The on-the-spot practice of being fully present, feeling your heart and greeting the next moment with an open mind can be done at any time: when you wake up in the morning, before a difficulty conversation, whenever fear or discomfort arises. This practice is a beautiful way to claim… your courage, your kindness, your kindness, your strength. Whenever it occurs to you, you can pause briefly, touch in with how you’re feeling both physically and mentally, and then connect with your heart – even putting your hand on your heart if you want to. This is a way of extending warmth and acceptance to whatever is going on for you right now.
Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change
The first snow fell yesterday. A strong stormy wind blows this morning, scattering the leaves which begin now to fall in earnest. Shorter days. The changing outside weather impresses itself on our inner life, challenging our “routines” and confusing the body. It reminds us of rhythms and patterns in a world that loves predictability, and of things passing through when we foolishly give permanence to our mind states:
We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen. And as soon as we listen to what’s going on, things will begin to take shape by themselves. This is what the Zen people do. They give a great deal of time to doing whatever they need to do. That’s what we have to learn when it comes to meditation. We have to give it time . . . The best way to [do it] is: Stop. 
I have been driven by that sense of push my whole life, without even realizing it. But if life is indeed beginningless, this means that my past has, in fact, been infinite. The future will be too. So if there is no big rush to get somewhere. I am mistaken in my compulsion. I can take my time, and take more care, to make sure to go where I want to go. What a thrill! A bit of release, a taste of freedom, no more involuntary pressure — so this is beginningless.
To be mindful means that we notice th
