“You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day—unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour” – Zen saying
At this moment I’m in Woodacre, California—a small town in Marin County, north of San Francisco—at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center for a seven-day silent meditation retreat.
No, I didn’t bring my computer to sneak my weekly post in—I wrote this ahead of time and scheduled it to publish at the regular Tuesday time.
Today, for me, is Friday, and I’m anticipating getting on the plane tomorrow and flying up North for a week of no email, no phone, and no talking. The last few months have been busy, busy, busy, and recently my daily meditation practice has lapsed. I’ve used the excuse of “I’m too busy to meditate,” but to be honest, that’s not the real reason.
The real reason is that busyness is a habit, and once I let a few days slip by without meditating because I was too busy, it suddenly became much more difficult to slow down.
I imagine that over the first day or two of the retreat, much of my meditation will be spent ruminating about things I was supposed to do before I left but forgot, or worrying about unresolved problems.
Then, maybe in the middle, I’ll find a few days of peace and calm.
Then, at the end, I’ll start to become terrified of the avalanche of voicemails, emails, and other demands I’ll have to deal with when I get back.
But that’s the point, right? It’s not about finding peace off in a cave somewhere, or in the midst of a silent meditation retreat—it’s about finding peace, right here, right now, amidst all of the inevitable chaos of daily life.
So perhaps when we are busiest is exactly when we need to take time to slow down the most.
As the Zen saying goes, you should meditate 20 minutes a day, unless you’re really busy—in which case you should meditate an hour. Perhaps all the pressures I’m dealing with in my life right now make this the exact right moment to unplug and dedicate a substantial period of time to meditation.
I hope when I return I will have some new perspectives on the subject, so stay tuned 🙂
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Photo by Staffan Scherz
I don’t know what it is about being “busy,” but it has a tendency to run rampant. It’s easy to be busy all of the time. Taking time to slow down, when in the midst of being busy, is a test of will. I have failed at it several times. Once I get slowed down I wonder why it was so hard to break the busy cycle. Good luck on your retreat. Hope it goes well.
Hey Jonathan, I’ve been back from the retreat less than a week and a half and I already feel the business creeping back in. I think letting go of busyness is probably an ongoing, lifelong process :-). Thanks so much for your comment.
Dear Elana,
Good luck on your retreat. Hope it goes well . Cant wait to read all about it soon
Cheers
Thanks Tejes! Check out my following post about the retreat if you’re interested!
I can relate to this, I just started a 10 week backpacking trip around europe. I’m a week in and have let me daily meditation practice fall off, haven’t done any formal exercise and have been eating horribly (mainly to save money). I am feeling absolutely horrendous compared to how I felt before I left despite experiencing so much cool stuff in such a short amount of time. It’s time to slow down and get back on track.
Hi Steven, I can imagine it would be hard to keep up with meditation amidst the chaos that comes with extended traveling. Maybe a good way to keep up the practice without stressing too much about it would be to incorporate mindfulness into daily activities (eating, walking, etc). Don’t beat yourself up about it too much. I just got back from my retreat and I’m already falling off the wagon (ie cushion) again. You just gotta keep coming back to it, again and again!