Stillness Is the Key Read online

  When Martin Luther King Jr. was a seminary student at Crozer, he took an hour walk each day through the campus woods to “commune with nature.” Walt Whitman and Ulysses S. Grant often bumped into each other on their respective walks around Washington, which cleared their minds and helped them think. Perhaps it was that experience that Whitman was writing about in this verse of “Song of Myself”:

  Know’st thou the joys of pensive thought?

  Joys of the free and lonesome heart, the tender, gloomy heart?

  Joys of the solitary walk, the spirit bow’d yet proud, the suffering and the struggle?

  Freud was known for his speedy walks around Vienna’s Ringstrasse after his evening meal. The composer Gustav Mahler spent as much as four hours a day walking, using this time to work through and jot down ideas. Ludwig van Beethoven carried sheet music and a writing utensil with him on his walks for the same reason. Dorothy Day was a lifelong walker, and it was on her strolls along the beach on Staten Island in the 1920s that she first began to feel a strong sense of God in her life and the first flickerings of the awakening that would put her on a path toward sainthood. It’s probably not a coincidence that Jesus himself was a walker—a traveler—who knew the pleasures and the divineness of putting one foot in front of the other.

  How does walking get us closer to stillness? Isn’t the whole point of what we’re talking about to reduce activity, not seek it out? Yes, we are in motion when we walk, but it is not frenzied motion or even conscious motion—it is repetitive, ritualized motion. It is deliberate. It is an exercise in peace.

  The Buddhists talk of “walking meditation,” or kinhin, where the movement after a long session of sitting, particularly movement through a beautiful setting, can unlock a different kind of stillness than traditional meditation. Indeed, forest bathing—and most natural beauty—can only be accomplished by getting out of your house or office or car and trekking out into the woods on foot.

  The key to a good walk is to be aware. To be present and open to the experience. Put your phone away. Put the pressing problems of your life away, or rather let them melt away as you move. Look down at your feet. What are they doing? Notice how effortlessly they move. Is it you who’s doing that? Or do they just sort of move on their own? Listen to the sound of the leaves crunching underfoot. Feel the ground pushing back against you.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Consider who might have walked this very spot in the centuries before you. Consider the person who paved the asphalt you are standing on. What was going on with them? Where are they now? What did they believe? What problems did they have?

  When you feel the tug of your responsibilities or the desire to check in with the outside world, push yourself a bit further. If you’re on a path you have trod before, take a sudden turn down a street or up a hill where you haven’t been before. Feel the unfamiliarity and the newness of these surroundings, drink in what you have not yet tasted.

  Get lost. Be unreachable. Go slowly.

  It’s an affordable luxury available to us all. Even the poorest pauper can go for a nice walk—in a national park or an empty parking lot.

  This isn’t about burning calories or getting your heart rate up. On the contrary, it’s not about anything. It is instead just a manifestation, an embodiment of the concepts of presence, of detachment, of emptying the mind, of noticing and appreciating the beauty of the world around you. Walk away from the thoughts that need to be walked away from; walk toward the ones that have now appeared.

  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. A study at New Mexico Highlands University has found that the force from our footsteps can increase the supply of blood to the brain. Researchers at Stanford have found that walkers perform better on tests that measure “creative divergent thinking” during and after their walks. A study out of Duke University found a version of what Kierkegaard tried to tell his sister-in-law, that walking could be as effective a treatment for major depression in some patients as medication.

  The poet William Wordsworth walked as many as 180,000 miles in his lifetime—an average of six and a half miles a day since he was five years old! He did much of his writing while walking, usually around Grasmere, a lake in the English countryside, or Rydal Water, which is not far from Grasmere. On these long walks, as lines of poetry came to him, Wordsworth would repeat them over and over again, since it might be hours until he had the chance to write them down. Biographers have wondered ever since: Was it the scenery that inspired the images of his poems or was it the movement that jogged the thoughts? Every ordinary person who has ever had a breakthrough on a walk knows that the two forces are equally and magically responsible.

  In our own search for beauty and what is good in life, we would do well to head outside and wander around. In an attempt to unlock a deeper part of our consciousness and access a high level of our mind, we would do well to get our body moving and our blood flowing.

  Stress and difficulty can knock us down. Sitting at our computers, we are overwhelmed with information, with emails, with one thing after another. Should we just sit there and absorb it? Should we sit there with the sickness and let it fester? No. Should we get up and throw ourselves into some other project—constructive, like cleaning, or cathartic, like picking a fight? No. We shouldn’t do any of that.

