The Still Point

Who Observes the Course of Your Life?

In my last blog entry I wrote about changing one’s mindset in the midst of personal challenges. I was writing with the intention of changing course and not just being a victim or a passive recipient, of fate. Now I wonder about another side of this mindset, a simpler side, a place to begin again and again.

· What if we were here just to experience what we experience?
· What if there is a space within each of us that is even simpler than acceptance of what is?
· Maybe, a still point seep inside of us that just observes?
· Some part of us that neither has to change nor has to blindly accept circumstance?

A personal example: For two months early this year I experienced big, broad happiness. A glorious treat! And then circumstances with family and the world began their ragged clawing at my heart. Down, now for two months, wanting to change my set of sails, wanting my boat to travel differently than the course of the mind.

Up, down, spun around, inert… such are the realities of mood and desire.

Yesterday, as I walked around Battle Ground Lake, I intuited (again) a still small voice in the wind. Instead of just walking, I had been busy in my mind making big decisions about how to proceed through some local family strife. Then the message came: “Wait”. Don’t do anything for a moment. I had been inside my head talking in imaginary conversations, then the message… “Wait, stop.” I looked at the trees shimmering in pearlescent greens. I observed the Blue Heron hunting her prey. I stopped.

Yet I knew that this message was not just about stopping what I was doing or even calming who I am. This “wait” is akin to the observer in meditation, the one who is always still, even in the movement of living. The yogis say that there is a still point inside all of us, a place that is no place at all, and a person that is all persons, and none at all.

OK, perhaps this sounds pretty esoteric. How do words describe something so simple? Here’s a view of the gist of this “wait”:

· We experience what we experience, until change occurs.
· We are who we are, until we are not.
· We feel, act, and intuit what we do, until we don’t. 
 

I felt relief with this reality popping up as I walked. I no longer had to do anything to change my challenging situation. I longer had to change my thought patterns or behaviors to find peace. All I had to do was be in the still point at the center of myself. Even if I acted, or made a supposed mistake in my acting, I could still access this still place. No good, no bad, no praise, no blame, resides in that space.

The idea is so staggering simple: Just be here.

For long moments I knew something that is beyond even acceptance. I just was. If that sounds unclear then I say “Great, find your experience and see what is true for you in the moment.” Then that moment will move to another, like moments do.

For me, being a hyper sensitive type and one who has struggled with depression, the idea of waiting in the still place is just another key to continuing in life. In practical terms, meditation and creativity are my vehicles, my boat if you will, on this journey. What is your craft for  access the still point?

In the previous blog I used the analogy of sailboat and the wind as being body-mind. But this boat, and the wind, and the sails are only analogies set on an open sea. Perhaps it is the sea itself we can pay attention to. Perhaps, our individual personalities are but waves on the sea. Consider this possibility when struggles beset or pleasures ensue. We’re are each just a wave taking on a new form and then another new form. Then the form falls into the sea. Then we fall back into what/who we’ve always been.

The enlivening side effect of this idea has been that for moments, worry and judgement about the person/circumstance supposedly causing me distress just vanished. And that judgement and desire for changing that person is still gone. How can one wave judge another wave when we are just small part of the whole sea? And more than this, how can we so harshly judge ourselves now? And even if we do judge, it’s just part of the experience.

Love,

Rick

PS The Image is a life size+ pictograph from a canyon in Escalante, Utah, USA

(C) Copyright, Words and Image, Richard Sievers, April 2016

Moments of Stillness Later in Life

There comes at least one moment in life when one has the opportunity to break the bridge that binds one to the past and future, when one can live as present and be alive to all the senses. The moment may come in the guise of pain or happiness, at the moment of death, in the arms of a sweet lover or even as the result of a long season of personal development.

Maybe I am ready for my new life.
Maybe this is not a convenient time.
Maybe this is the best time.
Maybe I am still learning to be happy.
Maybe I am ready to be true to that one voice
      that sounds like my own,
      but is really the Song of the Universe in disguise.

OK, No More Maybes

I am giving up the sacks of stuff wedged in my garage, in my chest, in the shadows of my mind.

I set out now to write even One Simple Word so sumptuous
     that reading it would first slay your illusions
          that all the festering pain is lasting.
Then the sweetness of that word
would slay the you seen in the mirror of circumstance.
Then a single syllable would turn into a phrase of celestial music.
You would die with a smile upon your face.
Or better yet you would live within that state
     in a string of moments
         like notes of a song stretching out forever.

So, I work, I wait, I wonder, I feel...
all in service of reaching for that ideal-real word.

I reach for the ideal
   because the world needs the other side of reality
      missed in the pain body of
         what ifs, should haves and discarded passions.

What I am learning so far in my particular life:

· That service comes with the ascension of singing and the pain of crying.

· That trying to live without regret has consequences that instill a need to go deep deep deep into practicing the presence of the Creator.

