I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. As much as it feels a bit abnormal for me to have these days without an agenda, I am aware that we all need more lazy days. According to the famous Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh a lazy day is a day for us to be without any scheduled activities. We just let the day unfold naturally, timelessly. On this day we have a chance to reestablish balance. We might go for a walk, read a book in a park or by the fireplace, dine with the family, write a card to a friend, or do a sitting meditation in nature. It can be a day to look deeply into our relationship with ourselves or with others. Or we may learn that we just need to rest. I remember those days when I come to my mom’s house in Korea and spend days just sleeping; that feeling of fully resting the mind and body at home at last.
We are often wired to constantly seek entertainment or feel uneasy about being bored. Thich Nhat Hanh says:
“A lazy day is a chance to train ourselves not to be afraid of doing nothing. You might think that not doing anything is a waste of time. But that’s not true. Your time is first of all for you to be - to be alive, to be at peace. The world needs joyous and loving people who are capable of just being. People sometimes say ‘Don’t just sit there, do something’. But we have to reverse that statement to say ‘Don’t do something, just sit there’ in order to be in such a way that peace, understanding, and compassion are possible.”
May the new year have more lazy days when you can calm your inner storm, fully being in touch with yourself, resting, not thinking, regenerating yourself so that you can be better equipped to be understanding and compassionate with the world and yourself.
Jeeyoon
