fourth-year jake forgay

I take a seat on my cushion, cross my legs, and softly place my attention on my breath. Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out.

As I breathe in, I notice a subtle coolness as the air slowly passes through the inner rims of my nostrils, which slowly fades away into a nearly indiscernible warmth as the air rushes back out. “One,” I count. The coolness resurfaces, and I watch it again morph into a near imperceptible warmth. “Two,” I count...

Suddenly, I am in the presence of a crowd of bystanders. They are holding pamphlets of my writings, and I feel tense, nervous, and insecure. “You are not good enough,” I whisper behind the image. “You are a fraud and are untalented.” I notice scoffs and looks of disdain on their faces. They are laughing among themselves at the incredulous stupidity and incoherence of my work. “You are going to fail,” I whisper. “You are going to fail.”

Then at an instant, I teleport back to the sensations of the air slowly receding past my nostrils, waking up from the mind made fantasy that hijacked my attention. It’s as if I had awakened from a dream. “Thinking,” I note to myself. And I return to the breath, for the one hundredth time.

It is amazing the speed and ease with which we teleport to and from our experience, ruminating about certain unpleasantries of the past or worrying about potential “catastrophes” in the future. Most of us carry on with our experience simply unaware of the fact that we are entrenched in an ongoing narrative over which we barely have any control, riding an unguided, directionless train of thought that renders us susceptible to certain toxicities that grasp for our attention, be it certain information in the media or an alluring thought or perception. I cannot tell you how many times I have so instinctually unlocked my phone and landed upon some social media platform without even knowing I was doing it, to wake up to the painfully sobering thought, “What am I doing?”

So, as a way to incorporate a little more intention and acceptance into my life, I'm practicing sitting. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity. It may sound downright pointless. You might ask, “What do you mean practice sitting? All you do is sit and that’s it. There is nothing to practice.” But it is amazing how difficult it is to simply sit with your experience; to pay attention to what it feels like to be you - the sensations, the thoughts, the emotions. And, hopefully, after enough practice of noticing and acknowledging the subtleties of our experience we can learn to accept ourselves and lead a more directed and intentional life.

So I invite you to take a seat, take a few deep breaths, and be with yourself for just a little bit.

Sitting