With my half marathon to train for I managed to keep running regularly through winter this year. I would head out in the dark and snow often at below zero temperatures. While my weekend runs were often exhilarating, my weekday runs were much harder. I didn’t feel secure running in the dark before work so I would run in the evenings at the local athletics track which was flood-lit. Even though running around in circles got awfully monotonous at times, I knew I was lucky to have access to a safe place to run in the dark. For me it was a hundred times better than being stuck on an indoor treadmill.
As much as I was thankful to have access to the athletics track, I longed to run in daylight and kinder temperatures. I kept telling myself that this year I would truly appreciate the light mornings and long summer evenings when they finally arrived; days when I would have the luxury of choosing to run early in the morning or late into the evening. For months I checked the sunrise and sunset times eagerly witnessing the addition of extra daylight minutes each week.
And now these longed-for light filled days have finally arrived! Strangely, after months of waiting, it almost seems as if it has happened overnight. Our little garden is suddenly in full bloom and the trees seem to get leafier each day. Each time I lace up my running shoes this summer I will try to remember to appreciate these gloriously long, light, warm days. Long may they last.
*I recently discovered Susan Cain’s wonderful TED talk ‘The Power of Introverts’. If you haven’t already seen it I highly recommend it.
I recently watched a lovely short video in which Hailey, the founder of the 365 Grateful project, talks about how she found her way out of a difficult period in her life by taking time every day to find something she could be genuinely grateful for. She began documenting her journey of gratitude through photography and in the process inspired others to embark on their own journeys of gratitude. I particularly loved what Hailey said about her husband. Having always assumed that he just wasn’t really the romantic type, a whole world of romance revealed itself to her as she began to notice her husband’s small but loving everyday gestures. Practising gratitude helped Hailey realise just how much love she had in her life.
Not long after watching Hailey’s video, I discovered a post on the Brain Pickings blog about Charles M. Schulz’s (creator of the beloved Peanuts characters Snoopy and Charlie Brown) small book ‘Love is Walking Hand in Hand’. I was a huge Peanuts fan as a child, and it was a treat to rediscover this touching yet profound book, originally published in 1965, which defines love through the simple acts and moments of everyday life. It is another reminder to take the time to notice and appreciate the tender moments in life that we can too easily take for granted.
Speaking of love, it seems appropriate to share the following letter in which John Steinbeck, author of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, responds to a letter from his eldest son. His son had written from boarding school to tell his parents about a girl, Susan, that he had fallen in love with.
New York
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom,
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
(Letter extracted from the wonderful website Letters of Note)
My mother recently gave me a book called ‘Your True Home – The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh’. It is a lovely little book that is calming to read; calming even just to hold in my hands. I have been dipping into it this evening and I wanted to share the following insight.
“All of us are only human, and we have wrong perceptions everyday. Our spouse or partner is also subject to wrong perceptions, so we must help each other to see more clearly and more deeply. We should not trust our perceptions too much – that is something the Buddha taught. “Are you sure of your perceptions?” he asked us. I urge you to write this phrase down on a card and put it up on the wall of your room: “Are you sure of your perceptions?”
There is a river of perceptions in you. You should sit down on the bank of this river and contemplate your perceptions. Most of our perceptions, the Buddha said, are false. Are you sure of your perceptions? This questions is addressed to you. It is a bell of mindfulness.”
Fast forward twelve hours… No sooner had I typed this passage, I knocked a glass of water all over the keypad of my laptop. Argh, so much for calm and mindfulness!! My laptop proceeded to turn itself on and off over the next few hours before finally going completely quiet. Not a good sign. I have an appointment with a technician at the Apple store tonight so I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the situation can be salvaged.
Waking up this morning I remembered the words I had typed out moments before my peaceful evening was ruined. Last night my perception of events was that this was a complete and utter disaster. Today, however, with the help of Thich Nhat Hanh’s words I can see that, even though it’s still incredibly annoying, potentially very expensive and confronting to realise how reliant I now am on technology, it’s actually an annoying mishap as opposed to a complete disaster. It is only a machine after all. A very useful, helpful and pretty machine but a machine just the same.
A friend of mine recently emailed me the following passage. I believe that it has been circulated widely so you may well have read it before.
“A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the boy stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people.
