Gentle, slow, walking – best done in nature – sends a signal to the brain and by slowing down the body we slow down the rushing mind. It can put things in perspective and prevent us from living all the time in our heads:
In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four
hills and a cloud.
Wallace Stevens, Of the Surface of Things
If you notice the wonderful smell of the rain, instead of just moving quickly past the experience without deeply appreciating it, you can prolong your contact with this wonderful sensation. Pause for a moment and really let yourself experience the smell of the rain. If you are struck by the blueness of the sky, linger for a moment and breathe mindfully, taking in the wonderful blue color. Don’t rush past these marvelous experiences, treating them as if they are unimportant. To treat them as unimportant is ultimately to treat yourself as unimportant. This is your life: enjoy it!
Thomas Bien
photo bryancalabro
Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference. Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel — to be here is immense. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us and brought us through the forest of dreaming until we could emerge into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life opening before us through the world.
John O Donohue
The first step we take in developing mental well-being, and employing mind training, is remembering that in every moment we can choose how to direct our inner life. Most of us live our lives in reactive mode – we respond to things as they happen without considering our response. We are on automatic pilot. Lacking a sense of inner control, we typically respond by trying to control the world and others. So step one is simply setting the intention to be aware. It is remembering to stop so you give ourself a choice in how to react. It is remembering that we are in control of our emotional life….Our inner experience may be positive, it may be mundane, or it may be disturbing, but we are the only ones in control of it.
Karuna Cayton, The Misleading Mind
If someone were to ask us, “Has the best moment of your life arrived yet?” we may say that it will come very soon. But if we continue to live in the same way, it may never arrive. We have to transform this moment into the best moment, and we can do that by stopping – stopping running into the future, stopping worrying about the past, stopping accumulating so much…… Breathing in and out consciously helps you to become your best – calm, fresh, solid, clear and free, able to enjoy the present moment as the best moment of your life.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home
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