Wandering Our Way Into Presence
We come into a fuller place of presence by opening to possibility.
The Wisdom of the Wandering Path:
There comes a time—often quietly, sometimes with pain or grief—when we realize that the well-trodden path we’ve been following is no longer leading us to where we hope to go. The markers of success, the yearly optimizations, the rhythms of urgency, and the promises of sudden clarity—they’ve brought us only so far.
And then something in us whispers: "We need a different path."
Then, if we start our seeking process and begin looking, listening, and paying attention, we eventually notice that other paths appear. And maybe, if we’re lucky, something inside of us whispers again: "Let’s go that way."
Sitting practice, in its truest, simplest form, is gentle yet radical, veering from the usual pattern—away from the dominant path. It’s not a retreat, or a complete stepping out of our everyday life, but a reorientation within it. We step off the path of performance and onto one that dissolves into the mystery of this moment. This is not the path of mastery or progress. It’s the path of presence.
In sitting, we don’t ask our thoughts to behave, our breath to be deeper, or the body to stop aching. We feel our way, and we take a small step in a different direction. We commit ourselves to walking the path of sensing, of noticing in the body, of letting go, becoming intimate with the rhythm of our breath—without needing a destination.
Here, we practice a form of wandering—a subtle form of seeking in wonder, with a spirit of inquiry. We practice not-knowing, with tenderness. We listen to the patterns behind the thoughts and beneath the language. We feel our way into a new, heartfelt, embedded relationship with the web of life, and begin to see with greater clarity that everything has been walking together with us all along.
This wandering—and wondering—this permission to not-know and to never arrive is how we begin to feel ourselves again. Whole. Unscripted. Vitally alive. Improvising in response as we find our way in each moment. Entangled with all things, yet letting them go the moment they come.
Sitting is not an effort to control, but a wandering into presence. An opening into wonder and awe. A feeling into fuller possibility.
The Practice: Wandering Our Way Into Presence
Below is a lightly edited transcript of an introduction to a Sitting Lab sitting.
“Welcome.
As we settle into our practice today, let’s take a moment to step back and turn inward.
Today, I would like to encourage us to give ourselves permission to walk a different path.
Not the one shaped by obligations or polished by our expectations.
Not the one that’s rewarded by the results of our productivity or performance. But a path that wanders.
A path that allows us to wander, and wonder.
Maybe you’ve had a moment, walking on a trail, maybe in a forest, when suddenly you catch a glimpse of a smaller trail veering off to the side.
It disappears into the trees, and the something in you says: “Yes. Let’s go that way.”
So you follow. You follow the feeling. And now you're not on the main path anymore. You’re walking into the unknown.
Our sitting practice is like that.
So, today, I invite you to take a gentle detour from what feels familiar to you.
It’s a creative and courageous act, more like a ‘feeling into’ than a decision. It’s giving yourself permission to not know. To not have a destination. To wander. To allow the path to reveal itself to us as we sit and as we walk together.
Sitting is not about seeking to achieve stillness. It's about co-creating different conditions for ourselves—new conditions for our breath, the sensations of our body, our thoughts, memories, stresses, and moments of silence—to find a new pattern, or path, to find their own way, in their own time.
As you sit, begin to feel your way, not just with the mind, but with the whole body. With the heart. With the breath. With a knowing that rests beneath the words.
We are not walking alone. We are walking within the vast interconnected web of life. We are walking with the trees, the wind, with everything. And with each other.
In this walking, your field of awareness extends inward and outward.
Allow the vast expansive field of your mind to include everything, and with no exceptions, allow everything to come and go.
You may start to feel bigger, as though you are becoming a fuller version of yourself, more open and expansive. One that is not shaped by your effort or goals, but by your attention, your presence.
This is being fully present. This is the deep medicine of just sitting.
And as we merge with it and receive it, we sit not just for our benefit, but for the benefit of all living beings.
So, I invite us to walk this path together now—softly, slowly, quietly, breath by breath.
Feeling our way, moment by moment, not needing to know what comes next.
Let’s continue quietly now. Together.
Listening for what our path may show us.”
The sound of three bells and then silence.
Each weekday, a small group of us sit quietly together four times a day, using Sitting Lab’s community platform. We invite you to check it out and join us if you believe that a regular, deepening sitting practice could help you become the fullest version of yourself.