Going Out and Coming In – On presence, rhythm, and the stillness we have forgotten

Coming into an awareness of presence, we begin to see the reality of the world we live in, and how our lives are being led and unfolded. This awareness keeps us from falling into despair or into excessive hurt. Because when we attend to presence, we discover that in this very moment, there is nothing we lack. Nothing we must have. Nothing we must do. All is well, right now. There may be issues to address and situations to resolve — but in this moment, there is nothing to do but be.

Someone will object: what of the one in grief, the one in pain? Look closely at the grief, and you will often find it is not about the present moment at all. It is about tomorrow — the fear that this person will not be here to hold my hand, to say good morning in the days to come. Or it is about yesterday — the longing for what we had and have no longer. We look past what is here because we ache for what is gone, or we dread what is coming. Presence does not deny the loss. It returns us, gently, to the one place where the ache is not — the present, where, for this breath, all is still well.

What I have come to see is this: when we learn to be, our perspective changes. And in some quiet, almost miraculous way, we discover what we need to do. We are so caught up in doing that we never check in with the higher self, the greater self — the one who knows what is really going on, and can point us in the right direction. Stillness is not the enemy of work. Neither stillness nor work can stand alone for long. Work leads to rest, and rest leads to work. The coming to stillness is for the sake of the whole. Take it away, and the whole being is placed in danger.

Everything in life pulses. And the nature of a pulse is that it always returns to where it began. It goes out, and it comes in. It goes out again, and it comes in. Even the heart, which never stops, has its inward moment of filling — and it is in that pause that the heart feeds itself. The coming in is not idleness. It is how we are nourished.

There is a parable Jesus told about a man who went out to bring labourers into his field. We usually read it, and rightly, as a story about the generosity of the owner — the last hired paid the same as the first. I do not want to take that reading away. I want only to invite you to pause and look beneath it, to see what else may be present. The man goes out early in the morning, and brings labourers back. He goes out again at midday, and brings labourers back. He goes out once more near the close of day, and brings labourers back. Yes, it is the same task each time. But something is building across those journeys — something seen and met that could not have been, had he gone out only once and stayed out. Each going out is a different seeing. And every time we go out and come in, we make ourselves available to a greater mind.

There was a time when returning was easier. In some cultures the middle of the day belonged to the siesta — the work interrupted, the doing set down, the body brought back to rest. People knew how to relax. Someone might climb a tree and simply have a snooze. The night was longer then, because there was less to do in the dark, and so the evening could be allowed to close, and one could come quietly back into rest.

I am not romanticising the past. Those were hard days — dawn-to-dark labour, and worse. But even inside the hardship there was a rhythm, and the rhythm held stillness within it. Compare that to now, when the activity stretches deep into the early morning — the parties, the endless doing — and the stillness has been squeezed out. The siesta was climate and culture, yes, as it should be. Human beings live in a place, and share a way of being with those around them, and the climate invites a response. In our day we push through the climate. Where we can, we control it. And in controlling it, we have lost something it was teaching us.

Consider even the smoke break. Not a good practice — we have rightly shown its harm and helped many to stop. But look at what it carried. Through the day a person would pause, step out onto a ledge or a balcony or a veranda, and have a small smoke. The smoke was doing damage. But underneath it was something true: a permission to come away, to break from the doing, to let oneself drift for a few moments, just as the smoke drifted. To simply be. What made it work was not the cigarette. It was the permission — that the person’s need to pause was, for a moment, considered.

We removed the practice and never replaced the deeper purpose. And it is worth asking what has taken the place of that permission. In much of today’s working life it is the bottom line, the profit margin, that takes precedence. We have not yet found a way to grant one another the simple, sanctioned right to stop.

There is a growing need to return — to nature, to the rhythm of life, and to let go of this incessant doing that is causing so much pain and discomfort. The healing we need is within reach. It is the ability to come to a place of being; to be intentional in creating moments of stillness. At present we go until we are tired, and only then do we drop down — stopped by collapse rather than by choice.

Be intentional with your journey. Remember the pulse — the going out, and the coming in. It is a rhythm. We must not go out and stay out. Neither must we come in and stay in. There must be a balance, for life to continue in its fullness.

So add to your day an awareness of presence. Even if only for a moment, ever so often. Will you stop? Will you check in with yourself? Will you breathe, and allow yourself a moment simply to be?