The Ever-Present Stillness

Stillness

Our lives overflow with content. Thoughts, emotions, sights, sounds, and objects create a fascinating and colorful tapestry of experience. But what about the context?

There is a stillness present in the background of your experience at all times.

Take a deep breath and feel that silent stillness right here, right now. This isn't something to search for with your mind but rather something to sink into. If this feels confusing or foreign, that's natural. The mind cannot know this stillness because this stillness is the very context within which the mind operates. The mind cannot reach outside itself to grasp what contains it.

This stillness is felt, not known.

The deepest truths aren't discoveries we make through intense thinking. They transcend the mind so completely that we must feel and sense them instead. Humans have attempted to name this felt stillness for thousands of years, calling it presence, being, emptiness, awareness, or isness. Ultimately, it remains unnameable, escaping capture through language. Yet we can feel it, and we can feel that it's always here.

It's a mystery in the most beautiful way possible. Always present for exploration, yet elusive enough that we cannot pin it down with human language. The context can never be fully captured by the content.

Never Separate

Even amid complete chaos and turmoil, this stillness remains present. It's not a silence that noise negates or activity destroys. Rather, it's a silent stillness that allows noise and activity to exist within it.

The context is never destroyed or diminished by the content.

No matter where you go or what you do, you are never at a distance from this background of stillness. You cannot take a single step away from it. You are never separate from it. It accompanies you in every situation. Whether in the darkest depths of depression or the most blissful moments of ecstasy, the background of stillness remains unchanged. The more you begin to rest in this stillness, the more you realize that you and this stillness are one.

Meditation

Meditation is the practice of falling back into ever-present stillness. One of my favorite quotes comes from Deepak Chopra: "Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet; it is a way of entering the quiet that is always there." We don't calm the mind by trying to force it into silence. Instead, the mind naturally quiets when we sink into the quiet that perpetually exists here.

The content transforms when we recognize the context.

What an incredible gift to have this mystery always present for us to rest within. The more we surrender into the mystery, the closer we draw to peace.

Peace is found by recognizing what is always here.
Peace is found by recognizing what could never not be.
Peace is found by recognizing what can never be separated from us.

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