I Need A Rest

When an animal is wounded in the woods, it knows how to do this.

It seeks a peaceful corner in the forest and it lays down for several days. Several generations of ancestors have transmitted to them the wisdom that this is the only way to restore themselves.

They don’t have doctors, they don’t have pharmacists, but they know how to rest. They don’t need to run after their prey, they don’t need to eat—in fact, they fast during these three, four, five days of resting. And one day the animal is healed and it stands up and it goes to look for a source of food.


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And for your spirit, it is the same. Our consciousness is able to heal itself.

It has the power of self healing but you don’t allow it to rest. You continue to feed your consciousness with your anger, your worries, your thinking, and so on. You don’t believe in your consciousness.

You are seeking for a means to heal it but you don’t know how to allow yourself to rest. You keep thinking the whole day and you keep worrying the whole day. You never allow yourself to rest.

If you know how to practice total relaxation, you’ll know how to smile and how to send your smile to different parts of your body. During that time, you have stopped thinking and worrying because you are focused on your body, your breathing, your walking.

When you practice mindful breathing, when you practice “In, out, deep, slow,” not only can you nourish yourself—body and spirit—but you can also stop your thinking.

Stopping the thinking, stopping the worries, is very important.


* * * * *


Our mind is like a cassette tape turning nonstop day and night.

We have a habit. You are not there, because you are carried away by your thinking, by your worries. You may get lost in the past, regretting the past or being caught in the suffering that you endured during the past.

You suffered in the past already but now you want to suffer more by recalling the past. You call your past back in order for you to suffer more. Why do you have to show it several times, your suffering?

Cows, when they eat grass, they swallow and then they bring it up again and swallow for a second time. Many of us do the same. We have suffered already in the past. But we want to bring our suffering back to the present moment and suffer more. We like that.


* * * * *


Remember when you lost someone very dear, you suffered, and you thought that you’d never restore yourself, you’d never be able to forget that suffering. You thought that the suffering would dwell with you, the wound would be with you, forever.

But some time later you got used to it and you were able to go on with life. This means that your mind, your spirit, was able to heal itself.


Extract from: Healing is Possible through Resting, by Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh