I sit alone at a side-street café. It’s a little cold but I’m in the sun, I can feel my face warming from the touch of the winter rays, while my legs are still acclimating to the cool breeze. I’m casually looking around at the folks waiting outside the post office, wearing their masks dutifully, I can hear some kids laughing in the nearby playground. They sound like water trickling down a brook. When my tea comes, I notice the steam rising slowly from the cup. It’s tango dancing with the breeze and the sun is illuminating it like a stage spotlight. My being is filled with the scent of lemon and green tea.
I see this scene in slow motion. I’m fully there, fully here. I’m connected with all that is happening through my inner sensing, almost as though it’s my belly and my gut that are witnessing, my mind is still and in awe.
Subtly Being.
It’s a new experience for me, this slowing down off the cushion to really hear with the inner ear, the one that is completely aware of the ever-present silence, even when exteriorly there is noise and movement.
I appreciate this powerful experience more and more since the lockdown. For me, this was one of its greatest gifts, along with the many challenges it brought (challenges always bear gifts, if we’re paying attention).
I have friends who are always looking for a new thrill, pushing the limits of their bodies and/or minds, and for years I felt I was trying to catch up. When we went into lockdown – especially the asphyxiatingly strict lockdown in Greece – all of these possibilities came to an abrupt and painful halt. I spent much of the time meditating, talking to friends, and working online. But I was still in that force of before, I didn’t experience it as calm, I was one of those crazy people who tried to ‘take advantage’ of the lockdown and begin new projects, learn new skills, try new (online) experiences, I was still pushing.
By the second lockdown something began to shift. I basically started to feel that inner annoyance, that restlessness and heaviness at the same time, I began to visit the fridge too often, or have a scattered mind in a million directions. The inner critic was on a rampage and nothing was ‘getting done’. I now know this as a sign of my inner exhaustion. I was finally getting tired of pushing. My body and my nervous system were whining (that is usually the annoyance without any apparent reason). And this is when my practices began to shift.
I tuned into this need and began to move my body in different ways. My yoga practice became soft and slow, the breathing long and sweet. I could hear the familiar voice urging/demanding I push, but as time went on it became quiet. After many years I’d simply read a book for fun (!) or watch something that was not for some higher educational purpose. Most importantly, I began to take walks on the mountain, long, slow walks, and found a spot where no one goes, I’d take off my shoes and just feel the earth, listen to it through my feet.
In meditation I realized I was striving. I began to ease into a sweet surrender, with no interest in any enlightenment experience. Just the sweet moment, the caress of the breath, coming, going. I’d stop if I was too tired, and sometimes I’d just go past the end bell. Coming, going.
In all this I have found that subtlety is incredibly profound. The act of retreating inwards while being completely aware of the outer brings a real stop to time. Time really does slow down. I almost feel embarrassed admitting this now, after all the years of yoga, meditation, therapy, whatever. I haven’t felt like this on any long meditation retreats, and I’ve sat in a few. The experience of subtle noticing while life is still happening is indescribable. The colors become more vivid, sounds change, the senses are interacting with the world anew. Time stops. Moment is indeed infinite.
Most of all, I feel in love. How not to? Inner sensing doesn’t make a story, it doesn’t assume or interpret. The world becomes a magical, vivid play. Even the little girl who is crying at the playground becomes a beautiful expression of discomfort and disappointment, without my own identification to whatever her reason for crying is. Then, there is only love. Only beauty and awe.
There is no greater motivation than the experiencing of these moments to keep sitting, this time off the cushion. I look forward – rather than strive – to increasing the length and frequency of this subtle being. To see life through my belly. Though my inner experiencing, way down below the head, in the body. This is life meditation, body meditation. Perhaps this is just life.
True and everlasting love.
