Stillness Is The Key: An Ancient Strategy For Modern Life

I’m starting to seriously practice mindfulness this year, and this 4th book I’ve read this year is an insightful reference to boost the effectiveness of my practice. The title of the book is “Stillness Is The Key: An Ancient Strategy For Modern Life” by Ryan Holiday. Although this book is not using the terminology mindfulness, yet the stillness which serves as the central premise of the book is sharing the same objectives as mindfulness: To be steady while the world spins around you. To act without frenzy. To hear only what needs to be heard. To possess quietude—exterior and interior—on command.

I do share the opinion of this book stated in the introduction on the importance of mindfulness/stillness in our current condition, way more important for us now than before. Our personal and professional problems are overwhelming. Competitors muscle into our industry. Our desks pile high with papers and our inboxes overflow with messages. We are always reachable, which means that arguments and updates are never far away. The news bombards us with one crisis after another on every screen we own—of which there are many. The grind of works wears us down and seems never to stop. We are overfed and undernourished. Overstimulated, overscheduled, and lonely. Who has the power to stop? Who has the time to think? Is there anyone affected by the din and dysfunctions of our time? 

Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections. It slows the ball down so we might hit it. It generates a vision, helps us resist the passions of the mob, makes space for gratitude and wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the key that unlocks the insights of genius, and allows us regular folks to understand them. Stillness is the key to thinking clearly. To seeing the whole chessboard. To making tough decision. To managing our emotions. To identifying the right goals. To handling high-pressure situations. To maintaining relationships. To building good habits. To being productive. To physical excellence. To feeling fulfilled. To capturing moments of laughter and joy. As the title suggest, Stillness is the key to just about everything. To achieve stillness, we’ll need to focus on three domains, the timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the flesh. 

To access the stillness by focusing on our mind, we need to:

• Be fully present. Being present demands all of us. It’s nothing. It may be the hardest thing in the world. This moment we are experiencing right now is a gift (that’s why we call it the present). Even if it’s a stressful, trying experience—it could be our last. So let’s develop the ability to be in it, to put everything we have into appreciating the plentitude of now.
• Empty our mind of preconceptions. Limit your inputs. Garbage in, garbage out. If you want good output, you have to watch over the inputs. This means fewer alerts and notifications. It means blocking incoming texts with the Do Not Disturb function and funneling email to subfolders. It means questioning that “open door” policy. or even where you live. It means pushing away selfish people who bring needless drama into our lives. It means studying the world more philosophically—that is, with a long term perspective—rather than following events second by second.  
• Take our time. Empty the mind. Whatever you face, whatever you’re doing will require, first and foremost, that you don’t defeat yourself. That you don’t make it harder by overthinking, by needless doubts, or by second-guessing. The mind is an important and sacred place. Keep it clean and clear.  
• Sit quietly and reflect. Slow down, think deeply. Your job, after you have emptied your mind, is to slow down and think. To really think, on a regular basis. Think about what’s important to you. Think about what’s actually goin on. Think about what might be hidden from view. Think about what the rest of the chessboard looks like. Think about what the meaning of life really is.
• Reject distraction. Cultivate Silence. Each of us need to cultivate those moments in our lives. Where we limit our inputs and turn down the volume so we can access a deeper awareness of what’s going on around us. In shutting up—even if only for a short period—we can finally hear what the world has been trying to tell us. Or what we’ve been trying to tell ourselves.
• Weigh advice against the counsel of our convictions. Seek Wisdom. Find people you admire and ask how they got there. Seek book recommendations. Add experience and experimentation on top of this. Put yourself in tough situation. Accept challenges. Familiarize yourself with the unfamiliar. Wrestle with big questions. Wrestle with big ideas. Treat your brain like the muscle that it is. Get stronger through resistance and exposure and training. 
• Deliberate without being paralyzed. Let Go. The closer we get to mastery, the less we care about specific results. The more collaborative and creative we are able to be, the less we will tolerate ego or insecurity. The more at peace we are, the more productive we can be.  

