Читать книгу The Book of Rest - James Reeves - Страница 26

For most of us, when we stop doing, we become more aware of our incessantly chattering mind. The more we notice this noise, the louder it becomes and the more stressed we might become about it not quieting down. . . and the further away we think we are from feeling calm. This is very often the experience of anyone trying meditation for the first time and why they might describe it as ‘difficult’. But meditation is not something you make happen; it’s what happens to you when everything else stops. For this reason, we are all natural meditators. It’s not something we can be bad at.

Rest can only be found in letting things unfold exactly as they are, without expectations or conditions. If we expect rest to be a certain way, then we’re looking for something. We’re still doing.

For example, many of us turn to nature when we’re feeling stressed out. A walk in the woods or a hike up the hill can offer a much-needed tonic to our ills, and they do very often leave us feeling the thing that we craved: a calmer, more at-ease mind. However, there will inevitably be times when we return from the great outdoors still grappling with a situation, or for whatever reason feeling tense, and we’ll likely feel short-changed. ‘It hasn’t worked!’ we bemoan, ‘I don’t feel any calmer!’ But we’re missing something here: when we take a walk or practise yoga or listen to our favourite soothing music, we may immediately be soothed and then be gratified by such an outcome, in the same way that we might watch a stand-up comedian to make ourselves laugh – we set a goal, took an action and experienced an outcome that pleased us. However, we are once again distracting ourselves and missing the main event. That is, we are not recognising the awareness that is witnessing everything unfold and has no investment in the outcome being one way or another.

An experience felt as a result of a deliberate action is only a sideshow. It is the rabbit coming out of the hat amidst a greater illusion. We are so fixated on the little magic trick, we may not notice that the stage on which it is being performed has vanished.

The statement that there is something directly in front of our nose, or to put it another way, that there’s something hiding in plain sight, can be pointed to when we consider the phrase: That which you are looking for, is that which you are looking from.