Tag: stillness & silence

There is an inner desert into which each one of us must one day go

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There is an inner desert into which each one of us must one day go, an empty space for solitude and testing. Do not expect to hear God’s word immediately upon arrival. But God will speak through the silence.

– attributed to Desert Fathers and Mothers

I assume this may be the desert of what we are. It’s a kind of desert since it’s not a who but a what. It’s a kind of desert since it’s capacity for all our experience. It’s a kind of desert since it’s what all our experiences is made up of.

It’s silent because it’s capacity for sound. It’s still because it’s capacity for movement. It’s the silence and stillness all sound and movement is made up of. It’s silent and still because it stays the same even as it takes the form of sound and movement.

It’s our nature. It’s what we are, whether we notice or not.

We can go one step further and say it’s also the nature of existence or the divine or God.

And as we rest in this noticing, and as it, it can profoundly shift our identity and be profoundly transforming for our perception, life, and human self and psyche.

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Adyashanti: When you welcome all of experience into your awareness, a certain type of stillness starts to emerge organically

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When you welcome all of experience into your awareness, a certain type of stillness starts to emerge organically.

– Adyashanti

All of my experiences already happen within and as what I am. So when I welcome it all more consciously, I am more aligned with what I already am.

That, in itself, brings in stillness. It’s the end of my struggle, at least for now.

And equally important, what I am is stillness. It’s the stillness all activity happens within and as. So when I am more aligned with this, I more easily notice the inherent stillness of what I am.

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Aspects of what we are

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There are many ways to talk about the aspects of what we are.

Most of us would say, if asked, that we are this human self. And that’s not wrong.

And yet, in our first-person experience, we may find that we more fundamentally are something else. When we look, we may find we are capacity for our world, and what all of our experiences – of this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.

SENSE FIELDS

To us, all our experiences – of this human self, the wider world, and anything – happens within and as our sense fields. It happens within sensations, sight, sound, smell, taste, movement, and thought, and any other sense we wish to include.

Here, there is no inherent inner or outer. It’s all part of the same field. And it’s all happening within and as what we are.

Any boundaries, labels, and stories come from an overlay from our thought field. It’s created by mental images and words. It’s not inherent in the world or what these images and words refer to.

CAPACITY

Even more fundamentally, our nature is capacity for all of this. Capacity for any and all content of experience.

We are what allows all our experiences, and takes the form of all our experiences.

Our nature is capacity, or void, or emptiness, or no-thing, taking the form of the whole world as it appears to us.

ONENESS

When we explore the sense fields, and notice it’s a seamless whole, we also find oneness. The sense fields are a seamless whole, and happen within and and as what we are.

Siimilarly, when we find ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us, the world is a seamless whole. It’s one.

Our nature is this oneness inherent in our experience. It’s always here, although it may be temporarily covered up if the mind takes it’s mental overlay – with its boundaries, labels, and stories – as inherent in what it refers to.

LOVE

Another word for oneness is love. When oneness notices itself, it’s naturally expressed as love.

It’s a love independent of any feelings or states. It’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right.

And it can be, and often is, covered up by the mind holding (stressful) thoughts as true. It’s always here. It can be covered up. And the covering up is, in reality, love covering itself up. It’s part of the creativity and play of love.

STILLNESS & SILENCE

The world, to us, happens within and as what we are. It’s nature is it’s nature, independent of what temporary form it takes.

It doesn’t really move, even if it takes the form of movement. It’s silent even if it takes the form of all sorts of sound.

It’s inherently still and silent.

ALL THE MANY FORMS: HUMAN SELF & THE WIDER WORLD

All of this, to us, takes the form of all our experiences. All our inner experiences that are not on display to others. And all experiences of the wider world.

It takes the form of all our sensations, sights, sounds, smells, taste, emotions, thoughts, states, and so on. It takes the form of all beings as they appear to us. It takes the form of the universe as it appears to us, in bits and pieces.

ALL THE MANY FORMS: THE PLAY

All these many forms happen within and as what we are, and are expressions of the creativity and play of what we are.

That includes the mind not noticing what’s going on and temporarily taking itself to be a separate self, and something specific within itself.

And it includes the mind catching on to what’s going on, and finding itself as what’s described here, and perhaps far more.

HOW TO EXPLORE THIS

How can we explore this?

As I often mention, for me, the most direct and effective approaches are Headless experiments and the Big Mind process. These can give us a taste, and pointers for how to keep noticing and exploring it.

Investigating the sense fields, and how they combine to create our experinece, is another way that help undo many of the mental dynamics covering up the noticing of what we are. The Living Inquiries is a modern version of traditional Buddhist inquiry, and an effective way to explore this.

