No Ripple

I have grown to like being still.

I have taken to sitting in silence, especially in the daytime when Owen is away. Sometimes I play a record on softly in the background, usually an old favourite: Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen. Often even that is overwhelming. I dislike too much noise. I sit, with my thoughts on mute; sitting, breathing, just being.

I can do that for a long time, sometimes hours. I can’t explain why, or how but I find such beauty, such depth in silence. I feel a stripping away of the layers, a crumbling of the barriers until all you’re left with is a pure and calm stillness. Sometimes, my body rebels. It gets bored and restless, it longs for the shiny, for the new. I persevere. Still I sit, still I breathe, in and out, in and out. The boredom, too, eventually melts away.

I focus on the breath. I count to ten like I’ve been taught. One to ten and back again. Just me and the breath. Everything else disappears. I count to ten. I breathe in and out. Until the thoughts are still and all is quiet within.

Sometimes, when I am feeling this calm, I take out pad and pen and let myself write. This is a true joy. I write spontaneously. I have never done this before. I don’t know where the words come from, but I don’t think them first like I usually do. I do not edit, I do not delete. They sometimes make sense, they sometimes don’t. I don’t care what happens to them. They are not my words, they do not belong to me. They are pure: free from ego and competition and paralysis. I like writing this way, although it feels more like channeling than writing. When I read the words back though, I can tell they came from somewhere inside me. I am no medium, except of my own subconscious. It is so different when you let the words form on the page without worrying about them. You learn that they usually take care of themselves. It’s like a mother finally having the courage to let go of her child’s hand as they cross the road. It’s all in the act of letting go that things become pleasurable, really pleasurable and that you become free. The stress disappears, the knots unravel. The words on the page do not belong to me, nothing belongs to me, hell, there is no me! It’s just all good. Really good. And it makes me smile.

But that’s the writing. I do that because I can’t not write. I’ve never been able to live a life where I don’t write. But the day is long and mostly I just sit. I sit on my stool or I sit on the sofa. I sit on the park bench, I sit by the river. The water flows like time passing. You never put your foot in the same stream twice.

Home again: I stare at the white wall. I see so much peace and beauty there. I walk into the garden. I smell a flower. For a moment, that flower is the universe. I watch the bees and wasps fly around the garden. I wish them well. I breathe, I breathe, I breathe. I go inside. I brew a cup of tea in my old china cup. It is white with a golden rim, and a chip in the top. I pour the water slowly, watch the leaves diffuse. I blow. I sip. I swallow. The tea becomes part of me. Water becomes blood. Hydrogen and Oxygen along with everything else. I wash the cup, the soapy bubbles pop on my arm. I rinse. I dry. I place the cup back in the cupboard. I am aware of every movement in my hands, the feel of the rough tea towel against my moist knuckles. I walk back to the sofa. I sit. I stare at the white wall. I see such beauty there.

Later: I smile. It is colder now. I pull my blanket round me. I don’t know the time. I don’t want to know the time. He is not here, but will be back. Until then, I sit. I make Nick sing some more. I don’t listen to the words, just the melody, the sound of his instruments; his guitar and his voice. That’s how it’s always been with Nick and I. The sun sets, I watch it on the horizon through my window. I do not ignore the building site opposite. I try to see the beauty in the cranes and the scaffolding. It is not difficult, although it was at seven o’ clock this morning. I yawn and stretch my arms into the space above me. I sit, I light a candle. I stare into the flame, I don’t know how long for. Soon, I don’t hear noises, not even Nick. I stare at the candle, I stare at the flame and its many different colours. My eyes softly, gently close.

There is a smell of smoke. I open my eyes. The candle has blown out. Its plumage spirals towards the overhead light. I lick my fingers and pinch the wick. It fizzles but does not burn.

I stand, fully awake. Nick has long stopped, the disk ejected. Outside there is darkness. I shut the curtains, turn on the light. The stillness remains within me, unshakable. My stomach rumbles. I walk into the kitchen, open the cupboards, ponder quietly what to create for us today. Whilst I am thinking, I hear the front door slam. He is home. I smile: another day over and not a ripple in the pond. What joy I have known today, what more could I want for? The door opens, he is wet with drizzle and his nose is red. He kisses me, throws his arms around me, says; ‘It’s good to see you, it’s great to be home.’ Here, you see, I have everything I need. Here, you see, I want for nothing. After all, this is my home. Not this town, not this house, not this man, not even this body. Home is the stillness, the rich beautiful stillness that lies here: deep down inside me.

The Importance of Exercise

Walking down the street yesterday, I tried to be mindful of my inner monologue. Not to try and still it, as I do in meditation, but just to watch it, as a passive observer might. So I walked and watched the thoughts, feelings, desires and reactions that welled up in me as I walked down a busy high street full of shoppers.