Those who seek stillness by focusing on the heart/soul must come to:

• Develop a strong moral compass. Each of us must cultivate a moral code, a higher standard that we love almost more than life itself. Each of us must sit down and ask: What’s important to me? What would I rather die than betray? How am I going to live and why?
• Steer clear of envy and jealousy and harmful desires. To have an impulse and to resist it, to sit with it and examine it, to let it pass by like a bad smell—this is how we develop spiritual strength. This is how we become who we want in this world. Only those of us who take the time to explore, to question, to extrapolate the consequences of our desires have an opportunity to overcome them and to stop regrets before they start. Only they know that real pleasures lies in having soul that’s true and stable, happy and secure. 
• Come to terms with the painful wounds of their childhood. Take the time to think about the pain you carry from your early experiences. Think about the “age” of the emotional reactions you have when you are hurt or betrayed or unexpectedly challenged in some way. That’s your inner child. They need a hug from you. They need you to say, “Hey, buddy, It’s okay. I know you’re hurt, but I am going to take care of you.”
• Practice gratitude and appreciation for the world around them. Don’t let the beauty of life escape you. See the world as the temple that is. Let life experience be churchlike (or mosquelike for me). Marvel that any of this exists—that you exist. Even when we are killing each other in pointless wars, even when we’re killing ourselves in pointless work, we can stop and bathe in the beauty that surround us, always.  
• Cultivate relationships and love in their lives. Stillness is best not sought alone. And, like success, it is best when shared. We all need someone who understand us better than we understand ourselves, if only to keep us honest. 
• Place belief and control in the hands of something larger than themselves. The point of this belief is to override the mind. To quiet it down by putting it in true perspective. This is about rejecting the tyranny of our intellect, of our immediate observational experience, and accepting something bigger, something beyond ourselves. 
• Understand that there will never be “enough” and that the unchecked pursuit of more ends only in bankruptcy. There is a perfectly understandable worry that contentment will be the end our our careers—that if we satisfy this urge, all progress in our work and in our lives will come to a screeching halt. If everyone felt good, why would they keep trying so hard?, it must be pointed out that this worry itself is hardly an ideal state of mind. No one does their work driven by anxiety, and no one should be breeding insecurity in themselves so that they might keep making things. That is not industry, that is slavery. It’s perfectly possible to do and make good work from a good place. You can be healthy and still and successful. 

If we want to be productive and manage to capture the joy and zest and stillness that defined our life, there are traits we will need to cultivate. Each of us will:

• Rise above our physical limitations. Say No. Always think about what you’re really being asked to give. Because the answer is often a piece of your life, usually in exchange for something you don’t even want. Remember, that’s what time is. It’s your life, it’s your flesh and blood, that you can never get back. When we know to say no to, we can say yes to the things that matter.
• Find hobbies that rest and replenish us. Find a leisure that we can be with ourselves. We are present. It’s us and the fishing pole and the sound of the line going into the water. It’s us and the waiting, giving up control. It’s us and the flesh cards for the language we are learning. It’s the humility of being bad at something because we are a beginner, but having the confidence to trust in the process.
• Develop a reliable, disciplined routine. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. 
• Spend time getting active outdoors. Take a walk. This isn’t about burning calories or getting your heart rate up. On the contrary, it’s not about anything. It is instead just a manifestation, an embodiment of the concepts of presence, of detachment, of emptying the mind, of noticing and and appreciating the beauty of the world around you. Walk away from the thoughts that need to be walked away from; walk toward the ones that have now appeared.
• Seek out solitude and perspective. Learn to sit—to do nothing when called for. It is difficult to think clearly in rooms filled with other people. It’s difficult to understand yourself if yo are never by yourself. It’s difficult to have much in the way of clarity and insight if your life is a constant party and your home is a construction site. Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to better connect with yourself and with the people you serve and love. 
• Get enough sleep and rein in our workaholism. Sleep is the other side of the work we’re doing—sleep is the recharging of the internal batteries whose energy stores we recruit in order to do our work. It is a meditative practice. It is stillness. It’s the time when we turn off. It’s built into our biology for a reason.
• Commit to causes bigger than ourselves. If we want to be good and feel good, we have to do good. There is no escaping this. Dive in when you hear the ry for help. Reach out when you see the need. Do kindness where you can. Because you’ll have to find a way to live with yourself if you don’t.

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