Saturday Stories
February 2, 2019
I
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh once said: "Mindfulness helps you go home to the present, and every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes." I first knew him in "The Monks and Me," the memoir of a yoga teacher of her forty-day retreat in a Buddhist temple which I've read three years ago. It inspired me to focus on the present, to be fully aware of my breathing, to be totally absorbed in what I'm doing.
II
I always remind myself to practice mindfulness, though I've trained myself to multitask. I made it a point to be intent while I was polishing our kitchen and bathroom tiles last weekend, or while reading Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Miracle of Mindfulness" three weeks ago. "In mindfulness," he writes, "one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake." Meditation is "a serene encounter with reality."
III
Mindfulness, this kind of moving meditation, is the most precious lesson I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh. I also love the one about the flower. A flower has been nourished by the sunlight, the soil and the air. And when you pick up a flower, you also hold in your hands the sunlight, the soil and the air. It is an illuminating way to truly see how everything is connected.
IV
I was on a bus on the way out of the city just recently. I'd been looking at the passing landscape of the countryside, not thinking of anything in particular. My mind was (and still is) quiet. I value those moments when I can hear my own thoughts. I looked back at my entire life, and I felt tremendous gratitude about how things turned out the way they did. And then I had an epiphany – the best times in my life were those when I was fully present, with no other thought than the Moment.
Photo courtesy of AbeBooks
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