Grail Series: As Without, So Within

If you’re a Boomer like me, you’ll surely remember the famous opening of the Science Fiction series Star Trek (which my sister and I sometimes recite by heart in French, just for fun, as we lived in Belgium when we used to watch the episodes on television):

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before…

I still remember that feeling of curiosity, wonder, and excitement as I listened to those words, which were the prelude to some fantastic adventure. As kids, it didn’t take much to get excited.
Today, I need something deeper and more mysterious to ignite my passion – though I’ve remained a devoted fan of science fiction, whether told in books or on the big screen.

Here’s my proposal: I invite you to journey within yourself, like the starship Enterprise, in search of the galaxies and stars spinning in your inner space.

We are the Cosmos,

Planet, Satellite and Space

The least explored

                      (Haiku by Panna)

Between October and November 2023, I created a series of 6 collages, in which the image of the Grail appears. The cup shape is the same, but the colors and composition vary. On this page, I would like to express the fleeting and ineffable feeling I experienced while creating them, and that I still feel every time I look at them.
To do this, I must start with a text that has obsessed me for at least thirty years: the sixth chapter of the Dao De Jing by Laozi, a seminal book in ancient Chinese culture.
Below, as proof of my decades-long fixation, I include two photos of my sketchbook that I always carry with me (these three pages, specifically, date back to around 2011!).

The content of these sketches and notes concerns the sixth chapter of the Dao De Jing, often translated as The Spirit of the Valley. The first small page contains the ancient pictograms of the text, which I painstakingly researched one by one; then I interpreted them with watercolor, and finally, on the third page, I wrote the original text in pinyin transliteration along with two different translations of the same verses. To spare you from squinting, I will transcribe the translated text below (playing with various translations):

The Spirit of the Valley never dies.                  谷神不死，
This is called the Mysterious Female.              是謂玄牝。
The Gateway of the Mysterious Female          玄牝之門，
Is called the Root of Heaven and Earth.          是謂天地根。
Continuously on the brink of existence             綿綿若存
Use it as you will, it never runs dry.                 用之不勤。
                                           

Chapter 6  “The Spirit of the Valley” – Daodejing by Laozi

The impalpable and inexhaustible vital force, eternal and feminine, that sustains all Living Beings is invisible, and yet I have been chasing it with my Soul-Images all my life… Even within me, it feels as though it is “continuously on the brink of existence.” My Myriam Series, which followed the Grails, is partly dedicated to this same Spirit of the Valley, which is also a Gateway and an inner Compass, and many other things. In Taoism, it was also called the Opening of the Mysterious Pass.

There is a Threshold within us, diaphanous and mysterious. The 11th-century Taoist master Zhang Boduan, author of the Wuzhen Pian (Awakening to Reality, a text on internal alchemy, translated into English by Fabrizio Pregadio), writes:

This opening is not an ordinary opening. It is made of creativity and receptivity joining together. This is called the lair of spirit and energy. In it are the essences of desire and reason. Zhang Boduan (quoted by Thomas Cleary in his book about the teachings of Taoist women).

The Taoist masters’ invitation was, and still is, to remain still, for as long as possible, at this Threshold. Still means open—completely detached from thoughts and desires, yet attentive, vigilant, and aware. At this Threshold, the Yang Spirit (awareness, consciousness) and the Yin Energy (openness, suspension, silent waiting) are united, or as a follower of the Kashmir Shaivism path would say, Shiva and Shakti are one. It is a luminous state of consciousness from which one can perceive the Voice of Silence (and it is from this very space that the Soul-Images you find on my blog have been coming to me lately).

To hear the voice of the silence is to understand that from within comes the only true guidance (…) For within you is the light of the world – the only light that can be shed upon the Path.

Mabel Collins, Light on the Path.

As I was saying, this luminous space, from which everything is always on the brink of emerging, was also described in India centuries ago. It is a conscious space; perhaps it is Consciousness. It is everywhere: it is outside of us, but also within us.
If you close your eyes for a few minutes, breathing deeply, and embrace the REVERBERATION of the thought-feeling that Life is One, and that each of us, along with every living being, we all are Life in countless, unique and diverse forms, and if you surrender for a while to this vibrant sensation, with some practice, it may turn into an expanded, powerful yet gentle inner perception… a particular state of consciousness, woven with Silence and Wonder. Perhaps this is the Mysterious Feminine, or Mystery-Female described by Laozi, and this is one possible experience of it.

