Park benches can be a great place to take a moment to be still, to regroup, settle and then move on. There is always a place to sit however making the time to do that is not so easy. Deciding to stop at a bench, or wall, to sit4amo while on a mission is a huge ask of oneself. Walking has a momentum, missions have a press to complete, arriving on time is important.
I’m finding the pre-arrangement to sit at 5.00 pm each day this month a great help. I know that I am committed to stop then and even if it’s just one minute that’s fine. The momentum of activity and the press to finish a task are eclipsed by my greater intention to simply stop.
See Meditation Mantra – #still4amo for background information.
Julius who sends in links quite regularly told me he is going to be on retreat for a month, starting 5.00 pm Sunday. That’s today. It’s not going to be an up-the-hill and off-grid kind of retreat. More carrying on daily life with work and the rest and at the same time injecting some serious intention to sit regularly, twice a day. When somebody does this I like to support them by adding more purposeful moments of sitting still in my day. Thus my still4amo mantra to remind me to – sit still for a moment! Literally. Want to join us?
I have my alarm set for 16.50 GMT to warn me to pull over if I am driving or simply find a place to sit. A bench in the street if necessary. I will then be sitting-for-a-mo at 5.00 GMT, one minute to be exact, in support of Julius’s efforts. Please join us and leave a comment if you plan to be still4amo. If 5.00 pm doesn’t work, choose another time. Commitment and intention go a long way, collective commitment and intention goes even further.
It is thought to be helpful to meditate in the presence of others doing the same thing. If one can’t sit with a group then meditating at a time when others are meditating is a good idea. In the monastery here in Britain there is a meditation period at 8.10 pm for 40 mins. I know some people aim to sit formally at that time too.
Watch Moment Meditation for inspiration.
Gladly I bumped into this video with its charming line drawings and gentle and rather good instructions. It is a skillful teaching to do with understanding that meditation is every moment. The instruction given in the video is to start with a purposeful one minute of meditation. Through practicing that you get to know what moment-to-moment meditations is. It is an interesting approach to making this point.
Hat tip to Mia for linking to this video.
Mud mud glorious mud! There is a lot of it about. In the woodlands, fields and paths where I walk each morning there’s lots of mud and much opportunity. Mud and wet paths can be an opportunity to complain, to struggle through and long for drier weather. Complaining at ones lot and wishing it to be otherwise is a very common habit. Bending my knees, camera in hand, to view the path from a different angle it was transformed. The sky reflected in the puddles, the texture and the going on-ness of the path. Now I am wondering how it would be viewed from above. But no! I am not going to climb trees to find out.
It is hard to conceive when life seems to be doing it to us in harsh and mucky ways that how we view life is a choice. And choice changes with conditions, over time.
Here is somebody reflecting on what she does and finding beauty in it.
The job I am doing at the moment allows me to express in abundance kindness, gentleness, tenderness, compassion in a way that my ‘career’ job never did (or at least made very difficult.) And the spin off for me is huge. It feels as if what I am able to express comes directly back to me in some sort of circle of energy. I have the privilege, for a couple of hours a day, of caring for a lady who is close to death, supporting her and her husband, washing her, sitting with her while he goes out, talking with her about anything and everything, including her dying, sitting quietly beside her while she sleeps, holding the cup while she drinks tea, smoothing cream into her body, massaging her feet. It’s sad and moving, but it is also almost unbearably lovely and an incredible privilege.