What Will Still the Noise?

I am surrounded by noise, and sometimes I am the loudest. My ego is getting too much of my time. I am “identifying with the impermanent” (Mooji) so I am more anxious than not.  

Any fear keeps me in my comfort zone. I need to be curious and muster enough courage to open myself to uncertainty. How else to still the noise.

Mostly, I get caught up in the 2016 election. It is more chatter than I can bear so I pull myself away only to return. Just when I am sure we have hit rock bottom, there is yet another new low.

Equanimity knows no enemies but I do not always know equanimity.

All of us want to feel okay, again, as if we really were. If there is one thing this election is showing us, it is that we were not okay, ever. The past seems a better time because we are no longer living it but we are living its consequences.

The present is chaotic–continuous uncertainty, ever unfolding—the future flashes possibilities based upon what we do now but it is ever changeable, and it is a place we will never be.  

Fear is exhausting and feels endless. It is and it is not.

Energy drives the chronic experience we all share–life. It connects us to one another. Every day, we awaken with a certain level of energy, unique to each of us.

I call it the daily dose. No two days are the same. We aim for even, each day anew.

Living in the now means recognizing that fear is endemic to the life experience. If we accept that, fear loses a bit of its oomph—there really is no element of surprise–fear may be chronic but we do not have to live fearfully.

Acceptance is full of forgiveness, gratitude, joy, and compassion. It is the energy of equanimity, the patience of endurance.

It is not for the faint of heart but it is not as noisy, either. In the Tonglen practice, there is the breathing in of all that noise and releasing in its stead the stillness of compassion.

Stillness is not always heard, immediately, but it lingers.

Energy does not wrap itself around our wants. We get a daily dose. We need to keep an eye on the gauge for the echo of an empty tank is deafening.

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity in daily doses. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page.