Advanced Stress Management

By Rick Hurst

In the finale of the movie “Cabaret” Liza Minelli singing the title song asks the question “What good is sitting alone in your room? The song goes on to suggest that one should “come hear the music play” because life is too short and sitting alone in your room isn’t going to get you anywhere fast. An interesting philosophy that seems to sum up the way of the world but a philosophy diametrically opposed by ole Blaise Pascal, a rare iconoclast who in the 17th century observed that “all the evils of life have fallen upon us because men will not sit alone quietly in a room.”

What is it that causes us to need constant distraction - wine, women, song, TV, work, hobbies - and avoid like the plaque any kind of stillness? What? You don’t think this is true? Well, go into your room, shut the door and just sit for a while and be alone with your thoughts and feelings. See how long it is before you run from the room in mysterious panic. That is the reaction of most people. They call it going “stir crazy”

But there are those few explorers of the inner universe who eschew outward distraction, who do not mind being alone quietly observing their thoughts. These know the value and benefit of sitting quietly in their room, learning to detach from the chatter and noise in the mind, learning to stay in the present moment instead of getting lost in thinking, and deliberately cultivating inner quiet and stillness. These rare souls come to know the very real blessings and accumulated benefit derived by sitting still, even as the ego, which thrives on distraction, diminishes and something eternal arises in its place.

A good meditation to practice is learning to sit still at the “Cabaret”. What I mean is that sometimes life requires us to be someplace we may not really want to be but we can use that very same opportunity for the good. In the midst of a boring sermon or speech perhaps, or in the midst of loud hustle and bustle at an airport shut down by storm, or whatever the circumstance may be, we can use it as an opportunity to be in the circumstance but not caught up in it. We can use it as an opportunity to remain out of our thinking and feeling about it and not caught up in excitement or negative emotion about it.

All things can become the perfect opportunity to still yourself, to watch your mind, to see what is going on within you about what is going on around you. We can use it to pull back from getting caught up in whats going on around us, become still and quiet even as chaos or boisterous activity surrounds us. Indeed, whenever we are forced by life circumstance to be at the “Cabaret” we can use it as practice to be still and mindful. In this way we can be anywhere, under any circumstance, and at the same time be fully present and fully self-contained. In this way we learn to always hold our Peace.

Rick Hurst
http://rickhur.blogspot.com

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Tags: detachment, meditation, mindfulness