Sit Still
An elegant solution to transform discomfort?
The pain in life comes from running away from, or running toward. When we do neither, and just sit with what is, this rest from running opens a crack in the ache. When we sit still repeatedly, and together with others, we can widen and deepen the crack until trouble transforms.
There is something special about stillness. I explored stillness recently while riding the subway. “How is it,” I wondered, “that even while moving along underground, I can sit still?” It begins to appear to me as extra-dimensional. I mean, the stillness. As I sit in three dimensions, moving through spacetime in a fourth, bellowing between 72nd and 59th, I am able to sit still. This means the stillness is in its own dimension.
In Vipassana,1 on day two or three, the teacher incites us to sit as still as possible. There’s some trick to quieting the body’s perpetual shifting and fidgeting. Sitting still opens another dimension. Marina Abramović, in her “Method instruction cards to reboot your life,” prompts us.2 “Drink a glass of water as slowly as you can.” Or, “Sit motionless and look at a primary color.” Many ways show us the way.
Is it possible that just the act of sitting still is an elegant enough a solution for us to transform discomfort? Our own? Our society’s?
https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/index
https://www.mai.art/the-abramovic-method