What is the source of thought? Such a demanding question, the mind wants to go to sleep. It requires an enormous and penetrating effort. What is the source of meaning? There is a silence that does not have to be conjured, doesn't require attainment. Nothing you can do to bring it about. It's there constantly. It is the source of everything. Look into silence for a moment. You can touch this silence with your belly. You can touch this silence with your whole being. There is no more fear. Silence is the meaning. Listen to the chatter of your brain. Only echoes. Look deeply into the valley from which those echoes resonate. Listen to the valley itself, the silence. It is here that true function is revealed.
An ecological spirituality needs to be built on three premises: the transience of selves, the living interdependency of all things, and the value of the personal in communion. Many spiritual traditions have emphasized the need to "let go of ego" but in ways that diminished the value of the person, undercutting particularly those, like women, who scarcely have been allowed individuated personhood at all. We need to "let go of the ego" in a different sense. We are called to affirm the integrity of our personal center of being, in mutuality with the personal centers of all other beings across species and, at the same time, accept the transience of these personal selves.