Linda: So, take a few deep breaths into the belly. And here we are – another day, another day of sitting, watching, being in the body. Everyone has been deeply quiet so far, but today I’d like to ramp it up a bit more. Be as self-contained as possible. Don’t even feel that you need to be polite to people. This is all about looking into you. See how long you can go without actually speaking. Watch that tendency to want to talk, to want to express yourself verbally, and bring your attention back into your body. Do everything from deep within your body.
Try and deal with any issues you have yourself. And watch, watch without becoming involved. When you’re doing something – a task, eating, walking, whatever – practise being in your body. See how much thinking is done that is really unnecessary.
I’m not saying that thinking is bad, I’m not saying it’s wrong, but the desire to think comes from fear. You need to see thinking as thinking, rather than divide it up into categories – good thoughts, bad thoughts, pleasant thoughts, unpleasant thoughts. See it more as thinking, as that movement away from where you actually are right now.
It is possible to live a life free from this deep fear that most of us have this fear that dictates much of our behaviour. That’s what you want – to be able to be free from fear, free from anxiety. It doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily going to feel relaxed. What this is really all about is an acceptance of your own mortality. That is freedom. That is the source of your fear, this fear of death of your body. The acceptance of your mortality does not mean that you want to die. It means that your life is not dictated by this fear of the death of your body.
It’s the only thing we know – everyone’s body is going to die at some time. You don’t know when, you don’t know how. Thinking is a way of trying to pretend that I am never going to die, putting off that moment of death by pretending that there is a past and a future. But there is only now, which is something beyond the body, beyond this world – everything in this world is going to come and go. Nothing you see, hear, taste, touch is real. But it is possible to be in this body, to enjoy being in this body, while realising it is not everything, it is not reality. Your body, though, is probably the closest thing to reality that you have in this existence. It’s all you need, it’s your most valuable tool to realise that this is not who I am. I do not start and end with this body. There is something beyond, there is something much deeper.
So, sit and watch. See that movement away and make the effort to come back to where you are right now, which is simply in your body.
What an opportunity this is, to be in this room with thirty other people doing this, people who want this, who seriously want this. You are gradually becoming free from fear, bit by bit, moment by moment.