"Window Sitting" - a meandering...

I used to have a "practice" that I called "window sitting" many
years ago, where I would sit in a chair at an open window late
at night, in the dark, leaning on the windowsill, pressing as
close to the screen as possible, breathing in the night air and
the silence.  Gazing out the window into the night was calming
and soothing, heightening my awareness of the Stillness, the
Silence that permeates everything.  It is tangible - almost
mystical.  It was a wonderful experience - basking in the silence
of the night, listening deeply to the sounds of the quiet, smelling
the night air; experiencing the soft aliveness of Nature;
opening into the Silence at the Core of my Being; feeling the
Rhythm of Existence.  It is a space where I became more *aware*
of the Inner Landscape as well.  I scribbled notes on scratch
paper in near darkness when Silence sang to my heart.  Every
fiber of my being swooned for this delicious nightly rendezvous
with The Silence of Being.  I long to hear that melody again.

Here's a "scribble" from my first night of "window sitting" back
in May 2010.

~

Nothing in nature is struggling...
Everything is at peace...

Everything in nature is the peace of the Silent Stream -
the Eternal Stillness...

The trees are peaceful.
The plants in the neighbor's garden are at peace.
The grass sleeps.

Everything is exquisitely - peaceful...

I feel myself returning to what I know to be true -
to the authentic Stillness of Being within,
allowing myself to be touched by this bliss of Stillness...
Befriending the Silence...
Recognizing this deep space of Silence as Home...

There is a feeling of intimacy,
as this still Silence wraps itself around me,
embraces everything that is,
infusing everything that lives...
It is so palpable, so Real...

Basking in the Pure Silence of the Night -
just listening,

just experiencing,
just Be-ing - Stillness.

Mystic Meandering
May 2010

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Cat window sitting :)

 

Inner Rhythms - a meandering...

I've been rediscovering my "Inner Rhythms" again through my
funky "art"; the Inner Rhythm of Being, of the Soul, that
John O'Donohue talks about here, and how that wants to 
move in and through me. 

I receive postings from Nature Artist and Writer, Rod MacIver
from his website, Heron Dance.  He has spent a lot of time
in nature, paddling in a canoe, getting in touch with his
Inner Rhythm.  He reflects on the larger context of
"inner rhythms."

"A balanced life is based on its own rhythm.  If you don't set
your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your
life will move at the speed of the culture around [you], which
moves too fast.  The space we make for quiet time affects our
thought patterns and, in turn, the quality of our lives."  And,
he asks: "To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of...
adapting...to the flow that surrounds [you]."  Or, I even say,
to the people around you.  Have we entrained to the people
around us so much that we end up living their rhythm?  
I know I have...

I felt  resonance with his words, knowing that I need to find
that sense of the deeper Inner Rhythm again, not just my
own personal daily rhythm with life, getting through the day,
but the Flow with the Inner Rhythm of Being; the undercurrent
of the Flow of Life within - from which all movement arises;
creating color and movement on paper helps me do that...

It calls me into the Silence of my own Being,
and the pulsating Rhythm of Life.
At peace again...

Mystic Meandering

~

Funky Art 
Rhythm

2024

 

Facing Down the Dragons - a meandering...

I knew this is why I keep entering "The Cave."  I keep getting
chased down by fear and anger - again and again.  I have carried
them all my life, in different forms, and I am exhausted
from carrying them - the weight of darkness.  I have tried many
 times over the years to lay fear down, to trick it, to manage it,
to numb it, to be aware of it...  But awareness of it is not enough.
  It must be faced full on - in all its disguises: anxiety, anger,
frustration, and stress.  But first, I had to experience the
Silence of Being in "The Cave", to prepare the way to open to
meet Fear, and allow myself to experience it all the way through. 
 I am not yet "through" the fear, in its myriad forms.
  It is an ongoing process.

"The Cave", or "sanctuary" serves several purposes.  It provides
the physical space, a room, like a holding space, and, is also the
inner space of deep Silence that is the foundation of seeing with
clarity, for entering into the exploration and investigation of the
hidden shadows of the self in the safety of the deeper space of
Awareness.

The first night that I sat with fear in "The Cave", many years ago,
I was amazed that Awareness curiously moved towards it, and 
experienced it.  Awareness was not afraid of the fear, but was
compassionate towards it.  A small opening of light came through.
I began to relax and allow the fear to be, instead of trying to
push it away.

