Reminder

A Soft and Gentle Light ... Let It Be ... A Soft and Gentle Reminder -- February 2020, Kailua, HI, iPhone 11 Pro

A Soft and Gentle Reminder

In honor of Thich Nhat Hanh

I set up a meditation bell

Using his Plum Village app

Such that, every so often

It rings its soft and gentle chime 

To bring me back to the present moment

Actually, it doesn’t bring me back

It softly, and gently, reminds me

Such that I may choose

To stop and to breathe and to Be

Soft and gentle, mindful and present

Magically transported to the Now

To witness that alchemic change 

From a contracted and tense ego

To something soft and gentle, in an instant

It's really quite magical

Some might even say, miraculous

And here’s another benefit

I'm finding it quite astonishing 

Just how fast my life is flowing past me

When I’m not fully present

So how would you like to spend

Your one luminous Life?

Would you like a soft and gentle reminder?

What is this? Quite simply ...

Calligraphy by Vietnamese Buddhist monk and author, Thich Nhat Hanh

I came across an article from the online version of Lion's Roar magazine.  I really love the simple, yet deeply profound writing of Thich Nhat Hanh.  He has been such a luminary for our time.  Here are some sections that spoke to me:

Our true home is not in the past. Our true home is not in the future. Our true home is in the here and the now. Life is available only in the here and the now, and it is our true home.

Mindfulness is the energy that helps us recognize the conditions of happiness that are already present in our lives. You don’t have to wait ten years to experience this happiness. It is present in every moment of your daily life. There are those of us who are alive but don’t know it. But when you breathe in, and you are aware of your in-breath, you touch the miracle of being alive. That is why mindfulness is a source of happiness and joy.

We spend so much of our mental energy and thinking mind focused on the past and the future.  And yet we can, if we choose to, drop the thinking mind to be fully alive and experience the world, as it is, right here, right now.  And only in the here and now.

Most people are forgetful; they are not really there a lot of the time. Their mind is caught in their worries, their fears, their anger, and their regrets, and they are not mindful of being there. That state of being is called forgetfulness—you are there but you are not there. You are caught in the past or in the future. You are not there in the present moment, living your life deeply. That is forgetfulness.

The opposite of forgetfulness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is when you are truly there, mind and body together. You breathe in and out mindfully, you bring your mind back to your body, and you are there. When your mind is there with your body, you are established in the present moment. Then you can recognize the many conditions of happiness that are in you and around you, and happiness just comes naturally.

 This is really so.  I find it is often easiest to experience this way of living when we are connected to the natural world, experiencing the animals, realizing the dance of life all around us, and seeing everything as interconnected (literally).  It is Spring now as I am writing this, and to witness the rebirth of plants and trees and animals that had been dormant or hibernating -- is really awe-inspiring -- something you "feel" rather than "think about".  Hence the connection with your body; itself an integral part of nature's unfolding.

The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Caricature

Caricature, Tokyo, Japan, February 2007, Nikon D40 with 18-200mm VR lens, Focal length 82mm, Exposure 1/5 sec @ f5.3, ISO 200, no flash © Steven Crisp [Click on the photo to enlarge]

Caricatures are interesting, don't you think? And they can be quite fun and entertaining as well -- perhaps you've had one drawn of you or someone in your family.

Of course, we understand what we are seeing here. The good ones are recognizable likenesses of the subject, but usually with many of their least flattering features exaggerated for comic effect. It can be a good laugh. Or it can sometimes hurt a bit, if the subject lacks self confidence.

And so we have the Virginia Tech massacre, and the media frenzy. I mean, really, have you seen anything like it? No, no, I don't mean the tragedy. I mean the media.

Some of you may know that I don't watch TV, don't listen to talk radio, and I don't read the newspaper or weekly news magazines. Ohmigosh, how will I ever know what is going on in the world? Well here is my secret. I subscribe to two free news summaries over the internet (CNN and NYTimes). I receive daily headlines and editorials. Based on the headlines, I decide if an article might be worth reading. Perhaps you can guess that I don't read very many of them.

So yes, I did know about the shooting. But that is all I really needed to know. I could easily predict the media frenzy.

In the comments section of a recent post regarding Attention, an anonymous commenter from the other side of the planet and I veered into this topic area. Feel free to check out that dialog if you like. It is where I realized that what we are seeing on the media is simply that: a caricature of American life, intentionally designed to exaggerate our least flattering features.

[D]o not become trapped. This is NOT America, nor the world. This is a caricature drawn for a single purpose: to titilate, to stimulate, to profit. There is no accuracy to the picture. You know that in your heart. Your experiences tell you that as well. But the infernal drumbeat looking to steal your attention will continue. Just turn it off. That is your choice.

OK, so you know my bias. But what on earth is my point?

Just this: Life as told to you by another person is nothing but a concept. There is nothing real about it. You are distorting what you've been told with your own biases, just as that person distorted his perceptions when forming them into concepts and words. This may be intentional (like much of the media) or not (like a friend trying to make you understand their perspective).

But either way, it is not reality. What you must do is find for yourself your own reality. You must directly experience life, and come to a deeply resonant internal "knowing". Some would call this a mystical experience. Again, this is but another concept, which surely means something different to you than it does to me.

And when I look with mindful attention, when I am present and deeply aware of my surroundings, I can see the pain and the suffering in the world, and I can try to be fully present for it. But I can also see the compassion and the joy, and I can try to be present for that as well. And when I am mindful, I keep noticing beauty and safety and kindness and compassion all around me.

So let's not report on what others see. Let us describe our own experiences.

Let a thousand individual voices create the harmony that reduces the media drumbeat to mere background noise. Which your mind is designed to naturally filter out. Until it might as well no longer exist.

When you see the caricature painted by the media, and the frenzy of talking heads feeding at the trough of sorrow, throw back your head and laugh. It is tragic comedy, not reality. The suffering for the families of the victims, and the family of the killer are real. We can be present for that. Respectful of that. And offer them our love and forgiveness. And one act we can take to help heal our worldly family in this time of sorrow, is to turn off the TV. Just turn it off. Be present for your own family. And begin your own journey of awakening to real life.