In a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”
You can watch the video or read the original article about the experiment as published in the Washington Post here.
After I read this story I started to reflect on a ten-day silent meditation retreat that I went on at the end of 2008 in Herefordshire, England. No reading or writing materials, music devices or mobile phones were allowed. Nor were participants allowed to speak or engage in any form of non-verbal communication. Asking the teacher for assistance if it was required was acceptable but otherwise each day was spent in complete silence. Needless to say, other forms of stimulation such as caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes were also strictly prohibited.
Waking at 4am, we practiced around ten hours of meditation each day. We received instructions from our teacher at various times throughout the day and each evening we listened to a recorded lecture. These were the only forms of external stimulation that we received. The first 2-3 days were spent focusing entirely on our breathe while the remaining days we practiced a meditation technique which encourages awareness of sensations in the body that you would never normally be aware of.
The first few days were hell! I had terrible headaches and strange dreams, I battled boredom and frustration and I even fainted during the first meditation session. However, despite it being one of the most challenging things I have ever done, it also turned out to be one of the most rewarding.
Every day around lunchtime we had an hour free. During the first few days I would retreat to my bed out of sheer exhaustion (meditation on this scale is surprisingly tiring). Towards the end of the retreat, however, I started to use this time to walk around the grounds, along a little dirt track through the woods. During those walks I found myself paying meticulous attention to my surroundings. I started to take a child-like delight in all I saw. As if for the first time, I saw just how extraordinarily beautiful the sky is, the clouds, trees, leaves, spider webs, puddles, insects… During the meditation sessions also, I began to notice that my mind was becoming less easily distracted and that I was more attuned to what was happening within my body.
The experience showed me first hand just how much we really do miss during the course of our daily lives. It is not easy to reconcile the demands of our lives with an ability to pay attention to, and really appreciate, the wonder that exists all around us. I am convinced, however, that regular meditation, or even taking the time to simply stop and breathe, helps.
Over the weekend I stumbled across an interview with Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh in which he speaks about the connection between mindfulness and eating . I found his response to a question about the role of mindfulness in his everyday life very moving. He said this -
“Mindfulness makes life beautiful and meaningful. When I am mindful of my in-and-out breath and relax my whole body, I am in touch with how good it is to be alive. I am in touch with my state of health and feel grateful for everything that is going well in my body. Then with mindfulness I can be aware of the beauty of the sky, the smile of the flower, the singing of the birds. I can be deeply in touch with my own suffering and hold it with love and tenderness, rather than suppressing it or running from it. Because I can be truly present for myself, I can be truly present for those I live with, listening deeply to them and speaking words that inspire hope and self-confidence. In this way, I can bring joy to someone each morning and relieve the pain of someone each afternoon.”
What exactly is ‘mindfulness’? In his book ‘The Miracle of Mindfulness’ Thich Nhat Hanh uses the term ‘mindfulness’ to refer to “keeping one’s consciousness alive to the present reality”. He emphasises the importance of practising mindfulness, not only during sitting meditation sessions, but in daily life. He gives the example of practising mindfulness when talking a walk by keeping alive the thought ‘In this present moment I am walking’. Remaining mindful while walking could also involve noticing the sensations in your body as you walk, the sound and feeling of your feet as they strike the ground or the rhythm of your breath. He gives many other examples of how we can practise mindfulness in our daily lives. When washing the dishes trying to remain aware that in that moment you are washing the dishes – really paying attention to what you are doing rather than thinking about an unresolved issue at work or what you are keen to get on with as soon as the dishes are done; when drinking a cup of tea remaining mindful and appreciative of the delicious hot tea as you drink it; when brushing your teeth being really aware that that is what you are doing rather than drifting off with your thoughts. Daily acts such as these present us with an opportunity to practice mindfulness.
Of course, all of this is easier said than done! It sounds so simple and yet I find practicing mindfulness in my daily life incredibly difficult. Even when I remember to practice mindfulness I find sustaining it very challenging. I suppose this indicates just how important it is for me to keep at it, especially at this time of year which can so easily build into a frenzy of stress and busyness.
Do you practice mindfulness in your daily life? Next time you eat an apple why not try Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Apple Meditation’.
About a year ago I came across a short video about gratefulness narrated by Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk and author. It is only a few minutes long, however by the time I had finished watching it, much to … Continue reading →
