“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” — Buddha
Some mornings, the world outside is still cloaked in pre-dawn quiet, but my internal world is already buzzing. Before my feet even touch the floor, a part of me is listening—for a cough, a drawer opening, the soft murmur of water in the kitchen sink. My mother is ninety-seven now, and each sound is a reassurance, a whisper that the world has not irrevocably shifted overnight. Only when I hear movement do I allow myself to exhale, then reach for my phone. I tell myself I’m checking messages, but the truth is, I’m often searching for something far more elusive: relief. An editor’s email, a work opportunity, a call—any sign that the future is still expanding, not slowly, inexorably narrowing.
More often than not, there’s nothing. Or almost nothing. Spam. A medical reminder. A fleeting discount offer. Silence masquerading as activity. I recall a recent morning, standing in the kitchen, coffee cooling beside me, my thumb compulsively refreshing my inbox. I’d checked countless times before sunrise, knowing there was no logical reason to look again. Yet, the motion was automatic, a desperate ritual, as if certainty might finally manifest if only I repeated the gesture enough times. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Still nothing.
Outside, life unfolded with mundane predictability: a neighbor walked their dog, a car door clicked shut. Light slowly filled the room. But within me, a knot tightened. I’ve never been adept at waiting—not the trivial kind like queues or traffic, but the profound, existential waiting that hinges on forces entirely beyond my control. Waiting for medical results. Waiting to see if a loved one’s health will stabilize or decline. Waiting for the phone to ring, for a reciprocal energy in a connection. Waiting to know if my work, my voice, my very presence still holds meaning in the world. And, beneath it all, the waiting we rarely voice aloud: waiting for loss.
The Internal Tempest of Anticipation
The peculiar nature of waiting is its deceptive stillness. From the outside, nothing appears to be happening. Yet, internally, it can consume entire days, filling the void with interpretations, anxieties, and self-doubt. Perhaps they’re not interested. Maybe I waited too long. Have the opportunities passed me by? Am I becoming invisible? At a certain point, waiting transcends time; it morphs into a question of self-worth.
What truly unsettles me isn’t the silence itself, but the speed with which I abandon the present moment in a frantic attempt to escape it. My mind races ahead, rehearsing futures that are mere phantoms. I conjure images of worsening illness, financial collapse, loneliness, the quiet emptiness that might one day fill my home. I strive to solve tomorrow’s problems before today has even fully arrived.
Buddhist Wisdom: Dukkha, Tanha, and the Five Hindrances
Buddhism offers profound insight into this human predicament, terming this suffering dukkha—the deep unsatisfactoriness inherent in trying to hold still a life that is, by its very nature, in constant flux. Beneath this suffering lies tanha: craving. It’s the desperate yearning for certainty, for resolution, for permanence in a world defined by impermanence. I feel this craving physically—a tightening in my chest, the restless refreshing of an email inbox, an inability to settle into the raw, unfinished beauty of the present moment.
The Buddha identified five hindrances that cloud the mind, and in the throes of waiting, I find myself encountering each one:
Restlessness:
The incessant urge to check just one more time.
Doubt:
The insidious whisper that my value is contingent on external validation.
Aversion:
A deep-seated resentment towards the silence itself, the absence of an answer.
Fear:
The relentless projection of suffering into futures that have not yet materialized.
Exhaustion:
The quiet, weary question of whether any effort truly matters anymore.
None of these mental gymnastics alter reality. They merely pull me further away from the vibrant, unfolding life directly in front of me.
Cultivating Stillness: Embracing the Unfinished Moment
One afternoon, after yet another spiral of message-checking and outcome-imagining, I finally laid my phone face down on the table and simply sat still. Not peacefully, not immediately. Just still. At first, the only thing I noticed was the tinnitus—a thin, continuous ringing in my ears that I usually resist or try to ignore. But over time, through meditation and exploring Nada Yoga, the yogic practice of inner sound, I’ve learned to relate to it differently. Instead of mere irritation, I sometimes perceive continuity, a subtle current beneath thought, a gentle reminder that silence is never truly empty.
So, I sat and listened. To the ringing. To my breath. To a bird’s song outside. To the faint, slow movements of my mother through the house. For a few moments, nothing was resolved. The future remained uncertain. The emails remained unanswered. My body remained vulnerable. Losses remained inevitable. Yet, something within me softened.
I realized that much of my suffering stemmed not from the act of waiting itself, but from my fierce refusal to allow the moment to remain unfinished. I craved reassurance before living, certainty before trusting, guarantees before I could truly relax into the day. But life, I’m learning, rarely offers guarantees. It offers only participation.
The Eightfold Path, I’m beginning to understand, isn’t about transcending ordinary life. It’s about learning how to remain profoundly present within it. Right mindfulness means observing fear without being consumed by it. Right effort means gently guiding the mind back to the present when it races towards imagined catastrophes. It is in these unfinished moments, in the quiet acceptance of what is, that we truly begin to suffer less and live more.
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