Wasting Our Time

We can actually sit on a cushion without any purpose, none whatsoever. It is outrageous. It's unthinkable. It's terrible -- we would be wasting our time. Now there's the point: wasting our time. Maybe that's a good one, wasting our time. Give time a rest. Let it be wasted. Create virgin time, uncontaminated time, time that hasn't been hassled by aggression, passion, and speed. Let us create pure time. Sit and create pure time. Buddha did it. Buddha did it two thousand five hundred years ago. He sat and wasted his time. And he transmitted the knowledge to us that it is the best thing we can do for ourselves -- waste our time by sitting. The very idea of aggression and passion could be tamed by sitting practice. Just sitting like a piece of rock is a very important point. I want you to think about the importance of wasting time sitting, slowing down, becoming like a piece of rock. It's the first message of the Buddha. _
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

From "The Only Way," in THE PATH IS THE GOAL: A BASIC HANDBOOK OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION, pages 10 to 11. Edited by Sherab Chodzin.