Pico iyer the art of stillness transcript
I remember thinking back then - what will I even talk about? So, I asked Wayne again. That’s the classic way in which a teacher and mentor can nudge us to do something that takes us out of our comfort zone. It was simply an experiment inspired by a question posed by me to one of my good friends – why isn’t there any chat on twitter about spirituality? Wayne’s response was - so what if there isn’t one? Why don’t you start one?Īnswer a question with a question.
There was no agenda or expectation that there would even be a second conversation the following Sunday. Nine years ago to the day, give or take a few days, a few folks gathered on twitter on a Sunday morning at 11am ET and had a conversation about spirituality. Is there any greater act of transformation than two cells becoming a baby? Can you think of an example in our daily lives where addition by nine represents preservation? I will give you a personal example. For example, it takes nine months for a human baby to be born. In human life, when nine is engaged in multiplication, it becomes an agent for transformation. Magical when we slow down to contemplate, isn’t it? Yes, we can play with nines like this all day long.
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Two plus four plus seven plus five is 18. The resulting sum of the digits will always be nine. I was delighted when I first found out that if you added the number nine to any number, and you sum up the resulting digits, you got back the sum of the digits that you started with. This lyrical and inspiring book expands on a new idea, offering a way forward for all those feeling affected by the frenetic pace of our modern world.I have always been a fan of the number nine. In 2013, Pico Iyer gave a blockbuster TED Talk. Ultimately, Iyer shows that, in this age of constant movement and connectedness, perhaps staying in one place is a more exciting prospect, and a greater necessity than ever before. The Art of Stillness paints a picture of why so many-from Marcel Proust to Mahatma Gandhi to Emily Dickinson-have found richness in stillness. Growing trends like observing an "Internet Sabbath"-turning off online connections from Friday night to Monday morning-highlight how increasingly desperate many of us are to unplug and bring stillness into our lives. These aren't New Age fads so much as ways to rediscover the wisdom of an earlier age. He reflects that this is perhaps the reason why many people-even those with no religious commitment-seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or seeking silent retreats. Iyer also draws on his own experiences as a travel writer to explore why advances in technology are making us more likely to retreat. In The Art of Stillness-a TED Books release-Iyer investigate the lives of people who have made a life seeking stillness: from Matthieu Ricard, a Frenchman with a PhD in molecular biology who left a promising scientific career to become a Tibetan monk, to revered singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, who traded the pleasures of the senses for several years of living the near-silent life of meditation as a Zen monk. There's never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still.
Why might a lifelong traveler like Pico Iyer, who has journeyed from Easter Island to Ethiopia, Cuba to Kathmandu, think that sitting quietly in a room might be the ultimate adventure? Because in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and noisy. Science Fiction & Fantasy - Available NowĪ follow up to Pico Iyer's essay "The Joy of Quiet," The Art of Stillness considers the unexpected adventure of staying put and reveals a counterintuitive truth: The more ways we have to connect, the more we seem desperate to unplug.Armchair Explorers for Children and Teens.