Stillness is the Key

by Ryan Holiday

There is a story about the Zen master Hyakujo, who was approached by two students as he began his morning chores on the farm attached to his temple. When the students asked him to teach them about the Way, he replied, “You open the farm for me and I will talk to you about the great principle of Zen.” After they finished their labors and walked to the master for their lesson, he simply turned to face the fields, which the sun was just then rising above, extended his arms out in the direction of the serene expanse, and said nothing. That was the Way. Nature. The cultivated soil. The growing crops. The satisfaction of good hard work. The poetry of the earth. As it was in the beginning, as it will be forever.

I highlighted this as I was sitting watching the water in the bay attached to the Gulf of Mexico. Under a tree in the shade just listening to the water roll onto the shore and the birds fly by

The Japanese have a concept, shinrin yoku—forest bathing—which is a form of therapy that uses nature as a treatment for mental and spiritual issues. Hardly a week passed, even when he was president, that Roosevelt didn’t take a forest bath of some kind.

Bathe is an important word. There is something about water, isn’t there? The sight of it. The sound of it. The feel of it. Those seeking stillness could find worse ways to wash away the troubles and turbulence of the world than actual water. A dive into a nearby river. The bubbling fountain in a Zen garden. The reflecting pool of a memorial for those we have lost. Even, in a pinch, a sound machine loaded with the noises of the crashing ocean waves.

Don’t let the beauty of life escape you. See the world as the temple that it is. Let every experience be churchlike. Marvel at the fact that any of this exists—that you exist. Even when we are killing each other in pointless wars, even when we are killing ourselves with pointless work, we can stop and bathe in the beauty that surrounds us, always.

At the purest level, the only thing that matters to any father

or mother—or any creator—is that their children find peace, find meaning, find purpose.

There is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with. —SENECA

“Who is there who would wish to be surrounded by all the riches in the world and enjoy every abundance in life and yet not love or be loved by anyone?” was Cicero’s question some two thousand years ago. It echoes on down to us, still true forever.

Stillness is best not sought alone. And, like success, it is best when shared. We all need someone who understands us better than we understand ourselves, if only to keep us honest.

Fyodor Dostoevsky once described his wife, Anna, as a rock on which he could lean and rest, a wall that would not let him fall and protected him from the cold. There is no better description of love, between spouses or friends or parent and child, than that. Love, Freud said, is the great educator. We learn when we give it. We learn when we get it. We get closer to stillness through it.

CONQUER YOUR ANGER He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. —PROVERBS 16:32

When we feel our temper rising up, we need to look for insertion points (the space between stimulus and response).

The Buddhists believed that anger was a kind of tiger within us, one whose claws tear at the body that houses it. To have a chance at stillness—and the clear thinking and big-picture view that defines it—we need to tame that tiger before it kills us. We have to beware of desire, but conquer anger, because anger hurts not just ourselves but many other people as well.

Which is why we must choose to drive out anger and replace it with love and gratitude—and purpose. Our stillness depends on our ability to slow down and choose not to be angry, to run on different fuel. Fuel that helps us win and build, and doesn’t hurt other people, our cause, or our chance at peace.

Churchill conserved his energy so that he never shirked from a task, or backed down from a challenge. So that, for all this work and pushing, he never burned himself out or snuffed out the spark of joy that made life worth living. (Indeed, in addition to the importance of hard work, Johnson said the other four lessons from Churchill’s remarkable life were to aim high; to never allow mistakes or criticism to get you down; to waste no energy on grudges, duplicity, or infighting; and to make room for joy.)

It’s a balance that everyone aspiring to sustained inner peace must strike. Mens sana in corpore sano—a strong mind in a strong body. Remember, when we say that someone “showed so much heart,” we don’t mean emotion. We mean they had tenacity and grit. The metaphor is actually misleading if you think about it. It’s really the spine—the backbone of body—that’s doing the work.

It was also, she said, the only thing Churchill ever did silently. His other daughter, Mary, observed that painting and manual labor “were the sovereign antidotes to the depressive element in his nature.” Churchill was happy because he got out of his own head and put his body to work.

Churchill himself would write that every prophet must be forced into the wilderness—where they undergo solitude, deprivation, reflection, and meditation. It’s from this physical ordeal he said that “psychic dynamite” is made.

Epicurus once said that the wise will accomplish three things in their life: leave written works behind them, be financially prudent and provide for the future, and cherish country living. That is to say, we will be reflective, we will be responsible and moderate, and we will find time to relax in nature.

What we do with our bodies. What we put in our bodies. Where we dwell. What kind of routine and schedule we keep. How we find leisure and relief from the pressures of life. If we are to be half as productive as Churchill, and manage to capture the same joy and zest and stillness that defined his life, there are traits we will need to cultivate. Each of us will need to: Rise above our physical limitations. Find hobbies that rest and replenish us. Develop a reliable, disciplined routine. Spend time getting active outdoors. Seek out solitude and perspective. Learn to sit—to do nothing when called for. Get enough sleep and rein in our workaholism. Commit to causes bigger than ourselves.

The advantages of nonaction. Few in the world attain these. —THE DAODEJING

It’s like life. You can’t benefit from opportunities you don’t try to take advantage of.

