we are surrounded by miracles

Whatever you do mindfully is meditation. When you touch a flower, you can touch it with your fingers, but better yet, you can touch it mindfully, with your full awareness. "Breathing in -- I know that the flower is there; breathing out -- I smile at the flower." While you are practicing in this way, you are really there and at the same time, the flower is really there. If you are not really there, nothing is there. The sunset is something marvelous and so is the full moon, but since you are not really there, the sunset is not for you. From time to time, I let myself look at the full moon; I take a deep breath in and a deep breath out, and I practice: "I know you are there, and I am very glad about it." I practice with the full moon, with the cherry blossoms... We are surrounded by miracles, but we have to recognize them; otherwise there is no life.

The Buddha told us: "The past is no longer there, the future is not here yet; there is only one moment in which life is available and that is the present moment." To meditate is to bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.

Thich Nhat Hanh, True Love, A Practice for Awakening the Heart, Shambhala Publications, 2004

what is true mindfulness?

Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.

The thoughts are fine if they are seen as transparent, but we get so caught up judging thoughts as right or wrong, for and against, yes and no, needing it to be this way and not that way. And even that might be okay except that is accompanied by strong, strong emotions. So we just start ballooning out more and more. With this grasping onto thoughts we just get more caught, more and more hooked. All of us. Every single one of us.

It's as if you had vast, unlimited space —complete openness, total freedom, complete liberation —and the habit of the human race is to always, out of fear, grasp onto little parts of it. And that is called ego and ego is grasping on to the content of our thoughts. That is also the root of suffering, because there is something in narrowing it down which inherently causes us a lot of pain because it is then that we are always in a relationship of wanting or not wanting. We are always in a struggle with other people, with situations, even with our own being. That's what we call stress. That's what we experience as continual, on-going stress. Even in the most healthy, unneurotic of us, there's some kind of slight or very profound anxiety of some kind, some kind of uneasiness or dissatisfaction.



teachings by Pema Chödrön. To read more from her, please refer to:

http://www.pemachodron.org/

holy habits

Ritual is routine infused with mindfulness.
It is habit made holy.


Kent Nerburn, Small Graces