The Invitation
Harrison Snow
12/16/20232 min read
It’s delightful to hear Bill’s voice again
and reconnect on the monthly call.
His invitation to explore the realm of nothingness
– going nowhere and doing nothing
except basking in that nothingness –
was too good to refuse.
Pure joy. Nothing to learn or unlearn.
Nothing to achieve or realize.
Nothing to grasp or get away from.
Nothing compared to nothing is free of everything
including expectation or obligation.
Yet, what happens to the all too human state
of emotions and thoughts
that endlessly parade through the mind?
One answer to this question occurred
at a retreat center on Vancouver Island several years ago.
As I stared at the surrounding bay waters one afternoon
the total sense of nothingness flooded my awareness.
There was no personal me.
The human condition I called my life
seemed like a cosmic joke.
Finally, I was in on this joke.
The universe smiled knowingly.
A thunderbolt from the heavens landed
and the spot I occupied called me was gone.
The space left behind could only shake its head
at the astounding wonder of it all.
For three days following I needed to be in silence.
Conversation with others was too tasking.
Gradually, back in the world and the usual demands of a full life,
the personal me returned
and the mind tagged along.
There are periods of spacious silence.
Sometimes this silence responds to the invitation of remembrance.
Other times it shows up when it chooses to,
free of causation or correlation.
Between mind and no mind
a different take on fulfillment emerged.
I still have my personal life and its demands.
Yet there is less investment in obtaining the fruit of any activity.
The call of nothingness is the exception.
Bill’s return feels like an invitation to continue this journey to nowhere.
Perhaps, the invitation is coming from the journey itself
as its own form of remembrance that wakes up to its endless Self.
We can wander around in the house of mirrors that’s the personal self
or respond to the call to go beyond.
I am grateful Bill has returned and extended his invitation.
Nothing may happen or unfold to no one.
What bliss!