And to think I JUST passed up one of those opportunities. :-(. :-(

What they have to learn, what the great hitter Sadaharu Oh himself learned in a series of complicated batting exercises designed by his Zen master and hitting coach, Hiroshi Arakawa, was the power of waiting, the power of precision, the power of the void. Because that’s what makes for a real pro. A truly great hitter—not just a swinger—needs quick hands and powerful hips, to be sure, but they must also possess the power of wu wei, or nonaction.

Wu wei is the ability to hold the bat back—waiting until the batter sees the perfect pitch. It is the yogi in meditation.

You don’t solve a maze by rushing through. You have to stop and think. You have to walk slowly and carefully, reining in your energy—otherwise you’ll get hopelessly lost. The same is true for the problems we face in life.

Spiritually, that’s hard. Physically, it’s harder still. You have to make yourself say no. You have to make yourself not take the stage.

In every situation ask: What is it? Why does it matter? Do I need it? Do I want it? What are the hidden costs? Will I look back from the distant future and be glad I did it?

When we know what to say no to, we can say yes to the things that matter.

On a good walk, the mind is not completely blank. It can’t be—otherwise you might trip over a root or get hit by a car or a bicyclist. The point is not, as in traditional meditation, to push every thought or observation from your mind. On the contrary, the whole point is to see what’s around you. The mind might be active while you do this, but it is still. It’s a different kind of thinking, a healthier kind if you do it right.

If a person puts even one measure of effort into following ritual and the standards of righteousness, he will get back twice as much. —XUNZI

Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine. It becomes ritual—it becomes sanctified and holy.

It was Eisenhower who defined freedom as the opportunity for self-discipline. In fact, freedom and power and success require self-discipline. Because without it, chaos and complacency move in. Discipline, then, is how we maintain that freedom.

For this, we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. 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. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.

When we not only automate and routinize the trivial parts of life, but also make automatic good and virtuous decisions, we free up resources to do important and meaningful exploration. We buy room for peace and stillness, and thu...

A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred. And so must we.

In short, mental and spiritual independence matter little if the things we own in the physical world end up owning us.

John Boyd, a sort of warrior-monk who revolutionized Western military strategy in the latter half of the twentieth century, refused to take checks from defense contractors and deliberately lived in a small condo even as he advised presidents and generals. “If a man can reduce his needs to zero,” he said, “he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him and nothing anyone can do to hurt him.” To that we would add, “And he or she can also be still.”

The best car is not the one that turns the most heads, but the one you have to worry about the least. The best clothes are the ones that are the most comfortable, that require you to spend the least amount of time shopping—regardless of what the magazines say. The best house for you is the one that feels the most like home. Don’t use your money to purchase loneliness, or headaches, or status anxiety.

It was a habit of Leonardo da Vinci’s to write little fables to himself in his notebooks. One tells the story of a good-sized stone that rested in a pleasant grove, surrounded by flowers, perched above a busy country road. Despite this peaceful existence, the stone grew restless. “What am I doing among these herbs?” he asked. “I want to live in the company of my fellow stones.” Unhappy and alone, the stone contrived to roll itself down the hill onto the road, where it would be surrounded by countless other stones. But the change was not quite as wonderful as expected. Down in the dirt, the stone was trod on by horses, driven over by wagons, and stepped on by people. It was alternately covered in mud and feces, and chipped at and jostled and moved—painful moments made all the more painful by the occasional sight the stone was given of its old home, and the solitary peace it had left behind. Not content to leave the story at that, Leonardo felt the need to put a fine point on it. “This is what happens,” he wrote to himself and every one of us, “to those who leave the solitary and contemplative life and choose to live in cities among people full of countless evils.”

It is difficult to think clearly in rooms filled with other people. It’s difficult to understand yourself if you 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.

It was a malicious lie that the Nazis hung over the gates of Auschwitz: Arbeit macht frei—“Work will set you free.”* No. No. No. The Russian proverb had it better: Work just makes you bent over.

The email you think you need so desperately to respond to can wait. Your screenplay does not need to be hurried, and you can even take a break between it and the next one. The only person truly requiring you to spend the night at the office is yourself. It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to opt out of that phone call or that last-minute trip.

Moderation. Being present. Knowing your limits. This is the key. The body that each of us has was a gift. Don’t work it to death. Don’t burn it out. Protect the gift.

The philosopher and writer Arthur Schopenhauer used to say that “sleep is the source of all health and energy.” He said it better still on a separate occasion: “Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death. The higher the interest rate and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.”

A 2017 study actually found that lack of sleep increases negative repetitive thinking. Abusing the body leads the mind to abuse itself.

If you want peace, there is just one thing to do. If you want to be your best, there is just one thing to do. Go to sleep.

When most of us hear the word “leisure,” we think of lounging around and doing nothing. In fact, this is a perversion of a sacred notion. In Greek, “leisure” is rendered as scholé—that is, school. Leisure historically meant simply freedom from the work needed to survive, freedom for intellectual or creative pursuits. It was learning and study and the pursuit of higher things.

Reading. Boxing. Collecting stamps. Whatever. Let it relax you and give you peace.

Leisure is not the absence of activity, it is activity. What is absent is any external justification—you can’t do leisure for pay, you can’t do it to impress people. You have to do it for you.