Dear Readers,
I hope this finds everyone wise and well!
A quick note: As I mentioned in the last couple of meditations, I’m making a handful of our series (Sundays with Seneca, The Way of Contemplation, etc.) available on In Search of Wisdom and to all subscribers. The Tuesday and Thursday meditations (and courses) are still exclusively available to members.
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Thank you for reading Perennial Meditations, listening to In Search of Wisdom, and supporting this project!
J.W. Bertolotti
P.S. You’ll find links to related meditations and podcasts at the end.
Welcome to Vol. 10 of our Perennial Habits course. Here’s a quick review: our first meditation discussed How to Change When Change is Hard and the need for clarity, motivation, and shaping the path for change. Next, we talked about How to “Think” About Change, which discussed the stages of change and the notion of cognitive flexibility. Then, we explored The Paradox of Small Changes, which focused on thinking big and small. Followed by Becoming Every Day: A User’s Guide, Discerning the Way, A Simple, But Not Easy Stoic Exercise, How to See — Like a Sage, The Wisdom of Gratitude, and The Middle Way.
The Art of Stillness
“Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply,” writes Pico Iyer in his short book The Art of Stillness. The book is based on Iyer’s popular Ted Talk — Where is Home?
According to Iyer,
It is only by stopping movement that you can see where to go. And it’s only by stepping out of your life and the world that you can see what you most deeply care about and find a home.
Iyer’s words connect with the perennial habit of discerning the way. Stillness is a way of discerning what matters and what is actually up to us.
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