Getting A Break And Resting Your Head

Getting A Break And Resting Your Head

This week, I was thinking about what I wanted to write for my Sunday Letter and I couldn’t think of anything.

 

I wracked my brain for a special teaching; something from my past that I’d learned that might be helpful to share.

 

I tried to come up with an interesting story: checking within to see if anything had happened lately that might be fun or compelling.

 

I dug deep to see if maybe there was something personal and revealing that might create a deeper sense of connection with you.

 

And I got nothing.

 

Then I realized… there’s a lot in nothing. In fact, NO THING is actually a highly present and focused state—when our mind is empty and we aren’t forcing anything and we can just be in awareness.

 

There’s a Buddhist meditation called awareness of awareness. It’s an open-eye meditation and you gently focus on the space between you and what’s in front of you. In my experience, the molecules in the air start to shimmer and I discover the space is a live entity all on its own. And I’ve sensed it’s not separate—it’s the same energy that makes up me and everything else.

 

Here, in the emptiness you can sense, feel and experience how everything is interconnected.

 

Without having to come up with something to write, or something to do, something to connect with you about,, or something to teach, I can still be completely connected with you.

 

Present. Just here. Being. Loving.

 

I’m one of those people who doesn’t like a lot of chatter. I don’t feel the need to fill silence with talk. And I love it when I can just sit with a friend or a lover or a family member and be next to each other without having to feel like we have to do or say anything.

 

There’s something gloriously intimate about not having to speak. In fact, my closest girlfriends are friends that I attended meditation retreats with. The start of our decades-old friendship actually began in silence. This bonded us at a very deep level.

 

When I stay in their home we’re able to “do our own thing” in the space with each other. There aren’t any insecure needs to have to take care of the other. We co-exist in a happy, peaceful, content space. We can be quiet with another. For me, this is a testimony of the comfort of our relationships.

 

I tend to feel this way, too, when I’m sitting on the beach. The sound of the waves crashing, the wind whistling, the roar of the furthest reef break tends to replace the mind noise in my head. I’m softly rocked out of the normal intellectualizing or mind-gripping, lists-to-do, things-to-get-done, must-plan-ahead thinking. I can just chill.

 

So I suppose, without realizing it, what I really want to write about is the delight in resting in nothing.

 

Finding comfort in a non-doing state and gently sitting in the awareness of our awareness, freeing our minds a little bit from their habitual patterns.

 

It’s a wonderful state actually when our minds don’t have to work and we get to be quiet and still.

 

So this week, see if you can grab some moments of NO THING. Don’t try to fill the space with anything if you can and feel how lovely it is to just get a break from your head.

 

Wishing you moments of peace, relaxation and gentle ease!