Dancing into Stillness
There is nothing in all creation so like God as stillness.
Meister Eckhart
Dear Friends,
Sometimes I just have to stop, reflect, regenerate and find stillness in my life! My perpetual busyness leads to a sort of scattered franticness that leaves me breathless, multi-tasking, ungrateful, unfocused and exhausted. So on this summer solstice I gave myself, and everyone else, a gift of a week of silence, fasting, and meditative prayer. For the first 3 days I had a serious case of monkey mind… I walked, meditated, danced, prayed and slept around the clock. On the fourth day I slowed down and entered into a sort of Divine bliss, spacious awareness and a sense of being connected to all life. Perhaps it was hunger, but looking back there was much more going on. I wanted to share some of the thoughts and insights I took away with me, knowing that they are not the experience, but perhaps they can be useful to you in your explorations into stillness and the great mystery.
The mind is incessantly looking for not only food for thought; it is looking for food for its identity, its sense of self. This is how the ego comes into existence and continuously re-creates itself.
Eckhart Tolle
Even when I‘m still on the outside, there’s so much going on inside. At first my meditations took a lot of effort – the itches dying to be scratched, the thoughts that become runaway stories, and the body parts that fall asleep -- but as I let go of these distractions, I started to go deeper into stillness. There seems to be a direct correlation between entering stillness and letting go of my need to control, which consumes a lot of energy. Isn’t that what ego is about? I created an identity that fits the world and environment around me and then try to match everything that is happening with this static and predictable worldview. Not much room there for mystery. I manipulate people and things to feel safe, comfortable and to make the unfamiliar, familiar. My judgments, points of view and categorization of who is us and who is them all reinforce this sense of separate self or ego.
A meditation teacher once told me to sit and wait for the thoughts, like a cat waiting for a mouse at its door. I don’t know why, but when I do this the thinking is greatly diminished and when a thought does come, I don’t need to add to it. I can just let it be, sometimes labeling it “thinking”, sometimes just letting it go back into its empty hole. I start to develop an attitude or posture of being without doing, melting into a state of spacious awareness. It helps me to observe the movement of my breath in and out. There is a whole world of movement going on within and without. In the practice of the 5Rhythms I begin to follow this movement, become this movement and be moved by this movement. Like sitting meditation, there is no effort. At best I become witness to what is moving rather than being someone who is moving. Movement is a real threat to the ego’s fixed patterns and rigid ways of being.
The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is
stillness
in movement
does the universal rhythm manifest.
Bruce Lee
My teacher, Gabrielle Roth says the whole point of the 5Rhythms is to “find emptiness”. Every thing we practice is to get to this point of just being. Each rhythm leads to a point of emptying. Flowing teaches us to give all the story, chatter and fixed ways of being to the earth and follow our feet in the energy of the moment. Staccato shows us how to focus that energy outward from the heart and core of our being. In Chaos we let go of the illusion of control and enter the transitory domain of intuition and instinct, which leads us to our most authentic and creative self. And lyrical reminds us that nothing is fixed, everything is in transition and that at each moment we have a choice of who we will be. These rhythms all lead us back to that still place where everything waits -- the infinite emptiness of creation.
To enter stillness I need to give up knowing and the need to know – beyond right / wrong, good / bad, and all dualities – it is here that I step into the mystery, into the unknown. Scary stuff! Can I step out there unarmored and allow myself to move from the Wisdom, Compassion and Inspiration, which Gabrielle says are the lessons of stillness? Not the wisdom of the thoughts, opinions, or beliefs, but the cellular knowing of fourteen billion years of evolution. Can I trust my intuition and instinct, the part of me that is naturally connected to all life? Can I hear the song of my soul as I unify heart, mind and body with movement and breath? Can I drop the idea that I am separate and embrace the deep interconnectedness to all life, which leads to a flowering of compassion? Can I be inspired by the mystery, step out of my judgment and fear of the unknown and be inspiration.
Compose yourself in stillness, draw your attention inward and devote
your mind to the Self. The wisdom you seek lies within.
Bhagavad Gita
So how do I get to stillness? I pause. I breathe. I become a witness to what’s happening inside and out. I let go of my story. I bring my full attention to every sensation, emotion, sound, thought and movement. I focus on this moment that’s happening right now! That’s the practice, regardless of whether we are in sitting or dancing meditation – can we enter into the emptiness, the unknown and be a witness to the unfolding of our own lives?
I know that I will fail again and again and that all there is to do is to come back to presence, to mindfulness, the very core of the moment. Each time I come back to my breath, to center, the mindful presence I have cultivated in the garden of being deepens. I experience a focused energy, radiant happiness, inspired compassion and deep gratitude that grows with every sitting, every dance. Life seems to flow effortlessly and concerns about past failures and future challenges fade away. I invite you to share this practice with me to bring about more clarity, peace and compassion in the world.
With love and blessings,
michael
We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us,
that they may see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer,
perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.
William Butler Yeats
