This month of isolation has introduced me to a surprising level of contentment. It seems that I am constantly being offered a chance to accept the fact that things are as they are. That repeated exercise has brought a pleasant feeling of contentment.
In some practices of concentration this might even be considered a mild experience of equanimity. I know there is something stimulating and even energetic about strong feelings of attraction or aversion. I am finding that there is a strange pleasantness in the kind of neutrality that is next to but not part of attraction or aversion.
This neutral realm of contentment is still very pleasant, even joyful. It just doesn’t have the same kind of drama I experience when I want something to keep being great or when I want something to stop and go away.
I’m not sure which comes first, the settling into relaxation or the yielding to contentment. Maybe there really is little difference in them. I know there is a point where I no longer resist the way things are. There is a point when I align myself with how things are, how they are unfolding. This is a pleasant place to be.
Contentment is my experience of no resistance, no trying to make things different, no trying to keep things the way they are.