Knowledge from Stillness

The Pali word for meditation, bhavana, means to develop. We’re trying to develop a state of oneness. We’re trying to develop the skills of being still.

The mind is really skilled at running around. It goes here, goes there, really quickly. In a split second, you can go to the other side of the world and come back. But what do you have as a result? Nothing much. You have a few memories here and there. Sometimes you develop some really bad qualities as you run around because your greed, aversion, and delusion fuel the running around. So if you’re going to desire something, desire some stillness and see it as freedom.

I was reading someone complaining that when you get the mind absorbed and still it’s restricted and confined. You want the mind to be measureless, allow it to go anywhere it wants. Well, that’s allowing your defilements to go anywhere they want. And you have to learn how to see disturbance of the mind as just that—the running around of the mind, the thinking of the mind—as a disturbance. The Buddha even calls it an affliction. That’s where we get our entertainment, but he says it’s an affliction.

We have to understand what his values are, where he’s coming from. He’s found a happiness that comes from really being still, when the mind is unlimited by this, that, and the other thing. It’s allowed to stay with one thing and expand that one thing to fill its whole awareness. That’s a skill. It takes work. But it’s work that, when it’s well done, accomplishes a lot. It helps you to see your mind a lot more clearly.

Otherwise, if you just watch it running around and say, “Well, I’m aware of its running around, so that’s enough,” you don’t know why it’s running around. You don’t know why it’s doing things until you try to stop it. That’s when it begins to show itself.

So in being still, you’re not just hiding out. You’re learning a lot about the mind when you’re changing its habits. Samsara is a big running around. They call it the “wandering on.” Someone called it the “bumbling on.”

Learn to appreciate stillness because it has a lot to offer, a lot to teach you. And it provides you with a sense of well-being. This is where you get a sense of being unlimited. You’re not limited by your distracting thoughts. You can spread your awareness out in all directions with just one object.

See what that does for you. See what you learn.