Life is mostly fuss, as normally lived. It is as though life were an obstacle course, with humans weaving through an ever more intricate series of puzzling obstructions. We become less and less sure what is supposed to be at the end of the obstacle course. We feel constrained to continue running, and so we run. We get dispirited, wondering what the point of it all is. We sometimes feel like participants in an absurd game that serves no one and hurts many.
INDEPENDENCE FROM THE FUSS
The fuss continues. If you have financial worries, then the context may continue for a while. If you have health problems, then they may continue too, with hospital visits, painful treatments, inability to sustain your normal patterns of living.
One thing I have learned, from watching those who seem more at peace, is that our circumstances do not define our ability to find moments. There seems to be little correlation between external circumstances, and inner peace. I have known rich people who suffered every day from crippling anxiety; physically healthy people who suffer terribly from mental disturbance. Financial and bodily so-called success, do not seem to be definers of happiness.
LIVING ABOVE THE FUSS
It seems that those who cultivate an ability to ‘live above the fuss’, are happiest. These people seem to continue to find ‘special moments’, whatever their external circumstances.
That is not to say it’s easy to do this. It may require quite a lot of discipline and practice, to teach one’s own mind to live on a different level. It’s enormously hard to master, for instance, the voracity of our physical appetites, the way our bodies seem to demand food, drink and other stimulations as compensations for boredom, anger and anxiety.
AN EXERCISE
Just for today, maybe try to settle your mind onto a happier plane, where your daily trials cannot cause you too much suffering.
Try to carry on your usual life, but take the time to notice, moment to moment, where your mind is. If you notice that you are getting too attached to various outcomes, then take a step back, and remind yourself that these things really do not matter too much.
In between the bits of fuss that make your day, find as many peaceful moments as you can. They are defined, not by what is happening to you, but by how you practice in your mind.
In addition to this, if you want, find pieces of time to spend apart from your external world, in a peaceful setting. Sit yourself down to meditate. Meditation is simply this: allowing yourself, teaching yourself, to be at peace, whatever your surroundings.
SUMMARY
Life feels like it is all fuss. Even so, most of us know what it is like to find the odd moment of peace in among the rough and tumble.
Some people learn to be independent of the fuss, living with peaceful minds much of the time. It’s hard, but possible. Meditation is, in essence, just this: teaching your own mind to be happy, independently of all the fuss that seems to go on around you.
Remindful UK 