There is no such thing as an isolated event. Everything we experience, and the choices we make, impact on the way our life will be in the future. Thus, the best way to live a full life is to pay attention to and appreciate each passing moment, living them in kindness and openness, not closing the heart.
Every moment and every event of everyone’s life on earth plants something in their soul.
Thomas Merton
The biggest risk is to trust
that these conditions
are all that we need
to be ourselves
Han Hung
Dense and intense emotional reactions can leave us feeling lost and overwhelmed. In these darkest moments, the practice is to bring awareness to the center of the chest, breathing the painful emotions, via the inbreath, directly into the heartspace. It’s as if we were breathing the swirling physical sensation right into the heart. Then, on the outbreath, we simply exhale. We are not trying to do or change anything; we’re simply allowing our heart center to become a wider container of awareness within which to experience distress.
Ezra Bayda, Being Zen
When today you have doubts and fears, why not follow the advice in this Mary Oliver poem. To look at nature all around you – the buds beginning to appear, the early flowers blooming – and see there a support for your inner self.
Oh, my dear heart,
My own dear heart,
Full of hesitations,
Questions, choice of directions,
Look at the world.
Behold the morning glory,
the meanest flower,
the ragweed, the thistle.
Look at the grass.
Mary Oliver, The Singular and Cheerful Life
I love the idea contained in these lines. Life is too precious and too short to waste it on regrets, or holding onto past hurts and misunderstandings. Today presents innumerable fresh moments to encounter people, occasions to reach out again, to let go of the past and to live with new eyes and love. What would it be like to live this day with as if it is our first, starting over with wonder, or, as many have to, as if it is our last, without regrets?
Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.
Naomi Shhab Nye, The Art of Disappearing
It is a beautiful morning here, and as I said, being Irish, the Spring season has already started for me. This Mary Oliver poem captures the day perfectly. It shows how attention to what is present in any moment, especially in the beauty of nature, and having the space to taste and hear it, leads to a deep joy in life. It is not always possible with the troubles and hassles of work, so we should take her advice: Go outside and just look, listen. Life is good.
It was spring
and finally I heard him
among the first leaves—
then I saw him clutching the limb
in an island of shade with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still
and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness—
and that’s when it happened,
when I seemed to float, to be, myself, a wing or a tree—
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,
and the sands in the glass stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward
like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing—
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed
not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfectly blue sky— all, all of them
were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed, so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn’t last
for more than a few moments.
It’s one of those magical places wise people like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,
is that, once you’ve been there, you’re there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?
Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.
