A Quiet Mind

A quiet mind:

these quiet moments lead to life outside the meditation bench and sacred space of my creation - there's an extended silence now, deep, internal, and one that guides and benefits in ways not imagined long before. I'm often asked of this, what I've gained from my twice daily sittings, some often long periods of simply allowing myself the thinking of a mantra until it drops all together to a quiet mind. I wish I had an easy answer to this, a concise reply that would satisfy the question. But honestly I don't have one, not really, at least not a list that actually answers why I wake so early and welcome the morning with quietness and ease, and then later in the day I sit and match myself again to silence, a ritual of so many years, decades now, that still feels fresh and true. If asked now my answer is most often a smile and a short reply, yes, I could name the many benefits current research states, and how meditation has led me to a creative life of sobriety, living with more empathy and care for others - yet none of that would ever answer why my life is based on the simply, easy joy of sitting with a quiet mind.

my honest answer is for the pleasure of the sitting.

nothing more. 

any benefit is an added bonus to my sitting, this isn't about health reasons, stress reduction, or even a matter of spiritual awakening - all of which meditation may well indeed address. But I sit to enjoy the silence, it's an internal pleasure, independent of the world at large, and yet also leaves me so seamlessly connected as well. The benefits of a quiet mind is a quiet mind. That's it really, I enjoy my own silence, and by this I don't necessarily mean the absence of thought, at least not always and not completely - but that thoughts are allowed to caress this natural, spaciousness of mind, leaving nothing in their wake, not even the smallest of disturbance. I can't weigh the benefits of this, it's incalculable and immeasurable, and really can't be truly described. 

but it's here, always, natural, available.

my reason to sit is because it feels right to do so, ingrained, and yet free and so very spontaneous. If it ever changes from this I would completely let it go. The great discovery of a quiet mind is that it's unattached even to the quality of its own stillness. I return to this, and although it's never really absent. But I enjoy the pleasure of that reminder, the continuous rediscovery of my own quiet mind. 

with every single sitting. 

~

Peace, Eric