To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so it has its own rhythms of darkness, of dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a live of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.
We each possess a deeper level of being ...
which loves paradox. It knows that summer is already
growing like a seed in the depth of winter. It know
that the moment we are born, we begin to die. It knows
that all of life shimmers, in shades of becoming
--that shadow and light are always together,
the visible mingled with the invisible.
When we sit in the stillness we are profoundly active.
Keeping silent, we can hear the roar of existence.
Through our willingness to be the one we are,
we become one with everything.