My first entry for this blog will be to propose that in order to deal with any distress we must sit in stillness. Since I am in a wheelchair, I am often forced to stay stationary with the world bustling around me. Conventional wisdom says that such a solution leads to stagnation and is counterproductive. I argue however, that such a stance can lift the fog of counter-productivity by compartmentalizing our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs, so they don’t become an erratic force that guides our actions. It is only when we are in a restrained contemplative state, that we can avoid the hyper-emotional reactions that our biases tend to wield. Sitting in the stillness allows us to break the barriers we’ve constructed, and helps us untangle the hasty irrationality of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and other stimuli. When we are able to detach ourselves, we realize how much we are invested in those thoughts and feelings and whether such an investment is well justified or misplaced. The stillness creates a neutral space where we can assess things as calmly as possible. The more we nurture the creation of the neutral space, the wider the chasm between what is sheer clutter and what is sensible will be. We can allow the neutral space to be fertile ground for budding ideas acting as a bridge between the sides of the two chasms. The neutral space serves as a barrier for any unwarranted responses. By sitting in stillness, you are surrendering your personal invested interest in your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions and inviting the possibility of examining them with humility. This is why the neutral space is so fertile, because it is cultivated by humility and a desire to see ourselves not as a collection of perceptions, but as receptive beings amenable to changing our worldview. First, we have to create a stillness in our being so that this transformation can take root. It is in this calm blank state, that our perceptions can be evaluated healthily in a more accepting transcendent self that breeches the divide of clutter. Stillness can be a filter for the noise of the ego and help us refashion our ideas without blinders Consider ideas with a fresh perspective organizing them not by our impulses, but by using stillness as an empowering creative force. This is some of the wisdom the wheelchair has imparted to me. I hope it’s helpful.
