In your life just take time to stop, just this sense of stopping and opening when you find yourself in that moment – “Oh I’m caught up, this thing, the next thing and the next thing” …… Just say to yourself  “STOP” and relax and open – try to listen to the sound of silence.

And even if you can’t notice it,  just that stopping just being caught in that momentum of busyness of compulsion…one thing to the next and one thought to the other –  it’s a dualistic world, a conditioned world that we bind ourselves in – going from one thing to the other, until we get tired and go to bed – we get up and again we do this and we do that, running around one thing after the other…. Now,  that is going from one condition to another…we get caught up in our own particular conditioning and programming – worry worry worry – meeting the deadline. It is always like this – this sense of feeling that there’s always something else, something I have to do, something that needs to be done!

So then the stopping and reflecting,  just stopping and being the KNOWER of this feeling – not trying to suppress it but just recognise that  compulsive momentum….. “its like THIS” …this feeling of rushing…of going onto the next thing – meeting the deadline, so much to do, so much pressure, its like THIS.  Now staying with that, even for a moment is better than not doing it at all – not just being a helpless victim of compulsive habits, until you burn out and break down. It’s like running a motor car until it just breaks down, not reading the signs. This is your life – don’t be intimidated by it or just become a victim of habits.

Ajahn Sumedho