The second night I sat with fear, I became aware that I am
somehow invested in it, an unconscious and habituated response
to life, although I don't understand why or the dynamics of how
that happened.  But I realized that there is an unconscious
pattern and a familiarity with fear that makes it hard to
"just let go", as some suggest, despite the pain that creates it.
It is such an ingrained, habituated pattern that in a sense it
has become the default position in my psyche.

In sitting with fear, I became aware that fear is the mind's view
of things.  It's the view through the lens of fear that I am 
somehow attached to...  Something needs to be seen more deeply
here, but at this point, these many years later, I am still blind
to it.

The third night I realized that anxiety traumatizes the body.
Fear is very visceral, releasing all kinds of fear hormones and
bodily symptoms that wear out the body...  There was the
understanding, over and again, that fear is triggered by thoughts
believed to be true, to be real, creating this physical trigger -
the body-mind's response to a mental state of mind - a biological
response to the mind's view.  The body-mind mechanism
automatically defaults to anxiety with its resulting physical
felt experience of trauma.  Even the *thought* of facing the fear
creates fear.  It is so uncomfortable physically that it is hard to
face this construct of fear without spiraling into panic.

And I realized - once again - that despite many "awakenings",
much of the time my life is still fear driven by this underground
electrical current - short circuiting everything in its path.  
Anxiety has become an entrapment, a prison - a private self-torture
of and by the mind...

I have seen all these insights before and yet there is still "fearing",
even now as each new life experience arises.

What is the remedy I asked:

These words emerged from within, from the Deep Silence:

Follow the Fear.  Let it take you deeper.  Deeply attend to it.
Explore the tendrils of it.  Allow yourself to *fully* experience it.
Watch how it plays itself out: where it goes, what it tells you,
where it leads the mind and body.  Trust where it takes you.

Mystic Meandering
originally written 2010
updated 2024

~*~

"In order to transform our fears
we must be willing to enter the cave
of the Blue Dragon.
There we come face to face
with our despair
and all aspects of the mind...

Standing at the mouth of the cave
of the Blue Dragon
and yelling 'I'm not afraid'
is not the same as entering it
with compassion for who (what)
we will find."

Genju -  108zenbooks

~*~

"It takes exhaustion to stop running...
to surrender and be led within
deeper and deeper into the journey,
the dazzling, dark journey into ourselves..."

Ameeta - Self discovering self

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

a sheet of scrapbooking paper
color digitally inverted

"Ghost Existence"? - a meandering...

Don't know why, but these words, "ghost existence",
came to me while I was talking with B back in Feb....

The following words just kinda flowed out as well...

We *live* a "ghost existence" *in* a "ghost existence."
Not that it's not *real*, it is "real" as we live it, as we
experience it, but it's not *The* Real - i.e. The Deeper
Reality - which exists behind and within the "ghost
existence", animating it - a mystery...

~

Along with the words came an image of  an old west
town erected with facades on a movie set, where they
would have make believe shoot outs in the dusty streets,
while the patrons of the theme park, dressed in costumes,
 looked on from the sides, entertained by the make believe
 characters in the "ghost town" made specifically for the
*experience*, whatever that experience is in the 
"ghost existence."

When we die one belief is that that animating force "drops"
the body...  I like to think that the energy of the animating
force returns to its "original source", maybe in another
dimension...   I don't know...  This is all speculation from 
a "being" living in a "ghost existence."
That's why this is called a meandering. :)

But there are traditions that do believe that there is no self,
no me, no you, that we're all an illusion, a dream, a movie.

It seems real in the moment...
"Christine" may have 75 or more episodes 
in her "ghost existence" here,
like an old west show with her own "prop set"
called her life...

Wouldn't that be interesting, if it were true.
We've all been playing a role, in the play of life,
in a virtual reality, 
whatever that experience/drama happens to be;
or so some say...

And then the "willful self" is dropped by the body, and
we are absorbed (energetically) back into our place of
Origin - our Source:

"The Silence of Being"

Once again - speculation...:)
But one that works for me at the moment :)

I recently heard someone say: Our experience of "me"
 is not our essential identity.  The "me" is another
experience that Awareness/Consciousness/Source is having,
like the waves that arise from the Ocean are still
the Ocean. The "me" is another wave on the greater Ocean of
Awareness, but is still the Ocean, and eventually
 recedes back into the Ocean...

