Stillness

by AJ/Skald

There is such beauty in people when they are still. Perhaps that's why I love coffee shops. What I love most is to sit quietly and look at people: a young woman reads, another holds her phone tenderly while sending a text message.... an old man sits at a booth and stares out the window.

Quiet & still, we are at our best. Its when we start jabbering that the ugliness comes out. Language is to blame for much of our misery.

William S. Burroughs described language as an invading virus from outer space... a disease that infected our brains and took control of them. The metaphor has merit. Where, after all, do our thoughts come from? Language-thoughts seem to bubble forth from an inner void. Some of them take hold and replicate... strengthen and reproduce. The more virulent among them are spread to other brains via language. In many ways, ideas spread like epidemics.

So what are we, exactly... and what is our relation to language? Are we merely hosts in which language-thoughts incubate, reproduce, and spread? Do we have any control over these viruses? If so, what is the "I" or "we" that is doing the controlling..... just a different set of language-thoughts? Or something beyond language?

What is the purpose of meditation but to free us from these unwholesome invaders? Meditation helps "us" to silence "them"... gain a few moments rest from their attacks... get in touch with what we were before they infected us.

Sages call this state "big mind" or "sky mind". Its the truth beyond language. Its our older, purer selves.