Identification with thought and objects has us immersed in what’s always changing.

We’re immersed in the noise, the movement, the drama, the form. We’re identified with and as the fleeting appearances of things.

No wonder we feel overwhelmed and unstable so much of the time!

Recognizing our true Self as the closer-than-close, never-changing, formless essence of things puts an end to overwhelm, stress and instability. They may appear as temporary feelings, but they no longer feel like you or yours. They are no longer problems.

This recognition is deceptively simple. It happens now, not in a silent retreat in the thought-created future. Let attention relax and widen, not focused on any one thing. Sense what is most immediate right here, right now, closer than thoughts or abstractions.

That’s it.

Some people talk about it as a subtle pulsing. An energy. A sense of awareness or aliveness.

I’ve compared it to the purr of a cat, or a sense of wide awake, attribute-free Knowing. It’s indescribable and doesn’t need a description.

This is what we steep in during silent retreat. It’s the silent stillness at the center of everything, the formless essence of all form.

It’s always here, beyond the rising and passing of all experience. We’re simply pointed away and distracted from it in everyday life.

A period of prolonged silence is an opportunity to soak in that still, silence that is our essential being. As we touch into it, our sense of it grows and our experience of life completely changes. (I’ll share some of the ways things change on the live call described below).

If you’ve felt the call toward silence, to investigate your essential nature in a direct and profound way, a silent retreat is an excellent way to do that. It’s not a necessary step, but it’s a very, very powerful one.

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