The Art of Effort-less Stillness . . . Stillness Without Striving

Consider the ocean, dear friend.

At the surface, there is almost constant movement.

Waves rise and fall.
Currents pull.
Wind disturbs the water.
Storms come and go.

And perhaps this is much like the surface of the human mind.

Thoughts rise and fall.

Plans, worries, memories, desires, judgments, ambitions—all moving across the surface of consciousness.

What must I do?
Where am I going?
What should I become?
What happens next?

We spend much of our lives living upon this surface—thinking, striving, achieving, reacting, becoming.

And then we attempt meditation in much the same way.

We try to make the mind still.

We try to stop the waves.

We struggle against thoughts, resist them, suppress them, and become frustrated when the surface refuses to remain calm.

But perhaps this is where we misunderstand stillness.

The ocean does not need to stop its waves in order for stillness to exist.

Descend beneath the surface.

Go deeper.

The farther you descend, the quieter it becomes.

The turbulence above gradually loses its power.

The waves may still be moving far overhead, but down here there is another dimension of the ocean—vast, quiet, undisturbed.

And so it may be within you.

Beneath the chattering mind . . .
beneath the endless thinking . . .
beneath the striving and becoming . . .

there is a stillness that already exists.

You do not manufacture it.

You do not force it into existence.

You do not have to defeat the mind to reach it.

You simply learn to withdraw your attention from the surface and allow yourself to sink beneath its restless movement.

The art of simply Being . . . resting in Presence, free from the endless thinking to become this or that.

Not stopping thought.

Not fighting the mind.

Not forcing yourself into silence.

Just descending.

Deeper than the noise.

Deeper than the waves.

Deeper than the person who is always trying to get somewhere.

Until, perhaps for a moment, there is nothing to achieve . . .
nothing to become . . .
nothing to fix.

The waves of thought may continue somewhere above.

Let them.

You have discovered the depth that the waves cannot disturb.

And perhaps that is the great secret of stillness:

You were never required to create it.
You only had to discover where it had been waiting all along.

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