“Rule your thoughts or it’ll 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 working 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My mom is ninety-seven years outdated now, and earlier than my toes even contact the ground, a part of me is already listening for proof that the world has not modified in a single day.
Once I hear motion, I exhale.
Solely then do I attain for my telephone.
I inform myself I’m simply checking messages. However recently I’ve realized I’m normally checking for one thing else completely.
Reduction.
An e mail from an editor. A response about work. A name. A chance. Some signal that the long run remains to be opening quite than slowly narrowing.
Normally there’s nothing.
Or nearly nothing.
Spam. A medical reminder. A reduction provide. Silence disguised as exercise.
One morning not too long ago, I stood within the kitchen refreshing my inbox whereas my espresso cooled untouched beside me. I had already checked a number of instances earlier than dawn. I knew there was no cause to look once more. Nonetheless, my thumb pulled downward routinely, as if certainty may lastly seem if I repeated the movement sufficient instances.
Refresh.
Nothing.
Refresh.
Nothing.
Exterior, the world remained utterly atypical. A neighbor walked a canine. A automotive door shut someplace down the road. Mild slowly entered the room.
However inside me, one thing was tightening.
I’ve by no means been good at ready. Not atypical ready. Not traces or site visitors or delayed appointments. I imply the deeper variety—the ready that is determined by forces you can not management.
Ready for medical assessments.
Ready to see whether or not your physique will worsen or stabilize.
Ready beside outdated age.
Ready for the telephone to ring.
Ready for somebody to reply with the identical power you dropped at them.
Ready to know whether or not your work, your voice, and even your presence nonetheless issues on the earth.
And beneath all of it, the ready we hardly ever admit aloud:
Ready for loss.
The unusual factor about ready is that nothing seems to be occurring from the skin, but internally it may possibly devour complete 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 value.
What unsettles me most just isn’t the silence itself however how shortly I abandon the current making an attempt to flee it. My thoughts races forward, rehearsing futures that don’t but exist. I think about sickness worsening. Monetary collapse. Demise. Loneliness. The quiet vacancy which will at some point fill this home.
I attempt to resolve tomorrow earlier than in the present day has even arrived.
Buddhism calls this struggling dukkha—the deep unsatisfactoriness of making an attempt to carry nonetheless a life that always modifications. 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 incapacity to settle right into a single unfinished second.
The Buddha described 5 hindrances that cloud the thoughts, and whereas ready, I appear to satisfy all of them.
Restlessness urges me to verify as soon as extra.
Doubt whispers that my worth is determined by being wished.
Aversion makes me resent silence itself.
Worry tasks struggling into futures that haven’t occurred.
And exhaustion quietly asks whether or not any effort issues anymore.
None of this modifications actuality. It solely pulls me additional away from the life unfolding immediately in entrance of me.
One afternoon, after one other spiral of checking messages and imagining outcomes, I lastly set my telephone face down on the desk and sat nonetheless.
Not peacefully.
Simply nonetheless.
At first, I seen the tinnitus.
A skinny, steady ringing in my ears that I normally resist or attempt to ignore. However over time, by way of meditation and studying about Nada Yoga—the yogic observe of interior sound—I’ve began regarding it otherwise. As a substitute of listening to solely irritation, I typically hear continuity. A present beneath thought. A reminder that silence isn’t utterly empty.
So I sat there listening.
The ringing.
My respiratory.
A chicken exterior.
The faint sound of my mom transferring slowly by way of the home.
For a number of moments, nothing resolved.
The longer term remained unsure. The emails unanswered. The physique susceptible. The losses nonetheless inevitable. However one thing softened anyway.
I noticed 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 grasp, just isn’t about transcending atypical life. It’s about studying the way 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 just isn’t a mistake within the system. It is the system.
I nonetheless wrestle.
Some mornings I wake already anticipating grief earlier than something dangerous has even occurred. Generally I nonetheless refresh my inbox too typically. Generally silence nonetheless feels private. However now there are moments once I cease combating the unfinished nature of life.
Moments once I merely pay attention.
To the ringing in my ears. To my very own respiratory. To the sounds of my mom nonetheless alive within the subsequent room.
And slowly, ready turns into one thing completely different.
Not punishment.
Not paralysis.
Observe.
A observe of staying current whereas the thoughts begs to flee into certainty.
A observe of realizing that value 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 dashing towards the subsequent one.
So nowadays, once I really feel myself reaching once more—for reassurance, for decision, for proof that every thing can be okay—I attempt to pause.
I pay attention.
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 presently finishing books on artistic scholarship and collaborative documentary filmmaking and shares private essays about which means, hope, and incapacity on Substack.
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