I have spent a very fruitful 24 hours playing with ‘Zero Revs Given’. Wow, it’s amazing how this exercise has revealed my tendency to try to live-by-revving! And also how it is showing me that when you don’t live-by-revving, the consequence is not ‘nothing’, and frankly there’s the potential for more to get done. I realise how I tend to revrevrev until I have time to crash. It is however possible – I’ve seen glimpses now – to float along, doing the things that need doing, without revving, or chasing, or efforting, or exerting. Wu wei [inaction / inexertion] is a gateway to sanity.
Remember, this is about experiencing Stillpoint, and remaining in its vicinity. That is the key. Non-revving is not merely about ‘chilling out’. It’s about recalling this knowing: in Stillness is rebooting attained. So staying in the vicinity of Stillpoint – and reaching it solidly at least once a day – is what ‘Zero Revs Given’ is for.
Yes. So true. I could get into the habit of just ‘chilling out’ a bit, and not actually doing the (difficult shipwreck-revealing) Stillpoint work.
Exactly. Spot on.
Let’s read.
-55- A person who is filled with Virtue is like a newborn child. Poisonous insects will not sting, wild animals will not pounce, birds of prey will not swoop down. Although bones are soft and sinews weak, a child’s grip is firm. The union of man and woman is not known, yet there is completeness, because a child’s vital force is at its height. Crying all day will not produce hoarseness, because there is perfect harmony. To know harmony is to know the Always-so. To know the Always-so is to be awakened. Trying to fill life to the brim invites a curse. For the mind to make demands upon the breath of life brings strain. Whatever has been forced to a peak of vigour approaches its decay. This is not the way of Tao. And that which goes against the Tao will quickly pass away. (The Tao Te Ching 55)
Beautiful: To know harmony is to know the Always-so. To know the Always-so is to be awakened.
A pertinent reminder to one who would live-by-revving: Trying to fill life to the brim invites a curse… Whatever has been forced to a peak of vigour approaches its decay. This is not the way of Tao.
Ok, so let’s sit a moment with the gentler concept: ‘to know harmony’. I guess we sense harmony at Zero Revs, at Stillpoint? Or we become harmonised?
Let’s see…
***13minMed…Hello Stillpoint, my old friend…***
It’s either Thinking or it’s Stillpoint. It’s either Stillpoint or it’s Thinking.
- Thinking => Hooked => Revving => Goodbye Stillpoint
- Mindfulness (Non-Thinking) => Stillpoint (the receptive mode / neutral) => Harmony
The idea of thinking being about being ‘hooked’ comes from Pema Chodron for me. It’s an interpretation of the word ‘shenpa’:
‘The Tibetan word for this is shenpa. It is usually translated “attachment,” but a more descriptive translation might be “hooked.” When shenpa hooks us, we’re likely to get stuck. We could call shenpa “that sticky feeling.” It’s an everyday experience. Even a spot on your new sweater can take you there. At the subtlest level, we feel a tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we feel a sense of withdrawing, not wanting to be where we are. That’s the hooked quality.’ (Source)
And non-attachment is a pretty important thing:
Any attachment has the possibility to redirect focus and suck us into lower vibrations. This is the final exam of mastery and graduation from Earth School. The exam has begun. That is why mastery of thought and emotion is the most important attainment we can demonstrate at this time in our own lives. (The Great Awakening, Bill Ballard, 2012 p118)
I guess that my sense of ‘revving’ is my signal to self that I am attached, hooked or experiencing shenpa, even if I’m revving about something I like! Whatever it is, the revving is a sign to me that I’m out of harmony (and harmony is the way of the Always-So).
It’s Hooked, or it’s Harmony. One or the other. You feel that?
I do… It’s in my Heart!
Brilliant. How best can you ‘note’ the feeling of ‘Hooked’ or ‘Harmony’?
I absolutely love playing with the inner revometer – It let’s me know when we’re revving, and also I can sit with it and visualise the pointer finally getting done to zero again. So today…?
Let’s keep playing with the revometer – equating Zero (Stillpoint) with Harmony and revving with being Hooked.
I am unhooking for harmony (Zero Revs Given)