Living the Zen Life

Sitting quietly

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Sitting quietly

 
“All of humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
―Blaise Pascal
 

W

hat happens when you’re sitting quietly in a room alone?

If you’re like me, the voices in your head begin to fidget. Then they start to rustle around. There is nothing going on to reflect them or the identity they’ve created for you, so this results in the experience of boredom. It creates a desire to get up and DO something. Where’s my phone? Where’s my partner? Where’s my beer? Anything. And it can be quite intense. Sitting quietly in a room alone? Horrible! That would require you to BE. How on earth is THAT done?

The voices do not want to be observed, and they can only be scrutinized when you’ve stopped doing everything else and look at them. Looking at them, however, is not part of their plan. They want to run the show from under the radar. They want to direct your attention for you without you realizing that they’re doing it. Remember in conditioned mind they’re in control. In the absence of physical distractions, they go looking inside your mind for entertainment. Otherwise, they go crazy and tell you that you can’t stand it. When you hear that, you can know that they are attempting to run the show.

Monks at the monastery would report “rock-and-roll” mind: A radio station between our ears would turn on and suddenly music would begin to play. Or scenes from movies would repeat. Or memories from the past would arise as well as concerns about the future. Anything but to sit in silence and BE here with what is.

So the instructions for meditation are simple: The moment your attention begins to wander, bring it back to here – back to the breath. As many times as necessary. Your attention will naturally begin to wander off. You bring it back. Sometimes your attention will be gone for 20 minutes, sometimes only a few minutes. The moment you catch it off the breath, you bring it back. That’s it. That’s meditation.

The more you practice this, the easier it will become to BE and the easier it will be to see that the voices in your head that are the cause of 99% of your problems.

Ending them stems from our ability to be with ourselves in conscious, compassionate awareness.

Doing this practice begins with you.
 

In lovingkindness,


If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness (Volume One).

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness (Volume Two).

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness (Volume Three).

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, A Shift to Love: Zen Stories and Lessons by Alex Mill.

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, Meditation and Reinventing Yourself.

If you enjoyed this article, you can find a version of it in my book, The Zen Life: Spiritual Training for Modern Times.

 


  Alex Mill trained in a Zen Buddhist monastery for nearly 14 years. He now offers his extensive experience to transform people’s lives and businesses through timeless Zen principles.

He is the creator of three powerful 30-day programs, Heart-to-Heart: Compassionate Self-Mentoring, Help Yourself to Change, and Your Practice, as well as the online Zen meditation workshop, Taming Your Inner Noise (now offered as The FREE Zen Workshop).

Alex has also written seven books on Zen awareness practice. The latest are entitled A Shift to Love: Zen Stories and Lessons (Get it for FREE here) and the 3-book series Living the Zen Life: Practicing Conscious, Compassionate Awareness.

He is a full-time Zen Life Coach who offers guidance and life-changing support to his private clients worldwide. Book a call.


 

2 thoughts on “Sitting quietly”

  1. Thank you Alex. I think I will be doing more of this.

    I have a problem with my Apple TV. Oftentimes it is so stuck in buffering I am not able to
    watch a thing. It was my habit to watch stuff in the evenings—play a DVD, catch something on
    Netflix or youtube. It can be a lot of fun sometimes, but I also find I am bored by a lot of it, too.
    I’m restless, switch around, try one thing or another.

    DVD player stopped working, needs to be cleaned. It is difficult to find DVD cleaners in the stores!
    So I am waiting on an order from Amazon. That plus the buffering issue has led to me to just sit and BE in my dimly lit living room, with the koi fish busily swishing around in the aquarium.

    I don’t try to stop thinking, though. I don’t believe thoughts are the problem. I just let them come and go. There is a book written by a monk, who teaches meditation: “Thoughts Are Not The Enemy.”

    “In most forms of meditation, the meditator is instructed to let go of thoughts as they arise. As a result, thinking is often taken, unnecessarily, to be something misguided or evil. This approach is misguided, says Jason Siff. In fact, if we allow thoughts to arise and become mindful of the thoughts themselves, we gain tranquillity and insight just as in other methods without having to reject our natural mental processes. And by observing the thoughts themselves with mindfulness and curiosity, we can learn a good deal about ourselves in the process.”

    I think it comes down to what feels right to us. I don’t think meditation can be approached as “one size fits all.”

    Anyway thanks for this Alex. Important message, well said.

    1. You’re welcome, Jen.

      There are many, many different types and styles of meditation in the world today. From listening to binaural beats with big ol’ headphones, to lying down and allowing yourself to leave your body, to focusing on a candle at the exclusion of everything else, etc.

      I trained in a Zen monastery for nearly 14 years and all I can share is my experience of Zen meditation (Zazen). In this style of meditation, it doesn’t matter what feels right to us (which “us” are we referring to, anyway?).

      In any case, I’m happy you found a practice that speaks to you. Thanks for sharing your experience and visiting my website.

      In lovingkindness,
      Alex

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