A certain Stillness

I know very little of the practices of Budda or meditation. Though I do meditate from time to time. This isnt something I do in a room full of incense and yin yangs, but rather while listening to music or performing mundane tasks like washing dishes. I know that most, while meditating, do so to find their center, to find stillness. Which brings my question. I find myself come over with a certain calming stillness at times. Ive become aware of it, when its presence is there and when it is not. Is this normal? To be aware of it conciously? Also, does it come in waves like this for others? And my last question, and the one that concerns me most is, when this feeling isnt present, do you feel out of place or physically ill?

Personally, I don't do sitting meditation either. I have too much energy, and instead find the still in the center of activity. It's what I find in kata...moving meditation. Becoming mindful of the moment, sensitive to the 'now'.

Maybe your body, your being, is telling you to cultivate this feeling. The seed is there, within all of us. It has to be tended to so that it can grow. With discipline and care the seedling's roots will grow deep and strong, and branches will touch the sky. Find a practice that suits you, so that you can cultivate this progressively. Like your fighting training, adding progressive resistance in a structured way...your spiritual muscles and skills will be built the same way.

another way is simply not cultivating anything. in not doing so, things are truely 'still'.

'go with the flow' someone once told me.

Ed, You're not helping.

not qualified to even try to help someone else with this, Jim. I was giving what works for me. dwelling on these kinds of things defeats it's own purpose, I find.

Chen,

Very hard question and I will give you sort of a layman's take. This is despite my mother being a Buddhist and my father a Lutheran...and me nothing much.

When I started martial arts and was told to meditate, I could have as easily kept one eye open for all the good it did me. Later, it was outside of martial arts and just trying to accomodate stillness and relaxation. Maybe a beautiful day, maybe just feeling good and sort of letting my mind rest "between the lines" and go outward from there. I mean this literally.

One of the training devices that some Buddhist monks had were to give those nearly nonsensical statements that you tried to wrap your brain around: The sound of one hand clapping, etc. Well, within that verbal and written construct is way to leap off into the deep end of the mind so that you don't have the baggage that your up front, daily brain brings to the game trying to decipher what that means. When considering it or thinking past it---trying to let go, sometimes I have a vague sense of reading some ancient tome and skipping to the blank space between the lines and moving past that...sort of a feeling as my mind does a brain fart and I space out, but a little different since I am actively seeking this sensation.

When that happens if sort of feels like an electric nothing...a skip in the phonograph of my awake mind. I am aware of...nothing... and not trying to be conscious of it. It's a balancing act of trying to get to that point, but not forcing it and allowing it to happen. It is very relaxing when I can do it. And when I come out if, sort of feels like waking up from a nap. I can do this for only a few seconds to less than a minute and only some time.

I don't know if that helps. And to me is probably no different than any self-induced trance like state in countless cultures. I do it to relax.

-B

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I find myself come over with a certain calming stillness at times. Ive become aware of it, when its presence is there and when it is not. Is this normal? To be aware of it conciously?

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Yes, it's normal to be aware of the state. And it's a good thing, so that when you're aware that it's not present but you want it to, you can get back to it simply by "remembering" what it felt like.

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Also, does it come in waves like this for others?

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For me, it's more of like a "settling down", comfortable feeling in the center of the solar plexus area.

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And my last question, and the one that concerns me most is, when this feeling isnt present, do you feel out of place or physically ill?

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No. You'd just be in your normal, everyday "chatter-box" mind mode.

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I find myself come over with a certain calming stillness at times.

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You can also get a similar state of calm stillness through motion. Try this and see if it works for you.

Get into your favorite fighting stance. Start swaying your posture (side to side or front to back) After you've got into a rhythmic sway, decrease the arc of the sway. Make the swaying smaller and smaller, in ever-decreasing motion, until you stop swaying, but can still "feel" the swaying. At the moment when you feel the swaying (but you're not moving at all) inhale and then exhale as if you're pushing down your belly toward the floor, and let your weight "settle" to your upper thighs. If you can do that successfully, you'd feel pretty much the same calm stillness, or something close to it.

Try it. It's fun