Just bee

I read a book once called, ‘Don’t just do something… Sit There!’ by Sylvia Boorstein.

She’s hilarious, and has the gift of delivering Buddhist discourse through the lens of being a Jewish grandmother from New York. And although the title is fairly clear, and the book very matter-of-fact… It still took me another 15 years to begin understanding what she meant, and put it into practice. It’s one thing to know the path, and another entirely to walk the path… so, it’s not enough to read the book. Sitting still, takes practice.

Modern laziness, can consist of keeping ourselves compulsively busy so that we don’t have any time to confront our real issues. We drive, shop, scroll, bingewatch, game, and caffeinate our way through the day. We have hobbies and sports and clubs that are so important to us – we have families that need to be fed and transported! When on earth does a human have time to sit still? The bombardment of entertainment, information, and work to afford all our cool toys is 24/7. Sitting still is for wimps, right? This was my modus operandi for a long time – busyness, was my badge of honor, and my crutch.

Busyness was my way of avoiding the difficult thoughts and memories, that would well up in my mind in a quiet moment. I would engage in work and projects and fun until I’d collapse, exhausted – all so that I wouldn’t have to think. I may have looked productive and celebratory on the outside, but on the inside – I was stagnant with a mind overflowing with unprocessed events, doubts, fears, regrets, and shame.

What we resist, persists. I knew I’d have to clear the dust bunnies out of my mind, to move forward in my life. Have you ever looked behind the couch, or refrigerator and said ‘Dear God! Look at all that crap I didn’t know was in there!’ Well, when I committed to a daily meditation practice, to just sitting, that was how it felt. It took months of just listening to my unruly mind, and realizing how unhelpful, and untrue most of my inner dialogue was. Pema Chodron says, ‘It’s a beautiful day when you realize, you don’t have to believe all your own thoughts.’

When we slow down, sit still, and just breathe … we can more easily hear the voice of our heart. Quietude, is where we put our ear down next to our soul and listen hard. The mind constantly churns out thoughts – it’s what it’s designed to do. In stillness, we can sift though our thoughts… and see which ones are worth integrating, and which ones we can let go.

‘Just being’, was a tough concept for me to grasp, because I identified so much with my so-called achievements. So, even when I meditated, it was with achievements in mind! I did my breathing exercises with a metronome. I tried sitting for 90 minutes a day. I learned complicated mantras. I was completely… missing the point. I was being greedy, in a spiritually materialistic kind of way. Even in sitting still, I was trying too hard to ‘get somewhere’.

It took a long time, to realize that the efforts to be ‘good’ at meditating, were ridiculous. Just being, is not trying to make things perfect. It’s finding contentment, and perfection in the way things are. Being where, we are – and not wishing we were anywhere else, or anyone else. The space between thoughts, begins to widen when we do – and we can experience moments of clarity.

We are not human ‘doings’. We are, human ‘beings’. I hope that our yoga studio can be a place where we do exactly that – to just, be. The more we practice together… the better we’ll get at it; and perhaps we can let that contented quality of ‘being’, expand into our everyday lives. 🙂