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Tears of Joy
Morning Tea
Sitting before the window
hot tea in hand
quietly sipping - not a word
Spring outside
birds, trees, sky, breeze
budding green on branches
Here...
no one to be
nowhere to go
Sitting in this rocker
not a moment among moments
the only one I'll ever have
Calm abiding
buttocks resting on chair -
soft place to soften me
Peace flowers white -
imbibing, tasting; slowly, quietly
until I see the bottom of the mug
A holy communion
alone
with the world
I get up, knowing
I'll never go outside or beyond
this one place
What is "this one place"? If you say my rocker before the window, yes. If you say only my rocker before the window, no. So, I ask... Can you join me? If so, how? If so, can you leave? No, I am not pointing to a fantasy, and I am not speaking merely metaphorically. This place is real, for what the senses can sense is not all; they are each a gate opening to this. What is this? The cow moos, the rooster crows.
* * *
Tibetan Buddhists teach a meditation called shamatha, often rendered in English "calm abiding" - I have translated it "tranquil abiding." Here, we are learning to experience calm in the present moment. We do this and notice, in time, how outside formal meditation, we are more relaxed, more patient. We soften, and others feel the softness.
This tranquil abiding is a meditation method. Another use of the term is resting in open, spacious awareness beyond meditation as a technique. I will address this below.
* * *
It is unlikely you will get much, if any, encouragement to set aside a daily time to be quiet, breathe, and be. I did not. I had hit a wall, so to speak, in my religious life, and was drawn to silence. I knew there was more to know and experience than what I had been taught. So, I started on my own, without any spiritual companion, community, or teacher to encourage me.
Almost a decade before I began formal meditation, I had an intuition it would be part of my future. I frequented used bookstores in New Orleans, all located near the French Quarter, looking for books to use for research. One day, I saw a book with the word "meditation" in the title. I took it off the shelf and placed it in the palm of my hand. I looked at the front cover. I was drawn to it, but I put it back on the shelf. I have often recalled that moment as a harbinger.
I was not ready for the practice. Sometimes, we get hints or shouts from up the road, before we are prepared for the grace that awaits us. We are never just here; we are here and there. Yet, it takes time to get ourselves all there.
When I began formal meditation practice, I was a clergyperson and professor in a conservative evangelical group, and there was no incentive there to engage in meditative silence. The denomination did not recognize its importance, and many did not see it as a practice permitted Christians. Some among the evangelicals feared silence, thinking it was a doorway for Satan to enter the mind. And, to those I worshiped with, prayer was only about talking to God. The way of faith was a way of words and words and words. People talked about listening to God as part of prayer, yet seemed to have no interest in actually being quiet enough to do so. No one shared what listening was like or how to listen, and I do not think they knew.
Soon after beginning silence practice, I was blessed to find a spiritual community devoted to the contemplative life. Now, over thirty years later, I still make time daily for this tranquil abiding, without anything to achieve or anyone to be, anyone to please or anywhere to go.
* * *
I practice now what many would call "open awareness meditation," but there are other ways to refer to it, and I prefer not to use the word "meditation" for it. Some speak of "meditation beyond meditation." If it is meditation beyond meditation, it is not meditation. So, I avoid using "meditation beyond meditation."
Meditation is a technique, and our natural being, what I often refer to as True Nature, is not a technique. There is nothing you can do to be you, for that you are is not something becoming, but something expressing itself through becoming. Clinging to a method keeps people from experiencing the openness, spaciousness, and freedom of this natural, relaxed being. Technique, however, serves to introduce us to this quiet spaciousness of Pure Being.
Note: When beyond meditation, one may still benefit from engaging meditation practices. Some persons, however, may choose to leave aside meditation altogether. This is a choice neither right nor wrong. I sometimes use a meditation technique to settle into the natural, relaxed stillness. If one is engaging in meditation and feels the urge to drop into only spacious awareness, I consider it wise to release the technique. The one Self, absolute, draws the self, relative, into itself. The one Self is your home, for you, as a person, arise from its creative potency, which is Self expressing itself, for Self and what it does is a unity. I, therefore, recommend recognizing the pull to release technique as the summons to let your whole self return Home.
