Many
of you are probably further along in this understanding of now and being present
as Tolle talks about. I'm a late comer to his teachings, and so glad that I
decided to finally open the book and begin.
I
had the book for a long time and didn't open it because I already thought I knew
what it was going to say. I was wrong. I thought I knew what being in the now
meant and I thought I understood it. I was wrong. Intellectually, I sort of got
it, but that's like so much learning where you can know it enough to repeat it,
yet have so little understanding of it and its depth of meaning, and finally how
to use it so that the learning of it matters.
I
am in the beginning; however, here's what I've learned about living in the
moment, paying attention to now so far. It is not the complete quieting of the
mind as is attempted in meditation, it is stopping the egoic mind, or the
constant scenarios, as I call it, of the mental ramblings and predictions that
we often go through, more often than not without even paying attention to it. My
mind is wondering what someone will say about this, do about that, how they will
feel about what I'm doing, and on and on it goes almost without end--at least
that's the constant scenarios thought process.
Lately,
I decide to take control and just tell my mind to stop! Then I look around and
pay attention to what is around me. I might think, 'that's an interesting tree!
or look at that bird, or what fascinating clouds,' or if I were with a person, I
would just pay attention to them and avoid any internal conversations so I can
focus on them. This is so foreign to me and requires that I be in charge of my
mind so that I can be in the now, and recognize the moments.
A
couple of days ago, I went for a walk. It was spring-like conditions and the
cloud formations in the sky were spectacular. There was a breeze, but it looked
like the winds aloft were much greater because the clouds were moving as I
watched them, and they were constantly changing. I saw a big white bird catching
a thermal and circling upward. I never saw a bird go so high. He completely went
up and out of my sight. Then two hawk-like birds came in and used the same
thermal and they went out of sight as well. I've seen lots of birds doing that,
but never to those heights. I was fascinated about everything that was all
around me and I was present without my constant scenario mind worrying about
what I should be doing, wasn't doing, could be doing, and well. . . you
know--meaningless junk.
It
was from Tolle that I learned to make use of this technique about just noticing
what was going on around me and maybe being silent, or commenting to myself
like, 'oh, that's interesting. . .' and such. I am using it every day many times
during the day to bring myself back to the present. And I'm loving the calming
effect of it on my mind and
body.
No comments:
Post a Comment