Een troostrijk stukje van Jeff Foster.. wat in deze tijden van oorlog, geweld en ook klimaatverandering ondersteuning en support kan geven.
“Here is some balm for existential anxiety:
Rest. Rest in Presence. Let all thoughts come and go (they will come and go anyway). Thoughts about yourself and the world. Thoughts about whether or not reality is “really real”. Thoughts about thoughts. Thoughts about solipsism, nihilism, nonduality. Thoughts about the past and future. Thoughts about death and dying.
Let them all be, let them all come, let them all stay, let them all go. They are only thoughts and thoughts are safe and thoughts are not reality.
Let all sensations, all sounds, all perceptions, all thoughts, come and go in your awareness, moment by moment. This is meditation. Don’t judge them and don’t cling, don’t push them away and don’t try to understand. Just be, just breathe, just watch all this life move.
You’ll soon notice something amazing. In the midst of all this coming and going, all this doubting, all this existential anxiety, all these thoughts and conclusions and wonderings, all the joy and sorrow and fear and boredom of life, there is one thing that doesn’t come and go, one thing that isn’t a thing, one thing that remains totally present, unchanging, restful and known, more intimately known than anything that can ever be known:
You. You are the Unchanging principle in the midst of all this change. And within your unending embrace, all thoughts about whether or not reality is real, whether or not we’re in some kind of Matrix, whether or not the world is fake, or an illusion, or a dream, or a devilish conspiracy, all these thoughts come and go, too.
It doesn’t matter if the world is an illusion or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s all a dream. It doesn’t matter if it’s all fake. It doesn’t matter, all these brilliant ideas just don’t matter at all. Shocking, I know, but true.
You get up. You “chop wood and carry water”, as they say in Zen. You put the kettle on. You go out for a walk and feel the sun on your face, the afternoon breeze on your cheek. You talk to a friend or not. You listen to some music and it touches you deep down, or not. You wonder about existence, or not. You laugh or cry or fall to the ground in gratitude. Or not.
You live your day. Real or unreal, illusory or not, it doesn’t matter. Underneath the layer of thought, concept, image, conclusion and doubt, there is the unspeakable Mystery of you, of life itself, complete and full and whole and shining brightly.
Solipsism or not, nonduality or not, Matrix or giant conspiracy or delusion or not, meaningless or meaningful or neither, this is what it is: A cup of tea with a friend. Looking into the eyes of a loved one. A walk into town to buy bread. Or sitting quietly, watching the breath rise and fall, watching the most complex or scary or contorted thinking rise and fall, watching the rise and fall of emotion, watching yourself wondering about it all, getting lost or not, getting caught up in the mind or not. But getting on with your day. Being absorbed in your day, and letting the day absorb you. Surrendering to the moments. This is true meditation. Following your feet.
Here is the cure for existential anxiety, then: stop thinking about it, or rather, let the mind think about it all it wants to, while you rest, and live your day, content in the knowledge that you don’t need the answers at all, and falling in love with the vast Unknown, sinking into the Mystery, going where your feet go, like you did when you were a child.”
– Jeff Foster
