Habit Three: Stillness

The guru of stillness was exasperated with his student. The source of this exasperation was essentially that what he was teaching didn’t exist and the student was having a hard time with that. It was more about what wasn’t there than what was. The student couldn’t really handle that; ‘So. What you’re saying is that it is a bit like this? Or like that?’. ‘No, no, not like that! Or this, for that matter. Even a bit!’ He paused and finding depths of compassion and patience asked his student, ‘Are there spaces between your thoughts?’. ‘Well yes’, the student admitted. ‘Then make them bigger’.

<< Introduction to The Seven Habits of Smiley Spiritual People.
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Stillness is the space between. The silence from which noise comes. The stillness from which action arises. It is the primary conduit to those deeper resources of love, joy, peace, patience, wisdom, happiness and beauty. In stillness you know. It becomes your teacher. The stillness within you is like the depths of water. On the surface there may be turbulence but underneath all is calm.

Stillness is a practice. It is something that is there inside you the other side of your ego but it takes most people a bit of practice to get in touch with it and sustain the link through to the rest of their lives. The benefits will be obvious to you and to others. Routes to this practice can be found in most schools of meditation.

Finding Stillness.

1. Find a regular time and a place where you can set aside 10 minutes a day to begin with. It is important that you won’t be disturbed.
2. Next, find a posture where your back is straight and where you do not risk dropping off to sleep. A kneeling stool like this is ideal.
3. Be aware of yourself from the perspective of habit 2: non-judgemental observation. Just notice what state you are in without comment or labeling.
4. Bring your focus to your breathing and as you breath in, say to yourself internally ‘in one’ then ‘out one’, then ‘in two . . . out two’ and so on.
5. When you reach ‘in ten . . . out ten’, begin to count back down again: ‘in nine . . . out nine’. If your thoughts wander and you forget where you are just start again at one.
6. The intention is to observe not to accomplish. It isn’t ‘good’ if you make it all the way to ten and back – twice, it is just a gauge. Even as you disagree, ‘yeh, but I bet I can do it’ you can be observing your ego. Always with acceptance.

I have found the following books really useful in defining the non-definable.

• Awareness by Anthony De Mello. I’m sure Yoda was based on this man: “The chances that you will wake up are in direct proportion to the amount of truth you can take without running away. How much are you ready to take? How much of everything you’ve held dear are you ready to have shattered”. He also said, “Don’t try and teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig” but that has little to do with stillness unlike much of Awareness.
• Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle. From the book: “When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world”. (From Jesus: “Be in the world but not of it”.)
• Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. Another Yoda contender: “In a conversation between a fool and a wise man, who learns the most?”

Habit Four: Presence.

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