The Composition of Being

April 2.

I'm sitting here quietly with an eye to gathering inner force before the day begins in earnest.

There's always the outer world and my response to it. The circumstances in the outer world are immensely complex, beginning in the molecular and ending in the personal. 

My responses emerge from an equally complex inner space which, as Rilke pointed out, I don't know much about. 

Even if I become aware that it's there, its workings are mostly hidden and remain a mystery. Both worlds, inner and outer, begin with the molecular. I say this rather than with the atoms, because atoms as individual entities haven’t yet formed the complex and essential relationships where our level of life begins.

So everything begins in the molecular; and a gathering of molecular vibrations from outside meets a gathering of molecular vibrations from inside. It's between these two sets of circumstances —what Victor Frankl called stimulus and response, as a friend reminded me last night—that my agency inserts itself. By this I mean, my awareness, my Being.

Awareness, if it's present, causes me to become responsible to what takes place in the space between the two worlds. The moment that I become aware of them, a phenomenon called care has the potential to arise. I can take responsibility – that is, I can be there for what I do, instead of letting it affect me as a reflex.

In my own experience, there's only one factor that provides the continuity of awareness that makes this possible, and that's the organic sensation of Being. 

This sensation of Being is a subtle force of intelligence at the exact rate of vibration needed to fill the interval between the inner and the outer world. I'll draw an analogy in musical composition to try and explain this.

Musical composition finds its essential center of gravity in the tension between the moments of silence, where no note is played, and the moments where a note is sounded. There are times when the tiniest inflecion of when one of those notes begins makes a huge difference to the way the sound of the song projects itself, and whether or not it creates an interest in the listener. I've noticed, for example, when working with others on vocal parts, that it's very difficult to convey the inflection of phrasing to them. One might need, for example, to begin a note a tiny fraction of a beat early in order to make it sound right –and knowing this when composing is a matter of instinct. All of it depends on how all of the other notes are functioning together, the way their vibrations blend. It's in the timing. 

That being said, composition to a great extent relies on exploiting the spaces between the other notes, creating separations and then knowing exactly what to insert between them. 

A space between two notes with exactly the right vibration inserted between them creates a subtle form of magic which can't be explained in words; but anyone who listens to music carefully instinctively understands it with a different part of themselves. Musical theory knows that there are laws about such things, and manages to explain some of them. But you don't need to understand musical theory to know whether a piece of music sounds correct or not. 

Even when it does, a piece of music can be correct and not sound good.

The vibration of organic sensation is something like this. Like musical notes, it has a range of expression, but in and of itself it is an instrument – the instrument — which is uniquely capable of inserting a special kind of awareness within each moment. It's an organ.

It provides the continuity which is lacking in the attention-capacity of the intellect. Another way of expressing it is that it has a durability and a voluntary action that the intellect is incapable of. 

In actively experiencing this, one discovers that the intellect is relatively weak; but organic sensation is extraordinarily strong when it's active. It provides a bridge that fills the gap and allows a nearly constant sense of presence.

One might think this provides answers; but that isn't quite true, even though there are some significant “answers" in this observation. Actually what it does is position me actively in the place where the question of what life is arises. 

That question needs to be asked perpetually and without any respite. The moment that this question falls asleep, I act automatically and without care. 

My intention today – as every day— is to act with a little more care, and my sensation becomes the majority partner in that effort: but only if I understand its nature and make room for it. 

I'm called to care about life, especially my relationship to others. The parts of my inner being that are obscured from my direct inspection can provide tremendous support for that, if I learn to respect them and offer a place for them in the landscape of my daily awareness. 

Sensation is one such part.

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.