The Stillness Sessions: 1, Exploring Stillness

Hello all and welcome to the stillness sessions.

Now I use the word stillness,

We could easily use many other words,

Presence,

Silence,

Aliveness,

Disaware space.

So don't get hung up on one word and I say that because the mind wants to objectify,

It wants to label and name it and describe it and this can't be described,

Okay?

It's beyond description because it's not a thing,

Like space is not a thing is it?

But it exists.

Awareness,

You are aware but is it an object?

No.

So what I'm pointing to is so utterly here,

So utterly and simply here and that's the problem.

We overlook it because the mind wants to label and describe and go to the next and go to the past and do do do do do,

Okay?

So we're just going to do this in a way that's very light,

Even fun,

Okay?

I'm just going to point for you to look somewhere,

For you to turn the attention there,

Okay?

But I don't want you to answer.

I don't want a concept.

I'm using a concept to point to the conceptless,

To the non-concept,

Prior to the concept.

Don't think about all this,

Just forget about it now,

Just follow the instructions and just let's see what happens.

If you can,

Put your expectations to one side,

There's going to be no fireworks.

I'm not looking for fireworks.

Fireworks don't last very long.

They go up and down,

Finished.

Okay?

So just sit quietly,

Eyes open or closed,

Preferably open actually.

It's not your traditional calming meditation.

It's looking at what we essentially are.

So,

Right now,

What's here before a thought?

Stay there.

Watch the mind scratch away to label,

To say something.

What's here prior to a thought?

That's it.

That's what we're looking for.

But the mind doesn't value it because it's not an object.

It can't get all of it.

So what we do,

We keep visiting this place.

I use the term place in inverted commas.

And at some point,

We start to become more intimate with it.

We start to get to know it.

It starts to reveal itself.

It's like when you meet somebody new,

A new,

You know,

Girlfriend or boyfriend or partner.

We spend time together,

We start to reveal ourselves.

We start to open.

It's the same as this.

This presence,

This true nature,

Another word.

It's a jealous lover.

If you're not going to be interested in me,

In it,

It's not going to reveal itself.

So we're not intellectually interested.

Just spend time there.

Don't do anything.

But it's quiet,

Isn't it?

Before thought starts again.

Okay,

Let's have another look.

Who are you without thinking?

Don't answer.

Just stay there.

Watch mind,

Watch it wants to come in.

And that's okay.

Just sense that stillness,

That silence.

It's already here.

I don't mean the absence of sound.

Okay,

Just little moments,

Short moments,

Repeated often.

That's all we're doing.

I just want you to introduce you to something.

That is what we call your true nature.

It's what you really are.

It's the ever-present.

See,

There's the ever-present,

This stillness,

This spaciousness,

This aware space.

This is ever-present.

But we are more interested in that which comes and goes.

I'm really referring to the world of thoughts,

Concepts,

Beliefs.

So if your mind comes in and says something like,

Oh,

I can't get this.

It's just a thought.

It's not a reality.

It can't get it.

The mind can't get it.

There's nothing to get.

You can't get space.

Oh,

I've got it.

I've got space.

And you can't get awareness.

It's already here,

But it's overlooked.

It's ignored.

And the reason it's ignored is because we are drunk on thoughts.

We're drunk on ideas,

Labels,

Theories,

Beliefs.

Right now,

Without language,

Who are you?

Without language.

Stay there.

Watch.

Mind wants to bring language in.

It's got to explain.

It's got to describe it.

Yeah.

We're not saying language is bad.

Thoughts are wrong and,

You know,

Are necessarily a bad thing.

They're not.

It's a wonderful tool.

I just wanted to get to see something else.

I wanted us to see the reality of thoughts rather than taking them to be reality.

Because what thoughts are saying is not reality.

The word tree isn't a tree.

The true tree is the wonder of life.

It's not the label.

Without thinking,

Without thoughts,

What do you believe?

Why do you go without?

Without words,

Without thoughts,

What do you believe?

Stay in that silence.

That's it.

Just short moments.

See,

What we're doing here,

It's a bit similar to the Rinzai Zen tradition,

Where they just sort of confound the mind.

The mind can't go there.

It's like one of the koans from the Rinzai Zen tradition was something like,

Show me your face before your parents were born.

The mind can't go anywhere.

The mind comes to a full stop.

And then that gives us the opportunity to sense this,

Which is prior to thought and in which thought appears.

But it seems to obscure it.

Yeah,

It seems to.

So that's what we're going to do.

We're just going to play different ways of doing it.

You know,

Let's have a go at just stopping the mind again,

One last time.

What's the difference between red,

The colour red and a frog?

Sorry,

What's between the colour red and a frog?

Nowhere to go with it,

Is there?

It just brings the mind to a,

That's all we're doing.

There's no answer.

That's why the mind can't.

What are you talking about?

See,

Don't listen to that.

That silence,

That stillness is there prior to that thought.

Because what we're looking for is not in the words.

I can't tell you what it is.

I can only give you pointers,

Words.

That's all I can give you.

And the word is not the actual.

We hypnotise ourself with words.

Just find better words for it.

Find a better philosophy.

Find a better description.

All you have is more words.

Zen asks,

How do you know the earth is flat?

Well,

It's resting on the back of a turtle.

What's a turtle resting on?

Well,

More turtles.

Turtles all the way down.

And there's no end.

It's turtles all the way down.

And those turtles are words,

Thoughts,

Concepts,

All the way down.

There's no end.

So you full stop.

That's why in Zen then,

Many traditions put their meditator in silence.

Silence is where it's revealed.

Okay.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.