"The first level of stillness is about being with yourself in order to know yourself. This is accomplished by being wide awake and aware as you deliberately relax into yourself. The idea is to consciously enter into a state wherein you temporarily suspend everything you think you know about who you are, including anything you have ever been taught, and simply be attentive to what's going on right there where you are. You practice being quiet, both physically and mentally, as you pay attention to the sensations in your body, the various thoughts in your mind, and your current experience of being conscious and alive. You practice simple body-mind awareness, being conscious of the moment you are now in, and thereby experience with clarity the energy of you. You consciously experience yourself as you actually are. In this way you open yourself to a new, truer, less distorted experience of you and the world."
- Erich Schiffmann, Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness, 1996, p. 7.
It has become nice and warm. Finally I find time to sit down and enjoy the quietness of the terasse. It is really quiet, believe me.
ReplyDeleteFrom down the valley a wind blows up. The sound of the wind passing the bamboo grove. The sound of the wind when it hits the big stem of the pine tree. The sound of the wind when it bangs on my large tin roof. The sound of the wind when it blows through the forest. The sound of the wind over the weeds. All of them so different.
I become all ears. The body drops and seems to concentrate into one big ear. My ear enjoying the great big NOW. No sense of time. If an ant would be sneezing on a far away galaxy, I am sure I would hear it now!
Suddenly I become aware of something:
Right now, I am not listening with my EAR, I am listening with my brain. I am not listening to the wind as it is, I am classifying it .As if two of these great Buddha statues who stand in front of every temple like big police-men on guard, these Nioo-San, would be standing there asking the wind: “Where do you come from?” “I come from the bamboo grove.” “Ok, you may pass!” the Police watchman would plaster a lable on it, show him into the brain for easy understanding.
Not really listening with my ears, but with a watchman between my ear and my brain.
More is here:
. Quietude and the Ant .
Kaze no oto
Takeyabu ni kaze
Matsu ni kaze
The sound of wind
Wind in the bamboo grove
Wind in the pines
Greetings from Gabi
. DARUMA Museum, Japan .
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