Everything in our culture tells us be more efficient, get more done and hurryupyoumightmissoutonthisopportunity.
I am deeply susceptible to this messaging.
I often come eyeball to eyeball with looming FOMO and fear that I’m not doing enough.
A global pandemic may have cured us of some of this but now that the world is transitioning into whatever comes next, I can feel the engines revving.
Every meditation teacher I’ve ever encountered encourages the opposite of this sprint to what’s next. Tara Brach and Sebene Selassie and Sharon Salzberg and Ani Pema all teach slowing down, paying deep focused attention, leaving more space. Spending time with their teaching has given me, well, pause.
For years, I’ve been experimenting (and then forgetting and hurrying off in another direction) with integrating intentional pauses into my days and my life. Sometimes, it takes a well-timed gift or a breath-taking poem to remind me.
In 2000, my sister and I participated in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day 60 mile walk. We trained all winter to walk 60 miles from somewhere in Maryland to the mall in Washington DC. All that training and that long walking weekend, I barely stopped moving for months. When we finished, my sweet husband (to whom I’d been married for less than a year) gave me a simple vase with the word “pause” on it .
I loved it then and ever since it has a place on honor on my desk to remind me to take my time and to stop and breathe (it’s pictured here in my new studio with other beloved reminders of creativity and adventure).
In the spirit of the walk and my tendency to rush and tumble, I offer you a poem and a dharma talk. First, the dharma. Tara Brach speaks eloquently and beautifully about the practice of the Sacred Pause. I hope you will pause and listen to her wisdom here.
And then the poem:
We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment.
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment.
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment.
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice.
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment.
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.
September 11, 2001
© Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek 1990 -2004 from Hope Through Heartsongs, Hyperion, 2002
So, my friends. May our practice be the pause.
Before you get up.
Before you eat.
Before you go to the next thing.
Before you hit SEND.
Before you speak.
Before…pause.
Even in the middle of everything.
A nourishing, intentional, sacred pause can make all the difference.
