Sit still.

Sit absolutely still.

Do nothing.

Noting at all.

What happens?

Does it work?

Can you stop your heart from beating, can you quiet the mind, completely, and can you refrain from having bodily sensations?

You are doing nothing.

Now there’s an itch.

You try to ignore it but that means doing.

Your knee hurts.

You try not to feel it, but that takes effort.

Doing.

And a bird is birding outside your window.

Listening happens.

You are trying very hard to do nothing, but the trying itself is doing something.

You try to stop, to freeze the universe.

So you sit as still and as quiet and as motionless as possible, with all the ambition in the world.

Doing nothing.

Except trying hard to do nothing.

And nothing really stops.

Nothing really changes, and everything changes anyway.

There’s an itch.

There’s a beating heart.

There’s the knee.

There’s birding.

There’s the thought.

And anohter one.

‘I am doing nothing.’

But you can’t stop the doing.

You can’t stop the world.

You can’t stop the being.

Everything is alive, changing, doing, being, birding.

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

You are being, motion, change.

What if that wasn’t a problem?

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(Photo by @xusanfeng, for Unsplash)