We can also do other forms of inquiry, like The Work of Byron Katie.

And there are innumerable practices that supports this noticing and living from this noticing, including heart-centered approaches (ho’oponopono, tonglen, prayer), body-centered approaches (yoga, tai chi, chigong, Breema), energy-sentered approaches (Vortex Healing), and so on.

As with any exploration, it’s helpful to have a certain orientation (receptivity, curiosity, sincerity, playfulness, recognizing we are our own final authority), a rough map, and a guide or guides who is familiar with the terrain.

Photo: The beach in Santa Marta by Alejandra Lobelo

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Where does our inherent stillness and silence come from?

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Where does our inherent stillness and silence come from? It’s perhaps a silly question since it’s inherent in what we are, and yet it is a valid question. We are naturally curious, so it’s a natural question, and it can show us something we hadn’t seen before.

Ultimately, what we are is capacity for our world and all our experiences, and all of it is happening within and as what we are.

The oneness is a feature of this, as is the love that comes from oneness. Our field of experience includes anything “inside” and “outside” in a conventional sense, and it’s a seamless whole. Any boundaries come from our overlay of mental images and words. It’s one, it happens within and as us, and we are that oneness.

So where does the stillness & silence come from? It may be because what we are takes all the forms of our experiences. All our experiences have the same nature. In that sense, nothing is really happening while everything is also happening. It’s still while taking on all the forms of our experience.

When we notice this stillness and silence inherent in what we are, we can also more easily notice that any of our experiences are the same. Even our contractions have the same nature, they too are stillness and silence. And when we notice and rest with it, it allows the contraction to notice itself as stillness and silence, find deep rest in that, and unravel. (Especially if we also notice that the scary story within and creating the contraction is not aligned with reality.)

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Imperfect practice and noticing what’s already here

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Maezumi Roshi, and I am sure many others, pointed out that we can only do approximate shikantaza. We can only imperfectly do the basic meditation of noticing and allowing.

It’s that way with many practices. We can only do it imperfectly.

And there is a great blessing in this, in more than one way. It keeps us humble, and it invites us to find the nature of what we already are.

BASIC MEDITATION

Basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s already here in our experience. As a human being, this is something we can do only imperfectly.

Why can we only do it imperfectly?

The simple answer is that it’s not humanly possible. We’ll get distracted. We cannot intentionally notice everything happening in our field of experience. We cannot fully allow it all, or do so all the time. And we are always one step behind what’s already happened.

And the more real answer is that the premise is already out of alignment with reality. There is ultimately nobody doing it, and basic meditation cannot be “done” or manifactured.

So what’s the solution?

We can practice more. We can get more familiar with and fine-tune our practice. That is part of the answer and very valuable.

And the more real solution is to notice that basic meditation is already happening. What’s here in my experience is already allowed – by life, space, mind. I can notice it’s already allowed. And I can notice that what’s here in experience is already, in a sense, already noticed. It’s already happening within and as this (ordinary) awakeness.

Both of these perspectives have validity. In a sense, there is a human being here engaging in this practice, and perhaps fine-tuning it through experience. And ultimately, there is nobody doing it and the practice cannot be successfully done or manifactured. All we can do is notice it’s already happening. It’s our natural state.

The nature of what we are is to allow and notice what’s here, and it happens no matter what this human self is doing or distracted by.

When we do basic meditation, we mimic what our nature already does and is.

At first, it may seem unfortunate that we can only do approximate basic meditation. And, in reality, it’s a blessing since the only real solution is to notice the nature of what we already are.

FINDING WHAT WE ARE

Finding more directly what we are, through pointers and noticing, is similar. As someone doing it, we can only do it imperfectly.

When I find myself as capacity for the world, or oneness, or stillness & silence, do I actually notice this? Or do I notice my mental representations of being capacity, or oneness, or stillness & silence? Or is there a combination?

Also, when I find myself as this, is there some part of my sense field that’s not included in my noticing, and that there is still some identification with?

In my case, there is likely a yes to all of these questions. There is some actual noticing. There is some noticing of the mental representations, and these are partly mistaken for what they refer to, and they are partly used as pointers to notice what they refer to. And there is sometimes a part of the sense field that is identified with, and especially some sensations and mental images in the area where the head is.

For these reasons, and because my attention is not always stable or fully on, this noticing is imperfect.

Of course, practice helps, especially when combined with honesty and sincerity.

And what really helps is to go beyond what’s done and manifactured.

Can I notice the capacity that’s already here, and that allows all this doing and noticing?

