Some time back, I was invited to participate in an international health conference. Researchers, scientists, and clinicians from around the world gathered under a cordial spring sky to share their understanding and insights about health and the nature of healing. On the afternoon of the second day I attended a session by a distinguished professor from a large university who was reporting his findings on stress. He explained that his research involved separating mother vermet monkeys from their infants, then taking blook samples to determine the effects of the stress on their physiology. He first described how he would separate mother and child inside the same cage by a wire partition; in this way they could see and touch each other, and even nurse, but only through the metal. They were then placed in separate, adjoining cages; after a period of time, these were moved to opposite ends of the laboratory where the mother and child could still see each other, but not touch. This was followed, as you might guess, by moving the cages out of sight of each other, but still close enough so the mother could hear the cries of her terrified baby. Finally, they were completely isolated in different rooms - at which time, the professor noted, "the stress levels of both the mother and infant finally subsided and their behavior reflected a listlessness and profound lack of interest in everything, including food."

As his talk progressed, I found myself becoming more and more distraught. Something rose up in me and stuck in my throat; I felt compelled to join the throng that gathered after his talk. In the excited buzz of science -"blocked neurotransmitters," "delayed synapses," "peptide functions," "sympathomimetic agents" --I struggled to order my emotions and formulate a question. Finally, I introduced myself as a body-oriented psychotherapist and asked what his research had to do with actually working with people. He looked at me surprised, shrugged his shoulders, and replied he didn't know.

"Then why do you do this?" I ventured.

"A guy has to make a living," he laughed, but his eyes remained flat and expressionless.

At that moment I remember looking outside the meeting room and thinking that the brilliant blue sky was an enormous eye peering at us through a window.

Now, much later, looking over the parched, sere hills, I think that perhaps I didn't ask the right question of the professor, nor was he asking the right questions of his research. Most of us see through a glass darkly. Our observation points reflect only the fracture line of our own souls. Instead we might have inquired, "What is the evolutionary adaptation of the vervet's black chin, which is not found in his cousin the grivet?" Or: "Was it humor or scorn in the vervet's mind when he peed on me while I was napping in a hammock strung between a tamarind and a wild fig in southern Tanzania?" Or, better yet: "How is he so graceful? Why is he so beautiful?"

Our lives are a small stitch sewn on a vast circle of mystery. While we are forever mounting a campaign to order, know, grasp, and control, we are constantly reminded that with all our cunning, we still don't know a hoot, not really, about life. True, the pursuit of knowledge generates power, and yes, we have created tools that, if used humanely, provide a leveerage for helping others. But until we look inside our looking, until we become fully present, we will stray from that which is essential. We exist by the generosity of an abundant and mysterious force that constantly eludes our effforts to author it. Yet in the extravagant and intricate free fall we call our lives there is beauty that, if we allow it, will shape our spirit into something that is both wild and comforting.

What I am aiming toward is a future that doesn't lie in blood panels, but in what Einstein referred to as a "holy curiosity"-- a curiosity that is fulfilled without having to be constantly gratified with solutions and answers. Life is a worthy enough contradiction for us to simply delight and marvel at its vitality and unexpected loop-de-loops. If we are open and curious, the future will unfold naturally before us -- jolting us from our slumber -- here, now, in this moment. While we learn the names of things and document the patterns of meaning, the mystery -- unnamed, with many names -- is the vast power that feeds all of our pursuits. Like "muscae valitantes," those curlicue tracings that float in front of our eyes when we gaze into a white wall, the mystery, the great Tao, cannot be stalked, only experienced. Try to catch one in your vision and it drifts maddeningly out of the picture. Relax, let them be -- voila! -- they appear in their full-bloom strangeness. Relaxation and courage: two virtues vastly underrated for a full, wholehearted life.

What we actually have to offer one another is the simple but daring contribution of our genuine presence. Techniques and theories abound and we can larn half a dozen in an hour, but it is in the pulsing contact between living things that healing and beauty take place. Presence is being present -- a state impregnated with an open-ended curiosity, relaxation, power, and light that comes from seamlessly knitting together our mind, body, and spirit.

As far as I can tell -- and this is something that all my teachers have passed on to me -- it is only through practice that this unification can occur. "If you want to tame something," the fox advises the Little Prince, "sit with it every day at the same time."

A practice is not so much about achieving a goal, avoiding some- thing, improving yourself, or making your wishes come true, as about creating a positive environment, internally and externally, for the awakening process to take hold. A practice provides a path that we may walk on, fall from, climb back up on, and relate to life in a direct and dignified way. If we are sincere in our practice we will also wake up to the illusion of a somebody. The self-consciousness that accompanies thinking we are a somebody, or a something, is a major hindrance to being present. When we drop below this facade into our embodied experience it eventually informs us of the basic terror and satisfaction that we live with: necessary experiences to be familiar with if you're working with others.

I've had the great good fortune of teachers who have guided me in the disciplines of meditation and aikido. The advantage of meditation is that you don't need any props, just room enough to sit down -- a cornfield or a park bench will do. Aikido suits me because I also like to rough it up some: it offers me the opportunity to be vigourous and muscular while teaching me how to be in harmony with others and the environment. But walking can be a suitable practice, as can painting, flower arranging, or horsemanship. D.T. Suzuki, the Buddhist scholar, suggested that along with meditation one also take up a fine art and a martial art. Whereas "a guy has to make a living," he can also take time to listen to the mystery.

So here is a piece of the future: choose a practice with a heart and wake up. This is a way to live in harmony with the great mystery and to touch others.