Comfort in Simple Pleasures...

The simplicity of this piece comforts me,

...as does this contrast here of light, shadow and time...

The next door neighbor's dog came for an unexpected visit yesterday...
She brought unexpected comfort with her inquisitive loving eyes,
asking - are you going to let me in or what...

Reading... Peacefully abiding...

on snowy days like today...

Meditating on keeping the heart open...

and Love...

Simply Being...

with a snowy view today...

and my meditating monk... :)
Reminding me to Abide in and as Silence...
The script in the background says
The Path of the Heart...
(done by a fellow blogger)

Brokenhearted, yet peace abides...

Peace to all...

Simplicity

I have been cocooning for a couple of days, allowing myself to be drawn back into a silky, soft cocoon of Stillness once again – resting in Awareness.

What wants to arise?, was the question that arose last night while hanging in this cocoon of Stillness…

Thinking about the wonderful still water with the grass arising out of it from the Shadow Shot on last Sunday’s blog, there’s a sense that I haven’t been waiting for whatever needs to arise from the depths of Stillness, to arise. Instead I’ve been on automatic – pushing and plodding through life, wrestling and struggling, not paying attention to the inner voice of Stillness speaking.

And in all that push of outward movement there is a sense that I have lost touch with Simplicity and moved into complexity of the mind again, into thought contractions that ripple through my body.

So spending time cocooning has gotten me in touch with the simplicity of Being again – aware of Awareness - the alive, spacious Non-Dimensional Knowing Awareness that is the “ground” of everything. Simplicity, for me, is a profound felt sense of this Beingness - with a movement through life from that simple Stillness - paying attention to what arises, and expressing that – not the *thinking* of it, but the arising of it from a deeper place of Awareness.

And yet I am aware that I create so much complexity *about* everything, getting lost in the stories of a “me” living “my life.”

Scott Kiloby says that thoughts that arise create a “self-contraction” – the sense of a separate self. I have felt this, and noticed it more having spent more time in Stillness these past couple of days. I am aware that when a thought arises in the space of still Awareness, a contraction occurs in the body. And in that thought something called “I” seems to rise up out of this space of simple Awareness – out of that still water. I feel the thought draw what I know to be “me” outward, *away* from simplicity – away from Stillness, into a contraction of some kind. They – thoughts – arise *in* this lovely place of Stillness and yet *seem* to pull “me” *out of it,* although I know that “I” am not separate from this depth of Stillness, this cocoon of Stillness that holds everything that arises, that allows everything to arise *in* it. Everything is suspended here in this loving cradle.

And still, the question keeps coming: what wants to arise here…

Everything. Everything arises from here, spontaneously, from this clear, silent cocoon of Being – like a wave rising up out of the Ocean, and yet not separate from the Ocean. Everything arises up out of and passes *through* this space of Stillness, if we don’t latch onto it and believe that we are the contraction that is occurring. And maybe that’s the issue – not fixating on and identifying with the thoughts that rise up. But to see thought within the context of this Greater Reality of Primordial Stillness that we are, just coming and going. There is a deep peace in this – a profound simplicity.

Trusting in the simplicity of Life,
let Life come to you…
Resting in Simplicity,
all things will find you…

Heart Smiles – MeANderi
http://www.aserenitysanctuary.com/