“Develop a mind that is vast like space, where both pleasant and unpleasant experiences can appear and disappear without conflict, struggle or harm. Rest in a mind like vast sky.” ~The Buddha
In my last post, I talked about physical rest and bodily relaxation within the broad context of practice. I suggested that rest and relaxation are not optional. A skillful and accomplished yogis knows when, where, and how to rest. On the mat or meditation cushion? Yes. In all of life’s play, work, and relationships? Check. By the same token, the skilled yogis also knows that relaxation and rest must also be found in the sky-like, innate awareness she was born with. Relaxing in innate awareness is another key to making progress in life, in yoga or along the Buddhist path.
Cultivate Ease in Body, Ease in Mind
Neither one, relaxing the body, or resting in innate awareness, can be done fully without fully doing the other. As one would expect, relaxing the body and resting in innate awareness share many common features. For example, each involves learning to let go of struggle, strife, and manipulations of all kinds. On the one hand, relaxing the body involves letting go into gravity. When we rest, we do nothing but give the body, just as it is, into the embrace of the earth. On the other hand, resting in innate awareness involves letting whatever arises in the sky-like expanse of awareness be, just as it is. In this kind of resting, we (re)discover a dimension of awareness beyond self-centered attachment or aversion. Additionally, both resting the body and relaxing in innate awareness involve cultivating the qualities of noninterference, non-harming, ahimsa.
Relaxing in Innate Awareness
When you practice like that, you practice stopping. Stopping is the basic Buddhist practice of meditation. You stop running… stop struggling. You allow yourself to rest, to heal, to calm. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
The body very often heals itself when we let go of daily striving and give our bodies to rest. Then the body can heal through its own law and wisdom. Likewise, the mind begins to let go of habitual fears, worries, and unwholesome obsessions of its own accord, if we rest in innate natural awareness.
The following link is to a an article at Jack Kornfield’s blog. It’s called A Mind Like Sky. You will enjoy this articleIf if you are interested in getting some specific instructions on how to rest in innate awareness,. Here’s a taste:
We allow awareness to experience consciousness that is not entangled in the particular conditions of sight, sound and feelings, but consciousness that is independent of changing conditions—the unconditioned. Ajahn Jumnien, a Thai forest elder, speaks of this form of practice as Maha Vipassana, resting in pure awareness itself, timeless and unborn. For the meditator, this is not an ideal or a distant experience. It is always immediate, ever present, liberating; it becomes the resting place of the wise heart. ~Jack Kornfield
jackkornfield.com/a-mind-like-sky/
You might also enjoy reading last week’s post. Follow the links to talks on rest by Thich Nhat Hanh and Svoboda and Blossom.
I hope you have a wonderful week!