The Book of Rest. James Reeves
it is not necessary to spend hours (or years) honing meditation techniques in order to experience a calm mind. It happens to all of us, often when we least expect it. In any case, the point is not to have a calm mind, but recognise the fact that we can and do have spontaneous moments when we are not thinking – when we are beyond thought.
A few seconds of not-thinking is all it takes for you to realise you are not your mind, and you can carry this realisation with you always. You might begin to sense that there is a great well of spacious, harmonious being already within you, whether it’s through those first few moments when you wake up, a pause between thoughts, a middle-distance gaze or noticing how when you went to bed your natural sleep hormones pulled you gently from your thoughts and into a blissful state of being neither awake nor asleep.
As you gather more and more of these moments, you might begin to realise that there is something within you that is always calm, always as OK as you have ever felt. Crucially, this is not a feeling you have created, but rather you have uncovered it. It is never not there, even if it seems to ‘disappear’ behind the thoughts. Whether we are practised meditators who make a point of creating space for these pauses every day or a mere mortal who has never actively ‘meditated’, yet still has these pauses (because we all do all the time), the point to remember is that the relief comes not from the pause, but from what the pause reveals to us.
Rest is only truly restful if you recognise the significance of what lies behind the absence of everything.
(You might have to take a moment to think about that. . . but be sure to enjoy the pause at the end of the thought. . .)
Our expectations for rest might be in the way of us resting
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.
Realising that what we are looking for is already here
There is no getting away from the fact that your attention loves ‘stuff’. It loves objects that appear in its consciousness. This is one of the most confounding factors for anyone formally approaching meditation. They realise that their attention is constantly fixated on everything that passes by. From noticing sensations in their body, and then the images that might arise from them, or noticing the smell of dinner cooking and then the thought about what tomorrow might bring or the memory of what happened today at work. It goes on and on, and it seems never-ending.
Regardless of how much effort you put into calming your mind, your mind is never going to stop being your mind and doing what it wants to do: namely, controlling everything and working everything out. And even though your mind knows that its attempts to figure out how to make tomorrow’s meeting go smoothly, for example, can only be a game (it knows it is impossible to foresee all factors involved in the situation at the time), it will continue to look for ways to control the situation and secure a pleasing outcome.
Your mind is just doing its job. It is the most loyal employee you’re ever going to have, and rather than get frustrated with it for being so incredibly duty bound or chastising it for being in the way of you getting what you want (a moment’s peace), you can take a step back and leave it to get on with things. When we do this, we allow for the possibility that while there is all this stuff going on ‘in our heads’, there is also something else that is not darting about, not planning, not worrying about anything and not even doing anything at all – it is just allowing. There is something beyond our thinking; something that is never distracted, and never bored. Something that has been here all your life.
It’s here now, as you read these words. Aware, quiet, at peace, still and in need of absolutely nothing.
Therefore, if you find yourself declaring, ‘I just can’t switch off my mind,’ (or, ‘I had a stressful day off!’) you might wish to remind yourself that this is an inconsequential observation and that you are by no means any further than anyone else from connecting with the quiet essence of awareness that lies beneath (and above and all around) all other aspects of your experience.
The trap might be in your trying to find it, but you never will, because your awareness isn’t another object to find. It’s not a thing, but that in which all things appear. It’s not a place to get to or an experience to be created. Like trying to grab a handful of fine sand, the more you tighten your grip, the more it will slip from your fingers.
It cannot be found and it cannot be lost. It is always here.
— If rest is the ultimate act of doing nothing, then it has to involve doing nothing about the fact that your mind is not doing nothing.
It’s our hope that this is at once confounding and relaxing, and that as you read these words you feel relief from knowing that there’s nothing you can do to get to this place of awareness – to that part of your experience that, regardless of what your mind and body are getting up to, is always OK. Your inner knowing, your deepest, wisest, most at-peace self is always there, and grappling over how you can find it (it’s never lost) or complaining that you can’t find it (it’s always there) will only take you further away from realising that you are already it. You are always being.
However, we do appreciate that. . .
You can’t pretend you don’t want to feel rested and find peace
It is perhaps a cruel paradox that the more able you are to surrender to what is and give up the notion of having to do something to stop doing and start being, then the more likely you are to happen upon an experience of being. However, over time, your mind will get hold of this truth and bend it to its own agenda. The mind will start to say such things as, ‘If I can give up my expectations then I’ll get to this stillness and have an experience of peace and calm’. And just like that, you’re back to watching the sideshow and not realising the main event is playing out right before your eyes.
We can’t pretend our mind doesn’t have this desire for results.