So have I seen:
The universe does not sit politely still for long. All things move. Blood moves through animals that move over the land that shifts past itself over a planet that spins and soars. All things move, and they move all things. You, Jedi, are no exception. Wherein, then, lies stillness?
Nature does not tolerate stillness being imposed on it well. Tremendous energies are spent to create even the impression of stillness. We make our tiny islands of still rest, but they do not last. Nature encroaches. Your home is overrun with spiders. Mold lives in the walls. Roots burst through the sidewalks at their pace. Without any help, the walls are just a bit thinner than they were last year.
And be grateful for it! Nature is never still, sliding this way or that. If it ever became still, achieved equilibrium or balance? Stagnation. Life changes as the world changes and changes the world in turn, old forms go, new forms come. It is as true for the natural world as it is for the minds of men.
But we do impose stillness. It can be useful, but do not mistake it for anything than a temporary measure. And what a temptation to rely on those tiny islands of quiet! We risk getting a taste for it, needing it. Now and again, we rest, but actual reliance, to seek all your quiet in the world of enforced stillness? Leave your cushion, your tower, your mountain top, and find yourself paralyzed by the commotion of living.
That paralysis is not the stillness you were looking for.
We sought resilience, flexibility, the capacity to abide.
I will tell you that willingness is key; the willingness to see life as it and the willingness to participate in your life as skillfully as possible.
Are you willing to let the world spin, to let the world spin you? It is spinning, I assure you. Neither approve nor disapprove of it. Simply see. And engage.
See this with me. There, now, is the sea, infinite in every direction. Filled with life, gargantuan and minute. And you, floating. Feel it, the rise and fall. Emotions come. Feel them move through you, around you. Allow that motion. You cannot stop it, but how often you try. Make no effort to restrain the sea today. See what the peaks and troughs allow. The ocean moves. Remain unmoved.
Look to the code, Jedi. We experience emotions, some of them quite difficult or uncomfortable, yet we find and keep our peace. Tide rolls in, tide rolls out, we sit upon the surface, aware but not unbalanced.
Emotion, yet Peace.
That is how it goes. Feel it. Confront it, but do not judge it. Create no resistance, bend and surrender to both fears and loves, and have peace. Remain unmoved.
And what does it mean to be unmoved? It is not that I feel nothing. Numbness speaks more of death than insight. The water moves past me. I do not fight it. I feel it, and so I experience my humanity, but I am not unseated, and so I do not lose my humanity. It means that, in my grief or my elation, I choose Life and my service to Life. I choose Life over desire and Life over insult. I choose to keep my connection to everything, to the Force, in mind. And in joy or in pain, I serve Life. I feel rather than fight my emotions, and so they do not clutter my sight. And I continue to carve out my Path.
Here is the paradox I offer: There is no lasting stillness. It is impossible. Accept this. Know it in your bones. Let the world do as it will, and stillness is found within.
The Force is with us.
