Monday, January 25, 2010

85: Permission/ suggestion: pause and do "nothing"


"Buddha barn"

Take the nothing break, as many times as you would like, enjoy, benefit, wake

Give yourself permission to do “nothing” for five or ten or fifteen minutes a number of times today. Maybe even “many times,” just sit down, or lie down, or take a walk, or stare out the window, or pull the car over and get out and look at the view, or get in the tub, or lie on your office floor or a park grass or a firm wooden floor anywhere, or sit in a comfortable chair.

And

Do

Nothing.

Yes, just be..

No cell phone.

No reading.

No “to do” list. You can play around a little tiny bit with arching and folding to get happier and more connected to yourself as a body in gravity and awareness.

But the point is to just “chill,” as they say.

Breathe, which we will anyway.

And sometimes notice your breathing and sometimes not.

Think, which you will, and as much as possible find something more interesting than thoughts to put your attention on: what you see. The sunlight. The sky. The birds.

What you hear in the moment. Birds, wind, cars, music, your own movement of breathing. Whatever.

What you are sensing, as the air comes in and out, and you are sitting or standing or walking or lying in some shape and relationship to gravity.

How it feels inside your body.

What it is like to just be. Be yourself. Now. Without any program or productivity.

Just you.

Alive.

Now.

Maybe even smiling. This is your day. This is your life.



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Saturday, December 12, 2009

day 42: what to do: less, and wait, and pause and YES




WHAT TO DO:
Take a pause

You’ve finished one thing and have been “thinking” toward the end of that thing about the “next thing,” and are about to rush from the one to the next, and

Don’t.

Sit down. Look at the sky. Follow your breathing. Sense your five lines. Think about a funny line from a book or a movie or your life.

Take a stroll.

Hop a bit.

Lie down and wiggle around.

Do something else. Not eating, that is too easy a break and often doesn’t really give us the emptiness that refuels.

Don’t talk on the phone.

Just a little bit of nothing.

Be “between things” and be empty. Cultivate this as a spiritual and a practical game.

Do this once or ten times a day.

Do it right now before you read the end of this section.


Really, put the book down and do nothing.


Ah, isn’t that nice, the nothing of coming back to breathing and gravity and bones and awareness.

This is our true nature.


We need quiet to hear our intuition.

We need sensing and presence to be really at home in the Now.

We need a break from the rush of life to find the inner flow of our existence.

This is more important that we realize.

And it feels great. Enjoy this today. Enjoy this today. Yes.



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