At points along the way, we may become aware of a call to set aside the theories, teachings, and techniques for just a moment and rest. Something else is revealing itself, a way of being that is already here and not the end-product of an exhaustive search for something different.
For a moment, to cut into all the effort to become and to understand, and open to the completeness of this moment as it is. To reacquaint ourselves with a dimension of experience we may have known at an earlier time.
It is unfamiliar here and can feel disorienting as we are so used to doing, interpreting, getting somewhere, and resolving something. Fixing ourselves. Completing inner to-do lists.
But somehow, we notice ourselves becoming more curious about the space in and around our thoughts and emotions, rather than entangled and fused with their content. All the ordinary thoughts and feelings continue to come and go, but our relationship with them becomes one not of solidity but of play.
We notice our center of gravity shifting from the varied forms of awareness to awareness itself as we sink into the background field. The bottom drops out from underneath us, as well as the top and sides. We’re home, but it is not the home we thought.
The grooved organization of getting from “here” to “there” is replaced with a primordial sort of relaxation, an embodied tending to reality as it is, oriented in curiosity about what has already been given and what is unfolding in the here-and-now. Despite the pain of the past, we are fully here, already intimate in the immediacy of this moment.
We discover an ancient sort of trust in ourselves and in life. Nothing need be cultivated or generated, shifted, or transformed. Not for right now anyway.
To stay with this much space requires a radical sort of friendliness toward ourselves. Without it, we’re not going to be able to move toward the vulnerability, enter fully into the unknown, and open to the vastness of having no reference point other than awareness itself.
Inevitably, in the next moment, we will notice that we have left the freshness of now and traveled into past or future, images, memories, daydreams, and fantasies. So human. So valid. This time grace taking form as “forgetting.” Totally honorable. Worthy of awe, in fact.
When you notice this has occurred, which it will be sure to do many times during the day, you could get curious, become fascinated with what it is like to travel in this way and the gloriousness of even that. Set aside the habit of shame, blame, and self-attack, and replace it with wonder… touch the mystery of lost and found and very gently return into the spaciousness of now.
Art by Stefan Keller
The next book, The Unfolding Heart, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come
My latest book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available
The next book, The Unfolding Heart, will be published by Sounds True in early 2020, details to come
My next event:
The Great Befriending: A Five-Day Journey of Self-Love, Deep Rest, and Coming Alive (with Jeff Foster), September 21-26 in Loveland, Colorado
