Ironically, I find my optimal state of self-perception arises from stillness and present-moment focus (where the perception is directed away from the surface self, and arguably allows a visceral perception of the greater self). A sense of well-being spontaneously arises, without any prompting whatsoever, which leads to me feeling good about myself for no tangible reason.
Maybe that’s the true self, and everything else is a restricted narrative. I don’t know. I suspect it’s not meant to be known, at least from an intellectual perspective.
Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha 
Sometimes these moments happen because you are already ready without need to work through something at this moment. Enjoy the moment.
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Good stuff. I think we need the space where silence inhabits. Authentic, terrifying, but always authentic.
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That was very well said and it is what I too try to do. Most of the time I can’t get that voice in my head to shut up. It’s always thinking about what it must say next. I was taught to focus your attention on it but when I do that it wants to strike up a conversation.
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We feel so consistently ‘us’ that we do not notice how the sphere of our attention varies. Sometimes it is drawn into something that is ‘wrong’ in the moment and we are then motivated to try to ‘fix’ things. But sometimes they cannot be ‘fixed’ – or maybe not ‘then’ – and so our attention circles round and round. Our ‘being’ becomes identified with the problem and excludes almost everything else. We are consumed by worry. By stillness – or by other distractions – we escape the circling and the sphere of our attention widens. We notice lots of things that are not ‘wrong’ and our mood lifts – until the next bout of drawn identification. The trick is to realise that these bouts are just ‘drawn’; that we can ‘let go’ at any time. We can learn to inhabit the whole of our common presence and not just scurry from one dark menace to another.
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I would go so far as to say that it is the base and/or exercise of true free will
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Stillness is the important thing. In today’s world, we are encouraged to rush all the time, and not sit and just ‘be’.
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I feel like those moments are far apart for me. But so happy when they happen.
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Well stated. I too find my self-perspective as a way of rationalizing my super ego when everything around me is still and I’m alone with my own thoughts.
My creative muse arrives and new and wonderful ideas float to the surface; a new story begins to take shape.
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I wrote a short piece about stillness yesterday. After the death of my daughter, for years, it was difficult to actually be still. I am actively cultivating space to do this more often. To be in the moment without trying to find answers.
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Good for you! I find the answers seem to come without prompting, if I’m in that place
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It is ‘something’ one cannot translate into words.
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