The second step also seems easy: Create Gaps
Take moments during the day to stop and touch in with your breath. Maybe at transition times between activities. Or going to a meeting. Schedule your day so that you have spaces between things. Practice pausing, or creating a gap. If you find things becoming a bit rushed, stop and take a few conscious breaths. Allow some space into your mind and into your body. Touch into life in the here and the now.
We have all kinds of ways of imagining the future that distract us from actually living in the present.
What sitting practice is really about, is living in the present so that we can actually manifest this precious life in a way that feels right.
Blanche Hartman, Soto Zen teacher, This life which is wonderful and evanescent
When a major event is celebrated, such as Christmas, we often get into a state of anticipation, of waiting. It is as if we think something is going to be suddenly different in the future. Often we use the busyness of everyday work to mask what we really feel underneath. Then we look forward to the special day or to the vacation, thinking that it will somehow fix whatever out of balance in our lives. However, there is a danger in this, as we can fall into the trap of linking our happiness to some future moment, which only leads us to feel more discontent when we see that nothing has changed. This type of fantisizing about the future is normally a way of avoiding some difficulty about our life in the present. True contentment comes from working with our life as it as – from surrendering to what is – and not trying to escape from it.
Peace can only exist in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say “Wait until I finish this, then I’ll be free to live in peace”. What is “this”? A diploma, a job, a house, the payment of debt? If you think that way peace will never come. There is always another “this” that will follow the present one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you’ll never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise there is only hope for peace “some day.”
Thich Nhat Hahn, The Sun my Heart
Even if you have a lot of work to do,
if you think of it as wonderful,
and if you feel it as wonderful,
it will transform into the energy of joy
and fire, instead of becoming a burden.
Tulku Thondup Rinpoche
So be reposed
and praise, praise, praise
The way it happened
and the way it was.
Patrick Kavanagh, Irish Poet, Question to Life
Judith sent me this beautiful poem, by a Canadian poet. Again, the action of a heron – this time its almost “monastic” stillness – confronts the poet and prompts reflections on how some moments contain everything:
A hunched grey shape
framed by leaves
with lake water behind
standing on our
little point of land
like a small monk
in a green monastery
meditating
almost sculpture
except that it’s alive
brooding immobile permanent
for half an hour
a blue heron
and it occurs to me
that if I were to die at this moment
that picture would accompany me
wherever I am going
for part of the way
Al Purdy, The last picture in the world
