What is grace?
A working definition:
Grace is divine principle in form. Moments of grace are transitionary moments (big or little) in which this divine principle is realized, thereby bringing a given whole into a deeper state of coherence.1
When we perceive something or someone as moving with grace2 - gracefully - we are perceiving a manifestation of that divine principle, an embodied example of the deeper coherent pattern coming through. This is where the good, the true, and the beautiful intersect.
To the extent that I can do anything to bring about moments of grace, it’s in the conditions (internal or external) I create.
Consider the process of falling asleep. You don’t make falling asleep happen. You create the conditions in which falling asleep happens. You turn off the lights, you get under the covers, you close your eyes. The actual falling asleep part just happens.
Interestingly, it’s nights when I find myself trying to fall asleep, grasping for sleep, that sleep is elusive.
Grace, like sleep, is more of a falling back into rather than a grasping upward for. And perhaps, falling asleep is itself a moment of grace.
What are the conditions that foster grace?
Here’s one possibility:
A willingness to be revealed. A thorough, embodied receptivity to meet what is, come what may. And an applied sincerity coupled with that willingness. The Greek word aletheia comes to mind here - a deep disclosure of truth or ‘unconcealedness’. As John Vervaeke puts it, “A fittedness within the mystery of being.”3
Within aletheia, a certain attentional quietness emerges, and along with it, perhaps, the possibility of grace.
Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb
softens from the pain of labor
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart,
it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones,
like trusted midwives are saying,
welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace.
-Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi
Dear Reader,
I hope it’s felt that the questions I pose above are walking questions - they have no business being answered in the propositional realm. Grace ultimately lives in the world of the spontaneous unsayable. In fact, if I ever come to any final answers here, I’ve likely lost the plot.
For now,
Jason
On inclusive attention: The better we come to know the relatedness of the parts of the whole (while honoring the individuation of those parts), the more we move toward health, grace, and coherence.
On superfluous effort: When there is an absence of that which is superfluous, intention and action are one. In this not-twoness, when only that which is essential is present, grace comes through.
In this lecture, philosopher and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke describes and expands on Heidegger’s notion of aletheia, and how it contrasts from conventional conceptions of truth.
I was thinking about a theme for a practice group I’m leading later today, and grace happened. Thank you.