* * *
This natural spaciousness is often referred to in Christianity as Contemplative Prayer. I was trained in Centering Prayer under the guidance of Thomas Keating and the ecumenical community that later vowed me to the Contemplative Life. Keating rightly taught that Centering Prayer is not an end in itself but prepares one for Contemplative Prayer. Contemplative Prayer, also referred to as Contemplation, is this reposed abiding in open awareness. Here, thoughts arise, yet one is not intentionally contemplating anything.
Decades later, I joined a meditation group where most had practiced Centering Prayer for many years. Nonetheless, they refused to let go of the technique and release into Contemplation. I mentioned it was their teacher's guidance, but it made no difference. They continued struggling with the technique, complaining that it was difficult for them. Any methodology will remain difficult, and likely become more so, by refusing to let go of it and venture beyond.
The venturing beyond never ends, for Spirit is not a destination. There is no dead end. Spirit manifests as movement from landscape to landscape. Experiencing God, one never arrives at a period, though we seem to stop along the Way for a time. But even in these interludes, movement is happening. And the motions get more subtle as we are drawn closer and closer into Intimacy. In the Way, there is always something happening. Learning to trust, while in the relative dimensions, that we are always going somewhere to somewhere is vital.
Technique carries us to the door of Silence as Presence, and there we can rest in awareness. Yet, we are not in a blank state. We are fully aware. We call this wakefulness. And I have referred to it as Being being present. Being wants to show itself to itself in form. Non-person wants to walk the earth, fly in the skies, and swim in the waters.
* * *
Tranquil abiding, as a meditation practice, is a foundational methodology across all spiritual paths. Beyond that, it is healthy for the body and mind. Even if we only accomplished this foundational practice, it would be a major plus for us in our daily lives.
By engaging in this quiet, serene abiding, we receive insights we would not otherwise have. One insight is how driven we can be. We can ask, "Why do I feel so driven?," "What is behind that?," and "Why do I resist simply being without anything to accomplish?" We can ask, "Really, apart from my roles and how others see me, 'Who am I?'" Questions and answers arise.
When simply resting in wakefulness, calm abidance is a trait. It is, for the ego has relaxed and been drawn back into its Source. We are not even trying to be spiritual, holy, or enlightened - not any more than a tree is trying to be a tree or a laugh needs to try to be a laugh.
We abide in naturalness, but not in the naturalness the surrounding culture has taught us. To know this naturalness, we experience it. No one can tell us what it is, and no one can teach us how to enjoy it. People can teach you a meditation practice; no one can teach you that you are, and that natural, wakeful spaciousness is that you are. I say "that" often, partly for you are neither a "self" nor "non-self, "person" nor "non-person," "something" nor "non-something."
* * *
Questions & Answers
1) Why do we need to grow spiritually to experience this True Nature, if that is who we already are?
True Nature is overlaid by the ego with thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and attachment to self-identity. Like clouds hiding the sun, this collective overlay blocks the recognition of True Nature, but True Nature is already present, as the sun is.
2) So, do we go back to reclaim this or go forward?
We do not regress to a prior point from which we left. Many think the baby state is our natural self. So, many think we need to return to something lost. The baby is egocentric. It functions at the level of primitive survival. It wants its basic needs met, and it has not developed an ability to think about anyone else's well-being. If it is hungry, it cries, and it has no concern about whether the parent, for example, is exhausted and could use a little more rest. It is driven by instinct. The world revolves around the baby: that is the nature of egocentricity. A baby being like this is healthy; an adult like this, no. Thus, we progress; we do not regress. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Edin depicts two people waking up to duality. The god wants them to partake of the fruit of "good and evil," while they had only known good. We have to experience duality to evolve to what has been referred to as a second innocence. This is an educated innocence, having learned about duality, not the naive, unlearned innocence of adults trying to return to babyhood as the ideal condition. We must know what guilt is before we can know what innocence is. We must thoroughly be baptized in Samsara - the world of suffering. Then, we can know what many Buddhists teach: Nirvana is Samsara, Samsara is Nirvana. We can differentiate Samsara and Nirvana, but we cannot separate the two - at least, not in the human realm we now live in.
