Once on a clear spring day, during a vacation from my residency at Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York, I drove a small rented car south of Mal’cha mall in Jerusalem, Israel. The road snaked between the hills towards an IDF checkpoint. The family of a Palestinian friend were anticipating my arrival in their village in the West Bank. As the car rolled towards the metal gate, and the armed soldiers manning it, my heartbeat rose and panic took hold of my body. My mind played morbid scenarios fueled by stories I have read and heard growing up as an Israeli. I was afraid for my life.
Slowing the car with hands on the wheel, I lowered my eyes and took a breath. I felt the blood pulse in my veins. I Noticed the speed of my thoughts. “You’ve been trained for this.” I said to myself. Returning my attention to my breath, again and again, it deepened and slowed. I brought to mind my friend’s face, how much I trusted him. I contrasted that trust, and the factual knowing that his family anticipated me warmly, with the abstractness of my fearful thoughts. I invoked faith – in Not Knowing – the unshatterable truth of my body, right here and now. This shift of attention brought freshness to my mind, opened my heart, grounded my spirit.
Empathy rose in me, to the multitude who experienced fear on either sides of the metal fence, my friends living under occupation, the soldiers at the gate, and beyond it. I also felt empathy to those who yearn to connect with this basic experience of embodiment, the portal it offers into interconnection with an ever larger picture – this great mysterious sacred Reality. I felt tremendous gratitude to being taught how to attune my awareness, and specifically to my meditation training and teachers. I passed through the checkpoint, noticeably easeful – something neither my friend nor his family can legally do. I arrived at their house, with a renewed sense of empathy, faith and purpose. The maklouba meal they served was out of this world.
Hebrew ancestral literature speaks of the shaman-prophet Elijah who once experienced great perplexity. He sought the ultimate answers, and was guided by an angel to inquire into the ‘Kol Dmama Daka’, often translated as ‘voice of thin silence.’ Another translation is ‘voice of the silent minute.’ But why? What is the relationship between silence and the Sacred?
I invite you to join me in Glow Up Spring Meditation Series, a six-week series to explore these questions, through our body and awareness. Whether you are interested in resilience-building & wellbeing, supporting your activism with groundedness, or whether you are addressing a spiritual calling, exploring interconnectedness or the universal subtle human consciousness, this series will offer time to sit down, slow down, turn inwards, demystify prevalent notions about the practice and hone skills and appreciation of it.
You can learn more about the series here.
In this season of orienting towards spring, of nurturing seed of change and raising sap of purpose, may the ground of being nurture and heal us, right this moment,
And this moment.
Rami Avraham Efal