I like this...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 19, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Snow figure on skylight

 

Silence Lost?...

Entering "The Silence"
the place of deep inner Silence and Stillness...

Relaxing...

Listening deeply for the Inner Voice.
Following its sound.
Finding its Rhythm in the fluid, instinctive
inner River...

It is the space of The Sacred...

This aware, awake space is curious and unafraid,
wants to engage, to see, to know,
to experience ~

...and be experienced...

This space is deeply compassionate,
deeply open.

...and is waiting to be known...

Pure Awareness
flows through here ~

the life blood of The Sacred.
It flows around the obstacles of my mind,
and moves toward every disturbance,

filling every mind-made crack and crevice,
wanting to meet, soothe, comfort, and embrace.

In "The Silence"
there is only patience, listening
and deep rest...

It is a gentle refuge
that feels like Home...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 2010

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
Craypas Oils with fingers
March 2024

~

Personal Note:

In 2010, and for many years, encountering the deep
Silence of Being for me felt like encountering "God",
"The Beloved", "The Sacred", "The Ineffable."

I basked in The Sacred Silence, absorbed, feeling the
sense of Presence, of something vaster than an image of
"God" that I hold in my mind; something which is
ever-present and personal...  The Deep Silence within
is the Heart of Being, "The Mystery" - my refuge.

Over the last 17 months I have "lost" the "sense" of
Intimacy with The Deep Silence within, getting
consumed by the *content* of my current life
experience...

The Great Silence has been my Companion, my Helper,
my Sanctuary, my "Teacher" for many years, and I hope
to regain that inner sense of Communion, to be able to
access the Deeper Dimension of The Silence again,
as this is the only way I will get through this period
in time, with its struggles and challenges...

Intellectually/conceptually I understand that "The Silence"
- however one calls it - "God", "The Beloved", "The Divine",

"Awareness" is always here - never "lost."
What is "lost" is the felt sense of intimacy with "The Silence
of the Sacred", my "Source."
I miss it - like a dear Friend...

But as of this post I do feel it slowly returning...
Or is it me that is returning to the Source :)

MM

March 2024

 

This "Silence" - Amoda Maa

A non-dual perspective on our Essential Nature

"Silence" is not a mental state or a spiritual state, it is already
here prior to thinking, labeling or naming, or feeling;
prior to any experience in perception.

It is not about achieving a state of silence - by rising above.
It is an invitation to go inward to the Deep, the Quiet within.

It is what you already are.  It's your Essential Nature.

"Silence" is known before you take hold of your experience
and categorize it putting it into a mental category of
understanding or knowing.

It's your primary nature - everything else is secondary.

Amoda Maa
on you tube

~

This "Silence" is not about closing the doors, turning off the
phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts or imagining the perfect sanctuary of
peace.

This "Silence" happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of
reality.  This "Silence" happens when you turn towards tenderness
every time an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.
This "Silence" happens when you have surrendered all resistance
to what is.  This "Silence" happens when you [realize] that
the whole universe is you.  

....Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you are doing
something [the requirements of daily living] this "Silence" is
always here...  It is in you as Being-ness [your Essential Being].

It's about whether you can fall into the "Silence" that is
always here...

Perhaps it is wise to ask: how can I meet the world
as "Silence"?

Amoda Maa

With thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Undulating Silence

 

Holy Hush - Yahia Lababidi

Silence is the inescapable force in our lives - a constant presence.
Contemplatives, poets, and thinkers alike, have long hinted at
a wisdom beyond words, straining the limits of language
and sense, to describe the ineffable.

Silence is not the absence of failure of words, but instead
somehow exists before and beyond representation, a primordial
essence that lurks beneath our constructed world.  In the immortal
formulation of Tao Te Ching: 'Returning to the root is silence/
Silence is returning to being.'

It is in silence, that things patiently unfurl, open up and trust us
with their secrets or reveal their hidden natures...

Silence can be difficult to define.  For it is not merely the
absence of sound, but may be perceived as an actual physical
presence - a holy hush,  the elemental silence found in the
natural world, where Time appears to collapse and one is 
afforded glimpses into Eternity. Silence is the solemn 
companion of nature and can presence like the very
pulse of Being.

Krishnamurti describes this mystical state: 'And it is only
where there is space and silence that something new can be
that is untouched by time/thought.  That may be the most holy,
the most sacred - may be...  You cannot give it a name.  It is
perhaps the unnamable.'

