Category: Meditation

Try just being and slow travel on your commute today

Sometimes, doing nothing, just being, is very calming, very therapeutic.

The first day of work in the New Year is upon us. And interestingly, it is a Monday morning!!!
Instead of rushing off to work, honking and struggling through traffic, try slow travel if you can. Slow travel need not be a vacation idea alone. You can slow travel daily. Start early, don’t drive if you can avoid it – take a cab or take public transport. And when you commute to work, don’t get immersed in your mobile device. Instead observe Life as it happens around you. Allow your mind to soak in each detail – the way people behave, the way vehicles snarl at each other, the way the city moves, the way the method to all the madness unfolds. In all this chaos, you remain silent – and calm. Don’t let your mind complain. Just be an observer. Don’t opinionate, even to yourself, or to a fellow commuter, on what you feel. Don’t label what you see as good or bad. Just take it all in. Breathe well – observe your breathing – slowly: in, out, in, out…
To be sure, what I suggest you must try is not a bizarre idea. This is just bringing in the ancient Zen practice of Mindfulness into everyday urban, city Life. Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895 ~ 1986), the thinker-philosopher, has said this: “You see, you are not educated to be alone. Do you ever go out for a walk by yourself? It is very important to go out alone, to sit under a tree—not with a book, not with a companion, but by yourself—and observe the falling of a leaf, hear the lapping of the water, the fishermen’s song, watch the flight of a bird, and of your own thoughts as they chase each other across the space of your mind. If you are able to be alone and watch these things, then you will discover extraordinary riches which no government can tax, no human agency can corrupt, and which can never be destroyed.” I believe – I have practiced this and found it to be true – that this same principle can be applied to rush hour traffic, while waiting at airports, on crowded metros, on a plane ride…wherever, in any context, in fact, as long as you remain silent and are willing to be just an observer, a witness.
Obviously, the nicest thing to do would be to go sit under a tree or by the beach. But in today’s world and time, when each of us is berating ourselves for being slave-runners on the rat race, any suggestion to “take time off from everyday routine” will be considered preposterous, inhuman and insane! So, why not tweak the routine, without disrupting it, why not employ silence periods (when you remain silent and detached from your mobile device), alone-ness (certainly not loneliness), witness-hood, slow travel and conscious breathing in your daily commute?
Another great thinker-philosopher of our times, Thich Nhat Hahn, now 89, and recovering from brain haemorrhage-led coma, has said: “In our busy society, it is a great fortune to breathe consciously from time to time. We can practice conscious breathing not only while sitting in a meditation room, but also while working at the office or at home, while driving our car, or sitting on a bus, wherever we are, at any time throughout the day…While I sit here, I don’t think of anything else. I sit here, and I know exactly where I am.”

So, try just being – no doing, no analyzing, no messaging, no complaining – for the duration of your home-work-home commutes today. Try it – it sure works! 

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