An Invitation Into The Peace Of The Present Moment

This track is an invitation to explore the beauty of the present moment. To stop the rush and to settle into the now. It begins with a discussion of the benefits of finding opportunities to meditate through out the day and then goes into a mindful story. Join me on a journey towards the peace of the present moment and embrace the beauty that is all around us.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through your mouth.

This session isn't a traditional meditation session.

I won't be guiding you through a specific meditation but rather I will be offering you or inviting you to find,

Create and embody your own meditations.

You can discover ways to access mindfulness throughout each and every day.

Life,

Reality,

Presence,

This moment,

Opportunities for mindfulness are abundant and always there and it's easy to get caught up in a mindset of structured and formal practice.

One in which you sit in silence focused on the breath or another meditation object or one where you need the guidance of a instructor or a track to keep you on point,

To keep you focused and indeed to make it feel like you've meditated.

But just in the same way as exercise can be done formally,

It can also be done informally or as a process of everyday life.

Walking is exercise,

Playing is exercise,

Anytime you move your body you're exercising.

And one of the best ways to get fit is to do just that,

Find more ways to move your body.

So drawing upon that analogy I'm going to share with you some ways that you can access mindfulness throughout the day,

Throughout your life in a more natural and flowing and harmonious way.

Ways that you can access mindfulness without needing the formal authority of a session from a guided instructor or the rigidity of your formal meditation practice.

Do both,

Do it all.

Move your body and sit,

Move your body and be mindful.

The idea of this came to me when I was walking on a beach.

I was walking from an airport to a shopping center and I could take the road or I could take the beach and of course I took the ladder.

As I approached the beach I slipped my shoes off and put my feet onto the hot sand and it was quite hot and I pulled back and almost changed my mind but in that moment of intense heat,

The shock of the moment drew my clear and undivided attention to the almost painful sensations that I was feeling and a little light bulb went off.

I recognized that that walk across the hot sand to the beach to the water is an opportunity for mindfulness,

For an embrace of the present moment,

To let go of all other thoughts and pretensions and contexts and just be,

Be with my feet and the sun and the sand and the sound of the water crashing against the shore.

So I took a breath and walked and just felt my body and as I got close to the ocean I felt a sense of lightness,

Of freedom and fully felt the release and the coolness of the water as I gently entered its embrace and then I began my walk.

30 minutes walking with the waves lapping at my feet and I spotted a beautiful pebble,

Beautiful little stone glistening as the water just gently rocked it back and forwards and I was entranced by its beauty.

I've got it here now,

It's a pitch black stone with divots and lines that sort of look like nature's fingerprints all through it,

Interspersed with lines of gold and yellow crisscrossing its surface.

It was shiny and the water illuminated it in a beautiful moment of mindful serenity.

I picked up the rock and felt it and looked at it and was holding it and squeezing it,

Just being with this stone,

This rock,

This pebble that I happened to stumble across and in that moment I recognized the potential for this talk.

Bag of stones,

Meditating upon a bag of stones.

I picked it up and as I was walking I allowed myself to be drawn to different stones as I came across their path,

Big ones,

Small ones,

Different shapes,

Different colors,

Different textures and I picked them up,

Held them for a little bit and felt if there was a resonance and by the end of my walk I had a small bag of maybe 30 little stones,

30 stones that I can mindfully feel,

Squeeze when stressed,

That I can move and listen to the sounds of,

That I can mindfully sort and process,

That I can stack,

That I can engage with in any number of meditative ways.

Yes,

On the surface it's just a bag of stones,

Commonplace,

So common as to be easily ignorable,

Almost mundane but they were a tool.

The act of collecting was a meditation,

The act of describing them now to you is a meditation and I can use them as a meditative tool with myself,

With my children,

With other people.

Pick a stone,

Observe it,

Feel it,

Hold it,

Smell it,

Listen to them jingle.

As I went for my trip and my walk I sat down to just breathe and as I was sitting down to breathe in the corner of my eye I saw a little scurry,

A little bit of movement and I looked up and I saw a lizard,

And I saw a lizard,

Its body the size of my hands and its tail that size again.

I looked at it and it looked at me and in that moment I found a sense of connection to the wider natural world.

The inner noise died down to be replaced by the noise of nature,

The ocean,

The gentle hum of conversations,

Birds,

Traffic in the background,

Wind in the trees,

All of these little noises that I wasn't aware of until I stopped and listened and looked and felt and that lizard came up to me and closer and closer and I realized it was hunting and I watched as it deftly grabbed an unseen bug out of the ground just in front of me and then ran off to enjoy its meal.

I moved on,

I walked a little further and found a tree and began practicing some Tai Chi.

This is movement meditation,

This is breath work,

This is connecting the mind and the body and the spirit in one.

As I breathed myself through the movements I felt everything calming even more.

And a connection of my heart to the world.

As the people on the beach and on the walkways passed,

My heart and theirs intimately connected.

I wished them well,

May they be free of ill-will,

May they be free of suffering,

May they be full of loving-kindness,

May they be happy.

And then I sat down under that tree and watched the grass move gently in the wind.

It swayed,

It flowed,

It moved,

An intimate individual dance like thousands of fingers tickling the world,

Like thousands of fingers tickling the world.

And I watched and observed that this was happening.

And always is happening,

Yet for the most part I'm unaware.

And I just watched and became entranced in the movement of the grass in the wind.

I took a breath and then I took another and I took a third and I became intimately aware of the delicate perfume,

Of the smell,

Of the tree that I was leaning against.

I don't know what type of tree it was,

But it had an earthly scent.

A scent that,

When contrasted and complemented by the gentle wafting from the ocean,

Felt like home,

Felt like peace,

Felt like nature.

A natural embodiment of where and when I should be.

And I sat there in the sensorium that was given to me,

The wind upon my skin,

The gentle movement of the sun through the shade of the trees,

The vision coming to my eyes of the grass dancing in the wind,

The smell of the trees and of the ocean,

And of the sounds of nature and humanity all moving through me.

And in that moment,

The rocks,

The bag of stones in my pocket,

The feeling of my breath.

And in that moment,

There was nothing of me left.

I was the moment.

I was consciousness.

I was the paper upon which things were written.

I was the pause between the breath,

The connection between souls.

I was at that moment,

And the next,

And the one after that.

Thoughts came,

And they passed.

Feelings came,

And they passed.

Moments came,

And moments passed.

And I just sat and observed reality as it was for what it was right then,

In that moment.

No judgements,

No filters,

Just acceptance.

So with this,

I invite you,

I invite you right now to sit for the next few minutes,

And just be.

Listen with me to the sounds that arise,

And just listen more.

Feel the feelings that are arising,

Letting them come,

Letting them go.

The thoughts,

The smells,

The tastes,

Just acceptance,

Just a noticing,

Just a being,

And just allowing it all to happen.

Let's take a slow,

Calm breath,

In through the nose,

And out through the mouth.

And let's sit together for a few minutes,

For a few minutes,

In and as this moment.