52 - In stillness sits the secret
To sit, or sit not?
There are those who have
and those who have not,
That which is
and that which is not.
The thousand came from that which is,
Yet that which is came from that which is not.
In that place called NOT,
Notting Hill, county of Middlesex?
Holy yoni, sacred cervix?
Is there really nothing, or something?
From that place we call NOT,
nothing begets all things.
Both concave and convex
together make for sex.
In the act we call NOT,
non-action trumps action.
Steady, sturdy, stable, still,
Sit and let your strength refill.
Expanding then enfolding,
the space-time torus turns.
In the void lies the fullness.
The secret sits in stillness.
These are verses to praise the sacred place of stillness. The trigram "SIT" implies "move not".
What will you do? Or what will you do NOT?
There is a time to act, a time to wait. A time to sit, a time to move. A time to push out, a time to pull back. A time to give, a time to receive.
Your incessant action is a stress on you. You’re pulling at a plant that will not grow any faster.
The towering poplar restrains its upward growth until its roots are deep. You too need deep roots, the clarity of your intent from which all your actions spring.
Here is the prescribed action, though be it a non-action.
Sit your body down for a while in a place we’ll call spaceless space. A place where the streets have no name.
Become conscious of your breathing, that most vital of things you do without thinking.
Now, flip your range of vision 180 degrees, such that your eyes are looking backwards into your head. That's not possible, so just imagine. Go ahead, peer into your mind.
All you can see is blackness, so let your eyes adjust.
Let them adjust to microscopic level after level, until you are groping in the void between the subatomic particles that are supposedly the building blocks of your personal identify.
This is the 99.9% called nothing from which you are “made”.
Now, you should feel a bit lighter, gaseous, perhaps even ubiquitous.
If you have gotten this far, your mind is no longer working “properly”, because you are observing it. Your mind doesn’t like to be observed, because it would like to believe it is the sole observer, the omniscient subject. Any outside observer might start messing with the code and cause a fatal breach of security. If the code is modified, so is the program. Your mind seeks to reduce all uncertainty. Your act of observing introduces quantum-level uncertainty. What if you are not who you have always believed yourself to be?
Now that you have begun to undermine your mind, you will begin to experience a temporary place of stillness.
Like a blank slate, this is place where you can reset and reprogram your thoughts. You can’t reset your thoughts by thinking anymore than a software program run itself differently.
From that still place, around which your thoughts are swirling, conjure up positive emotions that you associate with experiences you want to have. What would it feel like to live in abundance? What emotions does an adventure create? Use these emotions to guide you towards a clearer vision of what you want to become.
In this stillness, you are allowing clarity to take take root. Such roots are vital, yet their development goes unseen. The visible will spring from the invisible.
Congratulations, you have done NOT. You are learning to sit still. Maybe your tail keeps wagging. With some dedicated practice, you will be able to sit longer, do less, and accomplish more.