The things I learnt were numerous, and I am still reflecting on them now:

My mood doesn’t fluctuate daily. It doesn’t even fluctuate hourly. It fluctuates every few seconds! I’m not saying this is unusual, even though I do have a mood disorder. In fact I suspect it’s very common if not universal. Example: I would walk along and one second see a beautiful blossom tree. It would make me feel vital and great in the sunshine like everything is ok with the world. Then I would look to the ground and see a beggar sitting underneath it and feel a pang of guilt. I would start thinking about the nature of capitalism and feel a wave of despair and guilt for my own luxurious possessions. I walk on, then smell donuts and feel tempted and stimulated and then worry that I am obsessed with food and oh my god no wonder I’m so fat! Then I spend a few seconds feeling ugly and depressed until the sun comes out from behind a cloud and I get my devil may care vibe going on and I walk with a swagger. Soon, I’m back looking at the trees and feeling great, all in the time it takes from walking to one end of the street to another!

I know this isn’t a startling observation, but I was surprised at just how wildly my mood would oscillate, in such a short space of time. It made me realise how inconstant and unstable and conflicting everything that goes on in my head is. I really felt like my head was a tumble drier with lots of jumbled and fraying thoughts spinning around inside, only settling at random for a few seconds, and then spinning on again. By the end of the walk (only five minutes) I felt so out of control and dizzy I had to stop thinking about the whole thing and, interestingly, I put on a CD from my childhood to ground and comfort me.

The other thing I learnt about myself is just the sheer amount of comparison I do with other people, and snap judgements I make about them. My head, (despite my alleged radical leanings) is a very prejudiced place. I inwardly sneered at fat people, felt indignant at Polish people, gawped at a lesbian couple, crossed over the street to avoid a disabled person and got frustrated when an old dear spent more than two seconds crossing the road in front of me. These were more behavioral and emotional reactions than thoughts, but I was being very mindful, and I noticed myself doing them. Sometimes I felt guilty, but mostly not. Why then the inconsistency? I profess to follow a philosophy which encourages equal love for all sentient beings, and politically I have been spouting left wing polemics for as long as I’ve been able to talk, yet I’m embarrassed to interact with a person in a wheelchair? As they say on the net: “WTF?”

These observations distressed me, as you can well imagine. I’ve been feeling unsettled ever since. I have known on an intellectual level for a long time that everyone is prejudiced to a greater or lesser extent. Intolerance is subtle and camouflaged and it is often easier to say you’re not prejudiced than to actually act that way. I remember the argument I had with a close friend in my first year at university when they said everyone is racist, and I was so venomously opposed to that idea at first, but over time I realised the truth in what they were saying. Still, to do the mindfulness exercise and to discover that nearly 7 years after discovering this hard hitting truth, your mind is still as fear filled and prejudiced as ever, it’s a bit depressing. Yes I know all about media influence and social pressures, and the fact that no one is immune, but still.

And then I got on to realising that these snap judgements could lie at the very heart of human misery. Because after all, if I’m walking down the street calling a random person a fat crazy old bitch in my head, or a terrorist, or stupid, or ugly, or a slag, or whatever, then deep down, rightly or wrongly I assume that some, if not all people are doing the same to me. After all, I’m a fairly content, happy and loving individual. I cried at Forest Gump, laughed at all the ironic bits of peep show and read the guardian! What must daily mail readers be walking along thinking to themselves?! (Half kidding) How can you really trust people, relate to people, fully love and open your heart to them when a simple walk down the street is steeped in this deep well of judgment, fear, paranoia and suspicion?

Then I started thinking about my friends, about my family. I started to think about trust, and about how much you can or can’t do it. I mean, if you can’t trust a smiling stranger not to be thinking you’re a fat ugly scrubber, then how can you really, truly trust anyone? When I reflect, I can honestly say, there’s a lot I don’t say to my friends and family that I could, or I should but I won’t. I like peace. I like a quiet life. I don’t think it’s my place. I don’t want to hurt them. I’m too proud. I’m rubbish in conflict.

So of course, it begs the question. What are they all really thinking about me??? If there’s a lack of genuine trust and no ones got your back, then it logically follows that they just might stab you in it.

All this seeks to divide us and I think with all the shit in the world this paranoia certainly has us conquered.

This morning I was awash with mistrust. I still am to a certain extent I don’t believe in tying up loose ends that are still loose for the sake of a good yarn. But amongst all the doubt, the questioning comes two things to the forefront of my mind that are both challenging me and giving me peace:

1) Matt. 7:1 "Judge not, lest thee be judged." Somehow to me this is a command, a reassurance and a solution. If I can concentrate and stamp out this behaviour in myself then maybe I will not feel the judgment of others, both real and imagined weighing so heavily on my heart.

2) The Buddha’s noble eightfold path holds the promise of the eradication of suffering for its followers. Could its claims be true?

It’s a sunny day and I’m going to go out for a walk. This time though, I’ll be taking my walkman with me and blasting away that bloody inner monologue. I’m not saying it wasn’t a useful exercise, and it has thrown up valuable questions but I find there is a time where a little mindfulness goes a long way.