“…finding what feels like real life, that changeless and inarguable something behind all our shifting thoughts, is less a discovery than a recollection.” “Heaven is the place where you think of nowhere else.”
Movement makes richest sense when set within a frame of stillness.” “But at some point all the horizontal trips in the world can’t compensate for the need to go deep into somewhere challenging and unexpected. “So much of our lives takes place in our heads-in memory or imagination, in speculation or interpretation-that sometimes I feel that I can best change my life by changing the way I look at it.” “Most of our problems-and therefore our solutions, our peace of mind-lie within.” “Going nowhere…isn’t about turning your back on the world it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.” He then decides to leave New York and spend a year in Kyoto, Japan in a small, single room apartment. However, despite that initial aim, he finds that “the nowhere I was interested in had more corners and dimensions than I could possible express to (or myself), and somehow seemed larger and more unfathomable than the endlessly diverting life I’d known in the city it opened onto a landscape as vast as those of the Morocco and Indonesia and Brazil I had come to know, combined.” He realizes that all his life has been pointed towards getting Somewhere.
The art of stillness book cover full#
He paints the familiar picture of a successful man running full tilt in an exciting career, yet always with the nagging feeling that something was missing. Iyer gives a brief account of his personal path to stillness-or, as he puts it, his passage to Nowhere. “ alking about stillness is really a way of talking about clarity and sanity and the joys that endure.” “Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources-it’s a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources.” Iyer and Cohen continue in their mountain-top discussion, astutely noting that “making a living and making a life sometimes point in opposite directions.” “ Going nowhere the grand adventure that makes sense of everywhere else.” – Iyer paraphrasing Cohen. It’s a peculiar way to start a book about stillness, until you learn that Cohen-in his sixties at the time the book was published-had been adhering to a life of monastic rigidity for the past thirty years.Ĭohen’s explanation of the drastic change in lifestyle (through the words of Iyer): “Being in this remote place of stillness had nothing to do with piety or purity, he assured me it was simply the most practical way he’d found of working through the confusion and terror that had long been his bedfellows.” Yes, the famous musician known for his wordsmithery, good looks and full exploitation of the rockstar lifestyle. Iyer opens the book with a trip up to a monastery in the mountains where he meets Leonard Cohen.
I’ve compiled some significant quotes from The Art of Stillness, with brief explanatory notes throughout. All quotes are organized under the same titles as are in the book. He explores “Nowhere”-its soft language, deep tradition, and sometimes frighteningly lonely customs. In fact, his personal website is a testament to that.Įven though “going nowhere” doesn’t seen like much of an adventure, Iyer paints a brilliant picture of slow transformation, abiding calm, and focused appreciation in the midst of a world that’s growing increasingly busy, increasingly distracted and increasingly chaotic. Despite his passion for travel, he has found great beauty and meaning in stillness. In a book about “Adventures in Going Nowhere” (the book’s subtitle), it’s either ironic or perfectly fitting, that the author is Pico Iyer, an internationally known travel writer. I usually refer to stillness as a lack of noise or distraction, or, alternatively, a state of inner balance, but there’s another way to describe stillness: lack of movement.
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