Edward’s Diary Entry 153: What is the stillness within?

In the last diary entry, I mentioned a stillness within… What is this?

Imagine you are sitting, crosslegged, with your left heel firmly placed against the muladhara. The left leg is tucked in nicely; the right leg still protests after a year and 3 months of crosslegged sitting. We Europeans are not used to this and it takes quite a while to re-adapt the body, even if you go to yoga classes 2 or 3 times a week to get more flexible. First you use a cushion under one leg, and as it gets relaxed and more flexible the leg gets lower and lower until it lies flat on the floor. The muscles and tendons cry out, and you have to keep insisting – first 15 to 20 minutes, then add another exercise and go for more. At present I can normally sit for 75 minutes in one session without too much discomfort. Sometimes, the right leg has to be brought up or stretched, but only when I finally make a decision to do this, not just because it hurts. Often times, the pain will diminish or go away completely if relaxation can be managed properly.

So we are firmly rooted on the ground. The physical binds us, letting us know we are mortal and subject to pain and stiffness. It tells us we are basically earth and will return to earth in the form of dust and ashes. For all our rootedness, however, there is a fountain of lightness within, when we place our attention on the breath as it comes in and goes out. Palms are facing upward on our thighs, and the breath enters the higher lobes of the lungs and then gets pushed out again. Such a simple thing is really quite complicated, as perhaps a dull leg pain enters the field of awareness, but at the same time awareness is successively on the in-breath and on the out-breath, one can feels one’s palms, sometimes with quite a strong sensation, which together with a sensation around the forehead, seems to form a triangular field of force. At the same time, one single thought is being used on the in-breath, and another single thought is being mentally reproduced on the out-breath. This goes on for around 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, throughout this process, our awareness is “attacked” at times by evocations from memory, picturings from things seen and heard, or thoughts referring to these past situations; or by the fancies of imagination, wherein we picture a future situation, or conjure up a thought about this, that or whatever. Often, these things have to do with something we plan to do immediately, or with the practise itself, or even with so-called “higher things”, but really there is no higher or lower here – it is all the incessant attempt of the mind to keep moving and active, and keep us bound to it, as the body does. Imaginings are occasional, however, and are simply noted and witnessed. When renewed awareness is placed on the breath, or on the point between the eyebrows with our eyes closed, they mostly dissipate and fall into unimportance. Also occasionally entering awareness is an itch here or there, a hair being moved by the breeze from a window, and other little tricks from the body to try and distract us from our purpose. We ignore these mostly, even if a fly buzzes around our face or sits on our naked leg, which happened to me one day, and I had to laugh.

Then, after the repetition of the 2 thoughts, there is a dwell phase and a listening and doing-nothing phase. And it is here, normally, in this phase, where because of: 1) the stationery bodily position, 2) the awareness of breathing, 3) the 10-min. repetition of a single thought, now finished, and 4) the unwavering focus of the closed eyes between the eyebrows, we come to a point where the sensation of our awareness, of our “I”, is actually floating above the former movement of the mind and seems to be ensconced in a dome-like structure, like the ceiling of a cave, where there is peace, calm, silence, tranquillity and not a little faint joy, sometimes tinged with a bluish or purplish colour, where “all is calm… all is bright”, but there is not even a trace of the music of Silent Night – just the sensation of stillness, where we dwell above the ragings of the mind. This is the stillness within, and its effects give our day a much more joyous experience.

Edward's Diary 152: Ashes...

This was supposed to be a video, but I found out I didn't have the necessary tools to produce a video easily, so for the time being I can't do videos. But here's the script:

1. Inside a little urn lie the ashes of yesterday… There are tiny chunks in the dust, chunks of many shapes and hues. You see, cremation reduces the body to its basic 12 percent of the “Earth” element. The rest – they say – is water, air, space and a little fire, that’s all.

2. Those ashes are yesterday’s thoughts, feelings and sensations. Erstwhile unsolvable problems, incessant dreams, hopes unfulfilled, expectations newly born; desires, passions; the prose and poetry of human yearnings and longings.

3. All those things today are all still fully fleshed, but they will soon disappear as well. And that’s as it should be. Because the “cremation” I’m talking about is the application of “awareness”, pure and simple, with no identification with, or attachment to, the comings and goings of the mind. Body and mind will move along roads both marked and unmarked, always, but the stillness within sits watching, registering, yet not adhering to such movement.

4. And when the little urn of the cranium is kept quite still, and the ashes are not juggled about, the movements gradually die down and give one a modicum of peace and tranquillity… And there, firmly rooted in that space, there is room only for questioning… searching for light… for perseverance only.

Edward’s Diary Entry 151: Time-out!

Diary entries are few and far between recently, because of travelling, summer heat, family reasons, and more travelling, and relaxing as far as writing is concerned. Daily awareness exercises and activities continue, though. When in doubt, persevere, they say.

A reflection from daily activities: Physically, when we touch something or someone, we think we are experiencing that thing or person, but we are only ever experiencing what is inside us, what our sense organs perceive and create inside our minds. On the physical plane, we try to connect and maybe experience some kind of union when holding hands, in an embrace, or in sex. But this doesn’t last long.

By awareness of breathing, however, we can see how we are invisibly connected through air with the rest of humanity, the animal kingdom and plants – the plants and trees that are generating the oxygen we take in, and recycling the carbon dioxide we give off. This doesn’t last long either in our awareness, but in reality it is happening all the time, and we are simply unaware of it.

By awareness of our own consciousness, we are even more invisibly connected with the whole mind of the world, with individual bubbles of awareness in other human beings and that of the animals and the intelligence of Life itself. Those are the (first) three degrees of connectivity we have available. Maybe there are others that are higher. But they must be outside our organs of perception, and outside the mind, which is our normal psychological functioning. Remaining very quiet, with the body and mind still, there are tiny glimpses of something higher than this, but nothing real to report yet.