I am sitting in the parlour, the room I once emptied of all but a chair (for more, see post). Today, I intend to remove “the furniture” in the inner space I call my identity. I hope I will then see the barebones of myself, “only the room”, so to speak. If this works, I can take the next step towards creating my signature life.
I sit in stillness. Memories, emotions, attachments to status and accomplishments, aversions to loss and failure, future anticipations of similar attachments and aversions scroll past my inner frame in random sequence. I am not reliving every moment of my life. Rather, I am observing, likely only enough for a general overview. I watch the stream quite passively. If some item disturbs the flow, such as a feeling of some intensity, I will respond more actively. Today, I am fortunate. Nothing disrupts. The streaming stops, just as it began, seemingly of its own volition.
I sit in stillness. My inner eye registers the emptied space. I feel a twinge of anxiety, a flame lick of frustration. Will I be able to do what I have intended? I am sufficiently aware not to feed either the anxiety or the frustration or to pursue an answer to the query.
I stay with the stillness.
And then, out of the emptiness, within the stillness, I know. I knew already, but only as a conceptual tool, a free-floating description. Now, I know from direct experience. I know my barebones self “down deep in my bones”. I express it as metaphor. This room, my basic identity, has four walls: my body, my mind, my feelings and my spirit. The floor is any given present moment in my life. The ceiling does not exist. It is open to the sky, to the Mystery.
I smile. There it all is conceptually, referenced in About and listed as categories (now empty) in Simple Matters by Simply Me.
Simple Matters 