Can I notice the stillness & silence that’s inherent in this field of experience, independent of any noticing and doing?

THE GIFTS IN THE IMPERFECTION

As I mentioned, there are real gifts in this imperfect practice.

One is that it keeps us humble at a human level. I cannot really do any of these practices. I can only do it imperfectly, and – in a sense – fake it.

And the other is that the only real solution to this is to notice what’s already here. To notice the allowing & noticing inherent in this field of experience. And notice the capacity, stillness & silence, and oneness inherent in this field of experience.

At first, we may assume that the practice is to do it and manufacture something. And after a while, we may find that it’s noticing what’s already here.

As so much, it seems obvious. And yet, for a mind used to complexify things, it’s so simple and natural that it’s easy to overlook.

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Stillness & silence in two forms, and how finding ourselves as it can be profoundly healing

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How do we relate to stillness and silence? Is it scary or comforting? Do we see it as other, or can we find it as what we are?

It’s not uncommon in our culture to have some fear of stillness and silence. We are used to distractions.

What we fear is something else. It’s not having distractions and having to meet what’s unprocessed and unresolved in ourselves.

In reality, when we find and sink into the stillness and silence we are, it’s the most peaceful of all. And at a human level, it allows our whole system to relax in an amazing way.

These are two different stillnesses and silences.

THE STILLNESS & SILENCE THAT BRINGS US FACE-TO-FACE WITH UNHEALED PARTS OF OURSELVES

One is stillness and silence that brings us face-to-face with what’s unprocessed in ourselves. This is the stillness and silence of our environment, and the stillness and silence that happens when we are not caught up in our thoughts.

What we fear here is meeting these parts of ourselves. And really, we are fearing what our unexamined thoughts tell us about it.

THE STILLNESS & SILENCE THAT’S PART OF WHAT WE ARE

The other is the stillness and silence inherent in what we are. When we notice and sink into this, we find a peace beyond all understanding. It’s literally beyond understanding since it has nothing to do with thoughts, and thoughts can only very imperfectly reflect it.

Here, the contractions and scary parts of ourselves can also find a deep peace.

We find ourselves as the stillness and silence inherent in what we are. We notice a contraction and unhealed part of us, and the physical sensation component of it. We notice this contraction as also stillness and silence. We rest in this. We invite the contractions to find itself as the stillness and silence it inherently is. We allow it to sink it into it and find deep peace. We allow it it’s own process and timing.

HOW THEY ARE CONNECTED

These are two different types of stillnesses and silences. One is the absence of distractions and brings us face-to-face with what in ourselves we sometimes rather would not meet.

The other is inherent in what we are, and is always here. It’s what takes the form of all our experiences, and it’s inherent in all our experiences.

In a very real way, the second is the answer to the first.

In the first form of stillness and silence, we see the stillness and silence as other. Possibly even as something threatening.

In the second form of stillness and silence, we find it as what we are. And here, all the parts of us living in unrest can find deep rest, peace, and even healing.

MY OWN STORY

After the initial awakening shift in my teens, I became familiar with the stillness and silence inherent in what I am. That was a part of the reason why I loved silent meditation and prayer, and would sometimes do it for hours a day. It was also part of why loved the silence of nature.

About ten years ago, and in a moment of careless bravery, I asked life (the divine, God) to “show me what’s left in me”. (What’s still unprocessed.) Shortly after this, a huge amount of primal fear came up in me. A visceral and profound survival anxiety that prevented me from sleeping and functioning, and felt overwheling, disorienting, and brought me to my knees.

This dread and terror lasted at a strong level for about nine months, and at a slightly lower level for years.

During this time, I got scared of going inside since what met me there was this dread and terror. I would still do inquiry and heart-centered practices like ho’oponopono and tonglen, but silent meditation was difficult for me. What once was my refuge and joy was now my terror.

And now, it seems I am refinding this stillness and silence, much because of my friend Amy and her group focusing on just this.

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Notice what seems the least like my nature

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I find that what I am, in my own experience, is capacity for the world as it appears to me, and what my sense fields – containing this human self and the wider world – happens within and as.

Is that it? Yes and no.

NOTICING MY MENTAL IMAGES

I find that I sometimes notice directly, and sometimes also mistake my mental images of what I am for what they refer to. It’s often a mix.

When I look for them, I can notice these images, and that helps recognize them as images and use them as pointers for what’s already here outside of any mental fabrications.

I can also investigate these images, and my relationship with them, more in detail. For instance, through the Living Inquiries. This helps me recognize the images more easily in the moment, and it also helps release some of the charge out of them.

