Practicing Stillness and Learning to Be Present

Marshall  speaks during Night 15 of the 2018 Steps Vigil, June 9, 2018 | Stillness: The Return to Reality

I have a few things I would like to share with you tonight. They’ve been on my mind quite a bit. One is about stillness. I’ve had the need and the opportunity to practice stillness a lot lately. And need is a great motivator to do this, facing a lot of uncertainty in my life and future, and a difficult road to travel without assurances that they’ll be successful.

One of my thoughts about stillness, is stillness is being present. We practice stillness so we can learn to be present—really present—to our deeper experience, to our condition, our circumstances, our influences, many different levels. But the emphasis is on being present. That seems very different than how the world has taught us to be. People are not very present to themselves, to one another, to the suffering of others, to the uncertainties of life. And religion and spirituality are more often than not used in such a way to make us less present to these realities.

But the New Message is here to teach us to be reality-based—what’s really going on within us, what’s really going on outside of us. In our last Vigil, I defined reality as everything that’s happening beyond your thoughts and beliefs. I find that a very useful definition. That means that your thoughts and beliefs are mere interpretations unless they reflect an actual experience that you had if you can remember it without embellishment or without denying it; the inability to deal with reality. So the counterpoint to that is learning to be present. Being present is being fully there with nothing going on inside of you.

So Steps invites us to be present to our deepest experience, which is one way of thinking about what Knowledge is, is our most deepest and core experience. Be present to that. But then we’re confronted with everything that stands in the way of being present: our fear, our preferences, our admonitions towards others, our restlessness, distractions, compulsions, fixations—everything that’s so driving in our minds that being present is almost one of the hardest things to do, when in fact it is one of the most natural things to do, and one of the most important things to do.

All the things that are related to stillness such as inner listening, seeing, recognizing things requires this present state of mind; not just present in terms of time, but you’re fully there. So one way to think about stillness is about being present: being present to suffering, being present to illness, being present to the condition of your life as it is at this moment. This is how you see things and know things and hear things and become re-engaged with reality.

In fact, the New Message says that the purpose of religion and spirituality is to become re-engaged with reality–not just mundane reality, but the reality of who you are, the reality of what’s guiding you, the reality of the condition of the world, the reality of suffering, the reality of separation—just to be present.

So we’re learning to be present, not just in present time. It’s not what I mean; just being present all there, all there with that person, all there with what’s happening inside of you, looking to see what’s real in the world rather than what you want the world to be. So stillness, then, is a return to reality; it’s regaining a core and natural ability. To do this, you have to take charge of your mind to a certain extent. You have to stop relying upon assumptions, expectations, the need to be right, the need to be certain, the need to be validated, the need to be recognized, the need to be desired—so many things, so many things to sort out in this journey. The goal is very simple: can you just be there? In meditation, can you just be there?

I’ve been thinking during the Vigil that one of the ways to cultivate stillness is to experience it very temporarily and particularly in those moments of your day where nothing is happening, kind of the dead zones of your day where normally you would just be imagining things or fantasizing about things or worrying about things without really doing anything. But those are great little opportunities to practice stillness—waiting for the water to boil, waiting for the shower to become warm. Any waiting is great active practice. I think I’ve learned more about stillness in these little tiny practices than I have in, like, meditation practices and have been able to become still more frequently in the course of my day. Space between thoughts. Hearing what another is really saying when they’re talking to you, no matter what they look like or how they’re behaving to you in that moment, to be with them.

And when you’re present, all your senses open up— seeing, hearing, feeling. So this is what we’re learning and it’s very important because to feel the river of intention within you, you have to be very present to your own experience. Stop upon the hour to try to re-engage with our experience: What’s happening within me? What’s going on around me? Is there anything I need to know? To be able to be in a quiet zone with nothing going on. Our personal worldly mind is, has no foundation so it’s always frightened, always anxious. Even its proclamations of love are based upon fear: the fear of not having, fear of not being loved.

So it’s basically fear-based until it can serve the greater Knowledge that’s within us, which is a great transformation of its purpose and its functionality. But beneath that veneer of intelligence, there is a great well. It’s very still. It’s very present. But we have to learn to become still, present, to be with it, to engage with it; have to have the courage and the humility to engage with it. It doesn’t care about most of the things we care about. And it’s not afraid. So what seems so available and so simple is hard to get at up at the surface. The surface is so dominating, so captivating.

So when you’re facing serious illness it’s so important to be present. I think when I was diagnosed with lung cancer, it was very shocking. I knew something was wrong, but that was very shocking. To find out it was not an early stage cancer, it was a later stage cancer, was shocking. But then a word came to Patricia that I adopted for myself and that word was acceptance…and the intention to deal with it as quickly as possible. And with acceptance comes the ability to move forward. And we did. So I had a lot of time. It slowed my life down somewhat, a lot of time to practice this being present. And that helped me get through. No explanation for why I was ill, no theories—I didn’t even go there—just, what’s the truth and what must I do.

