Active Laziness

Sogyal Rinpoche
165 words, 11K views, 5 comments

How many of us are swept away by what I have come to call an "active laziness"?

Naturally there are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time left to confront the real issues.

If we look into our lives, we will see clearly how many unimportant tasks, so-called "responsibilities" accumulate to fill them up. One master compares them to "housekeeping in a dream." We tell ourselves we want to spend time on the important things of life, but there never is any time.

Helpless, we watch our days fill up with telephone calls and petty projects, with so many responsibilities—or should we call them "irresponsibility's"?

--Sogyal Rinpoche

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5 Past Reflections

On Sep 4, 2024 Jane wrote :

Until we get a cancer diagnosis forcing us to learn how to live in the moment with greatfulness and grace.

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On Jun 24, 2024 Ojas Mehta wrote :

Wow, short but quite powerful.

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On Jul 22, 2023 Mary Thomson wrote :

Oh wow. I am learning how it is dyregulation that often causes the impulse to cram one’s days with things orcequally to sit by and let life slip away in days doing very little. This is often trauma or fear related. Fear of failure and disappointment, fear of rejection and so on can cause people to behave in this dysregulated way. Meditation and self awareness, compassion and kindness, connection and a meaningful sense of purpose and belonging; as well as addressing the trauma and fears, behaviour and avoidance are part of the solution I’ve found.

Simplify, commit to a cause or direction, serve with love, give with kindness and focus on the things that matter are ways that have helped me to focus on what is important. Read and educate myself, take time for reflection and rest, give things a go even if I’m afraid. It’s actually often not as scary as one thinks.

Seek help if you need to. Focus on the good. Love and live while you are alive!!!

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On Jan 14, 2022 wrote :

This is wonderful and reminds me of the four quadrant box of urgent/important/not urgent/not important. I read it in Stephen Covey's book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and I've seen it attributed to Eisenhower. There is that short term dopamine boost from checking off tasks -- and yet for the big issues, I've only seen change appear when we actually sit with an issue long enough to see how to align energies beyond our own.

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On Jan 14, 2022 wrote :

For me, if something is important enough, I find the time for it.