“Still waters run deep” is a common aphorism, but what is stillness?

 Silence is not necessarily an indication of stillness.  Silence can be the result of a violent or fearful inability to speak. Immobility does not predicate stillness either.

Stillness may be a quality which describes the surface of a healthy pond. Water is circulating, supplying enough oxygen for life below. The surface however, is still, reflecting light.

There is  an unusual geographical feature called  cenotes, pools of water with a subterranean connection to the ocean. Often the pools are at the bottom of caves, where the walls are sheer and light enters in shafts from above.  The surface of the water is very still , yet fish enter with the saline water circulating gently below. Rather like work I’s that move from a denser to a more refined world, aerating the pool, without disturbing its surface.

Still waters run deep. The “running water” of the proverb is more like the movement of the breath: supporting, and sustaining life while reflecting the eternal. 

“Men do not mirror themselves in running water – they mirror themselves in still water.
Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.” Zhuangzi 

Rodney Collin refers to another kind of stillness, produced in the emotional center. This is when the wrong crystallization of old attitudes is melted, abandoned, or shattered:

“Sometimes, by ‘letting go’ we allow some ‘grace’ to enter by another channel, which all our mental efforts have hitherto kept out. Stillness is a quality of the heart.” Rodney Collin

Our lower centers can achieve this quality of stillness, either by effort or grace. Sometimes stillness manifests as an absence of motion. But there is another form of stillness that transcends and comprehends motionlessness.

“In order to understand the dance, one must be still.
And in order to truly understand stillness one must dance.” Rumi

The dance Rumi is referring to in this paradox might be  the dance of ‘I’s. By this means, the still mind monitors the movement of the body during meditation on God.

Ruth Atkins is one of the editors of https://fourthwaytoday.org, and a former educator. For another recent article by this author, see https://fourthwaytoday.org/?s=Ruth+Atkins