Delight in Stillness

Transcript

Welcome beautiful thinkers, thank you for thinking beautifully.

In this day and age it’s so easy to distract ourselves to keep moving all the time. To distract ourselves.

To turn on documentary at the same time listen to music and every few minutes also check our phones for Instagram notifications.

What would happen if we turned off the music, television and telephone for just a few minutes?

So many of us are literally afraid to be still for 5 minutes, so estranged from our thoughts that we cannot bring ourselves to look at them. In fact when we do look at them they seem alien, foreign and they alarm us.

Of course when you continue this practice you start to learn that those kinds of thoughts are just a surface level element of ourselves. Of course they are part of ourselves but there’s something that goes much deeper. When we practice outer stillness, sooner or later we start to find a certain inner stillness.

Some people have famously compared this to the tides of waves of an ocean, constantly moving turbulently. A whirling rush of willies and running water – underneath waiting patiently is the ocean floor. And that ocean floor is always with us. It might be a little hard to believe sometimes but it’s true.

And if you do attempt this, to move your attention within yourself and remain still physically you might start recoiling at your own thoughts. It’s important to remember that you are always free to be afraid there’s nothing wrong with being lonely, afraid, desperate, sad, anxious. You are free to feel those things.

And because of that you need never worry about feeling those things. Free to worry and you need never worry. The voice soothing soft voice of the inner mother is there to comfort you if you have the ears to listen.

Let me ask you this, have you ever met somebody (maybe someone who works in customer service) and they just seem unflappable, like whatever angry frustrated emotion you throw at this guy he will still remain just the same. And he’s not just disconnecting from the emotions that are around him, he is fully connected to them. Feeling them fully but not being overwhelmed or too wrapped up in them.

So he maintains this healthy distance and is still able to remain himself completely even though he is helping others weather the turbulent tides of their own emotions by practicing stillness, outer stillness leading to inner stillness. You think it would be possible to have this kind of relaxed engagement with the world and with your own emotions with your own thoughts.

Yes, it is possible. Seek stillness, physical stillness and lead yourself to inner stillness. As our great teacher Lao-Tzu once wrote “Stillness with movement is the Tao.”

Thank you so much for listening, thank you for staying grateful and thank you for thinking beautifully. Talk to you soon.