Mirror Mind
Document Actions
by Tilden Edwards
What do I see when I look into a mirror? It depends on what I'm looking for. I might have an aesthetic purpose--brushing my hair or checking my appearance--or a practical one, such as tending to a facial cut. I might also bring a contemplative intent. When I do that, I let whatever shows itself in the mirror be just what it is, before my need to label it.My labels create disconnected categories for what I see: this is this, and that is that. When I allow myself to see the images in a mirror without labeling, I see a pristine connectedness between everything-no longer a completely separated "I" looking. Instead, I find a "we": the simple givenness of a human image, alongside everything else that may appear in the mirror-furniture, a tree out the window, another person beside me. Every-thing intimately held in the mirror at the same time. In that moment, everything belongs, just as it is, together. Things take on a certain mysterious "depth," and I begin to know more than any label could hold. I touch the fullness of the living truth more completely.
When I forgo any label for myself and the normal boundaries of self fall away, my identity comes to involve everything else that I see. But just as the mirror reflects everything in it without loss of its "mirrorness," so my mind can reflect what appears without loss of "Tildenness"--only loss of an overly separated and narrow image of myself.
Contemplative presence, I think, begins with letting go the ultimacy of my labeling things and letting them be fully what they are. As I practice seeing the world through contemplative eyes, I come to understand that even the labels are a part of "what is." But now I am aware that they can never capture the fullness of what I see. Rather, such naming is part of my mind's need to order the world.
My labeling is necessary and valuable for living and serving life, but I am much more aware now of the limiting and expedient quality of such ordering. This realization helps loosen my rigid attachment to the labels, the endless boxed definitions of things. I'm freer to participate authentically in the flow of life as it evolves through all its messiness and order. I more easily include such seeming polarities as Serb and Albanian Kosovar, friend and enemy, the lion and the lamb, as part of a deeper shared ground.
In the most graced of times, something more is given. A sense of Presence shines through all that I see. This vibrant Presence appears so vast that it seems empty of form, yet it mysteriously appears as the very heart of all forms. I sense it as particularly personal and intimate. More than an "it," yet more than a "person," it is transpersonal. This Presence radiates boundless, very particular love, energy, and wisdom.
In Exodus 3:14, Moses is given the personal name of "Yahweh" for this Presence: "I am who I am." In other words, "I am more than you can ever name, yet I will give you this undefinable name through which to personally relate to me." Jesus lived out of this name for us (John 8:58). Great mystics forever stutter about the vibrant, guiding Presence revealed at the heart of what is.
Contemplative presence, then, is when my mind is able to let be together all that appears, just as it is, and when I am empowered to sense or trust all that I see as arising from one mysterious loving Presence, ceaselessly drawing me and all else to Itself. When these two dimensions come alive in me, I wonder if I am sharing an edge of the Mind of Christ and recognizing the Kin-dom in our midst, the Good News of life reconciled in the Holy One. In such an instant, life indeed seems to mirror a larger Life living through me and all that is, loving everything in its Self.
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.