Why does a cat chase its tail?

Help me resist the urge
to dispute whether things
are true or false
which is like
arguing whether
it is day or night

It is always
one or the other
somewhere in the world

Together, we can penetrate
a higher truth which
like the sun is always
being conveyed.
~Mark Nepo

Fun to re-discover this book, SEVEN THOUSAND WAYS TO LISTEN, on my shelf. I remember when I came across it at Sheila’s and Dave’s the year I got a concussion playing around in the waves in Santa Monica with Michael and Deklan, forgetting the strength of the ocean.

What I remember most during the summer afterward is the incredible quiet of my brain as it slowly healed. The pace of my reading was cut to perhaps 20-25%, and the length of time I was able to concentrate on reading was curtailed even more. But, since I could do so little, I spent a good amount of the summer on the deck, noticing how peaceful this concussion rendered me. Feeling presence, listening to birds and breeze was all a gift, a season of meditation really. A thorough immersion in simply being. The garden was my paradise. It was a season of a mind in recovery. And of deep discovery of how much of my mind lives in relative silence.

….

The mind, the most amazing tool we have at hand in our temporal individual experience ironically often becomes our most dangerous adversary. Miraculous in itself and still able to perceive a much larger miracle—that of the part of us that belongs to another even deeper mystery, the universe. How does this happen?

But so often we are a cat chasing its tail, certain it is capable of apprehending this other entity it does not yet recognize as itself. It cannot resist this pursuit, this puzzle, perhaps the obsessiveness itself. The cat, itself amazingly fast and cunning, is unable to stop the chase. Why is it the cat cannot sit still, and wait to explore from its place of stillness? We know how much cats love to curl up and nap. The cat simply cannot figure out what is happening.

And neither can we, it seems. I suppose most of us have felt the peace of presence – being in nature, after sex, meditation or prayer. We have felt this peaceful presence overcome us, drown out the chatter of our monkey-mind. These two very powerful aspects of our experience, the mind we know and perhaps identify with and the part of us that lives without verbal language, don’t seem to know each other well. And so we wonder, what is that peaceful presence? How can I have more of it in my life? What is it called? Who will name it? Who is right? What is true?

We can choose to change our approach to conversation. Both within our selves and with others. It is possible to consider sharing experience rather than opinion. Vulnerability is a strength in this way. Laying down the bludgeon of our opinions and opening up the door to our hearts to share our experiences, our own stories and generosity, opens the hearts of others, allows for deeper pathways to understanding to occur.

This is true for all of us. Once we learn how to meditate/be still and in silence, we open a door for our known to our unknown. What we know is such a tiny fraction of our experience and of who we are. What can be heard or discovered is only accessible in silence and stillness. Trying to find our way to truth or peace or love will never be found in what we think. But it is always waiting for us inside our quiet unknown.

1. SEVEN THOUSAND WAYS TO LISTEN: Staying Close to What IS Sacred, by Mark Nepo 2012