By Susanna Starr

It’s funny how certain things stick in your mind. For me one of those things was something my father told me when I was about nineteen. They weren’t really his words but his doctor’s and somehow, I always remembered them.

My father had just had a hernia operation and I was concerned, because neither of my parents had ever had surgery before, nor had anyone else in my family including my brother or myself. What the doctor told him was that the best thing he could do for himself was to take a short nap every afternoon – kind of a time out.

Meditation Counts

Taking time out to rest the body is important, whether post surgery or just to rest the body after or during work. But resting the mind is just as important and you don’t have to lie down to do it.

Some people put specific time aside for formal meditation. They set themselves up in a special place, sometimes light candles and incense, put on relaxing music and create whatever they have decided is the most conducive environment for achieving a meditative state.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

Others, like me, have discovered other ways of going into that meditative state where everything extraneous is shut out and it becomes easier to empty the mind. Rather than focus on a mantra, I just focus on a single task.

When asked what he did before achieving enlightenment, a famous guru answered “chop wood, carry water.” And after enlightenment, “chop wood, carry water.” We can continue to do the same things we did in the past, but the key is the consciousness that accompanies the doing. It’s the focus or the singlemindedness.

Monkeys and Donkeys

The Buddhists refer to the Monkey mind as that which is in the state of constant chatter, or what we might call internal dialogue. We all know that one. Donkeys, on the other hand, seem to be able to focus on just one thing (maybe their minds are more limited). Emptying the mind of extraneous thought, or creating the kind of state of mind, when thoughts just pass through and are gone, like clouds in the sky, gives the mind the rest it needs, so that it doesn’t get caught up in states of tension and anxiety.

What, mind and body again!?

Yep, just as our bodies feel the tension from stress and anxiety, so do our minds. Pay attention, folks, and remember that “time out.” <<


Susanna Starr is the author of “Fifty and Beyond: New Beginnings in Health and Well-Being.”