Productivity and “doing” certainly are important aspect to living. We are creative beings who enjoy the “doing”. Through years of being a follower of cultural expectations, I have learned living life well isn’t about standardization in any form. Being able to think outside of this matrix of cultural expectation is surprisingly difficult. It’s like the fish in water, but it doesn’t know it’s in water because the water has always been there. Asking the question regularly “what am I doing and why am I doing this” is powerful. The opposite of “doing” becomes an soundboard for the answers to arise from. Becoming still might be an idea that’s immediately dismissed as valuable. It’s not until we have spent some time in stillness that the value is revealed.
Intuitive thought (or original thought) is much more likely to happen when the mind is less occupied by thinking. The mind loves to think. Think and think and then think some more. That is the dharma of the mind – to think. Let’s look at this “thinking”. Most of what we think about is the same everyday. Up to 95% of thought is a rumination inside our brain over and over again directed by the subconscious level of the mind. (and then there’s the unconscious level as well… but let’s go into that another time) What comes out today is what has been stored and repeated yesterday. So, that brings us to the idea of nothingness. Nothingness is like the vacation for the mind to experience something new. The something new is nothing. It’s a time for all the preprogrammed material of the mind to rest and settle. To be able to create space for something new to be experienced. Being guided into stillness by a teacher is helpful because let’s face it, stilling still isn’t easy. There’s a highly effective meditation technique called Yoga Nidra that I find is best suited for beginners to meditation practices. It works by relaxing into a state of sleep but staying on the verge of actually falling asleep. The teacher is able to guide students into deep relaxation. I hope to have you in a class soon to experience this powerful “nothingness” state of being.
