SIT STILL

Sitting still during meditation.

Sounds easy enough, right? Just close your eyes and don’t move. Don’t fidget. Don’t scratch. Definitely don’t check your watch. But what about that itch? Those pins and needles! Here comes a tickle in the throat. You need a drink, says the mind. While you’re there, how about a higher cushion? A blanket would be nice…

Sitting still during our meditation practice requires fortitude and willpower that takes time and effort to develop. In our daily lives, we are accustomed to remedying our minor discomforts ASAP. We scratch the itch; we grab the jersey. We check the phone. Who want to be uncomfortable when the fix is a quick one?

What’s the point of sitting still, anyway? Why not just move?

The answer lies within the experience. What would happen if we simply sat quietly in the sensations that arise, without fixing them? What would happen if we did nothing about that itch, or that niggle?

The mind would certainly have an opinion. Are you crazy? Your foot’s going to sleep! Careful, you’ll injure yourself… But that’s nothing new. The mind always has something to say, and that constant chatter can be observed from a distance, without judgement. It grows less and less important over time, as the light of our attention shines elsewhere.

So where could our attention turn while we’re sitting still?

Towards sensation.

Sensation of breathing. The breeze of breath in the nostrils. The rise and fall of the chest and belly.

Sensation of sitting. The feeling of the sitting bones on the floor, cushion, or chair. The touch of the air or the clothing on the skin. The temperature. The tickle of hair on the cheek, or the prickle of pins and needles. The ache that spreads from hip to thigh.

We turn our awareness directly towards the sensations we are experiencing in our bodies right now. We explore them in detail. No distracting ourselves with pretty thoughts of beaches, forests, or some other preferable location. No drifting away with that 528Hz heart meditation mix on Spotify. These things have their place, but when we’re practicing sitting still, we stay right here, in this body, right now.

Within this moment and the sensations, it presents, there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There is only ‘what is'.

Electing to sit still and fully explore the minor discomforts that arise is practice for life.

It is an absolute certainty that physical and emotional pain will occur during our lives. While we cannot control the external circumstances that constantly occur during our lives, or even the thoughts that arise within our own heads, we can learn to manage our reaction to them.

The circumstances that arise in our lives and the thoughts that follow create physical sensations within the body, and we may judge these feelings as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and desire that they stay or go accordingly. We cling to pleasant and push away unpleasant. This is natural; who wants to suffer?

When we look carefully, though, we can see that the quest for pleasant sensations is endless. The thirst is insatiable. And within the search and clinging is our suffering. Equally, the aversion to unpleasant sensation is strong, whether that sensation is a tweaked muscle in your back or the tightness of stress in your belly. Fear and rejection of unpleasant sensation – the running from it – becomes our suffering, much more than the sensation itself.

When we allow the full range of sensations to manifest, stay for a while, then go, we loosen the grip of control and flow with life. Pain and hardship is inevitable, as is joy and pleasure. But suffering is optional. Sitting still as sensations arise is a practice for how we react to life.

Sitting still, close your eyes for 5 minutes and simply watch the breath. Watch the sensations within your body. Let go of the need to change anything. Notice how sensations change by themselves. Notice that over time you can sit for longer and longer without needing to react to your thoughts or any other external factors.