One is said to 'enter' and 'emerge' from this state, as though it
were an actual physical territory.  We cannot forcibly break-in
and enter, or rush through this portal to arrive at a meditative-
reflective state; but instead must patiently wait to be granted
access...

The Christian philosopher, Max Picard said:
"Silence is listening.  And as attentive practitioners of this
metaphysical art may sense, it can sometimes be unclear who
is doing the actual listening...  us, or Silence itself...

Otherwise, dissimilar spiritual traditions - Hindu, Buddhist,
Taoist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Native American - all
agree on the importance of observing silence as a tool for 
inner transformation...

Yahia Lababidi
Egyptian-Lebanese poet and "thinker"

Excerpts from an article entitled:
"Notes On Silence" 

With thanks to No Mind's Land for the link :)

 

A Cosmic Perspective - a meandering...

We are told in certain "traditions" that everything is Consciousness,
Awareness, Eternal Beingness, The Essential Self...  Plug in
whatever works for you - "God", The Ineffable, The Unknown, etc.
"IT", they say, is everywhere at the same time, aware of
everything that is occurring all at once.  I actually had this
experience while sitting in a doctor's waiting room.  I was
suddenly aware of what was AWARE of me sitting there -
and that "IT" was everywhere, awaring everything in the room.
It was "me", but also a greater "Awareness" than my own.

The mind can't really fathom such abstractions, so it creates words,
creation stories, and images, like "God", Buddha, Shiva, and other
deities, which personifies (person-ifies) what cannot be person-ified,
to try to explain what cannot be explained - including words like
Beingness, Consciousness, and Awareness... :) Non-dual language.

There is just this pure Space of Awareness, they say - what my
husband calls the "Portal of Eternity."  Works for him :)  I
experience "IT" as an alive Space of Silence within.  Everything
is felt to be suspended in, and infused with this Silence that just IS -
including you and me.  A mystery...

The "trick", as I'm discovering ever slowly, is to see from a
Cosmic Perspective, rather than the "Earth mind" that only sees
the "Earth mind" as real; does not see the bigger picture of being
suspended/infused in/with "The Infinite", but only thinks its
immediate reality is real - when it is only a part of a much larger
Cosmic Reality - of which the Earth experience is a part.  As my
husband says, the dynamics of the Cosmos has its own way -
and you can't manipulate it.  There's something bigger going on here.

How would life change for humanity if we started to see our lives
in this way,  from the perspective of Cosmic Consciousness that
sees the whole picture?  What would happen if we started viewing
each other from the Cosmic Perspective?  Something I fail at 
miserably - continuing to be distracted by the externals of life, on
the surface of life - entangled in the emotions that creates.

But maybe this Cosmic Perspective is the dis-entanglement from 
the matrix of our personal life dramas - to see all of existence from
a different perspective - to see the Infiniteness and True Nature of
all things - of all Existence.

We are breathed by the Cosmic "Spirit", if you will. Some call it
The Silence, or even The Holy Spirit...  I feel IT when sitting in the
Space of Silence within - the Still Point.  This, for me, is intimacy
with my "Eternal Being" - this sense of intimate connection through
the breath of Silence.  This energy/vibration runs through the whole
body, is in every cell.

"IT" is what we abide in naturally and don't even realize it.  We
are not always aware of it, don't have a felt sense of it,distracted
 again and again by the externals of life and living.  Pure Cosmic
Energy is what we breathe, and what breathes us, is what bathes the
cells, and permeates "our" world.  This "Divine Energy" of Life
continues on after death, but we focus on the  physicality and not
the Universal Energy that sustains and animates the body - that
which never dies.  We only see personalities playing out their roles
here, not the Beingness, or True Nature, or Essence of the "person."

At least from my perspective :)

It seems all so esoteric and yet we can feel the realness of "The
Mystery" of it - experientially - through our awareness, or direct
experience of IT.  In the Silence of Being I can feel this Infinite
Energy, the Universal Source coursing through my body - and
know that THAT is who I am, at the core of my being - not my
person-ified identity...

And yet, I remain distracted by this external identity that clouds
the Cosmic Perspective...

