It is astonishing how many people
cannot, or will not, hold still. I could not, or would not, hold
still for thirty minutes inside, but at the creek I slow down, center
down, empty . . . I retreat, not inside myself, but outside myself,
so that I am a tissue of senses. Whatever I see is plenty, abundance.
I am the skin of water the wind plays over; I am petal, feather,
stone.
-- Annie Dillard
When I first read
this quote, I had to laugh. Annie Dillard notices that she couldn’t
hold still for thirty minutes inside. Thirty minutes? How many of us
could hold still for thirty minutes anywhere, under any
circumstances? Zen meditators aside, most modern folks can’t sit
still for more than sixty seconds before we begin to get antsy. There
are things to do, emails to answer, dishes to wash, a house to clean.
No time for just sitting.
Indeed, in my own work with helping
people re-connect with nature, sitting still is often the most
difficult skill for people to learn. More challenging than starting a
bow-drill fire, more rigorous than building a hand-made shelter, more
exhausting than learning the innumerable plants that heal, harm, or
provide food. Sitting still is truly a lost art.
Yet for our ancestors, sitting still
was probably a part of daily life. Modern people who spend extended
periods living “primitive” in the wilderness will tell you that
life slows down when you’re not plugged in to constant technology.
You can provide for your needs with only a few hours of work per day,
and you have a lot of time to sit still. And the more you sit still,
the more life unfolds in front of you, and you connect with the
rhythms of nature and life. You begin to notice how bright the colors
are, how gorgeous the sounds are, how your entire body is always
sensing and feeling, from the bottom of your feet to the tippy top of
your head. Once you get a taste of this, you start to see our modern
way of life as rather insane. We’re always rushing, always pushing,
always striving and trying to get somewhere. For most of us, we rush
and rush until our bodies and minds collapse. Then, as elders, we get
a final chance to slow down. If we can avoid the seductions of
endless television viewing, we have this last opportunity to set
aside our agendas and take a look at life. We sit still for a little
bit, and notice everything we’ve been missing.
We can all sit still. Sitting still is
free, simple, and doesn’t take much physical effort. The rewards
are increased joy, expansive awareness, and a peaceful, compassionate
mind. But it does take a commitment to breaking through the initial
discomfort.
Of course, we can also just stick with
our culture’s default, which is busy, busy, busy. Everyone around
us is doing this, so it can seem normal. But it’s not. It’s what
keeps us stressed, with all the physical and emotional maladies that
come with stressful living.
If you want to sit still, just give it
a try. Sit at a window, if you like, and look at a tree or the
shifting clouds. Try it for a minute today, and for two minutes
tomorrow. Maybe four the next day and if you’re feeling good about
it, try ten the next. It gets easier the more you do it. You don’t
need mantras or a special posture. Simply sit still and see what you
see. It’s really that easy. If you keep at it, you’ll be able to
sit still for Annie Dillard’s thirty minutes, even indoors. And at
some point something hard and clenching will fall away, and you’ll
find that you can sit still for as long as you want. Then the world
will unfurl like a flower, and you’ll wonder what it was you were
so busy chasing all this time. This is the art of sitting still.
