Inner180

I went to a lunch meeting today, and practiced doing nothing in the presence of others.  I found that I was less judgmental of those around me.  But I also noticed that I tended to be quiet, and worried about that.  I judged others less, and me more.  Interesting, isn’t it?  I don’t think I’ve mastered this step of the joy diet yet….

Some further thoughts about stillness, culled from my personal experience as a failed meditator:

You can put your attention on your breath, and notice how the breath comes in and out, without your doing anything.  Just leave your attention on the breath, and without trying to change it, simply follow it in and out.

During a walking meditation, notice the people and objects you pass and give them simple names—dog, flower, bench, airplane, bus.  Don’t go to descriptive names, like beautiful flower or stinky bus.  Just simple one-word names.  I suppose this would work if you were sitting, as well, and looking around your room.

Sometimes, I will repeat a line from a poem to myself over and over, my homegrown, English language version of a “mantra.”  Here are couple of examples I use:

From Rumi: “When the ocean comes to you as a lover, marry it!”  From the Tao te Ching:  “Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?”  When I’m walking, I might repeat, “wait till the water is clear,” over and over.  From Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”:  “Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

Some days, I simply can’t do any of it, no matter what technique I use.  I daydream, over and over. I bring myself back, only to daydream again, within nanoseconds.  But I find that just the 15 minutes or so away from busyness, phones, emails, other people, is refreshing, even if I’m not achieving much in the way of “doing Nothing.”

On those days, I remind myself of a profound piece of advice given to me by a number of brilliant mentors—“I am willing to suck at this.”  That’s how the light gets in.

A full week of doing nothing every single day.  I look forward to it now–a respite from a busy life.  Today, after hours of talking and listening, silence was delicious.  I’ve discovered that I like doing nothing best when walking.

Yesterday, I referred to the John Lennon song, “Across the Universe.”  Today, I realized the main line of the song, repeated a dozen times, is this:  “Nothing’s gonna change my world.”