HANH TAT

Sometimes I like to meditate and find stillness by sitting down and just noticing my breath, the sensations in my body and the sounds around me – pretty standard stuff. But paradoxically, stillness can also be found through activity and movement.

When stillness of an erratic mind is what we are seeking, then the right kind of physical activity can provide blessed relief if we are experiencing constant and incessant chatter in our heads.

For me, there are two types of stillness that can be created through activity:

1) The first is where it’s not so much that our minds are so still that we have no thoughts, but simply that those thoughts are like trains passing through the stations of our minds and we don’t jump on them. They come and they go, without hijacking our attention. I experience this kind of stillness when I’m out running. I find that focusing on my rhythmic breathing and steady bodily movements shifts my attention out of my head and into my body, creating the space that my brain needs in order to organise itself.

I write about this in my book, Life as a Jigsaw Puzzle:

“…I like to treat my runs as meditation practices, utilising the solitude of the exercise to give my thoughts a chance to roam freely. It’s almost as if the physical up-and-down motion of my head shakes them into some sort of coherent order and, consequently, I often have mini-epiphanies or insights during these morning runs. In fact, much of this book is made up of entries lifted from my electronic journal that were written after such runs.”

2) The other type of stillness through activity is where the activity itself is so physically involved that it’s totally mentally absorbing, leaving little scope for obsessive thinking. I experience this when I’m snowboarding/skiing/climbing/dancing. I’m so immersed in what my body is doing that my mind can relax into the given moment, causing time to seemingly inhabit a different dimension, with passing hours feeling like mere minutes.

Many activities can bring these types of stillness, such as gardening, hiking or somatic practices such as Qigong and yoga.

Thus we don’t necessarily need to be still in order to find stillness. Any activity which brings us fully into the present moment can help create it. And I’ve often found that when I’ve been able to quiet my overthinking mind sufficiently, it has made space for my subconscious mind to reveal useful learnings and wisdom.

So if you’re in need of a little headspace but sitting still isn’t your thing, try getting your body moving instead!