Allowing for Stillness

To my mind the idea of meditation is stillness.  This summer I find that I actually need to put forth an effort to be still, or to 'meditate'.  During the school year I would get up super early and the natural stillness of the hour would allow for stillness within, exerting little to no effort.  Now I get up later and it's light out, the collective energy is high and there is noise everywhere it seems.  I find myself getting lost in thought again instead of getting lost in the beauty of the stillness surrounding me when I walk my dog (the hour I walk her now contains no natural stillness to get lost in).  People have asked me if I meditate everyday (actually I really only recall one person asking me that).  As a person that would prefer to not have a label on anything, I don't really have an answer for that question.  If meditate is just a word that describes intentionally creating stillness within then yes, I would like to think that I do this throughout the day on purpose.  Sometimes if I am really wound up I go for an intentional walk to breathe and notice the surroundings, lay on my bed (in a different angle than I would to go to sleep) and purposefully breathe and try to feel my body from within, or sit in a mindful way with my eyes closed and notice my breath.  I breathe constantly (uh...yeah...) 'I purposefully am conscious of my breath quite often' I should say - in the car, or when walking by myself anywhere.  I used to go to this vastly spacious dog park.  I noticed a man that was quite easy to notice.  He would often just be wearing shorts no matter what the weather.  He would also be moving his body in all sorts of ways that were different than you might say a typical person would move (do you see people practicing Tai Chi in parks?  - kind of like that but he would be moving - gaining ground - while doing it).  At this time in my life, I was aware enough in my consideration of others that I was mindful not to think this man to be weird and to go in a different direction, rather I was curious and wanted to know what he was doing and why he was doing it.  So one day we happened to come into one another's space and so I shared with him that I had observed him at the dog park/reservoir (this is a massive space with some elevation in parts and paths in all different directions - I could run off leash with my dog at least 4 miles if I stayed on the outer edges) and I suppose I must have just asked him why he moved like he did (with hardly any clothing on when others were wearing pants and jackets).  He responded to me in a thick Russian accent and I will summarize that which I can remember:  I was sick.  I drank vodka everyday all day.  I ate bad. I was told that I had not much time left to live.  I was given many bottles of medication to take everyday.  (At this point I'm not really sure how he went about his holistic healing - but lets just say he didn't take his medication and he changed his diet, activity level, and mindset).  This is what I most clearly remember him saying to me (he looked me in the eye and asked, again with the thick accent):  How long can you go without food? (Umm..I don't know....days?...weeks?...months?)  How long can you go without water? (Uh..well...um...days?...not sure...)  How long can you go without the breath? (minutes?)  And so his message to me and the answer he ultimately gave me was that he healed himself by believing in his own body's ability to heal itself (I would say belief being the key word here).  He wore few clothes because of the heat (energy) he created in his body as he consciously moved in ways that his body dictated (probably the same principles behind yoga and tai chi) as he consciously focused on his breath.  He was probably in his later 50's and he had no body fat.  Aside from appearing 'different' as you first notice him moving about the reservoir in his shorts and bare feet,  as you speak with him he did look quite healthy and fit.  My point in sharing this story is the idea behind the breath.  As far as our body and sickness and disease and suggesting that if we all moved wildly about in a spacious area and didn't take our medication that we would be healed - that is totally outside of my scope and I would hope to not be suggesting anything of that sort.  What I am suggesting is us to consider our breath.  I don't have the training or skill set to offer much more than that.  I first consciously noticed my breath when I became aware of what true anxiety was for the first time - oddly enough it was at the same dog park several years prior to when I met that man.  I was in graduate school and for the first time in my life I was being challenged in ways that I couldn't (or I finally chose not to) avoid, run from, or figure our how to detach myself in some way with some excuse or rely on some false belief system to help things make sense (poverty, privilege, culture, religion, politics, etc) or make things go away (the work load and expectations of the program).  I thought I was going to come out of my skin - it was awful...it was as if the only survival instinct I had was to breathe as deeply and fully as I possibly could and keep moving and waiting for it all to pass.  It sucked.  If nothing else, when we shift our attention or awareness to our breath we can shift it away from thinking and offer ourselves the opportunity to be fully present...to be in the now...to really notice the moment to moment experience...if the only time we can truly heal and be alive is in the present then it would seem we have no advantage to contribute to our well-being in a whole way when we are stuck in past or future - relying on some false belief ('I am not enough') that feeds our dysfunctional thinking cycle.  As we focus on our breath it allows us the freedom to be a witness to our thoughts, feelings, sensations and  impulses instead of seeking our identity in our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and impulses.  "The mind itself is not dysfunctional.  Dysfunction sets in when you seek yourself in it in it and mistake it for who you are."  (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now)