If grief is bringing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please reach out before the practice.
US: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 24/7) · Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 · UK: 116 123 Samaritans · AU: 13 11 14 Lifeline · International: findahelpline.com. The practice below is a complement to clinical grief care, not a substitute.
Quick Answer
Sitting with groundlessness is Pema Chödrön's Tibetan Buddhist practice for when grief has pulled the floor out. Drawn from When Things Fall Apart (1997), the practice does not try to repair the ground, the willingness to stay is the practice. This is hard work.
What this practice is
Chödrön's teaching is the modern Western inheritance of contemplative practices that work with the very thing the mind wants to flee. Grief, in the acute and lingering phases, can pull the floor out, not just bringing sorrow but unmaking the architecture beneath ordinary days. This is the practice for that. The texts agree: stay. Acceptance is not approval.
Classical Source
Inheritor of the chöd and tonglen lineages, sources that teach practice with the very thing the mind wants to flee
Modern Source
Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart (1997), the seminal Western text on "fundamental insecurity"; The Wisdom of No Escape (1991); The Places That Scare You (2001)
Duration
20 to 45 minutes
Difficulty
advanced
When to use it
The texts agree that the practice is matched to the state, the season of grief, the subject of the loss. This page names where the practice fits.
Stages of grief this practice serves
Losses this practice serves best
How to practice
The instructions below run 20 to 45 minutes. Read through all the steps before you begin. If at any point the practice is making things worse, stop. The practice is not the goal; you are.
Sit upright in whatever posture you can hold for the duration. The body's stability is the only stability you will get today; this is the point.
Notice the breath without making it different. Notice the ground beneath you. Notice the unfixed quality of the moment.
Do not try to fix the dryness, the disorientation, the sense that nothing means what it meant. The practice is not to repair the ground; the practice is to keep showing up while the ground is gone.
When the mind reaches for a story, "I should be over this," "I will always feel this way," "there is something wrong with me", notice it as story. Then return to the breath.
Stay for the duration you would have sat anyway. The willingness is the practice. The experience is not the metric.
Close without expectation of resolution. The texts agree: groundlessness is not a problem to solve. It is the part of the path the brochures do not advertise.
What to notice
The breath is the only thing that lives in the present, and the texts agree that pairing the practice with a matched breath deepens it. For this practice the signature breath is:
Notice the breath without trying to change it. Its pace, its depth, the small pause where it turns around. Whatever it is doing is information, not a problem to solve. Sit with that.
When NOT to do this practice
Crystal companion
In Crystal Cassandra's work, certain stones are the somatic companion to certain practices. The pairing is not magical; it is a steady weight in the palm that becomes part of the noticing.
Smoky Quartz
Smoky Quartz is the modern Western canon's stone for groundlessness, the grey-translucent quartz that carries the symbolic resonance of standing without flinching. The classical pairing is to hold it during the sit when the floor is gone. The weight in the palm is the anchor the practice does not pretend to offer.
Related practices
These practices complement Sitting With Groundlessness, they are the practices the texts agree often follow or precede this one in the arc of grief work.
Practices for Carrying Grief
Four practices described plainly, a note on anniversaries and dates, and an honest section on when to reach for a person instead of a practice. Nothing is sold in this guide.
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