INVITING CONTRACTIONS TO FIND WHAT THEY ARE

When I notice what I am – as capacity for my world, stillness & silence, and so on – I can also look for what in my field seems the least like this.

What in my experience, here and now, am I not recognizing as having the same nature as I have?

Usually, these are contractions – made up of mental, physical, and energetic contractions. They are parts of me still operating from separation consciousenss and from unexamined beliefs and unloved fear.

They are bubbles of separation consciousness.

When I first find myself as capacity and stillness & silence, I can notice these as having the same nature. I can rest in this noticing, and invite these contractions to find themselves as stillness & silence. This allows them to rest in it, and realign and unravel.

A VERY NATURAL PROCESS

When I do this, and especially the stillness & silence part of it, I notice it’s a very natural process. It’s so simple and natural it’s even a bit difficult to write about.

I also see that there is no differentiation between healing, awakening, and embodiment here. All three are present in this process.

Inviting contractions to find themselves as stillness & silence is healing in that it allows emotional issues to heal.

It strengthens the habit of finding my own nature and noticing what’s in my experience as having the same nature.

And it supports living from noticing what I am. It supports embodiment since these contractions inevitably color (distort) my perception and life, and when they are triggered, it’s easy for me to temporarily get caught up in them and perceive and live from separation consciousness.

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Tracing back to find what’s unmanufactured

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When I explore what I am, or some aspect of it, I often trace it back to what’s unmanufactured.

More precisely, I notice concepts and mental representations of it, and whether I mistake those for what they point to. And then use them as pointers to what they refer to.

For instance, when I woke up this morning, I noticed a contraction in me, and wanted to explore it from stillness and silence.

So I found myself as stillness and silence and noticed that some elements of it felt manufactured. It was the idea of stillness and silence. It was a sensation and some mental images of stillness and silence. And there were some sensations and mental images creating a slight sense of someone doing it, someone looking for and finding stillness and silence.

So I metaphorically took a step back. What’s the actual stillness and silence that allows all of this? That takes the form of all of this? What’s the stillness and silence already here, and that doesn’t need to be manufactured?

I often do the same when I find myself as capacity, or oneness. And when I just explore what I am without these pointers as a guide.

I find myself as capacity for this field of experience. I notice some sensations and mental images that represent – and give a sense of – capacity, and some that give a sense of someone doing the looking or observing. And see if there is a more actual capacity inherent in it all, that doesn’t need to and can’t be manufactured, already allowing it all – including these senses of capacity, doer, observer, and so on, these sensation-mental image combinations.

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From noticing oneness comes love, and from noticing capacity comes stillness & silence

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We could say that love comes out of finding ourselves as oneness, and silence and stillness come out of finding ourselves as capacity.

– from a previous post

This is where words fall short, but I thought I would say a few more words about it here.

WHAT WE ARE IN OUR FIRST-PERSON EXPERIENCE

To others, and in many practical settings, we are this human self in the world. And yet, when we look more closely in our own first-person experience, we may find that – to ourselves – we are more fundamentally something else.

In our first-person experience, we may find ourselves as capacity for the world as it appears to us.

We are capacity for our own field of experience. We are capacity for this human self, the wider world, and anything else that happens in this field of experience.

To us, this human self and the wider world happens within our field of experience. We are capacity for it all. And it’s all happening within and as what we are.

ONENESS & LOVE

We notice that this human self, the wider world, and any other experience happens within our field of experience. We find ourselves as capacity for it all.

Here, we may also notice that this field of experience is a seamless whole. It’s one.

Any sense of boundaries comes from our mental overlay of mental images and words.

And when we notice this, we may find that another side of oneness is love.

It’s the love of the left hand removing a splinter from the right. It’s a love that comes from perception, from oneness, and is not dependent on feelings or states.

Living from this love is another matter. Our human self may still have hangups, beliefs, emotional issues, and so on that color our perception and life, and sometimes kick in more strongly and temporarily prevents us from living more intentionally from oneness and love. This is where healing comes in.

CAPACITY & STILLNESS / SILENCE

Finding ourselves as capacity is finding ourselves as, literally, nothing.

We are capacity for anything in our field of experience, and the capacity itself is nothing.

When we notice this capacity, it comes with a deep silence and stillness.

And resting in and as this can be immensely transforming for us.

I find myself as capacity. I find myself as this silence and stillness. I notice that a contraction in me is also this silence and stillness. Rest with and as it. And may notice that the contraction, in a sense, finds itself as this silence and stillness and tranforms and unravels within it.

