Laziness As Our Personal Teacher
by Pema Chodron

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The path of awakening is a process. It’s a process of gradually learning to become intimate with our so-called obstacles. So rather than feeling discouraged by laziness, we could look into our laziness, become curious about laziness. We could get to know laziness profoundly.

We can unite with laziness, be our laziness, know its smell and taste, feel it fully in our bodies. The spiritual path is a process of relaxing into this very moment of being. We touch in with this moment of lethargy or loss of heart, this moment of pain, of avoidance, of couldn’t care less. We touch in and then we go forward. This is the training. Whether in formal meditation or throughout our days and nights, we can train in letting go of our commentary and contacting the felt quality of our experience. We can touch our experience without getting hooked by the story line. We can touch this very moment of being and then move on.

We are sitting in meditation or going about our usual routine, and it occurs to us to listen to what we’re saying. What we hear is, Oy vey, oy vey! Woe is me. I’m a failure. There’s no hope. We look at what we do to ourselves, what we say to ourselves, how we lose heart or try to distract ourselves. Then we let those words go and touch the heart of this moment. We touch the very center of this moment of being and then we let go. This is how we train. Again and again, this is our practice.

We join our loss of heart with honesty and kindness. Instead of pulling back from the pain of laziness, we move closer. We lean into the wave. We swim into the wave.

Somewhere in the process of staying with the moment, it might occur to us that there are a lot of unhappy brothers and sisters out there, suffering as we are suffering. In becoming intimate with our own pain, with our own laziness, we are touching in with all of them, understanding them, knowing our kinship with all of them.

[...]Instead of continuing to zone out and shut down and close off, we lean in and relax. This is how we practice.

So maybe we open the window or go out for a walk, or maybe we sit silently, but whatever we do, it occurs to us to stay with ourselves, to go behind the words, behind the ignoring, and to feel the quality of this moment of being, in our hearts, in our stomachs, for ourselves, and for all of the millions of others in the same boat. We start to train in openness and compassion toward this very moment. This very moment of laziness becomes our personal teacher. This precious moment becomes our profound and healing practice.

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Laziness As Our Personal Teacher What does 'unite with laziness' mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time a moment of laziness became your personal teacher? What helps you lean into your laziness?

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Liz Helgesen wrote:  I've learned to allow and love my laziness!  After suffering for years with unnecessary panic and guilt, I now 'lean in' to my laziness because I know and trust myself.   As my person...

david doane wrote:  To unite with laziness means to me to let it happen, accept it, be open to it, not fight it, and go with it.  It will occur and subside, like any other feeling or experience, and I can uni...

Jagdish P Dave wrote:  Everything that happens to me could  be me my teacher if I do not resist it, fight it, fear it or freeze by denying it and doing nothing about it. As a human being, I experience ups and do...

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