Mystic Meandering
Taken from my Journal notes
2014

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Attend to Inner Silence - Adyashanti

...attend to the inner silence of your being is what Being itself
calls you to do.  In many ways, silence is the greatest teacher
and most wise teaching.  The call of the heart never confines
itself to the mind's ideas...  It follows the impulse of silent
intuition, which is so much better aligned with what the
moment dictates.  Leave the mind to do what it is best at,
and look to the wisdom born of silence for inner guidance
relating to things of the spirit.

Adyashanti

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Create Silence - David Whyte

 The object in meditation and all of our contemplative
disciplines is silence.  But...  that silence is in order for
you to perceive something other than yourself -
what you've arranged as yourself to actually perceive
this frontier between what you call your self and what you
call other than your self,  whether that's a person or a landscape.

One of the greatest arts of poetry is actually to create silence
through attentive speech - speech that says something in
such a way that it appears as a third frontier between you and
the world, and invites you into a deeper and more generous
sense of your own identity and the identity of the world...

Poetry is the verbal art-form by which we can actually create
silence...

Silence is frightening, an intimation of the end, the graveyard
of fixed identities.  Real silence puts any present understanding
to shame; orphans us from certainty; leads us beyond the
well-known and accepted reality and confronts us with the
unknown and previously unacceptable conversation about
to break in upon our lives.

In silence, Essence speaks to us of Essence itself and asks
for a kind of unilateral disarmament, our own essential
nature slowly emerging as the defended periphery
atomizes and falls apart.

As the busy edge dissolves we begin to join the conversation
through the portal of a present unknowing, robust vulnerability,
revealing in the way we listen, a different ear, a more perceptive
eye, an imagination refusing to come too early to a conclusion,
and belonging to a different person than the one who first
entered the quiet.

David Whyte
Poet
from - Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and
Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

Photo by Aaron Burden

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

Perfect Pulsing Silence...

 Perfect Pulsing Silence...

Utter Stillness...

Breath-giving Life...

This is what I come to sit for;
to sit in utter and complete Silence of Being -
the pulse of Life;
to feel and sense "The Silence;"
to feel its Aliveness,
to hear Its Song...

Sitting in the silence of not-knowing
puts one in a place of really listening,
with no agenda or expectation,

leaving the space open for "The Silence" to speak,
to calm the mind and
sing Its Song to the Heart...

I listen deeply for the Song of Silence...

A breeze touches my arm gently from the window
inviting me to be more acutely aware...

I gaze inward
to "The Silence" within
that is mirrored
in the silence of the night.
It's all the same Silence that infuses everything...

The Rhythm of Silence begins ~

I sit back in my chair
listening to the pulsing Silence
within and without,
feeling Its familiar Rhythm,
feeling the dance of intimacy begin again...

Nothing disturbs It,
Nothing disturbs the depth of It,
Nothing prevents Its Song
from being sung ~

In this intimate Silence I am reminded that
everything occurs within "The Silence";
all life, all breath, all death, all movement

occurs within this vast space of Silent Awareness
that we are...

In "The Silence" of Awareness
I know everything is living according to Its
natural order - is following Its natural order,
including this life I call mine...

All life is being lived
by the hush of "The Mystery"...

All is the pulse of the Great Silence ~

The pulse of Life ~

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
May 2011

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Keep Peace With Your Soul - Max Ehrmann

 Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.

Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars...

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

...whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace with your soul...

excerpt from - Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann - 1927

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Silence Creates Space - Rollheiser & Jung

There's a language beyond words.
Silence creates the space for it.
Sometimes when we feel powerless to speak words
that are meaningful, when we have to back off into
unknowing and helplessness, but remain in the
situation, silence creates the space that's needed
for a deeper happening to occur.

Ron Rollheiser
from - The Healing Place of Silence

~

Silence is for me a fount of healing
which makes my life worth living.
Talking is often a torment for me,
and I need many days of silence
to recover from the futility of words.

C.G. Jung

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Remaining Empty - Thomas Merton

Art by Ann Poucher

The true "contemplative" is not one who prepares his mind
for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but
is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never
 anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. 
He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation.
He does not demand light instead of darkness.  He waits in
silence, and, when he is "answered," it is not so much by a
word that bursts into his silence.  It is by his silence itself,
suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of
great power, full of the voice of [the Silence].

