May 13th
Gray morning filled with soft clouds reflected in the still water. Quiet spring morning with marsh grasses turning green at water’s edge. Out of the stillness comes the sound of a passing boat, creating ripples across the canal. Then the sound and the ripples disappear into the stillness again. The same with bird sounds.
When we are not watchful, thought fills all the spaces, one unfinished thought after another, most of which have no importance to the world or even to ourselves. Thinking is our habit. It is how we carry the past with us. Mostly, we don’t know anything different. Who would we be without the thoughts with which we identify? What would we do with empty minds?
Watch what goes on, how we are uncomfortable without an identity, which is the past. Watch fear and our responses to it, how it fills all the space, takes us out of stillness, out of being and into the realm of the egoic mind.
Pay attention to the stillness out of which thoughts come, to the space in which all forms exist. And breathe. Breathe with awareness of the present moment, while surrendering into the stillness of the unknown.