Do not say, ‘It is morning,’
and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.
See it for the first time
as a newborn child that has no name.
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
Everything comes to us that belongs to us
if we create the capacity to receive it.
Faith is the bird that feels the light
when the dawn is still dark.
From the solemn gloom of the temple
children run out to sit in the dust,
God watches them play and forgets the priest.
I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can’t make it through one door,
I’ll go through another door – or I’ll make a door.
Something terrific will come
no matter how dark the present.
Rabindranath Tagore
When snow falls and slows down the traffic, we get plenty of opportunities to practice mindfulness, here explained in its simplest form. Often our way is blocked and we are forced to stay where we are for a long time. Being with our life “as it is” is the key to our practice, even when we don’t particularly want to be there:
I am continually amazed by the quality of some of the blogs out there and the creative ways that people reflect on their lives. Here is a new project for this year which you may like to bookmark. Called A Year of Being Here, they have set out to publish a mindfulness poem, one for each day of the year, to bring a space for reflection and inspiration into our lives. It is well worth reading.
Our Mindfulness practice, whether it is on the cushion paying attention to the emotions and thoughts that weave between the breath and bodily sensations, or whether it is in the world paying attention to our actions and behaviors which emerge from our emotions and thoughts, is always a reminder that in order to change any unhealthy or harmful patterns – in order to transform any suffering – we have to first become aware of the patterns themselves. We cannot change anything that we are not aware of…. On a personal level this may show up within the experience of intense emotions. Often we are driven by unconscious motivations of our emotional landscape. How often do we feel lost in the rage or the upset that sometimes arises? The impact that Mindfulness brings is that the experience of being aware of the rage is not the rage itself. Being mindful of all the sensations of rage or anger is not being lost in or consumed by the fire. How often do we actually feed the experience of anger without examining what is really happening? …Our practice simply invites us to do the best we can – to be as mindful, aware and kind to whatever arises, even our intense emotional landscapes.