  We should get walking.

  Kierkegaard tells the story of a morning when he was driven from his house in a state of despair and frustration—illness, in his words. After an hour and a half, he was finally at peace and nearly back home when he bumped into a friendly gentleman who chattered on about a number of his problems. Isn’t that how it always seems to go?

  No matter. “There was only one thing left for me to do,” Kierkegaard wrote, “instead of going home, to go walking again.”

  And so must we.

  Walk.

  Then walk some more.

  BUILD A ROUTINE

  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

  Each and every morning, Fred Rogers woke up at 5 a.m. to spend a quiet hour in reflection and prayer. Then he would head to the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, where he would swim his morning laps. As he walked out to the pool he would weigh himself—it was important that he always weigh 143 pounds—and as he jumped in, he would sing “Jubilate Deo” to himself. He emerged from that pool as if baptized anew each day, a friend wrote, fresh and fully prepared for the workday ahead.

  When he got to the set of his television show, the next part of the ritual began, one that was recorded for posterity in identical fashion over hundreds of episodes, year after year. The theme song starts. The yellow light flashes. The camera pans to the front door. Mr. Rogers enters, singing, and walks down the stairs. He takes off his jacket and neatly hangs it up in the closet. He puts on and zips up his trademark cardigan—the one his mother made him. Then he takes off his shoes and puts on a comfortable pair of boat slippers. Now, and only now, can he begin to speak and teach to his favorite people in the world—the children of his neighborhood.

  To some, this might seem monotonous. The same routine, day in and day out, that extended beyond “Cut!” at the end of each show to an afternoon nap, dinner with his family, and a 9:30 bedtime. The same weight. The same food. The same introduction. The same close to the day. Boring? The truth is that a good routine is not only a source of great comfort and stability, it’s the platform from which stimulating and fulfilling work is possible.

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

  Maybe Mr. Rogers isn’t your thing. Perhaps, then, you’d rather look at the perennial all-star point guard Russell Westbrook, who begins his own routine exactly three hours before tipoff. First, he warms up. Then, one hour before the game, Westbrook visits the arena chapel. Then he eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (always buttered wheat bread, toasted, strawberry jelly, Skippy peanut butter, cut diagonally). At exactly six minutes and seventeen seconds before the game starts, he begins the team’s final warm-up drill. He has a particular pair of shoes for games, for practice, for road games. Since high school, he’s done the same thing after shooting a free throw, walking backward past the three-point line and then forward again to take the next shot. At the practice facility, he has a specific parking space, and he likes to shoot on Practice Court 3. He calls his parents at the same time every day. And on and on.

  Sports is filled with stories like Westbrook’s. They often feature goalies in hockey, pitchers in baseball, quarterbacks and placekickers in football—the most cerebral positions in their respective games. Players who engage in this kind of behavior are called quirky, and their routines are called superstitions. It’s strange to us that these successful people, who are more or less their own boss and are clearly so talented, seem prisoners to the regimentation of their routines. Isn’t the whole point of greatness that you’re freed from trivial rules and regulations? That you can do whatever you want?

  Ah, but the greats know that complete freedom is a nightmare. They know that order is a prerequisite of excellence and that in an unpredictable world, good habits are a safe haven of certainty.

  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.

  It’s also how we get in the right headspace to do our work. The writer and runner Haruki Murakami talks about why he follows the same routine every day. “The repetition itself becomes the important thing,” he says, “it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”

  When our thoughts are empty and our body is in its groove, we do our best work.

  A routine can be time-based. Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter, gets up at 5 a.m., without fail. The former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink gets up at 4:30 a.m. and posts a picture of his watch to prove it each morning. Queen Victoria woke at 8 a.m., ate breakfast at 10, and met with her ministers from 11 to 11:30. The poet John Milton was up at 4 a.m. to read and contemplate, so that by 7 a.m. he was ready to be “milked” by his writing.

  A routine can be focused on order or arrangement. Confucius insisted that his mat be straight or he would not sit. Jim Schlossnagle, the baseball coach who took over TCU’s team after a long run of mediocre play, taught his players to keep their lockers, as well as the dugout, spotless and orderly at all times (the team has never had a losing season since and made it to four straight College World Series). The ordering also matters to tennis great Rafael Nadal, who drinks water and a recovery drink in the same order and then sets them in a perfect arrangement.

  Routine can be built around a tool or a sound or a scent. Rilke had two pens and two kinds of paper on his desk; one was used for writing, while the other was acceptable for bills, letters, and less important documents. Monks are called to meditation by the chiming of a monastery bell; other monks rub a zuko incense on their hands before ceremonies and meditations.

