The Ending of Stress - The Awakening Blog pt 2

'Look at The Lillies of the field they neither toil nor spin'

These beautiful and poweful words spoken over two thousand years ago, are simply encouraging us to observe the way things really are. Nature is an astounding teacher.

Nature is not trying to be anything other than it is, and we could do worse than take a leaf out of its book.

There is something particular to the human condition which makes it seem possible to overlook this fundamental acceptance of life, and that ‘something’ is thought.

Thinking, whilst a marvellous tool of creativity, organisation and intelligence, has an aspect that lies at the root of all suffering - reflective thought.

Reflective thought creates an idea of the possibility of a different outcome to what previously happened or projects into the future, in dread or hope. Both of which, by inference, overlook the present moment, relegating it as subordinate or somehow inferior. All this is manufactured thought.

There is so much talk of ‘stress’ in this current age. We have developed this term for something that has been operating in the human for as long as reflective thinking has been around.

But what is this function other than the ability to imagine a moment other than the current one happening? And furthermore, to make up scenarios that have not occurred, as if they had!

Now, I have to be very clear on this point and emphasise that it is indeed an imagining not truly a reflecting at all.

It is the making up of a mental picture from thoughts that assume events have happened in some prior time or will happen in a projected ‘future’.

Yet there is no prior or subsequent moment to now. There simply isn’t. You will never experience a prior, nor will you ever experience a future. These are not words meant to trick and tangle. This is fact, irrefutably so. And you can verify it for yourself at any moment of your life.

Our allegiance to these make-believe notions create all the suffering in our lives, what we have termed ‘stress.’

I am aware this flies in the face of all we have taken to be so in our lives, and yes it will sound utterly nonsensical to many ears. But again, the fact remains that your deep and abiding peace is right where you stand, in this very moment. It awaits only welcome, always.

We don’t need a special practice to discover this. Nor do we require years of expert meditative practice, as wonderful as they can be for inducing peace.

We simply have to be honest with our current experience. To be willing to see the process happening and recognise our identity is not lost in the thinking process, it is just a process.

There is another element to this exploration that requires scrutiny, namely, how the bodily sensations respond to thoughts and projections.

Because these sensations have a subtle way of giving credulity to the thoughts. Without going to the heart of these feelings and examining them clearly, the mental clarity remains just another concept, albeit a preferable one.
I hope to investigate this in future writings.

For now I will say thank you for reading and I welcome you comments and questions.

Here is a link for PART 1 of The Awakening Blog