of fasting have not brought you near to God. But now that you are humbled enough to go to your brother, I have been sent to you to reveal the meaning of the words. Then the angel explained the meaning that the old man was seeking, and went away. [Desert Wisdom trans. Yushi Nomura]
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