3) Why do people resist this evolution?
Fear of losing control, a control that was never there in the first place, is one reason. And accepting the need to grow beyond self-centeredness is humiliating. Who welcomes being humiliated? Another reason is many people have no idea of what we are speaking of here. No one has ever guided them to see what that longing is that will not go away, no matter what they do, how much wealth they have, or how many people adore them. Discovering the joy of that inner longing being fulfilled is not about accumulating more, but losing what keeps us from it. And the clinging can be a clinging to something we call good, even something like a religion or a spiritual path. To keep evolving, at some point, our religion or spirituality begins to lose its grip of True Nature. Then, we can engage a religion or spirituality, if we choose, without attachment to it. We will, then, have a healthier relationship with it.
4) So, few people experience this True Nature?
No. Likely everyone does. If one observes closely, one will see that self-awareness is often not present. In the absence of the self-reflection that is ego, or I, True Nature shines. Again, the sun always shines, and sometimes the clouds hide it, and sometimes not. To evolve toward consistently embodying Presence, we grow to do so consciously, not unconsciously. The one Self that we essentially are joins in union with the self, the temporary appearance. We want to be awake spiritually and know we are awake, not as a thought but as an immediate knowing. In this knowing, the one Self knows itself. God knows God through your form. Then, the ego is not seen as the problem; it is merely a temporary servant to the higher Self, as your nose or big toe serves the whole body. The Light of the Self exposes the ego as ego, not in condemnation but compassion and insight. We see there is nothing substantial about our self-identity: it is like a mirage or a shadow. Our identity as a self among selves is a thought; outside thought, there is no self-identity, for no self is present to self-identify. Please, try to find yourself. Can you do it? Where are you when you are not thinking about yourself? Where are you in deep sleep? Who are you in deep sleep? Can you say you are someone then? Can you know for sure you remained with the body?
5) Can one remain in the tranquil abiding all the time?
Theoretically, yes. Emotional upset does not mean the lack of tranquil abiding. One can develop the capacity to witness unease without it diminishing the tranquil abiding. This is possible because True Nature is tranquil and abiding. One can grow so True Nature becomes more and more their mode of being in the world, and ego, with its stories and emotional suffering, becomes more and more the subtext. One can, then, observe emotional suffering as a witness to it. This is like watching a movie while knowing it is a movie, or reading fiction while knowing it is fiction. True Nature can witness as the Observer, both pain and pleasure. This is so, for True Nature is the Presence in which both pain and pleasure arise as part of the relative dance of Spirit.
A last point, two of the challenges of accepting the transition to tranquil abiding in open awareness are its simplicity and obviousness.
1) Captivated by self-identity, we are like a person in a dream, and if we get a glimpse of life outside the dream, we think life outside the dream is the dream.
2) And, as for the simplicity, the ego will see True Nature as not complicated enough, not spiritual enough, not profound enough, not satisfying enough, ... For the ego, who you are is not enough. Here is a truth of spiritual awakening: the more profound, the simpler. We give ourselves patience and time to integrate this simplicity.
Many in spirituality get caught in this search for the fantastic, thinking spirituality is about spectacular, self-intoxicating experiences. Some will even use a drug to blow their mind, so to speak.
Having paranormal experiences is not what we are talking about today. You are not a paranormal anything. True Nature is not paranormal.
So, to the ego, waking up spiritually might appear ho-hum. Yet, in that plainness, there is profoundness, beyond ordinary and extraordinary. What is simpy is. So, if one is looking for self-elevating experiences, spirituality is not going to provide that. Of course, there are thousands of so-called spiritual books available to stroke the self and tell it how transcendent it can become. But, to the ego - the self -, waking up spiritually might appear more like a tragedy than a blessing, more like a hell than a heaven, more like being buried alive than being born again.
(C) brian wilcox, 2026
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