  A routine can also be religious or faith-based. Confucius always gave a sacrificial offering before eating, no matter how inconsequential the meal was. The Greeks consulted the Delphic oracle before any major decision and made sacrifices before battle. The Jews have kept the Sabbath for thousands of years, Abad Ha’am once said, just as the Sabbath has kept the Jews.

  Done enough times, done with sincerity and feeling, routine becomes ritual. The regularity of it—the daily cadence—creates deep and meaningful experience. To one person, taking care of a horse is a chore. To Simón Bolívar it was a sacred, essential part of his day. When the body is busy with the familiar, the mind can relax. The monotony becomes muscle memory. To deviate seems dangerous, wrong. As if it’s inviting failure in.

  Some might sneer at this “superstitious” behavior, but that is the wrong way to think about it. As Rafael Nadal explained, “If it were superstition, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.” Did the Greeks really believe that the oracle of Delphi could tell them what they should do? Or was the consultation process, the journey to Mount Parnassus, the whole point?

  Sociologists found that island tribes were more prone to create rituals for activities where luck was a factor than where it wasn’t, such as fishing on the open sea compared to on a lagoon. The truth is, luck is always in play for us. Luck is always a factor.

  The purpose of ritual isn’t to win the gods over to our side (though that can’t hurt!). It’s to settle our bodies (and our minds) down when Fortune is our opponent on the other side of the net.

  Most people wake up to face the day as an endless barrage of bewildering and overwhelming choices, one right after another. What do I wear? What should I eat? What should I do first? What should I do after that? What sort of work should I do? Should I scramble to address this problem or rush to put out this fire?

  Needless to say, this is exhausting. It is a whirlwind of conflicting impulses, incentives, inclinations, and external interruptions. It is no path to stillness and hardly a way to get the best out of yourself.

  The psychologist William James spoke about making habits our ally instead of our enemy. That we can build around us a day and a life that is moral and ordered and still—and in so doing, create a kind of bulwark against the chaos of the world and free up the best of ourselves for the work we do.

  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 thus make good work and good thoughts accessible and inevitable.

  To make that possible, you must go now and get your house in order. Get your day scheduled. Limit the interruptions. Limit the number of choices you need to make.

  If you can do this, passion and disturbance will give you less trouble. Because it will find itself boxed out.

  For inspiration, take as your model Japanese flower arrangers: Orderly. Quiet. Focused. Clean. Fresh. Deliberate. You will not find them trying to practice in noisy coffee shops or bleary-eyed in a rush at 3 a.m. because they planned poorly. You will not find them picking up their trimmers on a whim, or in their underwear while they talk on the phone to an old friend who has just called. All of that is too random, too chaotic for the true master.

  A master is in control. A master has a system. A master turns the ordinary into the sacred.

  And so must we.

  GET RID OF YOUR STUFF

  For property is poverty and fear; only to have possessed something and to have let go of it means carefree own
ership.

  —RAINER MARIA RILKE

  Epictetus was born a slave but eventually received his freedom. In time, he came to enjoy the trappings of the good life—or at least the Stoic version of it. He had emperors attend his lectures, trained many students, and made a decent living. With his hard-earned money, he bought a nice iron lamp, which he kept burning in a small shrine in his home.

  One evening, he heard a noise in the hallway by his front door. Rushing down, he found that a thief had stolen the prized lamp. Like any person who feels attached to their stuff, he was disappointed and surprised and violated. Someone had come into his home and stolen something that belonged to him.

  But then Epictetus caught himself. He remembered his teachings.

  “Tomorrow, my friend,” he said to himself, “you will find an earthenware lamp; for a man can only lose what he has.” For the rest of his life, he kept this cheaper earthen lamp instead. Upon his death, an admirer, entirely missing the point of Epictetus’s disdain for material items, purchased it for 3,000 drachmas.

  One of Seneca’s most powerful metaphors is the slaveowner owned by his slaves, or the wealthy man whose vast estates lord over him rather than the other way around (in modern times, we have our own term for this: being “house poor”). Montaigne was perceptive enough to ask whether it was in fact he who was the pet of his cat. We also find a version of it from the East. Xunzi explained:

  The gentleman makes things his servants. The petty man is servant to things.

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

  The Cynics took this idea the furthest. Diogenes supposedly lived in a barrel and walked around nearly naked. When he saw a child drinking water from a well with his hands, Diogenes smashed his own cup, realizing that he had been carrying around an extraneous possession.