Stillness

By Ananda Pereira

“As in ocean mid-deeps
No wave arises, but all is still —
So be still, unmoved;
Let the mindfulness meditator nowhere entertain pride.”

— Tuvataka Sutta, Suttanipata

Deep down in the sea, where the sea is really deep, half a mile, a mile, two miles below the surface, all is still. Here there are no tempests, no storms. There is none of the fuss and bother that beset surface waters and shallows.

So it is with people who have attained Ultimate Deliverance. So it was with the Buddha and the Arahants (awakened disciples). They had reached the Final Peace. Never again, for them, the flurry and turmoil, the longing and anxiety, the feverish, meaningless activity of the worldling.

The Buddha, in the stanza quoted above, advised all bhikkhus to be like that. The advice holds good for lay folk as well. Although the worldling has not attained that Final Peace, he can, by sedulous cultivation of calm, experience as it were a shadow of that stillness.

Why should he cultivate calm? The answer is simple. When one is in motion, it is difficult to judge motion in one’s environment. Travelling in a moving vehicle, another vehicle, moving at the same speed in the same direction, seems to be still. An object that is actually still, like a tree, seems to be moving. One’s impressions of one’s environment are conditioned by one’s own movement. It is so with the mind. When the mind is restless and flurried, it is difficult to realize the deep eternal Truths. Things that are actually changing are accepted as constant. Things that are actually constant, such as the Truth of anicca, dukkha, and anatta (impermanence, suffering and selflessness) are not perceived at all. The mind keeps rushing with changing phenomena, so busy and occupied that it is unable to see clearly or deeply or truly.

So the Buddha advised stillness. The whole system of samatha-bhavana (meditative tranquility for calm), as taught by the Buddha, has this one object in view. The mind, when purified of all sensual thoughts and concentrated on a kammatthana (primary object of meditation) becomes utterly still. It also grows very powerful, so powerful that such feats as levitation, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading, remembrance of past lives, and so on, become possible. But these are merely by-products of samatha-bhavana. The one and only object of such meditation is stillness—stillness which leads to clear, deep, true vision.

Lay people, in their daily lives, are badly handicapped when it comes to meditation. It is not so much the actual duties of the layman that interfere, though these do take up a large proportion of the layman’s life. But the worst handicap is worry. We tend to worry about what we have done, are doing, and intend to do; about what has happened, is happening, and is likely to happen. This worry, says the Buddha, is useless and foolish. How can one stop it? Illustrations help. In times of worry and flurry one can think of the Buddha’s own illustration—the mid-deeps of the ocean, where all is still. So thinking, one can become less excited about the fussy little things that cause worry.

(excerpt from BPS Wheel 45-6. For Free Distribution)