There’s a beautiful passage in the Tao Te Ching; it states a sage always rushes to meet adversity so he never has to experience it–adversity. The adversity is the unwillingness to face things and to be with things and to avoid things and to rationalize things and to try to have explanations or be comforted by these things. That’s adversity. Meanwhile, you don’t do what you need to do, so there’s no resolution. That’s adversity.

So we learn to be still and there’s ways to do that that are effective. I shared the other night the Na Rahn practice, which will be effective for many of you. It’s in Steps to Knowledge. It’s simple. It takes you below the surface. Actually on the way down below the surface are all the unfinished business of your life. This is all the things you know to do you haven’t been doing. So that’s kind of the bottom part of the surface is the unfinished things that you need to be doing now. That’s really important to know, actually. So you get to visit that on the way down in this elevator. So, we can finally get below and we want answers. We want experiences. We want direction. We want validation. And all there is is Presence. But you’re not present, not yet.

So in all the little times of your day when you have moments here and moments there—you’re not really doing anything—are great times to let yourself gaze, let your mind go clear…just for a few minutes, or a few seconds—space between thoughts. Just be in that space between thoughts. You don’t have to be happy. You don’t have to be sad. You don’t have to be looking at anything enjoyable or unenjoyable. You’re just practicing being still for a few moments. And there are lots of opportunities to practice this.

So to help you I will recommend a teaching in the New Message called Listening for Knowledge. It’s a fantastic teaching full of recommendations and examples and illustrations that I think are very clear.

I’m reminded of early in my career when I used to counsel people. I would practice stillness with them. And actually, I was practicing waiting to see what I could do or say. But to do that waiting, I had to be still. And more often than not, in fact, most of the time what I would hear to do had absolutely nothing to do with what they were telling me…or it was related, but not directly. And so, I would do that. And the result was a shocking change in the conversation and the opportunity to really get down to something real. Being still.

Steps to Knowledge invites us to just be with Knowledge. It’s not a question-and-answer session. It’s not getting anything. It’s not shopping for anything. It’s just being with Knowledge. And we generally can’t do it, which is Steps to Knowledge showing you kind of where you’re at without telling you where you’re at. “Oh spend thirty minutes being with Knowledge. Give yourself to Knowledge.” And you find you really can’t do it.

So this is the brilliance of Steps is showing you what you really are unable to do and where you are in that regard, while in the next Step telling you how important your life is, that you have a Greater Purpose for being here. It’s building you up but it’s also showing you where you’re at. And that’s a very compassionate way of giving you a chance to see yourself clearly. And that can bring about stillness, too.

So think of these things. There’s many examples in the New Message, many examples in Steps to Knowledge. So it’s bringing you back to reality, one step at a time. Nasi Novare Coram.

Now there were a few questions I did not address last evening and I was reminded of that. And I have these questions before me. The first one came from [student.] The question was:

“How does Marshall gain, recover strength in times of trouble?

I thought about this and… I think one of the things I can say in response to that is just facing what has to be faced and doing what has to be done as quickly as possible with little delay.

Another question was:

“How important is it to have the same practice time every day? This is often a challenge.

It’s good if you can do it and sometimes you won’t be able to do it.

Next question:

”How important is it to build the foundation the Four Pillars of your life?

Very important. And much more important than most of your realizations which, are for the most part only possibilities. But building a foundation is how you’ll establish stability in life. That is very important. And it’s very much an engagement with reality.

Next question:

“I’m struggling with hourlies, especially when I’m interacting with people. Any advice?

Yeah, be present to them without judgment—practicing an hourly just being present with them, listening.

Next question:

“How can we keep the forefront and not forget what is important to remember while out in the world?

Being present is a good response to that, staying connected to who you are—being present. It’s amazing how when you’re being present to another or to a situation, it opens you up inside. And that helps to keep you connected with yourself.

Then there’s another question:

“What does Marshall say about exposure to media and the level of engagement with the world or not?

I have limited exposure to the media, but some exposure because there’s certain things happening in the world, I want to follow that I think are important, that the New Message says are important. And your engagement with the world should be sufficient to your core needs. But eventually, you have to engage with the world. With some rare exceptions, there’s no real retreat from that.

When your mind is clear things can come to you, but only as is needed. Knowledge generally has important things to say to you periodically. What’s important is you do what you know to do now, without delay, because that’s holding you up and that’s keeping you disengaged from your core experience.

Okay, that’s it. Thank you.