וַיֵּרָא אֵלָיו יְהֹוָה בְּאֵֽלֹנֵי מַמְרֵא וְהוּא יֹשֵׁב פֶּֽתַֽח־הָאֹהֶל כְּחֹם הַיּֽוֹם
Now the Eternally Present was seen by him by the oaks of Mamre
As he was sitting at the entrance to his tent at the heat of the day.
— Tr. Everett Fox
Genesis 18:1
In an oak forest, Abraham sees יהוה, the Eternally Present. Abraham is sitting at the opening of his tent in the heat of the day. According to 2000-year-old rabbinic biblical commentary, Abraham is healing from circumcising himself, his thirteen-year-old son, Ishmael/Ismail, and all the men of his household.
Abraham has cut himself open and sits at the opening, totally undefended, so that all the future generations will thrive: the generations of Ishmael/Ismail, and the generations of Isaac. From the opening of his tent, Abraham runs to approaching strangers, all of them revealed to him as messengers of God, to whom he offers his finest foods, drinks, and resting places.
A few verses later, the Formless Voice calls to Abraham. Abraham hears because he is open and present. He responds, "Hineni. Here I am." The Presence instructs him to take his son, Isaac in the Torah and Ismail in the Qur’ân, up the mountain, to make of the son an offering. In both traditions, father and son return from the mountain, the vision fulfilled.
99. He said: "I will go to my Lord! He will surely guide me
100. "O my Lord! Grant me a righteous (son)!"
101. So We gave him the good news of a forbearing son.
102. Then, when (the son) reached (the age of) (serious) work with him, he said: "O my son! I have seen in a vision that I offer thee in sacrifice: now see what is thy view!" (The son) said: "O my father! Do as thou art commanded: thou will find me, if Allah so wills, one of the steadfast!"
103. So when they had both submitted (to Allah), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice),
104. We called out to him "O Abraham! ...
105. "Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!" - thus indeed do We reward those who do right.
— Qur’ân, verse 37:99 to verse 37:109
In the Buddhist tradition, the Bodhisattva, the enlightened beings who live among us, also vow to offer themselves, their very bodies, for the benefit of all beings:
My body, thus, and all my goods besides,
And all my merits gained and to be gained,
I give them all away withholding nothing
To bring about the benefit of beings.
— The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva
How can I embrace. in my own life, this quality of withholding nothing to bring about the benefit of all beings? Each of us has our own journey and pathway to this, likely many.
One pathway is particularly alive for me right now: bringing myself back, over and over, into connection with how I directly experience the world. When I stop withholding myself from being fully present, I bring my experience back from the exile of my perceptions and inherited beliefs, my inner stories and narratives about things and people. I practice differentiating the meanings I make of things, because of my conditioning, trauma and history, from my actual experiences with them.
This is not to devalue history and narrative; but, rather, to embrace them as doors to understanding my actual experience.
Many core practices of Nonviolent Communication, Judaism and Buddhism are fashioned just for this purpose — guiding us away from worshipping Gods we don’t know, connecting us to our purpose and meaning. Their teachings connect us to our aliveness, to each other, to our divine center. Honoring your own experience, feeling your emotions, encountering others without the safety of fixed inherited ideas — these practices require courage.
NVC Practice
An NVC practice that helps bring me present to what I actually am experiencing: me.
Creating Connection from the Meaning I am Making
(First I do this as a private journaling practice; then I may choose to share it with another person)
When I heard…/saw…(I write what I experienced)
I told myself … [I write the meaning I gave it, what I told myself about it]
Because I felt ... / and when I think that I feel…[ I write my actual feelings and thoughts; I differentiate feelings from my thoughts]
Because I have a history of …[what has gone on in my life, in my society, in my family, that produces this meaning and this response]
And/Or
Because I want... need....value.....
And [ if I want to communicate to another person] I want to check in with you now...
Would you tell me if that is the meaning you made of what happened? Or
Would you tell me what you heard me say?
Or
Would you tell me how you feel hearing what I said?
NOW I LISTEN
An Inspiring Poem
A Ritual to Read to Each Other
— William Stafford
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
William Stafford, "A Ritual to Read to Each Other" from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998 by William Stafford. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. Source: Indivisible: Poems for Social Justice (Norwood House Press, 2013)