I am doing more sitting these days. Literally, just sitting. I am not meditating, making lists or planning anything. I am not writing, reading or praying. As years of engaging in a daily practice have passed before me, more often than not, sitting is serving as the entry point; a doorway into places that either sets the practice up, or takes me to where my formal practice does not. It regularly demonstrates to me the deep and essential importance of doing nothing, absolutely nothing. And even though there is nothing in particular I am searching for, or aiming for, a most organic and surprising platform for good health, a clear mind, and right relationship with self, others and Spirit continues to arise each and every time I submit to this thing called “nothing.”
Like gale force winds the outer world whips around me clearing and destroying. In the midst of this, my little corner of the world goes through its own tectonic shifts as next fall both of my kids will be out of the house putting me in the position, for the first time in over twenty years, of not being responsible daily for the care and well-being of human beings dependent upon me. And then, oh by the way, we are building our new home, and I am on the brink of sending a long-labored book out into the world. These shifts and opportunities are pressing me to grow up somehow in order to become the person that all of this both asks and demands of me. And while my first inclination typically would be to start running harder and faster, it is, in fact, just the opposite. It is the doing nothing that is allowing me to not only keep up, but to actually flourish.
Personally, I can see that despite decades of meditation, mindfulness, prayer and yoga, I too often find myself trying to get somewhere, as opposed to being somewhere. I do not even know where I am trying to get to. It is as if there is some infinite, cosmic check list, and if I can just get through enough of it, some day it will be done, and that will mean… I don’t actually know what that would mean. Lately I see that even if and when, for arguments sake, I actually could get through that list–my life would be done. Knowing that makes me feel like I am not in so much of a rush anymore. Because that is the truth; we will never be done. As some of my favorite teachings describe, we are the embodiment of Consciousness/Spirit/Life itself which is infinitely and always looking to create through us. It never ends.
It seems to me that our minds have somehow confused the infinite creativity of Life itself coursing through us with busyness and endless lists of things to do. It puts me in mind of the accounts I have read of indigenous cultures who had to work daily for the necessities of life like food, water, shelter and protection, and yet still had hours each and every day for doing nothing. How might we do the same? How much of our running around is in fact, some kind of a defense against living? What exactly would happen if we all just sat down, and not in front of a screen? Our lives are all moving so fast. Too fast. In our speed there is much that cannot be seen. Or felt. Or experienced. Gandhi once aptly said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
That is exactly what I am aiming for these days; a discovery of what that something more is. What does it feel like? How do you get there? What’s it all about? And while we may all get glimpses at times, mostly we relegate the “something more” to a small section of our lives. If at all.