Hi,
This is Guy Finley,
And let's spend a couple minutes together looking at the secret of a quiet mind.
How often do we dive headlong into a river of thoughts rushing through our mind?
Maybe it's to find relief from a struggling relationship or some other personal concern,
But the results themselves seldom vary.
We realize,
Too late,
That it isn't we who are holding on to what we thought would save us,
But rather our own thoughts and feelings have a firm grip on us.
They're dragging us under with them.
And the more we struggle to resolve our negative reaction to this condition,
The more wrapped up in it we become.
So the evidence is clear.
Struggling to save ourselves from a torrent of thoughts and feelings by adding to them doesn't diminish our chance to be free actually.
It ensures we will only be swept further downstream by the very thing that we've reached to save us.
Now,
If we can see the truth of this,
The solution to our struggle is simple,
As surprising as it may seem,
And it's right before our eyes.
We must do nothing.
Let me explain this beautiful,
Powerful,
And very simple idea of what it means to do nothing when caught in the struggle of our own thoughts and feelings.
Our life experiences have been trying to teach us,
Really trying to reach us,
Right in the midst of every one of our trials,
A certain grand lesson.
And here it is.
Liberation from our captive condition can't come by further deliberation of it.
We can see the wisdom in doing nothing toward our own troubled thoughts,
But only as we realize the only way not to be dragged under by our negative reactions to life is to stay out of their life.
Learning to do nothing means we don't jump into the river of thoughts as they rush by,
Even though it looks as though they're going to carry us away and that without them we'll never find the path to freedom.
No,
Quite the opposite.
To do nothing means we meet any kind of conflicting movement within us with the one thing that can't be carried off by it,
Stillness.
In many ways,
This kind of watchfulness,
Our willingness to do nothing save be still in the face of flooding reactions,
Is real meditation.
Meditation isn't just sitting someplace with our eyes closed,
Quietly contemplating something of a spiritual nature.
Real meditation is a direct relationship with the sum of ourselves in the moment,
Where we stand as a witness to what moves through us instead of being its captive through our reaction to it.
When it's time to step back from some reaction that's tempting us to jump in and to get out of some jam by listening to those thoughts and feelings,
Let us remember to become still,
To be as quiet and inwardly still as we can be toward what we see in ourselves.
This includes watching our own inability to be still.
We need do nothing else to start seeing all that isn't us.
Who isn't us?
What isn't us?
Well,
For one thing,
That fitfulness that's pulling us left and right,
The sound and the fury of those 10,
000 thoughts and feelings coursing through us and trying to get us to change our direction to suit their flow.
We must just watch it all.
That's the secret of a quiet mind,
And if we'll practice that we'll soon understand the goodness of stillness,
And we will know the mystery,
The calm,
And the majesty of a true meditative mind…
