In his poem Not A One, Mark Nepo reflects on how ‘being awake’ depends on outgrowing our masks, which Noel Keating says is one of the fruits of meditation. Long-time meditator, educator and author Dr Keating* continues his reflection on how poetry gives rise to rich contemplative insights and helps deepen our appreciation of the mystery of our own spiritual experience. The articles are a slightly edited version of an online talk Dr Keating gave to a group of Christian meditators on 28 August 2023*.
Not A One, by Mark Nepo
A funny thing happened on my way
to being awake. I outgrew all my masks.
Not a one fit. Not the one I called my
past. Not the one I called my dream.
Not the one I wore when sad. Or the
one I wore when trying to be happy.
I saved them all like favourite shirts
I thought would fit when I became
myself again. But that was a mask, too.
Then, just the other day, I was more
present than lost, and had to put down
the mask I called my story.
And today, a gust of light filled my face.
I felt it on my skin and in my soul.
Now, anything is possible.
A funny thing happened on my way to being awake. I outgrew all my masks. This is one of the fruits of meditation – to become aware of the masks that we wear every day and learn to outgrow them. As we sit in silence, still in body and not quite so still in mind, our preoccupations are revealed to us in every thought and feeling that assails us in the silence.
And, mysteriously, our very awareness of their existence can be enough to break their claim on us. They will still appear but we are no longer imprisoned by them – we can see them for what they are and they lose their hold on us.
As John Main wrote in his final letter: ‘Our life is a unity because it is centred in the mystery of God. But to know its unity we have to see beyond ourselves and with a perspective greater than we generally see with, when self-interest is our dominant concern.’
The more objectively we can see the desires and preoccupations of the ego, the less their grasp and we discover how to respond to life’s circumstances rather than merely react out of our conditioning and emotions. Once a mask is recognised and acknowledged, we are able choose not to hide behind it but to be true to our deepest sense of who we are.
At first, the poet says when he had developed the capacity to put his masks aside, he still saved them for a rainy day! Who knows when they might come in handy! But soon he learned the act of saving them was merely another mask.
A daily practice of meditation changes our sense of self-identity and we learn, as the poet describes it, to put down the mask we call our story. And then it’s as if a gust of light fills our face. We feel it on our skin and in our soul and realise that, now, anything is possible. As meditation awakens the heart, our masks dissolve and we discover our True Self. This realisation dawns when we are more present than lost, attentive to the inner richness of our lives.
Heidegger once said that the vocation of the poet was to evoke the holy; to evoke our capacity for wholeness. I hope I have shown that contemplative poetry can be a real portal to the Real Presence because while the experience of meditation is the real teacher, poetic language and metaphor have a great capacity to give voice to that experience and its potential for personal transformation.
Our desire as meditators is to never forget that we are at all times immersed in the oceans of God; allowing ourselves to be drenched by the silent, gentle undercurrent that is Divine grace. By allowing ourselves to be steeped in Love, doused and saturated by Divine Love, we hope to become ever more authentic expressions of Love in our daily lives, in all of our encounters, in all of our relationships.
But the reality is that so often as we return to the busyness of our daily lives, we lose that sense of deep connection with Being. Yet, as Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer writes in another of her poems, recalling a walk in a scent-filled garden, ‘Hours later the scent is long gone, but I can’t unknow how sweet it is’. So it is with our daily practice. Meditation validates knowledge of the heart and draws of sense of self-identity towards its true centre – and our daily practice reminds us that we can never unknow how sweet that is.
I finish with one final metaphor from Alex, a twelve-year-old Canadian girl, who once told her teacher ‘When I hear the chimes at the start of meditation, I imagine it is God ringing my doorbell and I open my heart to let Him in.’ What a rich metaphor for a young child, based on her own personal contemplative experience. May that metaphor arise in you as you next sit to meditate.
*Dr Keating has spent forty years in the education sector in Ireland, as a teacher, principal and education officer. He is author of ‘Meditation with Children – A Resource for Teachers and Parents’ (Medio Media) and voluntary coordinator of the Meditation with Children Project, which involves over 40,000 children, who meditate several times each week on a whole-school basis, across more than 200 primary schools throughout Ireland. He can be contacted at mnkeating@gmail.com
For more information about John Main, how to meditate and the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) see: https://www.thelivingwater.com.au/christian-meditation
*Dr Keating’s article is a slightly edited version of a talk given at Benedict’s Well, an outreach of the Benedictine Oblates of the WCCM. The weekly event (Mondays) consists of a period of meditation followed by an inspirational talk. See: https://www.youtube.com/@benedictswell6373/featured
For more information contact Fr Mark Kenny at: themarkkenny@gmail.com