Rest in Stillness

Taking time out for yourself every day to be quiet and still is an important part of being human, especially in today’s busy world. Find stillness in the midst of busyness. Rest in the stillness of your own awareness. (From the Meditation Oasis Podcast)

Transcript

This is Mary Maddox with the Meditation Oasis podcast.

I'm sitting with my guided meditation group and we're going to do a meditation on stillness.

So take some time to get comfortable.

And then close your eyes.

Just naturally when you close your eyes,

The awareness starts to settle down.

There might still be a lot of activity in the mind,

But we're going to discover the stillness that's there all the time in the midst of the activity.

The stillness that's the very nature of the mind.

So let's begin by taking some nice deep breaths.

Take a deep breath in and relax into the exhalation of the breath.

So we'll take some nice deep breaths.

Feeling the breath move in,

Feeling how our body moves with the breath.

Relaxing into the exhalation of the breath.

Relaxing into the exhalation of the breath.

Just continue with deep breaths.

Noticing the pleasurable nature of breathing,

The soothing nature of the breath.

And in between the breaths,

That moment in which stillness is discovered.

Nice deep breaths.

You can put your attention on your belly and if you notice tension,

Just let it soften,

Let it relax.

Just naturally the breath will move into the belly.

So we'll take two more deep breaths.

And now allowing the breath to return to normal,

Just going on its own.

And now letting the breath return to normal.

And now allowing the breath to return to normal,

Just going on its own.

The breath is a movement in stillness.

Thoughts come and go in stillness.

Emotions come and go in stillness.

Awareness itself is still.

So simply noticing what goes on in this still,

Quiet awareness.

Perhaps you're noticing some sounds.

Thoughts coming and going.

Thoughts coming and going.

We don't resist thoughts or resist noise.

Just let the thoughts go the way they come,

Effortlessly.

If your mind has gotten completely caught up in a train of thought,

As soon as you notice it just naturally,

You come back to the present moment.

Perhaps noticing the breath or an emotion or a sensation in the body.

Easy,

Open awareness of everything that's happening.

Awareness of everything that's happening.

Thoughts come and go.

Emotions are present.

You don't need to understand them or label them.

Notice where you feel the emotions in your body.

Anytime you start to notice thoughts about your emotions,

You can just let those thoughts go.

Let thoughts be a meaningless activity in the mind.

Easy,

Open awareness.

And perhaps you'll notice that with all of the activity going on,

There's a background of stillness.

There's some quietness.

All of the activity happening within stillness.

And you can just easily favor the stillness,

The quietness.

You don't have to resist the activity going on.

You don't have to resist noise or thoughts or feelings.

They happen spontaneously,

Naturally.

And yet there's a recognition of stillness.

And you can let that stillness be what you know to be true.

Easily favoring the awareness of stillness,

Of quietness.

All of the sounds happen in stillness.

Stillness before and after the sound,

Enduring the sound.

Stillness between the inhalation and exhalation of the breath,

And along with the breath.

Knowing that whatever is being experienced in this meditation is just perfect.

You can't make stillness happen.

There's simply a recognition that it's present.

It's at the core of all of your experience.

The stillness of awareness itself.

Easy,

Open awareness of whatever is happening.

Easily favoring stillness.

So stillness is present,

Activity in the mind is present,

Both present at the same time.

Letting the stillness be in the foreground of your experience.

Letting the activity be on the periphery.

And if you want to,

You can allow the mind to drop completely into that stillness.

Allow the mind to be that stillness.

Resting in stillness.

Allowing the mind to drop into that stillness.

Let the mind be that stillness.

Doesn't matter how busy the mind might be.

It's still possible to recognize that stillness,

That quietness.

Resting in stillness.

And now,

Very gradually,

Slowly,

You'll start to come out of this meditation.

Bring your attention to your body,

The weight of your body,

The contact of your feet with the floor.

If you want to,

You can take some deep breaths,

Start to stretch.

Take your time,

And only when you feel ready,

You can open your eyes.

And now,

Let's take a short break.

Reviews

Thank You Mary. Another jewel tool in the crown. Thank you for making so many life preserving recordings and making most free. You are wonderful! 💖♾️💫

Great thanks 🙏

Lovely meditation. Loved the stillness and quiet between the words.

One of the most beautiful practitioners presence to collapsing the mind I have had. I loved it 🙏🏿

Great reminder that stillness is always present. We just need to tune our awareness to that.

Excellent! Very relaxing. I’ll be back to enjoy this again.

A lovely calming and grounding meditation. Thank you very much for sharing Mary 🙏

Completely amazing. The best guided I’ve ever done. I am so grateful for you Mary Maddox.

Very nicely done, both content and voice. Might you have a longer version?

Thank you, a wonderful meditation, really helped me to accept the wanderings of my busy mind, but choose to focus on the stillness, rather than battle with it & try to stop it. I look forward to listening to it regularly 🙏

Mary Maddux, your voice and cadence are a treasure to the ears. Thank you for sharing your gift.

Wonderful gentle journey to stillness. Thank you 🙏

Mary is clearly gifted at evoking stillness - that felt great!

Beautiful perfect voice with a little maturity in it. (Not too young sounding.) Perfectly paced with nice pauses and verbiage.

It’s so precious to rest in stillness. Thank you 🙏

Been struggling lately to bring any stillness to my mind, so thank you for that. Namaste 🙏🏻

Brought me into stillness. I would have liked it to be slightly longer . Thank you Mary

I love how gentle and nuanced you guide through each of your meditations. The image of bringing stillness to the foreground and activity to the background is especially helpful. Thank you 🌻

Awesome! So relaxed and at peace in a sense of stillness.

Divine! Thank you!