The Still Point in a Turning World

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. You know, things are always changing. The clock ticks, the sun rises and sets, seedlings sprout, leaves turn from green to brown and then fall. We grow up, skin wrinkles, hair turns gray. The snow in winter is replaced by flowers in spring, warm winds in summer, and then the colors and calm of autumn.

You're sad about something for awhile, and then it passes and joy comes to visit. Later, a moment of fear, then love, then doubt, and then joy again. The mind flits from hopes to fears, to daydreams, to to-do lists, past and future. The world is in constant motion and connections with people in our lives wax and wane, come and go. Breakups, new loves, friendships all coming and going in chapters, new beginnings and endings.

Nothing's permanent. Things are always changing. And yet it's also true that as this dance of life is unfolding, there's one thing that doesn't change, the stillness at the heart of who you are, the space in which the dance of life is always unfolding. And in that stillness, you can find refuge. A shelter from the storms and seasons of life, quiet in the midst of the chaos, a connection to something in you that transcends the passing of time and changing forms.

And in that stillness, you can find a home within yourself, a place of love and wholeness and rest. One of the central teachings of the world's wisdom traditions is that every, anything that changes is not a reliable place to find fulfillment. Fulfillment's cultivated from within by waking up to this deeper dimension of who we are, and then letting that flow out into our lives. So how do we do that? Of course, meditation has long been practice as a way of waking up to that stillness inside us. And I highly recommend it.

But today I want to share with you another really simple way to invite awareness like this into everyday life. And that is to notice and create moments of stillness in daily life. So there's moments when the house is quiet, there's nothing left to do, moments where you are in relative peace. Now most of the time when these moments come, we tend to fill them up and start doing again. But why not relish that stillness, open yourself to it fully.

Take a pause from the momentum of your life and just be. So see if you can invite more moments of stillness and presence into your day. Two minute rest under a tree, a one minute meditation when you get into your car before driving off, a short pause before sending an email. Just punctuate your day with moments of stillness like this. And where log, logic and language fail, you might send something sacred in that stillness or have an intuition that it's a part of something much larger than yourself.

And though it might defy explanation, you might touch a wholeness and a oneness at the heart of who you are. So give yourself permission to enjoy moments of stillness. Be nourished by them. Let them fill you up and anchor you in the depths of who you are. Let stillness be a teacher and a friend.

As my favorite poet, Rumi says, "Listen, silence isn't empty. It's full of the answers."