The Stillness Within

There's content, the content of your mind, which consists of thoughts. And most people have the need to fill up their mind and their life with more content. It's a compulsion, almost an addictive searching for more stuff to identify with so that you can increase the content of things that the mind identifies with. So most people carry around content in the mind in the form of thoughts, bundles of thoughts that contain a sense of self that you identify with, or in the words of Don Miguel Ruiz, that you have faith in. And that's all they know. Their life consists of content, both externally, one could say everything absorbs their attention continuously. Stuff, things, things to acquire, things to be worried about, things to do, problems and thoughts, one after another. You have to think about this and this and this continuously. So your entire inner space is filled up with content. No breathing room, a room full of stuff. And that's the self. There's a self identification with stuff, which ultimately is mind, thought stuff. And you feel you're choking to death almost. Life is experienced as frustrating and bringing up one dilemma after another. So the essence of our gathering here is to find the inner space that is there. Although you may have accumulated a lot of content in your mind, there is always behind it or underneath it, a vastness of inner space or stillness. Even in the most nervous and irritated and hyperactive human mind. Even there, underneath there is a dimension of stillness. You just have to look for it, to feel it, to sense it within yourself. Underneath all the stream of thinking.