Is there anything easier (and more difficult) than sitting still? The seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal insisted that the chief symptom of our unhappiness is simply our inability to sit still.
Today, we often point to social media and technology as the culprit.
But, we are wise to remember that distraction is part of the human condition. Just as Seneca pointed out that “no one ever became wise merely by chance.” It is also true that no one has ever found tranquility merely by chance.
In his Pensées (or Thoughts), Pascal wrote,
We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight… Let each of us examine their thoughts; they will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future.
Therefore, most people never actually live; they only hope to live. “And since we are always planning how to be happy,” observed Pascal, “it is inevitable that we should never be so.” Human beings are torn between the desire for happiness and an innate confusion about where to find it.
What if I said practicing stillness makes a life of action possible? To go further — what if stillness could make you calmer, happier, and more productive?
That is exactly what the lives of the great contemplatives reveal to us. In The Saints’ Guide to Happiness, author Robert Ellsberg explains that the saints accomplished many great works, whether managing schools and hospitals, starting religious orders, or simply conquering their own passions.
How to Sit Still
Although finding quiet places in the world has become ever more scarce. It is not enough to escape the noise of the world — one must find stillness among their own inner noise. Ellsburg writes,
The capacity to sit alone in one’s room without going mad implies the cultivation of an inner life. This is surely not the same as an “intellectual life,” a capacity for learned thoughts. It is more a matter of resting in the core of one’s being, what the desert fathers called the heart, or the soul.
Similarly, an ancient Buddhist sutra, “On Knowing the Better Way to Be Alone,” describes an encounter between the Buddha and a monk named Thera. The Buddha taught, “It is the way of deep observation to see that the past no longer exists, and the future has not yet come, and to dwell at the ease of the present moment, free from desire.”
Take a few moments to contemplate this passage from the personal diary of St. Faustina Kowalska:
O my God, When I look into the future, I am frightened,
But why plunge into the future?
Only the present moment is precious to me,
As the future may never enter into my soul at all.
It is no longer in my power to change, correct or add to the past;
For neither the sages nor prophets could do that.
And so what the past has embraced I must entrust to God.
O present moment, you belong to me, whole and entire.
I desire to use you as best I can.
It is challenging to slow down and just “sit” right where you are. It can feel like an infinite list of things to do that are far more important. Although we must remind ourselves that taking time to “sit” and be, is not a trivial act. “When we sit, we bring joy and nourishment to ourselves and others,” explained the renowned Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
In his short book How to Sit, Hanh tells us,
Image a boat full of people crossing the ocean. The boat is caught in a storm. If anyone panics and acts rashly, they will endanger the boat. But if there’s even one person who is calm, this person can inspire calm in others. Such a person can save the whole boat. That’s the power of non-action. Our quality of being is the ground of all appropriate action.
Many saints and sages, burdened like the rest of us by deadlines and to-do lists found it difficult to practice stillness. And so they fashioned their own “interior castle,” writes Ellsburg. The happiness of the saints presupposes a degree of inwardness —simply, the capacity for stillness.
The great contemplatives have compared the spiritual life to an ocean. On the surface, life may feel like a stormy sea, yet the water is always calm beneath the surface. Learning to practice stillness is to be anchored in those depths.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,