Coming back to the present moment takes some effort, but the effort is very light. The instruction is to “touch and go.” We touch thoughts by acknowledging them as thinking and then we let them go. It’s a way of relaxing our struggle, like touching a bubble with a feather. It’s a non-aggressive approach to being here.
Pema Chodron
Photo: brokeninaglory
At my feet the white-petalled daisies display
the small suns of their center piece, their – if you don’t
mind my saying so – their hearts.
Of course
I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and
narrow and hidden in the roots.
What do I know?
But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,
to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;
for example – I think this
as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch –
the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the
daisies for the field
Mary Oliver, Daisies
Only the hand that erases
can write the true thing.
Meister Eckhart
photo: mgmoscatello
Our way is to practice one step at a time,
one breath at a time,
with no gaining idea
Suzuki Roshi
We know how to become, but we don’t know how to stop.
We are not used to stopping.
Stopping is the practice of learning how to take the points of when you feel the mind moving and proliferating
and coming back to a place of awareness.
Ajahn Passano , On Becoming and Stopping
To gain composure at stressful moments, we can apply the mindfulness effort of letting go – abruptly shifting our attention from our thoughts to the immediacy of our physical environment. By simply being mindful in this way. we discover a visceral stillness, an “emotional space” of not knowing, like opening a door to an unfamiliar room or leaping from a diving board. When we are mindful in the immediate moment, the chaotic flood of emotions no longer view for our attention like a crowd of load, unruly voices. Instead they settle into a physical feeling, unclear and murky, but no less powerful – a vague softness around the heart or an openess in the throat.
Michael Caroll, At Times of Stress, Cultivate Stillness
Mindfulbalance 