Presence

    You should know by now, if you

    take it for granted,reality

    has a habit of becoming unreal.

    What was your life disappears,

    leaves you without self

    to put a finger on. Reminding you

    everything which will ever happen 

    has already happened, only

    you were not there. As when

    you wander out, late

    into the night, find yourself 

    when you get back, deep 

    in the chair you haven't moved from.

        John Phillips

  Stretching time silently between the arms 

        Lifetimes in each posture 

  

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality disturb us.
-- A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers -- Walden

What remains ? when I watch the thoughts, emotions and sensations in my body, I begin to notice what remains . That presence or awareness which is constant, always here waiting for my return.

Relaxation

Just how much can we actually let go.It seems to me that the more I let go the more possible it becomes to let go even more.
Lately I have been spending as much time as possible witnessing myself daily as I work, run, practice etc.
What has become clear to me is that the more I relax and just watch my thoughts without making any effort to control or direct them the more space arises.
As I struggle to just keep letting go part of me is resisting urging me to take control, almost warning me that if I keep this up my mind will run amuck, paradoxically when I stick to the witness and ignore "these warnings" my internal space seems to expand more and more.
This letting go transfers to the body which relaxes and opens me up to a new more subtle level of awareness.

   A gift of God! A perfect day,

      Whereon shall no man

          work but play,

   Whereon it is enough for me

    Not to be doing but to be.

     Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

     all the little knots

     of anxiety and tension

     slowly unravelling

     of affection and disaffection

     slowly unravelling

     the dried grasses trembling

     

     if you move

     lightly

     events will start

     up from your feet

  

      Thomas A. Clark

" A smile from heaven" thanks to Corinna for passing it on to me.

Simon (seen throwing me above) told me of a study done on cowboy movies to investigate why the cowboy (usually dressed in black ) who draws first always loses to the guy who draws second. It was found that the guy who draws first has to make the decision to do so. This takes time and slows him down, whereas the other guy just has to respond (so no thinking involved).I love this story,for me it is further confirmation that letting go and allowing life to lead us is so much better than 'thinking' things out.

A few weeks ago I read Christopher Mc Dougall's Born to Run it was entertaining, informative and also very inspiring, so much so that one Sunday afternoon found me out running. Now I would sometimes jog along when out with Suzie and on a sunny day when my spirits were particularly up I might even break into a run (down hill). So to find myself RUNNING 5 miles (I checked later)was amazing. I used to believe that there were "runners" and "non runners" and I definitely figured in the latter group. When such a life long belief gets shattered something in me feels freer and lighter, less weighed down by any thought because when beliefs begin to fall there is more and more space to just be.

As the mind gets quiet, first the sense of havingness decreases until measure of security is felt. It becomes less necessary to have in order to be.Then the sense of doership decreases until a further security is felt in that one is not the real doer, that the real doer is a higher power, that one can actually be with much less doing and it becomes less necessary to do in order to be. Finally your real Self that has always been in the background steps in and takes over and you feel that there is nothing necessary any more that you must have or do, that there is no choice but to only be.
Lester Levenson