“Rule your thoughts or it is going to rule you.” ~Buddha
Some mornings I wake earlier than daybreak and lie nonetheless, listening for indicators that the home is awake.
A cough down the hallway.
The sound of a drawer opening.
Water operating softly within the kitchen sink.
My mom is ninety-seven years outdated now, and earlier than my toes even contact the ground, a part of me is already listening for proof that the world has not modified in a single day.
After I hear motion, I exhale.
Solely then do I attain for my cellphone.
I inform myself I’m simply checking messages. However recently I’ve realized I’m often checking for one thing else completely.
Aid.
An e-mail from an editor. A response about work. A name. A chance. Some signal that the longer term remains to be opening somewhat than slowly narrowing.
Often there may be nothing.
Or nearly nothing.
Spam. A medical reminder. A reduction provide. Silence disguised as exercise.
One morning lately, I stood within the kitchen refreshing my inbox whereas my espresso cooled untouched beside me. I had already checked a number of occasions earlier than dawn. I knew there was no motive to look once more. Nonetheless, my thumb pulled downward routinely, as if certainty would possibly lastly seem if I repeated the movement sufficient occasions.
Refresh.
Nothing.
Refresh.
Nothing.
Exterior, the world remained fully unusual. A neighbor walked a canine. A automotive door shut someplace down the road. Gentle slowly entered the room.
However inside me, one thing was tightening.
I’ve by no means been good at ready. Not unusual ready. Not strains or visitors or delayed appointments. I imply the deeper variety—the ready that is dependent upon forces you can’t management.
Ready for medical checks.
Ready to see whether or not your physique will worsen or stabilize.
Ready beside outdated age.
Ready for the cellphone to ring.
Ready for somebody to reply with the identical vitality you dropped at them.
Ready to know whether or not your work, your voice, and even your presence nonetheless issues on this planet.
And beneath all of it, the ready we not often admit aloud:
Ready for loss.
The unusual factor about ready is that nothing seems to be occurring from the surface, but internally it might probably eat whole days.
The thoughts fills silence with interpretation.
Possibly they aren’t .
Possibly I waited too lengthy in life.
Possibly the alternatives are gone now.
Possibly I’m changing into invisible.
In some unspecified time in the future, ready stops being about time.
It turns into about price.
What unsettles me most shouldn’t be the silence itself however how rapidly I abandon the current attempting to flee it. My thoughts races forward, rehearsing futures that don’t but exist. I think about sickness worsening. Monetary collapse. Loss of life. Loneliness. The quiet vacancy which will at some point fill this home.
I attempt to clear up tomorrow earlier than right now has even arrived.
Buddhism calls this struggling dukkha—the deep unsatisfactoriness of attempting to carry nonetheless a life that continuously adjustments. And beneath that struggling is tanha: craving. The determined want for certainty, decision, permanence.
I can really feel craving bodily.
Within the tightening chest. Within the stressed refreshing of e-mail. Within the lack of ability to settle right into a single unfinished second.
The Buddha described 5 hindrances that cloud the thoughts, and whereas ready, I appear to fulfill all of them.
Restlessness urges me to verify as soon as extra.
Doubt whispers that my worth is dependent upon being wished.
Aversion makes me resent silence itself.
Concern initiatives struggling into futures that haven’t occurred.
And exhaustion quietly asks whether or not any effort issues anymore.
None of this adjustments actuality. It solely pulls me additional away from the life unfolding straight in entrance of me.
One afternoon, after one other spiral of checking messages and imagining outcomes, I lastly set my cellphone face down on the desk and sat nonetheless.
Not peacefully.
Simply nonetheless.
At first, I observed the tinnitus.
A skinny, steady ringing in my ears that I often resist or attempt to ignore. However over time, by way of meditation and studying about Nada Yoga—the yogic observe of internal sound—I’ve began regarding it in another way. As an alternative of listening to solely irritation, I typically hear continuity. A present beneath thought. A reminder that silence isn’t fully empty.
So I sat there listening.
The ringing.
My respiration.
A chicken exterior.
The faint sound of my mom shifting slowly by way of the home.
For a couple of moments, nothing resolved.
The longer term remained unsure. The emails unanswered. The physique weak. The losses nonetheless inevitable. However one thing softened anyway.
I spotted how a lot of my struggling got here not from ready itself, however from my refusal to let the second stay unfinished.
I wished reassurance earlier than residing. Certainty earlier than trusting. Ensures earlier than enjoyable into the day.
However life was by no means providing ensures.
Solely participation.
The Eightfold Path, I’m starting to know, shouldn’t be about transcending unusual life. It’s about studying find out how to stay current inside it.
Proper mindfulness means noticing worry with out absolutely changing into it.
Proper effort means gently returning when the thoughts races towards disaster many times.
Proper view means recognizing that impermanence shouldn’t be a mistake within the system. It is the system.
I nonetheless battle.
Some mornings I wake already anticipating grief earlier than something dangerous has even occurred. Typically I nonetheless refresh my inbox too typically. Typically silence nonetheless feels private. However now there are moments after I cease preventing the unfinished nature of life.
Moments after I merely hear.
To the ringing in my ears. To my very own respiration. To the sounds of my mom nonetheless alive within the subsequent room.
And slowly, ready turns into one thing totally different.
Not punishment.
Not paralysis.
Apply.
A observe of staying current whereas the thoughts begs to flee into certainty.
A observe of realizing that price can not rely completely on responses, recognition, or ensures concerning the future.
A observe of remaining right here for the delicate life that’s already occurring.
Happiness nonetheless comes and goes for me. However calmness asks much less.
It doesn’t require solutions. It doesn’t require permanence. It doesn’t even require the ready to finish.
Solely consideration.
Solely presence.
Solely the willingness to stay inside this second earlier than speeding towards the subsequent one.
So nowadays, after I really feel myself reaching once more—for reassurance, for decision, for proof that the whole lot shall be okay—I attempt to pause.
I hear.
The ringing. The breath. The small sounds of life persevering with round me.
And for a second, the silence now not feels empty.
It feels alive.
About Tony Collins
Edward “Tony” Collins, EdD, MFA, is a documentary filmmaker, author, educator, and incapacity advocate residing with progressive imaginative and prescient loss from macular degeneration. His work explores presence, caregiving, resilience, and the quiet energy of small moments. He’s at the moment finishing books on inventive scholarship and collaborative documentary filmmaking and shares private essays about that means, hope, and incapacity on Substack.
Join: substack.com/@iefilm | iefilm.com
Discussion about this post