Concentration

AA wrote: Thank you Sabina! and thank you for sending me all reminders how to be more conscious in this stressed reality. Wish you a great summer. 

« If we are concentrated, life is deep, and we have more joy and stability. « 

                                                                 Thich Nhat Hanh

We can call it what we want: concentration, awareness, or mindfulness – it’s all about being right Here, right Now. It’s about being there for Life.

I write, and I think of nothing else. My hand moves the pen over the paper, forming words and sentences, sent out from my mind. Nothing else enters my mind at this very moment, and if thoughts about today’s dinner or my mother’s health condition claim for attention, I just gently let them go. 

Why is there this resistance to living life mindfully, to be fully concentrated and just do one thing at a time? 

Of course, there is pure forgetfulness. But I must admit, that sometimes I just want to indulge in the play of thoughts in my head, in their coming and going, in the surprises they serve me. The uncontrolled mind is like a great sorcerer, and it’s so easy to become enchanted by its tricks. However, there is a price to pay: he beckons me away from Life. I am no longer just right Here, right Now, and that’s the only moment that Life is available.

Let’s break this spell. Life itself, in this very moment, has much more exciting surprises in stock for us then the sorcerer called Our Uncontrolled Mind. 

Let’s get in charge of our own minds again, and come back to Life. 

Changing Habits

AA wrote: Tack för dessa ord. Ska se vad jag kan ändra på i dag. Det kanske blir en kedjereaktion, om man börjar med det lilla så sätts kanske ”stenen i rullning”.

 “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

                                                                Samuel Johnson

We tend to get quite stuck in our habits, and become very unsettled when Life forces us to change them. Why not train in becoming a little more flexible!

You can question your habits and ways of seeing things with questions, like “Why do I go to work this morning?”, ”Why do I always were jeans and never a skirt to work?”, “Why do I go to the pub with George every Tuesday night?”, “Why don’t I try another hair dresser?”

This week, let’s change some habits! If, when going up stairs, you normally start with the right foot, try the left one. Instead of doing morning exercises you do them in the evening.  Skip your morning coffee, and have a cup of green tea instead! At lunchtime, don’t go to the canteen, but bring your own sandwiches, prepared with love by yourself.

And then see what these little changes bring about… ;-)

Orange Meditation

Orange Meditation

”Take the time to eat an orange in mindfulness. If you eat an orange in forgetfulness, caught in your anxiety and sorrow, the orange is not really there. But if you bring your mind and body together to produce true presence, you can see that the orange is a miracle. Peel the orange. Smell the fruit. See the orange blossoms in the orange, and the rain and the sun that have gone through the orange blossoms. The orange tree has taken several months to bring this wonder to you. Put a section in your mouth, close your mouth mindfully, and with mindfulness feel the juice coming out of the orange. Taste the sweetness. Do you have the time to do so? If you think you don’t have the time to eat an orange like this, what are you using that time for? Are you using your time to worry, or using your time to live?”

                                                   Thich Nhat Hanh, Shambala Sun, May 2008 

             

There’s really nothing more to add.
Enjoy your orange! :-)