Riccardo

This is the rough script of a talk I gave in January 2026.

January is not usually my favourite month.

The days are short, the weather is often grey, and this year I noticed something else: my energy was low.

I didn’t feel particularly bad. Nothing dramatic was happening. I was simply flatter than usual, with less motivation and less desire to do things.

And, importantly for me, I wasn’t cycling very much.

Cycling is a big part of my life. It gives me energy, space and a sense of movement. When I’m riding regularly, I notice the effect not only physically but mentally.

So when the cycling reduces, I notice that too.

At first, my response to this low-energy January was predictable.

I wanted it to be different.

I wanted more energy. I wanted better weather. I wanted to ride my bike. I wanted to feel more motivated.

In other words, January was January, and I wanted it to be something else.

This brought me back to one of the most basic teachings of Buddhism: the Four Noble Truths.

The first is usually expressed as the truth of dukkha.

Dukkha is often translated as suffering, but that can make it sound much more dramatic than it needs to be. It can also be dissatisfaction, unease, restlessness—the feeling that what is happening now is somehow not quite right.

The second Noble Truth points towards craving or attachment as the source of this suffering.

And that was interesting to observe.

The low energy itself wasn’t necessarily the problem.

The grey weather wasn’t necessarily the problem.

Even not cycling wasn’t necessarily the problem.

The struggle appeared when the mind began insisting:

I shouldn’t feel like this.

I should have more energy.

I should be doing more.

I need to get out on the bike.

There was January.

And then there was everything I was adding to January.

Once I began noticing this, something changed.

Not dramatically.

I didn’t suddenly become energetic. The sun didn’t appear. I didn’t leap onto the bike and ride 100 kilometres through the countryside.

January was still January.

But the suffering around it softened.

Instead of immediately trying to fix the low energy, I became curious about it.

What happens if I simply allow myself to feel flat?

What happens if I don’t immediately label this as a problem?

What happens if, for a while, nothing needs to be fixed?

This doesn’t mean becoming passive or deciding never to change anything.

If I want to go cycling, I can go cycling.

If I need rest, I can rest.

If something genuinely needs changing, I can change it.

But perhaps the action doesn’t always have to begin with resistance to what is already here.

There is a difference between responding to a situation and fighting with the fact that the situation exists.

This reminded me of something we had explored through the story of Eno, or Huineng.

Again and again, his story brings us back to what happens before we divide experience into categories.

Before low energy becomes bad.

Before cycling becomes good.

Before January becomes a problem.

The mind makes these distinctions very quickly.

There is nothing particularly wrong with that. We need preferences and judgments to live our lives.

But we can also notice what happens when those judgments become fixed.

This should not be happening.

I need something else.

Then I will be all right.

That is where the tension begins.

Meditation gives us a very simple place to observe this.

We sit down.

Something appears.

A thought.

An emotion.

Restlessness.

Boredom.

Tiredness.

And almost immediately there can be an impulse to interfere.

We want the thought to disappear.

We want the emotion to change.

We want the meditation to feel calmer, deeper or somehow more successful.

But what if, sometimes, we don’t interfere?

Not because we have decided that everything is wonderful.

Not because we are trying to become detached.

Simply because, for this moment, this is what is here.

During January, this became a useful practice for me.

Low energy.

Fine.

Restlessness.

Fine.

Wanting to cycle.

Fine.

Not wanting to do very much.

Also fine.

None of these states needed to become an identity.

I am lazy.

I am unmotivated.

Something is wrong with me.

They could simply be experiences appearing and changing.

And of course they did change.

Some days I had more energy.

Some days less.

Sometimes I went cycling.

Sometimes I stayed home.

January continued doing what January does.

Perhaps this is one way of understanding practice in ordinary life.

Not as a way of making every experience pleasant, but as a way of noticing how much extra struggle we create around experience.

The weather can be grey without the mind declaring war on grey weather.

Energy can be low without low energy becoming a personal failure.

The bike can stay in the garage without the day becoming a bad day.

And when the opportunity to ride comes, I can ride.

Nothing particularly mystical.

Just January being January.

And allowing myself, at least occasionally, to let it be.