With Every Step

Walking with ease and with peace of mind on the earth 

is a wonderful miracle.  Some people say that only walking on burning coals or walking on spikes or on water are miracles, but I find that simply walking on the earth is a miracle.

--Thich Nhat Hahn

"Every path, every street in the world is your walking meditation path." 
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Several times in the past couple of years of MMM, I've witnessed someone experiencing formal walking meditation for the first time.  

After sharing a few words about the various forms of meditation (it's not Just Sitting after all), I introduced the South Asian "slow motion" walking meditation I had learned it when I was in residence at Insight Meditation Society years ago.  Then we took a stroll across the glistening wooden floors of the studio at Community Yoga from one wall to the other, turned, and returned.

It only took a few minutes.

In a couple of instances, I then had the privilege of seeing a childlike sense of wonder emerge in a person who had just experienced, at least for a moment or two, "Beginner's Mind."  Meeting their eyes, it was obvious.  During the course of this relatively brief walk, they had been Present to Life in a fuller and more complete way than usual. 

I love it when that happens. 

Walking and Waking Up

The spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff claimed that most humans are "sleepwalking" through their lives.  I think he nailed it.  Sleepwalking is  a perfect metaphor for the  semi-conscious manner in which most of us have learned to move through our lives.  

In a materialistic society that stresses speed, production, and the accumulation of goods and status, we have been conditioned to stagger ahead without being fully aware of the present moment.  Distracted, lost in our thoughts much of the time, the miraculous sea of sensations and energies that constitute Life each moment remain beneath the level of consciousness.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way.  We each have the ability to awaken. It can happen with the very next step.
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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

"The highest form of human intelligence is to

observe oneself without judgment."

Jiddu Krishnamurti

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect

 to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

Sometimes a mirror is worth a thousand words.

Although at one point back in the 1970's I actually practiced Mirror Gazing Meditation as a way to explore aspects of my subconscious, these days I don't spend much time in front on a mirror.  

Why bother?  

Being retired now,  I don't have to appear with the proper clothes and haircut at the proper place at the proper time each day. Sporting little hair on the top of my head, a washcloth is usually a good enough brush--and Betsy is generally quite expressive at the points at which I cross the line between un and kempt, periodically coming at my beard and mustache with scissors --  and great zeal. 

These days, it seems that Sitting Practice is my primary mirror. 

Taking the time to gaze steadily and kindly at the flowing river of Mind as it merrily meanders along is increasingly interesting at this stage of the journey.  In fact, with a bow to the Fall Ango practice I observed at Zen Mountain Monastery years ago, I recently upped the ante.  I've committed to going off the grid and observing a Day of Mindfulness each week, as well as Sitting outside to observe the sunset daily when I can this fall.

I didn't leave the Monastery because I don't like to Sit.  Meditation practice is often the most interesting part of my day.

It is also, I think, the most helpful.

As the Practice deepens, I'm grateful to acknowledge that even the more gnarly emotional whirlpools that swirl through my awareness don't seem to rock the boat all that much.  Even the momentary bursts of violent self-hatred and anger that still sometimes emerge are usually just experienced as waves crashing over the rocks.  These days those feelings readily become water over the dam--on and off the zafu.  Just around the bend, the river generally forms a clear, deep pool mirroring the grandeur of the emerging autumn foliage and a brilliant clear blue sky.
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Silence Is Golden!

 “Be still.  Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity. 
When there is silence one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself” 
― Lao Tzu

 "Be still and know that I am God."
― Proverbs 46:10 

There were fifteen of us gathered to Sit Together in Stillness at the Recovery Learning Community's Greenfield Center that night.   

The Silence was Golden.  

As I rang the bell to end our first period of meditation, bowed, and looked around the room, I knew that I wasn't alone.  I could see it in folks' eyes.  

The Presence was palpable.  

As we went around the Circle to compare notes on what we had each experienced during our meditation, the first person exclaimed, wide-eyed, "you could actually hear the silence!" Another added, "the Silence was deafening!" Others nodded.  Everyone knew exactly what they meant.

When we share the Silent Presence, even for a few moments, our Essential Oneness within the embrace of the One Love becomes less theoretical. You can feel it.

I love it when that happens.

The Theory and the Practice

Immersed as we are in a patently materialistic society, a milieu that fosters individualism, greed, speed, fear and frustration, we have been conditioned to experience our world through mental and emotional states that manifest a lot of noise, restless motion -- and a deep sense of separation.  Bombarded with stimulation and stress, our minds habitually filled with incessant chatter, most of us have spent much of our lives being constantly distracted and disconnected from our True Nature.  Disconnected from ourselves, we are disconnected from one another.  A direct experience of what Thich Nhat Hanh terms Interbeing, our fundamental interconnection with one another and the Web of Life, is rarely encountered on a conscious level. 
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Shelter from the Storm

"There is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right here.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. 

Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
 

A few days ago, I experienced some stormy inner weather as I sat at Greenfield Coffee quaffing my morning brew.

Although "life as usual" for me is always rather unusual, this has been a rather unsettled and, at times unsettling, passage through time and space.  Clouds of restlessness and discontent careened across my inner skies as I sat at the computer screen.

For the past few years, my "normal" life has had me, a 70 year old retiree, facilitating three Mindfulness Circles and doing some other low-key volunteer projects during the week in Greenfield, an old factory town in Western Massachusetts.  Then, on Thursday or Friday each week, I head out of town to spend long weekends in the country east of the Quabbin Reservoir with my Beloved Betsy.

For almost two months, though, this changed dramatically.  A stress fracture to Betsy's ankle prevented her from driving and limited her ability to live her "normal" life.   I was re-incarnated as a "householder", commuting an hour back and forth to her place most days to share the load -- which includes caring for twin five year old grandchildren several days a week, and two dogs, four cats, a two bedroom cottage and extensive flower gardens, 24-7.

As I've kept moving to help out, most of my usual routines, other than sitting with the Mindfulness Circles and MMM have dissolved.  Even my usually rock solid, one hour daily morning meditation, a practice that I had sustained for years, dissolved substantially to be replaced by hours in a car commuting hither and yon.  (I'd grab 20 or 30 minutes when I was lucky.)  Rather than sit with others most weekdays at noon for a half hour with #OMG! (#Occupy Meditation Group!) Peace Presence*, I was lucky to sit one or two days a week.  More often, I was an hour away at that time of day, picking up the twins from pre-school  -- or at the supermarket.  

In the midst of all this activity, my carefully cultivated Napping Practice disintegrated entirely!

Although, for the most part, I was actually enjoying the action, feeling quite vital and useful, as I sat at the computer that day, I was feeling quite stormy and out of sorts.
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