Thomas Merton
from: The Climate of Monastic Prayer

(one of the last books he prepared for publication)

~

Personal Note: Although I do not consider myself a
"contemplative", as a "Mystic", I have had similar
experience with silence/Silence.  The labels don't
really matter.  It is the "remaining empty" in silence,
listening without agenda, that allows for the "direct
experience" of the Ineffable - aka - the Voice of
The Silence...

Solitude - Zat Rana

"All of man's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly
in a room alone..."

Blaise Pascal

According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, we dread
the boredom and instead choose aimless distractions, and we can't
help but run from the problems of our emotions into the false
comforts of the mind.

We never learned the art of solitude.  And now we live in a world
where we're connected to everything except ourselves.  Everything
 that has done so much to connect us has simultaneously isolated us.
We are so busy being distracted that we are forgetting to tend to
ourselves, which is consequently making us feel more and more
alone...

Never being alone is not the same as never feeling alone.  The less
comfortable you are with solitude, the more likely it is that you
won't know yourself.  And then, you'll spend even more time
avoiding it to focus elsewhere.  In the process, you'll become
addicted to the same technologies that were meant to set you free.
Just because we can use the noise of the world to block out the
discomfort of dealing with ourselves doesn't mean that this
discomfort goes away.

Almost everybody thinks of themselves as self-aware.  They
think they know how they feel and what they want and what
their problems are.  But the truth is that very few people really
do.  And those that do will be the first to tell you how fickle
self-awareness is and how much alone time it takes to get
there.  In today's world, people can go their whole lives
without truly digging beyond the surface level masks they
wear...[How interesting that we are required to wear masks
these days.] We are increasingly out of touch with who we are...
[Maybe this is why so many are having a hard time with
the "stay-at-home" orders - feeling confined, like their freedom
 has been taken away - acting out].

Almost anything that controls our life in an unhealthy way
finds its roots in our realization that we dread the nothingness
of nothing.  We can't imagine just being rather than doing.  We have an instinctive aversion to simply being.   And there-
fore, we look for entertainment, we seek company, and if
 those fail, we chase every higher highs.

We ignore the fact that never facing the nothingness is the same
as never facing ourselves.  And never facing ourselves is why
we feel lonely and anxious in spite of being intimately connected
to everything around us.

Fortunately, there is a solution.....  When you surround yourself
with moments of solitude and stillness, you become intimately
familiar with your environment in a way that forced stimulation
doesn't allow. [Forced socialization]  The world becomes richer,
the layers start to peel back, and you see things for what they
 really are, in all their wholeness, in all their contradictions,
 and in all their unfamiliarity.

You realize there are other things you are capable of paying
attention to than just what makes the most noise on the
surface.  [Solitude] allows you to discover the novelty in things
you didn't know were novel; it's like being an unconditioned
child seeing the world for the first time.  It also resolves the
majority of internal conflicts.

Without realizing the value of solitude, we are overlooking the
fact that, once the fear of boredom is faced, it can actually
provide its own stimulation.  And the only way to face it is to
make time to just sit... with our thoughts, with our feelings, with
a moment of stillness...

Zat Rana

Excerpt from: "The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You"
an article in Medium.com

[brackets mine]

~

Your solitude will be a support and a home for you,
even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances,
and from it you will find all your paths...

Rainer Maria Rilke

Excerpt from: Letters to a Young Poet #1

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Turn Inward...

Turn...

inward,

toward "The Silence;"
The Light in your Heart;
the space of Pure Awareness...

Turn from the voices of an unconscious world;
the voices of confusion, hatred, and ignorance;
the ones who distract you from *knowing*
the Truth of who you are...

~ Turn ~

Turn and Listen

in the deep Silence,
in the chalice of the Heart,
until you hear what needs to be heard...

Turn inward from the stimulation of empty words
being "sold" to the masses with the false delusions
of the Real, selling you their "frameworks" of reality,
leaving you empty...

Come - Sit in The Silence...

Sit in solitude...

Silently listening within...

Thrive in The Silence
of your own Being,
that waits for you to
Turn...

Mystic Meandering
April 2020

~

"There is a huge silence inside each of us 

that beckons us into itself, and the recovery 

of our own silence can begin to teach us 

the language of heaven." 

 Meister Eckhart

~~

Photo - the 2011 Full Moon through a skylight...
What captured my attention was the reflection of
what appears to be an "inner window" or door.
You can see the square-like image to the right of
the ball of light (moon).  In a sense it is what this
poem is about - turning inward through the inner
window/door, and meeting the Spaciousness that
 is always there...

