Echo Amphitheater, in Northern New Mexico, is a spiritual shrine for me because it embodies perfectly the practice of Insight Meditation. It is a large concave bowl carved out of the sandstone cliff and accessed by a path that leads right up to its base. As you face the amphitheater, you find a small hill and a thicket of densely-packed pinyon pine and juniper trees spreading out behind you. Then further behind those is the state highway. The fascinating thing is that if you position yourself just right between the trees and the concave cliff, you can hear echoes of the cars that pass on the highway resounding off the sandstone wall, but you can’t hear their original sounds. I've experienced the same phenomenon at night with coyote calls whenever I've stayed in the campground adjacent to the amphitheater. When the coyotes are placed just right, the calls take on a magical quality as they echo off the amphitheater, especially when I can’t hear the original sounds because of the thicket of trees.
Similarly, in Buddhist Insight Meditation, our thoughts appear like echoes coming from a great distance, with no original Sounds ever present! In the context of Christian Mysticism, all thoughts and emotions - insofar as they have a desire for love and fulfillment at their root - are echoes of a Divine Love-Word that never had a chance to be spoken, on account of the fact that God - the Great Mystery - eternally lost himself in love before he even had a chance to speak the Word! And yet - and HERE is the mystery - those echoes of divine love continue appearing ANYWAY! How amazing!
Photos: Echo Amphitheater and surrounding cliffs, near Abiquiu, NM; May 22 and 25, 2015
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