Another term to evoke this REVERBERATION is RESONANCE: it’s a special kind of harmony, almost in a musical sense. For example, the Tibetan singing bowl comes to mind, made of seven metals, which when gently stroked or struck with a wooden mallet, produces wonderful harmonic sounds that are said to even have healing powers.
Its rounded bowl shape closely resembles the idea we inherited from the High Middle Ages about the shape of the sacred Grail. The Tibetan singing bowl vibrates because it is hollow; if it were made of solid metal, it would emit a dull, harsh metallic sound—it wouldn’t sing like you can hear here: 

In the same way, I like to think that my six Grails are vibrating…

Not long ago, I discovered the theory of SPANDA, a Sanskrit term that means, precisely, vibration. It is part of the mystical discoveries of Kashmir Shaivism (9th century CE). It refers to the fact that energy, or Shakti, when emanated from Shiva, the One Consciousness, vibrates and pulses as it moves toward the world to give rise to the countless forms of creation. Even modern physics has noticed this wavy and throbbing energy, but only in very rare cases does it attribute actual Consciousness to it, as it rather considers it merely some form of electromagnetic matter.
For the ancient Shaivites of Kashmir, all of Creation is nothing but Vibrant Consciousness—everything, without exception, is Consciousness (and just this thought, if we let it resonate within us, opens up boundless, dizzying spaces, far beyond any strange world encountered by spaceship Enterprise!).

The Female-Mystery within each of us could therefore be the Threshold, the luminous and intangible interface between our listening and what we are hearing, staying within the musical metaphor. If we are capable of this listening, of this totalizing perception, the separation between us and the object of our perception vanishes. It is as if we ourselves discovered that we ARE that nameless abyss from which ALL  is ceaselessly on the verge of existing. We ARE the Source.

In the Christian tradition, the equivalent archetype of the sacred and mysterious feminine, considered as a state of consciousness free from worldly principles and in deep inner listening, is the figure of Mary, she who holds Silence within, a Silence made of deep meditation and profound openness to Divine inspiration. The Silence that allows a continuous Annunciation from the Source of Being (or the incessant vibrating emanation of Shakti from the Consciousness of Shiva). Myriam is precisely the figure that inspired my series of collages following this one on the Grail, as I mentioned earlier.

Originally, it depicted a cow with its calf. (The term ‘mystery’ (xuán 玄) in the Mystery-Female pair apparently represents a thread dyed black, to indicate something dark, elusive and intangible).

Within the Sacred Feminine, as also stated by the ancient master Zhang Boduan, there is indeed the twofold ability to create and to receive, which are two actions we can perform in the world.

Only an Empty and Quiet Heart, like Water that has been purified, can become a vessel or Grail. This, among other things, is the immediate purpose of meditation.

It must be specified that in order to remain comfortably and enduringly in the ’empty’ space of not knowing, which this mysterious mental state of total receptivity presumes, one must also have immeasurable courage in the heart. It has nothing to do with passivity! It is a state without effort, but it is POWERFUL, Laozi tells us. And this is the Sacred Masculine: the Light Warrior who does not move an inch, no matter the cost.

Jean Klein, the French non-dual author and teacher, also describes this state of attentive openness: he calls it ‘unconditional listening’ (écoute inconditionnée). For him, too, it is a ‘Threshold.’

‘It is important to experience this non-direction, this not-knowing, this waiting without waiting for anything. This acts on our cells, on our psychosomatic body, bringing them expansion and harmony. All that remains is your undirected attention. Living in the absolute absence of yourself. THIS IS THE THRESHOLD. You are in complete openness, open to nothing in particular, free of all ideas, free of all hope. And when you are completely transparent, open to openness, you are taken by Truth, by Grace. That’s for sure. Jean Klein

I’d love to know if you also visit this Threshold…