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The experience of stillness
- Thread starter Martin
- Start date
I'm no teacher, guru, or authority in this area, but in my own experience, the best thing that you can do now is take a hint from the Zen monks and forget (if you can) about your experience of stillness. Apparently, dwelling on it will inhibit or prevent you from having further such experiences because you risk becoming attached to it, and attachments tend to inhibit or prevent spiritual experiences.
Don't try to fix it in your memory. That's just clinging to it, becoming attached to it. Besides you don't need to remember it for it to change you for the better. Just as you don't need to recall all the influences on your life that formed and shaped you for them to have formed and shaped you.
By the way, so far as I know, it means you're on the right path. Now try to forget you ever had it, just as quickly as you would forget a sign you see on the freeway telling you you're headed in the right direction!
Don't try to fix it in your memory. That's just clinging to it, becoming attached to it. Besides you don't need to remember it for it to change you for the better. Just as you don't need to recall all the influences on your life that formed and shaped you for them to have formed and shaped you.
By the way, so far as I know, it means you're on the right path. Now try to forget you ever had it, just as quickly as you would forget a sign you see on the freeway telling you you're headed in the right direction!
Experiencing stillness, if you're referring to silencing thought in the mind, is something it take many years of practice to achieve (and, as I understand it, not all that common an achievement). If you are able to do this, you are already well ahead of many who meditate.
As for what's next, I suppose that's up to the individual and what they hope to achieve. For me, once my mind is silenced, I am only my (higher) Self, i.e. consciousness, and am awareness and oneness. But again, this may not be for everyone. What one seeks to achieve through meditation is a very personal experience.
Treks
Well-Known Member
Just out of curiosity, what do you think it means, and what do you feel you should do next?
Continue being still. Stop trying to do things or think overmuch.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Wait and see what comes out of the "woodwork".
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
That is really great advice, @SunstoneI'm no teacher, guru, or authority in this area, but in my own experience, the best thing that you can do now is take a hint from the Zen monks and forget (if you can) about your experience of stillness. Apparently, dwelling on it will inhibit or prevent you from having further such experiences because you risk becoming attached to it, and attachments tend to inhibit or prevent spiritual experiences.
Don't try to fix it in your memory. That's just clinging to it, becoming attached to it. Besides you don't need to remember it for it to change you for the better. Just as you don't need to recall all the influences on your life that formed and shaped you for them to have formed and shaped you.
By the way, so far as I know, it means you're on the right path. Now try to forget you ever had it, just as quickly as you would forget a sign you see on the freeway telling you you're headed in the right direction!
From my short experience with meditation,
, the idea is to simply keep going. The flotsam and jetsam of experience one has along the way are, necessarily in the past, so just be... here... ...now. The biggest taboo is developing preconceptions about what lies around the next inner corner. Try to avoid recreating the fleeting experiences as that could quagmire one into thinking they are doing something wrong - and so they are.The good news is that if you have only been doing meditation for a short while and have already experienced the inner stillness, that is a very good sign that you have a natural affinity for this type of endeavor. My guess is that you may... stress on may... experience this and other more wonderful things sooner rather than later. Keep up the good work.
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Your experience is unique to you, as everybody may have different experience.
I think what you are experiencing is stillness that brings peace and a foretaste of contemplation. Its tempting to want to stay in that stillness.
Passing on advice from a retreat master;
Resting in this stillness can be relaxing and even delightful. But if you do so, you run the danger of inducing a mild trance or a mental blank and resting in this trance, which leads you nowhere as far a contemplation is concerned.
Its a little like self-hypnosis that has nothing to do either with the sharpening of awareness or with contemplation.
I don't know what your goal is but if it is to communicate with God:
Ordinarily, all our contact with God is indirect-through images and concepts that distort his reality. The mystics tell us that in addition to the mind and heart we are all endowed with a mystical mind and heart which allows one to grasp and intuit him in his very being, apart from all thoughts and concepts and images.
Certain kinds of Music can be very good to make the stillness more of a habit. However, this was my substitute/alternative to meditation, so keep at it. You're doing well.
Keep a journal maybe. you can put all the "thoughts" that might preoccupy you in there and try to figure out why that is. Be kind and honest to yourself and accept your imperfections. the pursuit of perfection and belief in absolutes is an illusion that can get in the way of the stillness.
Treks
Well-Known Member
It might be best not to ask and not establish an expectation within yourself. But you do you.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Again, though I am fairly inexperienced in meditation, over the decades I have found many things beyond this stillness. The downside is that non-dual experiences can only be hinted at. I can only reiterate @Treks comment,
Just know there is more beyond this phase. Much more, and that is where the fun really begins. My best advice is simply continue your meditations but do not rush to figure it all out as you will invariably come to the wrong conclusions due to lack of data.
Just out of curiosity, when you are 'beyond the stillness,' do you find that when you attempt to focus on or understand what is happening mentally, it obscures or shuts down what you are experiencing?
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Yes, because that is when you are no longer focusing on the experience itself, but are conceptualizing about the experience. The trick is to stop thinking and just do. It's harder than it sounds, LOL.
Thanks for answering. Just checking to see if others experience this as well.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Think of it as being like watching a movie and getting caught in the detail of a particular scene. As you focus on the those details, the next parts sweep past your attention and you begin to miss things. Pretty soon you have to go back to the point you got sidetracked and start the movie from there. (I do this a lot when I start to comment on something interesting in a movie.) Not a perfect analogy, but good enough to give the idea.
Jedster
Flying through space
.. reminds of John Lennon's song with the words "Life is what's happening when you are busy doing other things".
i hate it when people talk to me whilst watching a film.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Hehe. Yeah, I agree. But, but, but my comments are so deep and insightful though!
What I normally do is hit pause, babble for a bit, back it up a tiny bit then hit play.
Last night, while watching a show that had a huge police presence at one point, I paused, then blurted, "Wouldn't it be hilarious if there was a large Dunkin' Donuts truck that went out for every police SWAT team? LOL! They could put gun turrets on the side of the vehicle. Imagine a phalanx of heavily armed officers protecting the doughnut truck. LOL.
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Jedster
Flying through space
I think you probably meant phalanx i.e a body of troops or police officers standing or moving in close formation.
Oh is that from Warcarft?
Because I have hearing aids, I can transmit the sound straight into my aids and can turn off 'outside disturbances' like people coughing., talking, eating etc.
I get to play all parts in the movies.