[W]hoever speaks of God in any likeness, speaks impurely of him. But to speak of God with nothing is to speak of him correctly. When soul is unified and there enters into self-abnegation, then she finds God as in Nothing. It appeared to man as in a dream (it was a waking dream) that he became pregnant with Nothing like a woman with child, and in that Nothing, God was born; he was the fruit of Nothing. God was born in the Nothing...

Ironically, I only came to know the God of Nothing-ness through the practice of meditation, as Buddhists, such as Alice Haspray, taught it to me in Shambhala Training. Indeed, it was the students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Merton's friend, who showed me the meaning of Jeremiah's invocation, to be still and listen and know God.

Meditation has largely enabled me to untangle my own spiritual confusion. However, there are many others who are locked on the horns of a dilemma like mine. How can I help them, as I continue to unravel my own Gordian knot? This question is the inspiration for Innerspace Explorer. The mission of Innerspace Explorer is to provide a forum via the Internet for inquisitive people everywhere to explore the fathomless depth of mind. It investigates the contemplative practices of the great religious traditions, with a view to discovering the common ground they share. Innerspace Explorer respects the integrity and wisdom of each tradition and searches for the thread of human experience (the quest for meaning and sanity) that forms the ground of all. In other words, Innerspace Explorer doesn't attempt to fabricate a religious Esperanto from the verbiage of Zen and Zoroastrianism. It presents experience that transcends language in the idioms of specific religious forms.

Bob Dylan once wrote: "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours". How do we invite our neighbors into our dreams? How would a Buddhist articulate his understanding of the kingdom of Shambhala to a Christian? How would a Christian explain her vision of the kingdom of heaven to a Buddhist? If we let Buddhists be Buddhist and Christians Christian; if we really open our ears to listen to the nuances of each other's religious vernacular; then we might come to understand that, despite the snares of poor translation, we do, in fact, speak a common language. What Thomas Merton experienced as he wandered near his hermitage at Gethsemani is that which Trungpa Rinpoche experienced inside the walls of the monastery of Surmang: silence, pure, naked silence, and space, vast, open space. One called the occurrence grace, the other, shunyata. I'd like to think that the space of Innerspace Explorer is expansive enough to accommodate all the subtle shades of grace and shunyata. I'd like to invite you to explore inner space with the artists and writers whose work will grace these pages in the months and years to come. Welcome!



Edward Michalik, Publisher
Innerspace Explorer