Day 39: The Pause that can Change Everything, or Just some little thing

Daughter and now dead Dog. Life moves on. All loving is its own reward.


In between the thought and the action is a space where you can realize: this action could be hard, soft, fast, habitual, new, tight, soft, “right,” “wrong,” and so on.

We often lunge from one thing to the next, forgetting that pause, that place where we can go forward, can progress, but don’t have to.

Don’t have to.

This is the present of being present and unhurried at moments of transition, and a good martial artist learns to be present and awake and unhurried even in moments of “hurry.”

What does that mean?

Ponder a bit, and let it be something you experiment with today: to be unhurried, even in your hurry, and if you don’t “need” to hurry, be unhurried in you unhurry.

And this is our game today: to watch the pausing points, the points when we are tempted to lunge// rush/ fall / clunk forward into the next event and be pulled along in our lives as if we have no say.

So watch for the pausing points.

Find the pausing points, or some of them.

Pause at them in some experimental way. Sometimes a little longer than usual. Sometimes a lot longer. Sometimes actually taking a break of the walk, sit and meditate, little nap sort. Watch your fears that if you don’t keep your nose to the grindstone you won’t “get anything done.”

And if you let little breaks take over your day and it ends of true that you “don’t get anything done,” take pauses and breaks inside the diverting activity and see if they can give you a chance to divert back to your original path. So go slow, find the pausing points. Use them to open to ?????