Waiting for the Words - Etty Hillesum

The only words I want to write are those normally woven
into great silence, not those merely that serve to drown out
silence and to pull it apart.  They should simply emphasize
the silence..... and around it space, not empty but inspired.
The few great things that matter in life can be said in a
few words.  I hate the accumulation of words.  I would like
to brush in a few words against a wordless background.  To
describe the silence and the stillness and to inspire them.

What matters is the right relationship between words and
wordlessness, the wordlessness in which much happens
than all the words one can string together...

We must speak about the Ultimate only when the words
well up inside us as simply and as naturally as water
from a spring...  Say only what is absolutely essential...
and become more concentrated in yourself...

I cannot stop searching for.....the one word that sums
up everything within me...  So I shall wait patiently
until the words have grown inside me...

Etty Hillesum

from: Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings
by Annemarie S. Kidder

Etty was a 28 or 29 year old Dutch Jewish girl
when she died at the Nazi camp in Auschwitz...

~

I wish I could find some inspiring words to offer

during this stressful time...  Like Etty I wait for
the words, and if they arise, or if I find inspiration
from others, I will post them...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

To Meditate or not to Meditate - Amoda Maa

To meditate... or not to meditate?

Is a dedicated mediation practice the only road to
"enlightenment"... or is the direct rout of recognizing
"what is already free" a better way?  Should all effort be
put into achieving a "higher state of consciousness?... or is
it best to simply let go of any effort to do anything at all?

If I discipline myself to meditate, should I sit (preferably
cross-legged) once a day... or is it twice or maybe three times?
And should I watch my breath... or is it my thoughts, or my
sensations?  Maybe I should chant in Sanskrit... or Hindi or
Japanese?  Maybe I should repeat the sacred OM from my heart...
or is my belly a better place?  Maybe I should send loving
thoughts in every out-breath... or visualize golden light from
my third eye?  Maybe I should try to focus on the gaps between
thoughts... or maybe I should just try to stop thinking all together?

And if I make no effort, how do I "awaken"?  Isn't there something
I need to do?  How do I transcend thinking?  How do I shift into an
"awakened state?"  Maybe if I read enough books or listen to enough
spiritual teachers, I will "get it"?

To meditate... or not to meditate?  The question is a conundrum
to the mind that seeks satisfaction.  The mind seeks a definitive
answer, as if this would bring an end to mind's unease.  The
personhood seeks certainty, as if the certainty of "spiritual
progress" would bestow a badge of worthiness or specialness.

But the question of meditation cannot be answered by the mind.
It can only be realized when Silence has become the bedrock of
your life.  This Silence is not about closing the doors, turning off
the phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts [or your ego, or the notion of I/me]...
or imagining the perfect sanctuary of peace.

This Silence happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of reality.

This Silence happens when you turn towards tenderness every time
an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.  This Silence
happens when you have surrendered all resistance to what is.
This Silence happens when you are no longer the center of your
universe, when you have become without a center and [you realize
that] the whole universe is in you.  Without resistance, there is
no inner conflict, no inner division, no outside and no inside, no
barrier and no boundary.

When you know your true nature as Silence, there is no need to
do meditation... [because] you ARE meditation.  True meditation
is a state of Being.  It is your natural open state, there is nothing to
move away from and nothing to move towards.  You are simply
and irrevocably here.  There is no longer a question... because
in Silence all questions fall away.

So, it is not about whether you meditate or not.  It's about whether
you can fall into the Silence that is always here prior to your
ideas of what meditation is, or what it can give you, or where
it can take you.  Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you
are doing something in this world, [the requirements of daily living]
 this Silence is always here... it is in you as Being-ness [your inner
Beingness]. Beingness does not need to do meditation... 
It IS meditation...

I am often asked whether I meditate or not... and I sort of shake my
head, unable to give a definitive answer.  Did I used to do meditation?
Yes.  Until meditation swallowed me up and all that was left was
Silence.  Now the whole of life is meditation, without doing a practice,
without trying to get anywhere, without trying to change anything.
Now... I AM meditation.

So perhaps it is wise to ask a different question...  how can I meet
the world [live my daily life] as Silence?  Perhaps the question
will turn the mind around from its horizontal searching into the
verticality of Being that is always here.  And then you discover
what true meditation is...

Amoda Maa

with gratitude to Michel at No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering