In a world geared for hurry, the capacity to resist the urge to hurry—to allow things to take the time they take—is a way to gain purchase on the world, to do the work that counts, and to derive satisfaction from the doing itself, instead of deferring all your fulfillment to the future.

Until I listened to a book on tape, I didn’t realize how much I depend on the freedom to slow down, speed up, or stop altogether while reading. With certain writers, I might pause significantly a dozen times over the course of a few paragraphs: once for comprehension, several times more to savor a phrase, and one or more times because something dri

without the community around him, he started rushing. He tried to do everything quickly so that he could return to Plum Village. During the previous three weeks, he had not rushed anywhere. The collective energy of mindfulness in the community was strong enough to keep him in the present moment, not trying to speed to the next.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world. Absence of hurry also involves a certain lack of interference with the n