A number of years ago, I attended a week-long workshop with Rod Stryker. He invited us to meditate on absolute stillness — cara sthira — meditation. Sitting comfortably, still the skin, the muscles, the bones. Draw the attention to stillness. The breath and heart will still move, but the concentration is on stillness rather than on any movement. Rod Stryker discussed the next day the challenges of this meditation, especially for those who are intellectual, who enjoy being active in the mind. I found it difficult at the time and even dreamed about the issues the meditation brought up for me. Meditating on stillness can be very challenging in a way that meditating on a mantra or the breath would not necessarily be.
I believe the origin of the meditation comes from the principle of sthira being the absolute unmovable, the essence of being (not dissimilar to Kant’s unmoved mover). We invoke pure stillness, pure potential out of which movement comes because that is part of our essence and a place where we can rest our spirit. See, for example, the Srimadbhagavatam.
I discovered absolute joy in this meditation a couple of years after I learned it. I was suffering from a severe sinus infection and bronchitis simultaneously; I joked that I was fine as long as I didn’t breath through either my mouth or my nose. In the midst of my suffering, I remembered the teaching. For a few days I stayed in the meditation for hours at a time. I found the place where I did not really need the breath. Enough came to survive, but I forgot about wondering how to breath or finding a place for it or my struggles with it. In the stillness, there was space and peace and supreme bliss. Ever since then, I have chosen this form of meditation when I have a cold, a sinus infection, or other challenges with breathing. Meditating on the breath, obviously, will not be soothing when breathing is a struggle. But when even breathing is a struggle, peace can be found in complete stillness.
After Long Drought
After long drought, commotion in the sky;
After dead silence, thunder. Then it comes,
The rain. It slashes leaves, and doubly drums
On tin and shingle; beats and bends awry
The flower heads; puddles dust, and with a sigh
Like love sinks into grasses, where it hums
As bees did once, among chrysanthemums
And asters when the summer thought to die.
The whole world dreamed of this, and has it now.
Nor was the waking easy. The dull root
Is jealous of its death; the sleepy brow
Smiles in its slumber; and a heart can fear
The very flood it longed for, roaring near.
The spirit best remembers being mute.
-Mark van Doren