Action through stillness?
Action is by it's nature dynamic, there is cause and effect, it creates change whether positive or negative and it can produce new possibilities or opportunities, or shut them down. It can be scary to take action, however any action can be better than doing nothing through thoughtless inaction, thoughtful actions are what we aspire to, and you have to be especially wary when it comes to action through inaction as it can be the trap to hide from your fears. The outcomes from any action is inherently uncertain, that is what is terrifying and any action that does produce a certain result is just a process like a chemical reaction, it involves no agency, no risk, it is not a human decision and choice between two futures, but before you make your choices it might be worth visiting a place of stillness first free from fear.
There might be a limited range of viable options given your circumstances, life situation and physical reality, however where ever there is a range of options you have the free will to select your path through the actions you take. Life does not give you simple choice, there is no multi-choice options, you get to improvise, make up your own solution, no matter how unconventional or novel, a perfect choice for you does not need to be justified to anyone except yourself, though if you can not explain it to yourself, it might be worth thinking about it a bit more. I would never recommend thoughtless action, but the mind is not always reliably objective, it is there to point out the negatives and dangers, not to be a hopeful cheerleader, there was no positive thinking in ancient times, just dead and alive, there were no good old days, just good memories.
Stillness has becomes a rarer quality in our lives, smartphones might be the latest disturber of our inner peace but it is just the latest in a long line of distractions that has mounted over the centuries. Even some of the basic necessaries of life are in their own way a distraction from stillness, even if they are welcome in every other way, never mind television, radio, cinema, god damn books that fill your head with alien thoughts and feelings, they are all awareness stealers from resting in pure stillness. It is not new, light has disturbed the night for a hundred thousand years, the light bulb allowed our evening to provide education, reading, all good but still distractions, even a campfire with friends, drink and songs, was a distraction for the cavemen from the stillness that governed so much of their lives.
We were made for the hunt and search, to observe the outside world and act accordingly, though what made us into thinking hunter also made us crave distraction and novelty or as we call it now, progress, a way of doing thing better. However in the moment of action it is still through stillness, inner peace that those action are most powerful, a hitter does not think about their swing, they swing in reaction to the pitch they are given, in that moment, thinking about it, is not beneficial, it actively distracts from you from the action you want to take. In the military it is called leadership detachment, and what are you detaching from is, yourself, your feeling, reactive thoughts, fear, instead you see what is happening and act through that stillness, and they do not do this because they are fans of Buddhism, or are a strange cult, but because it works and is effective which is worth noting.
How do we reach that stillness in such a busy world where we can be entertained at a touch of a button, well, you have to search for it, the default is no longer having nothing to do, there always something better and more worthy to do, music to listen to, to read, watch, eat, run, walk, climb a mountain, learn a language. There is always a hustle to be had, a way to maximise your time, effort, even sleep, you can be hype efficient and get through the work of a dozen lifetime and barely scratch the surface of the sum of human knowledge and experience, we can have a full diary and never have a moment to pause, let alone get bored. Yet we have more unhappily people in our advance societies than ever before, a society that is rich and which was barely imaginable a hundred years ago, it was thought that computers were going not to be important beyond geeks playing games thirty years ago, let alone how important the internet was going to be, healthcare, education, they have reduced suffering but has not in totality made us happier, and what we have forgotten is to include is stillness as the ultimate luxury.
Which is unsurprising as it requires a little work, which does not make it appear to be a luxury, stillness now has to be hunt out like a rabbit hiding in a wood, it has to searched for, it will not find you by accident, you have to actively listened for to be experienced and there is no substitute for that experience, it can not be explained, we can tell you the circumstances where it is most likely to be experienced. Meditation, that is walking sitting in a quiet place and paying attention to your breath, can produce stillness or at least the space in which you can listen to the stillness, and we can point out the stillness exists for everyone without exception, it is there because it is a fundamental part of human nature. You can not have a thought without it as sound is mostly silence, words and music are what is left once you make everything else silent, you do not play every note and noise, you play only a few, you limit it with stillness and silence, you create by curating the notes.
We can tell you that stillness is what is left when you stop trying to be busy and distracted, but you have to experience it and put your awareness into that stillness, it does happen to all of us, when we fall to sleep or are lost in beauty, but being aware of it whilst experiencing it is something else. Some have described it was the silence of God as “God speaks with silence,” it is not empty like you might think, it just does not use words, it has meaning without an explanation, it is no where and yet clearly inside of you, where a child would point to their heart, that is the point of contact between the human being and the being of the universe. It is a state of oneness with the whole of the universe not just in this moment but the totality of all space and time, it is the connect to the opposite of human experience and yet we are able to experience it or at least be present with it, and it is actions from this place which are more powerful than anything you can imagine, when you act in align with the universe, with your true nature and purpose, even when it is unspoken, it is life changing.
