Revisiting rest

My big theme for 2024 is rest. I’ve been feeling like I’m not keeping that very top of mind, and that I’ve been getting some interesting new angles on rest from my Zen reading and practice.

Something to note is that I tend to be an active relaxer. My MC SWARM of things I find relaxing are more active than passive.

A little grip: notice the wider space that contains “this” and “not-this”. Rest, inactivity, is the wider space that contains not-rest, activity.

Like a sneeze

The trying and not-trying is a bit like a sneeze. There’s some intentionality, but it only happens if you don’t think about it too hard. The results is a release, not applied effort.

Spotted in How to do the jhanas.

Gathering more threads

Three strands:

• the centre;
• the edges;
• the changes.

Three aspects:

• soft-eyed acceptance;
• short-term focus;
• slow-and-steady pace.

It can be tricky because work in particular requires (uh…) hard eyes. Tight, conceptual, focus.

MC SWARM RRR

I’m not much of a hiker, but I do like walking. And I do like analogies.

• A compass. Long-term goal. More like a navigational heading.
• A good pace. Slow and steady. Sustained effort.
• A good plan. Rhythm more than routine.
• A route. Short, fixed-time or -term, goal(s) that move in that direction.
• A keen eye. Soft eyes on the journey.

The rougher notes

• Refining. Choosing, selecting, wittling, winnowing. Sort like Research, Remix, Replay.
• Soft eyes. Slow and steady, sustained, broad attention.
• Mastery. Long term practice, with a gentle goal of getting better.
• Limits, constraints, time-bound.
• Rhythm more than routine.
• A mixture, alternation, of high peaks and troughs and mostly calm, even, smooth.

SNAIW 🐌

Slow down and just pay more detailed attention.

• Slow your tempo. Be patient, wait a little longer.
• Notice what’s arising. Name the emotions and feeling tones.
• Accept things as they are. Give everything a warm welcome.
• Investigate the embodied sense of it.
• Watch it pass away. Let it go.

Like SNAIL, but “watch it pass away” feels like a more active framing, which works better for me.

Slow, Accept, Open

1. Slow your tempo. Take a few deep breaths.
2. Accept things as they are. Stop pushing. Stop pulling.
3. Open up. Soften, and rest in the wider space of this and not-this, of awareness.

When you can’t do a step, don’t fight it. Just notice how it feels.

Even though the movement is a relaxation, a letting go, it still helps me, for now, to have a more active framing. I realise this is perhaps sort of missing the point.

Summary

• Pushing/pulling, doing, thinking, creates separation, creates suffering.
• Rest in the wider space of awareness, of nonduality, of this and not-this.
  • Soften up, open up.
• Slow your tempo. Spend more time, deeper attention.

Suffering

• Thinking, doing, running away, creates separation, creates suffering.
  • The greater the push/pull, the greater the suffering.
• Recognise your suffering.
  • Pause, sit still, feel the discomfort.

Rest

• Rest is inclusive.
  • Rest is the wider space of awareness.
  • Give everything a warm welcome. Even resistance.
  • Allow everything to be exactly as it is.
  • Rest in the wider space of this and not-this.
  • Recognise that suffering and happiness are not separate, can coexist.
• Soften up, open up.
  • Meet your edge and soften.
• Not-doing. Not-thinking. Just be.
  • Just as in: nothing else but; only being; not turning away; no “in order to.”
• Slow your tempo. Give more time.
• Pay more, deeper, attention.

Active relaxing

• Deep attention is restful and restorative.
• Go for frequent, small, walks.
• Do the thing to bring about the mood; don’t wait for the mood to do the thing.

These are from revisiting: notes on a few books on rest; notes from a few things on acceptance; gathered notes on acceptance and on acceptance and opening; a small collection on acceptance and resistance; tiny posts on acceptance.

Added 2024-07-27, last updated 2024-08-11.