ONENESS -> LOVE, CAPACITY -> SILENCE & STILLNESS

This is all in the borderland of being too intellectual, but there is also something real here.

When I find myself as capacity for the world, I also find that the world is one. My field of experience is one, and that oneness happens within and as what I am. Here, I also find it’s love. Oneness, when it’s noticed and lived from, is love. A love not dependent on feelings or states.

When I find myself as capacity, and notice and rest with this noticing, I find myself as silence and stillness.

From noticing oneness comes love, and from noticing capacity comes stillness & silence.

ESSENCE VS SPECIFICS

At least, that’s how it appears to me now, and it’s important to differentiate the essence from the details.

The essence of this is that, in our own first-person experience, we may more fundamentally be something else than our human self, and living from that noticing can be profoundly transforming for our perception, life in the world, and for our human self.

What many report is finding themselves as…. capacity for the world, what all content of experience happens within and as, oneness, love, or whatever other aspects people notice, and using whatever labels they find helpful and may be familiar with from their culture and tradition.

The specifics about how love and stillness & silence fit into all of this may be interesting and have some practical use. For instance, in my case, I find it easier to first find myself as capacity, and then notice the stillness & silence, at least for now. And it’s less important in the big picture.

Tomorrow, or next year, or in ten years, I may write about the specifics in a different way. For instance, I can find this stillness inherent in what I am without first noticing myself as capacity. This stillness in inherent in consciousness, independent of what forms this consciousness takes.

And others who explore this will also find and report slightly different things.

After all, when we create maps in this way, we may not be completely clear about the terrain, we notice different things as we get more familiar with it, we emphasize different aspects of the terrain, we may be influenced by other maps, and we use a language we are familiar with.

And that’s part of our collective exploration of what we are. The essence of what people report seems to be mostly universal, and what we each discover, emphasize, and how we talk about it may be a bit different. It all adds to the richness of our collective exploration.

EXPLORING THIS FOR OURSELVES

If we don’t notice this for ourselves, all of this can sound very abstract and even philosophical or a fantasy.

Fortunately, we can notice and explore this for ourselves, and it doesn’t even have to take that much time or be too difficult.

We can use the Headless experiments to find ourselves as capacity for the world.

The Big Mind process can help us find ourselves as all the different aspects of what we are, how they relate to each other, how we relate to all of them (what we already are), and so on.

We can use basic meditation to notice and allow our experiences, and perhaps especially our contractions, and notice it’s already allowed (by life, mind) and it’s already noticed (in the sense that it happens within and as the ordinary awakeness that’s here). This helps us find ourselves as the capacity for it all we already are.

There are also other very helpful approaches. For instance, we can explore our sense fields through traditional Buddhist inquiry or modern variations on this like the Living Inquiries.

And in each of these cases, it helps to be guided by someone familiar with the terrain, familiar with and skilled in guiding others, and someone we trust and resonate with to a certain extent.

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Stillness & silence as part of what we are

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One aspect of what we are is stillness & silence.

Over the last few years, I have tended to focus on the oneness aspect of what I am, and finding myself as capacity for it all.

Before then, and perhaps especially in the years following the initial awakening shift, I did pay much more attention to the stillness & silence side of it, and somehow that got “lost” for a while.

That’s OK, and it may be time to intentionally notice it more again.

STILLNESS & SILENCE

In a sense, oneness and capacity are the two ends of the polarity of what we are. And somewhere in the zone inbetween is the silence and stillness of what we are.

We are capacity for that silence and tillness, and that silence and stillness come out of and are aspects of finding ourselves as capacity for our field of experience.

We could say that love comes out of finding ourselves as oneness, and silence and stillness come out of finding ourselves as capacity.

THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF & STILLNESS & SILENCE

There is also a practical side to finding ourselves as silence and stillness, as my friend Amy H. reminded me of.

When a contraction comes up, and I notice there is something out of alignment with oneness in how I relate to it and how it operates in me and my life, I can….

Find myself as capacity for the world. (This helps me get into it.) Find myself as stillness and silence. Notice the contraction as stillness and silence.

And rest here for a while.

In a sense, and this is one place where words fall short, this reminds the contraction of what it is. It helps the contraction find itself as this silence and stillness. And that helps it align more consciously with oneness. It helps it rest and unravel and find some peace.

A MISSING PIECE

For me, this has been a missing piece lately.

I have met these contractions in different ways… befriending, dialog, listening, finding love for, notice as part of oneness, notice their true nature is capacity, and so on.

And one missing piece has been this silence and stillness.

When I find myself as it, and the contraction as it, something different does happen. It is, as Amy calls it, a dissolver.

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