Useless Window Gazing

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All meditative pursuits are, in essence, aiming to understand the "nature of mind".

What is our mind doing? Why is it doing that? How does the state of mind impact our happiness or suffering? Can the mind be stilled? Can the mind create? Are we our mind? Who are we if we are not our mind? Are the activities of mind supportive or destructive? How do the mind's workings influence our external actions and our reality? What happens to the inner world when we observe our mind more consciously?

Spiritual practices pursue understanding the nature of mind because deep essential truths are revealed when the nature of mind is seen clearly. Our blindness, veils, and delusions, as well as wisdom and clear seeing are discovered through the conscious exploration and observing of the nature of mind. 

We can make meditation an "activity" that we do, isolate it to some minutes a day or when we have time. Or we can soften that boundary between deliberately meditating and... everything else we do all day, everyday. Life is our spiritual practice. Our spiritual being doesn't survive well compartmentalized into our morning sit, annual retreat, or occasional inwardness. 

We want to "find ourselves" over and over again throughout the day. We want to capture those natural moments that slip in, in between obsessive thinking, anxious to-do lists, and endless distractions. 

Formal practice often requires us to arrange and schedule our day in a particular way. It needs a special spot, or support from someone or something. It needs a week or more away. And when we are "practicing" it can feel burdensome or tight or blended with attachment. 

A powerful antidote to what can be the harsh, overly disciplined, striving tendency of intensive practice or retreats is a term coined by Michele McDonald - Useless Window Gazing. 

Instead of sitting perfectly upright with determined attention to breath, body and mental activity, noting carefully what is happening... sit casually, comfortably, on the couch sipping tea, staring out the window. Or some equivalent of this. Stare into space while taking a bath, let your mind be free to wander and wonder while driving, eat alone at a restaurant without doing anything else, let stillness overtake you between emails, have your morning coffee on the porch and listen to the birds instead of reading the news. 

Be. For No Reason. 
Lazy Beingness. 

Not aiming for anything. Not to be a better person. Not to fix anything. Not to figure out. Not to do it right. Just being because that is a natural state that gets virtually no airtime. 

The nature of mind - i.e. its activity, moods, feelings, habits, pursuits, avoidances, likes, dislikes, stories, screams, beliefs, dreams, judgements, illusions, delusions, wounds, fantasies, selfing, etc., is actually readily available to be seen. Useless window gazing might be less rigid and even a little lazy, but if you stay there long enough the mind will show itself just as clearly (if not more clearly) than if you look at it in a disciplined and serious manner. 

For this retreat, we will "sit" together at our typical times, and you are encouraged to attend as many of those as you can, but we're being there largely with as little demand of ourselves as possible. Come and pretend you're not meditating. What happens when you are still and quiet, but you are not "meditating"?

You might sit and stare out the window. But similar invitations are to lay down with a cozy blanket, or stand like a weirdo in the middle of your living room, or let your body move in unpredictable ways. And in between our scheduled sessions, go for a meandering walk. Not the kind you do for cardio but where you maybe don't pre-determine the direction, or you focus on plants or clouds, or you let energy move and write a poem at the end. 

As always, all of our invitations are meant to be explorations that help you discover your natural entry points, where you are most at ease with yourself, where even if the inner world or felt sense is challenging, you sense the power of just being there for it/with it, witnessing and allowing this nature of mind to demonstrate and reveal itself so that you can come to know your deepest beingness.

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