Crossing the Threshold

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks out the door, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings upon him
as if he were dead.
– Rainer Maria Rilke

I am currently reading the new book, Come of Age, by Stephen Jenkinson, the author of one of my other favorite books, Die Wise.

He quotes the poem above to provide a felt sense of the commitment to leave our household of certainty that we believe in and inhabit day-to-day. We find ourselves ready to cross the threshold of certain belief into a world unknown. This is our bold and courageous step onto the spiritual path.

This unknowing is the place of learning. This is the ‘beginner’s mind’ that is talked about in Zen traditions. You cannot add anything to a cup that is already full. Crossing the threshold is the understanding that we must let go of most of what we have learned and taken to be true in our lives. This revelation allows us to be open to the realization that our world, as we have conceived it, is but a shadow of reality. The world as we knew it, formed and shadowed by our beliefs, begins to crumble as we leave the safety of our house of certainty. We enter the vast natural world where every thing and every being is not alone and separate, but, rather, intimately connected and part of the whole: the undivided presence of aware being.

Yes, I understand. This venture can leave us quite uneasy, disturbed, feeling disrupted, or even fearful.

However the uneasiness you feel as you navigate the forest of open aware being, which is your true nature, is a clear call from God’s being, beckoning you home. Calling you to join in oneness with your true nature, the shared being of creation. This uneasiness is not a ‘suffering’ state of mind, but, rather, a subtle tap on the shoulder as a gentle reminder that our current ‘home’ only seems to be safe. It is not the refuge we seek, but the confinement that keeps us from resting in our deepest refuge.

We may resist this adventure because we are afraid that we will get lost and make mistakes on the spiritual path, which seems unclear, meandering, or obscure at best. We are afraid that we will never again have the familiar illusion of peace and stability that our lifelong pattern of beliefs provided. We are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But, Jenkinson points out in his book that to make mistakes, to ‘err’, comes from the older meaning of ‘to wander’, as in wandering out of the regular furrow when plowing the field. Wandering from our old furrowed past only seems like a good idea now.

Over three hundred years ago, the English poet Alexander Pope published An Essay on Criticism . Recalling our recent practice with Forgiveness, his famous line says: “To Err is Human, to Forgive, Divine.” So, as human beings, we are encouraged to ‘err’: to wander from the furrows of the path, and when we recognize we have wandered too far, we can forgive ourselves, offering ourselves a taste of the divine.

Once we have walked through that portal, we may find that we are unable to go back. We know on some level that going back is not the way to lasting peace and happiness. We don’t know what lies ahead, but we can’t go back. And, there can be no peace or refuge or healing or wholeness until we have wandered beyond that threshold and opened ourselves to the uncertainty of experience in the present moment. We don’t even need to know what lies ahead to walk the path. Can we ever really know the future? We never actually experience a future anyway, only what comes through us in each present moment experience.

The path is walked learning to trust the arising of experience in the eternal present.