A phone call this morning … and an invitation.  My friends Chris and Marie-paule were in Gent and wanted to go for coffee.

“Yes!”

We sat upstairs at Panos Langemunt.  I tried to pay with my Basic-Fit membership card but Chris was too fast for me.

We talked about the challenges in families when mom and dad no longer love each other.  So sad.

Then somehow the conversation moved to meditation.  I remember now – Marie-paule asked what I do during my days.  I’ve meditated for 17 years.  My friends wanted to try it.  I gave them simple advice for starting: watch the rhythm of inbreath and outbreath, and let the inevitable thoughts be there. 

How about if I meditate for five minutes while you two keep talking?  I’ll hear everything you say and it’s unlikely to distract me.  Unless you yell!

So I did.

As I sipped my cappuccino afterwards, I wondered whether to share with these newbies what has emerged for me in meditation over the last year.

“How can they possibly have the ears to hear?” I thought.  Is it fair to their minds to paint a picture which would be foreign to them? 

But then I felt my own need … to tell someone what I was experiencing.  So words bubbled up:

Usually my mind goes quiet quickly.  I welcome as friends the thoughts that come.  Almost always there emerges a soft and slow throbbing in my eyes.  It’s gentle.

It used to be that it took twenty minutes or so for the throbbing to disappear.  What is left is stillness, no movement at all, a tiny horizontal line.

Recently the twenty minutes has become more like ten.  Only when a thought intrudes does the emptiness move back to throbbing.  If I’m at peace with the thought, it floats away, allowing the stillness to return.

It’s rare for the supreme quiet to not come at all.

***

I spoke.  They listened

Did they get it?

I don’t know

But I said the truth