The Importance of Touching Stillness.
Touching Stillness and bringing peace and tranquility to our inner being is not a luxury but an out right necessity, not just for our survival, our sanity and our personal wellbeing. But for the survival, sanity and wellbeing of everyone we come in contact with and therefor for all of mankind and all sentient beings.
Nurturing stillness, peace and tranquility in our body and mind makes a difference to our health and wellbeing. In our every day life we become much happier and one’s own inner happiness and inner calmness creates a peaceful atmosphere that radiates outward to become a benefit not just for us but also for everyone around us. We are all inter-connected. Each and every one of us, and even the briefest contact, a smile from a stranger on a train, or kind word from someone on a bus, can have a lasting effect, lift our spirits and foster that which Carl Rogers called “unconditional positive regard” – Love and compassion.
It has been estimated that we each have between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day. The constant mind-less chatter created by a life permanently multitasking in our own mind made stress bubble reduces the ability to find peace and happiness. With such a troubled mind it may seem impossible to find peace and tranquility and the concept of “Touching Stillness” an enigma. But when we are able to touch stillness we are able to nurture the seeds of love, compassion, peace and happiness in our own heart.
Most, if not all of our troubled thoughts are mind made and like the concrete blocks in a wall, they appear one on top of the other, tightly packed together with no gaps between them, no light and no space. In his book “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”, Sogyl Rimpoche says:
“In the ordinary mind, we perceive the stream of thoughts as continuous, but in reality this is not the case. You will discover for yourself that there is a gap between each thought. When the past thought is past, and the future thought has not yet arisen, you will always find a gap in which the Rigpa, the nature of mind, is revealed. So the work of meditation is to allow thoughts to slow down, to make that gap become more and more apparent”.
In effect all we need to do is to create the right conditions, and stillness will manifest. Stillness has no boundaries, no borders, and no conditions. Like the air we breathe stillness is all around us, a huge reservoir from which we can draw freely. Create the right conditions and stillness finds you, when stillness manifests we feel peace and tranquility. You do not have to sit for months in a cave at the top of a remote mountain, or fly to a guru on a tropical island to find stillness, peace and tranquility. You can find stillness in the "here and now", in a cup of tea, you can find stillness peace and tranquility by just sitting and breathing.
Leon Edwards
© The Stillness Project
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