2005-09-22

the art of just sitting

Recently, when I go to bed, I often try to apply the things I've been learning from a wonderful book on 'zen' I've been reading.

Otherwise known as 'the art of just sitting'.

With practice, it can bring such inner peace and stillness to one's life. And it's something you can do whether you're healthy, or chronically ill or disabled. Even if you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, ME, PVFS or Fibromyalgia - you can practice just 'being'...

To reach back to that stillness and to drop all the worries of tomorrow, yesterday, what might happen, asking why....

...or as the book I'm reading describes it, as if you were about to take your last breath - nothing would matter, you would be still. You wouldn't worry about tomorrow or what you had to do, or why this happened or that, because you knew you only had one more moment. You would be still.

The book isn't saying 'think you're going to die'. Moreover, it's trying to emphasise that we are so overburdened with worries, plans, questionings and such, that if we actually just live in the moment, or try for even a few seconds or minutes, it makes the world of difference.

So I will try everyday. I will practice the art of just sitting.

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