BEING IN TOUCH
We have to be in touch with the present moment, the wonderful life that is present in us and around us. The birds sing. The wind soughs in the leaves of the pine. If we’re not in touch, our life is wasted. When we’re in touch, we’re nourished and we’re transformed. Being in touch also means being in touch with the suffering—in our own body and our own person, in our environment, in our family, and in our society. Getting in touch with suffering, we’ll know what we need to do to transform it.
On one hand, we need to be in touch with what is wonderful because that will nourish us. And on the other hand, we have to be in touch with our suffering so that we can understand, love, and transform.
POWERFUL THOUGHTS
As soon as you produce a thought, it will have an impact on your body, on your mind, and on the world. It will have an impact on your physical and mental health. A thought of compassion, understanding, nondiscrimination, or joy always helps our body and mind to heal. Thoughts and words of hatred, fear, or despair always have a harmful impact on our physical and mental health. Thoughts have the power to heal or to destroy. You can heal yourself just by thinking and speaking. Mindfulness helps us recognize the nature of our thoughts, speech, and actions.
BEING AWARE OF WHAT WE’RE DOING
To be mindful is to be truly present with your body and your mind, to bring harmony to your intentions and actions, and to be in harmony with those around you. We don’t need to make a separate time for this outside of our daily activities. Mindfulness is the continuous practice of touching deeply every moment of daily life. We can practice mindfulness in the kitchen, the toilet, in our bedroom, and as we’re going from one place to another. We can carry mindfulness with us as we wash the dishes, take a morning shower, or drive the car. We can do the same things we always do—walking, sitting, working, eating, and so on—with mindful awareness of what we’re doing. Our mind is with our actions.
THE CAPACITY TO REST AND DO NOTHING
We would all like to have the time to sit and appreciate the stillness that comes from doing nothing. But if we were given the time, would we be able to be still and quiet? That is the problem with many of us. We complain that we don’t have the time to rest, to enjoy being there. But we’re used to always doing something. We have no capacity to rest and do nothing. We are workaholics. That is why learning how to be right where we are without doing anything is a very important practice. It’s also a very challenging one.
LIFE IS PRESENT
A function of mindfulness is recognizing that life is already here. You can have real contact with life and make it meaningful and deep. When you are present, life is also present. Suppose you’re watching a beautiful sunset with a group of people. Many of them are concentrating on the wonders of the sunset and contemplating them. But maybe one or two people, obsessed by their worries and fears, aren’t really present. For them, the beautiful sunset isn’t available as it is to the other people in the group. When you are truly present, life is also present. We have an appointment with life in the present moment. We have to be present in this moment so we don’t miss our appointment.
OUR IDEA OF HAPPINESS
Each of us is caught in an idea of happiness. We believe that we’ll be truly happy when certain conditions are fulfilled. We don’t realize that this idea is an obstacle to our true happiness. If we can release our idea of happiness, true happiness is born in us right away. We set up conditions for our happiness and become trapped. Happiness can come to us at any time if we’re free. Why do we commit ourselves to only one idea of happiness? If we let go of that idea, happiness will come to us from every direction.
THE WILLINGNESS TO STOP ISN’T THE SAME AS STOPPING
You cannot stop just because you want to stop. The willingness to stop isn’t the same as stopping. You need to have some insight to really stop. It’s like relaxation—every one of us knows that relaxation is good for us. The tension in your body has been accumulating for a long time, and you want to relieve it. You have the desire to release the tension, and you try to do it, but you cannot because the willingness to relax isn’t relaxation. You need to have some insight to relax and release the tension.
DON’T KILL TIME
Every second of life is filled with precious jewels. Those jewels are our awareness of the sky, the earth, the trees, the hills, the rivers, the oceans, and all the miracles around us. We don’t want to kill time. We want to profit as much as we can from the time that is given us to live. Each morning when we wake up to life, we see that we have a gift of a brand-new twenty-four hours. If we have mindfulness, concentration, and insight, we can live those twenty-four hours fully and joyfully. In twenty-four hours, we can generate the energy of understanding and compassion that will benefit ourselves, our planet, and each person we come into contact with.
A STATE OF ONENESS
When you spend two hours with your computer, you may forget entirely that you have a body. And when your mind isn’t with your body, you cannot be truly alive; you’re lost in your work, in your worry, your fear, and your projects. By breathing in mindfully and bringing the mind home to the body, we become fully alive. When we bring our mind home to our body, our mind becomes one with our body. Our body becomes a mindful body, and our mind becomes an embodied mind. This state of oneness of body and mind allows us to get back in touch with the wonders of life, and our body is the first wonder of life that we encounter.
SIT LIKE A MOUNTAIN
Meditation isn’t for avoiding problems or running away from difficulties. We don’t practice escaping. We practice so that we have enough strength to confront problems effectively. To do this, we must be calm, fresh, and solid. That is why we need to practice the art of stopping. When we learn to stop, we become calmer, and our mind becomes clearer, like clear water after the particles of mud have settled. Sitting quietly, just breathing in and out, we develop strength, concentration, and clarity. So sit like a mountain. No wind can blow the mountain down. If you can sit for half an hour, enjoy sitting for half an hour. If you can sit for a few minutes, enjoy sitting for a few minutes. That is already good.
THAT’S ALL IT TAKES
We all know how to sit and how to breathe. That’s all we have to do. After only a few moments of concentrating on our breathing, we can bring peace and calm to our body and mind. We only need to pay attention to our in-breath and out-breath. Focus on that. That’s all it takes to begin to calm the agitation in your mind and body. You only need to dwell peacefully in your in-breath and out-breath for a short while, and you will begin to restore stability and peace within yourself.