· That relying on the material delusion to fulfill oneself is Purgatory.

· That love comes from many corners of one’s life, and is made visible when one is both present and willing to take the risk of being seen.

· That it is perfectly acceptable to know inexplicable joy in the middle of feeling sadness or even happiness.

· That unhealed anger clouds the stormy mind and rains sorrow upon the world.

· That pain is strident and restless, yet something greater, sweeter and lovelier lives within stillness.

· That all learning is subject to revision, growth and humility.

Sit with me and be still for moments… then for a few moments more. See what comes from behind the veil of sorrows. See what wants to be born Through you as acts of service to a world in need.

Love,
Rick

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, February 10, 2016, All Rights Reserved

Adding a Smile to Asana

Burrows Island, Anacortes, Washington 9/15

I've been considering happiness and the mindsets that create happiness. Looking out into the sphere of worldly news it's easy to crumble into the sad, fearful and dare I say empty cynical mindset. I wonder what course a spiritual seeker can chart to not be swamped in the tides that seem so turbulent?

I woke up this morning with the mind banging on his cage, saying listen to me, feed me, make me real. Mediation became my only refuge. The mat and the kneeling did Not take away the maniac locked inside my skull. And the yoga postures did not bring control over my mind. The chatter did, indeed continue. But what I realized again is that the I that observes all of this in meditation has something to say about what my experience will be.

I considered the dark thoughts I was watching as they groveled in the muddy banks of my thought stream. How could I have compassion on them while not buying into their dire predictions?

I could add a smile to my asana practice. Sounds funny, maybe even fake. A smile? Really? my kids are struggling. The world is crumbling. A smile?

But I tried it anyway. Do you know what happened? I felt a soft wave of happiness cruise through my aging bones. How about that! It was a moment, and I set a sail to catch  different wind than the bitter cold pulse from the icy mountains. I steered into a warmer wind... if only for a moment. And maybe that moment will reverberate through my entire day.

I wrote a poem about the experience. I hope you will try this when the sads and fears rise out of the thought stream.This is not a way to diminish any feeling or experience, even the cynical experience. But this may be a way to know there is a door out or through the darkness. 

Three Years from Now

Finding a momentary island

or

I don’t need to struggle to feel real.

I don’t want to wait

until the end to find sweet peace.

I want the honey now,

not only for me,

but to be so overflowing with freedom

that everyone around smiles and

just maybe imagines a life

happy and even beautiful.

Such a life only lives

right here and

right now.

Now,

not three years or

a hundred struggles

from now.

Now!

Try this:

just smile.

Make your face

wide with light.

Do this,

especially if you don’t

feel it.

The experience of Doing Happy

creates Being Happy…

and vice versa.

Now,

that’s freedom,

no matter the circumstance,

creating an island of refuge

right here, in the moment.

Love,

Rick

(c) Copyright, Words and Image, Richard Sievers, January 2016

How Do I Love Those That Hate?

The Hungry Ghost by RSS

I was feeling distressed this past day with voices rising up from our world which promote hatred and a form of individual rights which trample the rights and needs of others. The thoughts about radio personalities and the wavers of an outdated battle flag have spun around inside of me. How will our world ever evolve if it is always about Us and Them? Yet I was thinking in terms of us and them. 

Then I asked a deeper question while meditating this morning. And then some answers came from the One I only know as Mystery and Beloved. I wrote it all down in my journal. I thought maybe these musings would also provide some insight to someone else, like you. Perhaps this would be helpful in finding your own answers to:

How do I Love Those that Hate?

 

How do I love those that hate?

How do I remain true to the ethics of healing without hating or dismissing those that know they are right?  How do I remain true to the wonders you have revealed to me without demeaning the people so wrapped in maya (illusion and suffering) that they openly carry weapons to kill and words to maim?

How?

· By Grace and Gumption (will).

· Just be kind to them anyway.

· You do not have to fight anyone if you only say what you are For.

· When you revel in what you are against you join with the dark.

· Go into the fiery den of those that hate if you must and then come fully out.

· Stay Not in The Pain by carrying such a message around through your rejection, resistance. Resistance and rejection are the energies of connection with that which is disliked. A shadow.

· No doubt the revilers and cynics can harm the body and destroy the civility in society. But they cannot touch the spirit. Only You can consign your spirit to hell or heaven here and now.

· Either I am all, or I am some, or I am none. (You decide which level of wonder to believe)

· Yes is the word of your dharma (Life work/calling). Yes to what is right and just and loving all at the same time.

· These trials and conflicts (in this world) will remain as mystery while you dream this life.

· Soon you’ll know what is beyond your questions of Why.

· Soon you’ll realize who you always are.
Love,
Rick


(c) Copyright Words and Image, Richard Sievers, All Rights Reserved, August 2015