“Control your mind or it will control you.” ~ Buddha
Some mornings I wake up in the morning and sleep quietly listening to the signal that the house is awake.
Coughing down the hall.
The sound of opening a folder.
Water flows gently in the kitchen sink.
My mother is ninety-seven years old, and now, before my feet touch the floor, part of me is listening to the evidence that the world does not change overnight.
When I hear movement, I exhale.
Then I can go to the phone.
I told myself I was just checking the message. But recently I realized that I was usually looking at something completely different.
Rescue.
Email from the editor. Job Response. Phone calls. An opportunity. Some signs indicate that the future remains open rather than gradually shrinking.
Usually nothing at all.
Or almost nothing.
Spam. Medical Reminder. Discount offer. Silence disguised as action.
One morning I was standing in the kitchen refreshing my mailbox while my coffee cooled without touching me. I have already checked several times before sunrise. I know there is no reason to look again. However, my thumb automatically pulled down, as if certainty could appear if I repeated the movement several times enough.
Refreshing.
Nothing.
Refreshing.
Nothing.
Outside the world remains completely normal. A neighbor walked the dog. The car door closes somewhere in the street. Light enters the room slowly.
But inside of me there is something tightening.
I was never good at waiting. Not a normal wait. Not a line or traffic or a delayed appointment. I mean, kind of deep-waiting, depending on the force you can not control.
Waiting for a medical test.
Wait to see if your body gets worse or worse.
Waiting for aging.
Waiting for the alarm.
Wait for someone to answer with the same energy you brought them.
Wait to see if your work, your voice, or even your presence are still important in the world.
And underneath it all, the wait that we seldom acknowledge:
Waiting for the loss.
The strange thing about waiting is that nothing happens from the outside, but inside it can last all day.
The mind fills the silence with interpretation.
Maybe they are not interested.
Maybe I waited too long in life.
Maybe the opportunity is over.
Maybe I became invisible.
At some point, the wait is time to stop.
It becomes about value.
What calmed me down the most was not the silence, but I quickly gave up the present to escape it. My mind runs forward to rehearse the future that does not yet exist. I imagine the disease is getting worse. Financial collapse. Death. Loneliness. The silence that could one day fill the house.
I try to deal with it tomorrow before today.
Buddhism is called suffering DukeDeep dissatisfaction with trying to keep a life constantly changing. And under suffering is Tanha: Hungry. Desperate desire for certainty, resolution, permanence.
I can feel the physical cravings.
In a tight chest. In the refresh of the email. In the inability to cope in a single unfinished time.
The Buddha described five obstacles that clouded my mind, and while I was waiting, I seemed to encounter all of them.
Hunger prompted me to check again.
Doubt whispers that my price depends on the desire.
Dislike makes me resent silence.
Fear project suffering into the future that did not happen.
And tiredness, quietly asking, is any effort more important?
None of this has changed. It just pulls me away from the life unfolding in front of me.
One afternoon, after checking the messages and imagining the results, I finally put my phone on the table and sat quietly.
Not peacefully.
Still.
At first I noticed bad breath.
Subsequent thin sounds in my ears that I usually resist or try to ignore. But over time, through meditation and reading about Nada Yoga, the practice of inner sound yoga, I began to relate to it differently. Instead of just listening, sometimes I hear. Currently under concept. A reminder that silence is never completely empty.
So I sat and listened.
Ringtone.
My breath.
A bird outside.
My mother’s soft voice walked slowly throughout the house.
For a while, there was nothing to solve.
The future remains uncertain. Email did not respond. The body is vulnerable. Losses are still inevitable. But something softened.
I realized that my suffering was not due to my own waiting, but to my refusal to allow time to pass.
I want a guarantee before living. Certainty before believing. Guaranteed before the rest of the day.
But life never provides a guarantee.
Participation only.
The Eightfold Path that I am beginning to understand is not about getting through a normal life. It is about learning how to stay present in it.
Consciousness means recognizing fear that does not occur completely.
Trying is meant to come back gently as the mind returns to disaster over and over again.
Right view means acknowledging that instability is not a system error. It. Is System.
I still struggle.
Some mornings I wake up expecting sadness before something bad happens. Sometimes I still refresh my inbox too often. Sometimes silence still feels personal. But now there was a time when I stopped fighting the unfinished nature of life.
The moment I just listened.
A ringing in my ears. To my breath. As for my mother’s voice, she was still alive in the next room.
And little by little, the wait becomes something different.
Not punishment.
Not paralyzed.
Apply.
Execution of the appointment at a time when the mind asks for liberation into certainty.
The practice of realizing value cannot depend entirely on responses, acknowledgments, or assurances about the future.
The practice of remaining here for a fragile life is already happening.
Happiness still comes to me. But silence asks less.
It does not require an answer. It is not required to be permanent. It does not require waiting until the end.
There is only attention.
Presence only.
Only willing to be in the moment before rushing to the next one.
So these days, when I feel like I’m reaching myself again – for the sake of resolving the evidence that things are going to be fine – I try to pause.
I listen.
Ringtone. Breathe. The small sounds of life continue to surround me.
And for a moment, the silence no longer felt empty.
It feels alive.
About Tony Collins
Edward “Tony” Collins, EdD, MFA, is a documentary filmmaker, writer, educator and disability advocate who lives with progressive vision loss from cataracts. His work seeks the presence, care, endurance, and quiet energy of a small moment. He is currently completing a book on creative scholarships and collaborative documentaries and sharing personal articles on the meaning of hope and disability on Substack. Link: substack.com/@iefilm | iefilm.com
