Ramping Down

These days I am treasuring my Buddhist meditation group . We sit from 7:30 to 8:00 on Friday mornings, followed by 10 minutes of walking meditation, then a reading from Thich Nhat Hanh. Right now we are just finishing Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, and then we will go on to Calming the Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism. Then we have 40 minutes of what Sufis would call sohbet, a Quaker meeting-like exchange of speaking from heartful silence.

Especially at this time of year, I am treasuring the community of those whose priority and practice is coming to stillness before action—even before thought.

In her afterword to Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, Sister True Dedication writes:

“I will never forget that early morning in Vietnam, when I found the four bodies of my friends shot on the banks of the Saigon River. In that moment, I was overwhelmed by anger, fear and despair. But I was able to bring my attention to my breathing for several hours without trying to think blame, scream, or curse… and did my best to touch the seeds of love, peace and compassion in me. It was not easy. The despair was so overwhelming. But I kept returning to my breathing and slowly a deep stillness and calm grew in me.”

I deeply appreciated the very concrete, grounded example of Sister True Dedication’s practice in action. I think of the many days that followed, including the producing of this book, learning to face What Is, and to come to stillness in the midst of it all.

Coming to stillness requires a “ramping down” process. Too often it’s a lot like going through withdrawal. Often we need some sort of structured supportive process. It’s not easy to get breathing space in our lives if our lives are not structured for breathing space, let alone stillness.

There’s a lot of seeming challenge to stillness these days—as much as Sister True Dedication faced. I was recently reading Renee Sills’ latest Embodied Astrology blog post (I’m not an astrologer but I get a lot out of reading Renee Sills’ perspectives on life) about entering Sagittarius season amidst local IDE raids in Portland OR. ICE is not a strong presence right now where I live, so I appreciated Renee Sills’ first hand report of what it might be like to find stillness in the midst of ICE raids. Not the stillness of a “freeze” state, but a breathing stillness. It keeps my mind on the question of how I am taking responsibility for “ramping down” in my everyday life, in practice for moments when I will be grateful to have a strong embodied capacity to breathe my way into stillness rather than freezing.

I’m thinking of all the non-violent protest trainings that Civil Rights era activists went through, and that many of us are exploring again today, wherein we practice being yelled at, threatened, harassed, slapped, spit at, etc., in order to learn how to feel all the natural emotions that arise when we are attacked on any level, and to respond with a ramping down to stillness practice.

This is the perfect time of year to begin or re-engage such a practice. The season supports it. We are in the time of ramp down to zero, to Solstice, to the time of deepest darkness. Will we be frozen, or will we be still, watching for the next turning point?

How are you emphasizing your relationship with the deep “ramping down to stillness” energy of the season? What do you notice are your most frequent withdrawal symptoms whenever you actually do create some potential breathing space? What practices and structures help? Would a “stillness buddy” be a good idea? I find it very helpful, myself, to arrange times to sit with a partner and do nothing but ramp down together, often silently.

Looking for more ideas and practical assistance with ramping down into stillness this season? Join us for the Water Element Healing Mentorship on December 7th. See you then!