So now I invite you all to settle into physical stillness,
Becoming sensitive to your own breathing as you inhale and exhale,
Just like a gentle wave as it rises and falls in this vast ocean of stillness.
As you settle and stop,
You might become aware of things still moving internally and externally,
Allowing whatever comes to come and whatever goes to go.
We don't have any contention,
Any resistance to anything.
What does that feel like?
Not to resist anything,
To demand anything,
To want anything,
Such that we're like a big open field.
Anything can come and it's in its nature that it naturally dissolves into this wide open field.
So you're sitting here,
You can call it practicing meditation,
But really you're just sitting here with absolutely no agenda,
No trying,
Not expecting to get anything,
Just noticing,
Simply witnessing whatever comes,
Whatever goes.
Can you sense the still point in all of these movements,
Whether internal or external so-called?
You might have a perception of it as being like the center or the still point in the eye of a hurricane,
The eye of the storm.
Can you sense that?
Even though in essence it's not locatable,
We can intuit it.
In some traditions they refer to it as the heart.
Can you rest into your own heart?
That still point,
That still point doesn't really have anything to say,
But this silence is really the most authentic language and you have to know it for yourself.
That still point doesn't have any views or opinions,
Likes or dislikes,
No desires,
Because resting within it brings complete relief.
It quenches all desires.
When we rest back into this,
If a certain desire does pop up in the mind,
It has no inclination to run after them as it's completely satiated,
Content just to rest here,
Nothing worth thinking about,
Nothing to do,
Nowhere to go and no one to be.
Things still come and go,
But they don't sway you,
Just like that eye of the hurricane.
Everything's swirling around and yet there's something deep within the center that remains untouched.
So this is all our practice is intended to do,
Just to help us come back to this,
To learn to recognize the still point.
And that's a little easier to do when we sit in stillness and stop the movement,
But the more we practice,
We can recognize the still point even in the midst of movement.
It's just changing perceptions.
And even if you have the highest peak experience of bliss or love or ecstasy or the deepest hell of pain or fear,
Terror or grief,
Guess what,
That still point doesn't move.
The highs come and go,
The lows come and go.
None of these ecstatic experiences are permanent,
None of the visits to hell are permanent.
The still point is the only constant that you know or recognize in all of those experiences.
So it's the only thing you can rely upon.
And this is why the Buddha said to make this Dharma,
This truth,
Your refuge or your island in the midst of the tumultuous sea of samsara.
No teacher,
No guru,
No drug,
No peak experience can either give you this or guarantee that it will be yours for good.
So we stop looking outside or relying on external things to reveal reality and we simply just come home to what is so natural,
So obvious and what might appear nothing special starts to reveal itself more and more as we keep shedding,
Shedding all the layers of confusion,
Attachment,
Identification,
Delusion,
All the running,
Running,
Running and just stop.
And when we really stop,
Completely stop,
Then we drop deeper and deeper down,
Deep into the stillness and it all just happens.
As Ramana Maharshi says,
We're pulled deep into the current where we actually have no control.
We've let go of the controller,
Recognizing that there's no one making it happen.
Other than the power of wisdom and love itself.
So when you feel ready,
You can just slowly come out of the meditation.
But recognizing that even though the perceptions are changing,
That we're taking in more visuals or sounds or moving the body,
Nothing really changes at the deepest level.
That still point is always there.
