Stop, Drop, and Roll

In grade school we were taught a fire safety technique that seems to have stuck: stop, drop, and roll. It went something like this: if your clothes catch on fire then stop running. Drop to the ground. And start rolling back and forth until the fire is extinguished. I have no idea if this is still the proper operating procedure, but the framework serves well for considering the conceptual journey from sorrow to peace.

Our painful experiences of the world, what we call “life”, are the clothes on fire. Our natural instinct is to run. As in: this situation is not good. As quickly as possible I need to materialize something better. And so we run. Run into judgment. Run into scheming. Run into blaming. Something in the world is broken and needs to be fixed.

If only such-and-such happened then I’d be happy, or at least less miserable. And then such-and-such occurs. Everything is perfect, right? No more suffering. We all know how “if only” plays out. Even when we get what we want, what we thought would be it, some new disrupter comes along. And so we run into addressing this next one. Deep down knowing there’s an endless supply of next ones. Yet we keep running.

Stop.

No amount of running, no matter how fast, no matter what destination is reached, will ever extinguish the burning clothes.

Our first step is to stop running. Not literally. The guidance is not to stop doing things in the world. It’s not to stop attempts at improving our lot. It’s to stop clinging so tightly to the belief that these things (improvements in the world or our body) are the pathways to peace.

The root of all suffering is not the situation. It’s the one running from it. The sense of a separate, self-centered “me.”

Drop.

That distinct me is kindling for the fire. The one certain this moment is wrong and the next will be better. So drop that one. Not by wrestling it down. That’s just more running. Drop it by noticing it’s there. Something in us is already watching all this, and that something isn’t on fire. It never was. The moment we catch ourselves watching, we’ve dropped.

Roll.

Now roll. Rolling is what douses the fire. Not one heroic motion but a slow back and forth, the same small turn toward stillness, over and over. Rest there. When flames reignite, as they inevitably will, we roll again. That’s the whole of it. Not putting the fire out once, but learning to lie down in what was never burning.

Join me in Thursday’s class where we’ll explore this shift to peace. I look forward to seeing you then.