I have this friend. She is an 80 year old Buddhist teacher. She doesn’t drive anymore and so I take her to run errands. We were in trader Joes and I was feeling hurried, pressured by all the “Important stuff” I had yet to do that day. She was determined to find her diet orange soda no matter how many stores it took. I found myself starting to fume a little because she was moving at such an unbearably slow pace. I observed her intentional movements with particular care and then reflected upon mine. Why was I racing through my day at breakneck speed? I took a quiet deep breath and at the same moment, as though she knew what I was thinking, she looked up at me with the sweetest smile.

It’s easy to operate under the illusion that what we are doing is so important we cannot stop doing it. We think we cannot slow down, especially for something as seemingly unimportant as an old woman’s search for diet orange soda. But that is exactly the sort of thing we must never be too busy for. Stopping is a spiritual art. It is the refuge where we drink in life.