You know how they tell you to find a point to focus on when you’re spinning so you don’t get dizzy?
spin around – look at your point – spin – look – spin – focus
But sometimes is feels like your point is spinning too. What happens when life feels so unsteady and your tried and true focal point isn’t there?
You remember that the only true point of steadiness is inside. And it can’t be any other way.
I practiced Chan meditation when I lived in Tallahassee. My teacher, Guo Gu, was brilliant. But I always wanted him to be less strict. To waver from the rules and guidelines he taught us.
But no matter how compelling a question was, or how captivating someone’s story was, he never budged. The rules remained unchanged.
Every year that passes I’m more and more thankful for his teaching. Because he taught me to trust in the stillness inside. No exceptions.
“But teacher, I see beautiful colors and lights in meditation.”
Him: “Stay focused on your breath.”
“But teacher, I think I just heard the answer to a question I’ve been asking for years.”
Stay focused on your breath.
“But teacher a fly tickles my nose.”
Stay focused on your breath.
I learned to find comfort in the uncomfortable. To return to the mundane when I was most mesmerized.
For the sake of cultivating stillness, a solid foundation within. Unmoving, unchanging. Even as the world swirls around in color and sound.
Even as your inner world rises and falls in emotion. The observer is still, silent, watching.
Chaos can be so compelling and consuming that you might imagine that stillness no longer exists.
But it does.
Close your eyes. Let any sounds around you dissolve into Sound. Listen for the silence inside the noise. Follow your breath’s journey.
And always, always, always you will find stillness. Unchanged. Unwavering. Grounding you to the earth and opening you to the freedom of eternal space.
You’ll remember that you are untouched by the world. You are as pure and steady as a baby new into the world. You are beyond your memories and your thoughts. You are beyond experience.
You are the eternal observer, existing in a fresh, new moment. A moment that never existed before. A moment free of memory. Full of existence, of awareness Only.
Welcome to the moment. Immerse in the stillness, it’s all yours. Replenish yourself and return to the world, more steady than ever before.
Love: 