It is found in those moments when I am entirely aware… aware of my breath, aware of this present moment, and all that fills this moment… its sounds and its fragrances and even its interruptions. The way it feels right now. The way you feel right now.
Meditation is found when you walk through the forest and you are totally aware of the birdsong in the distance, and the breeze on your face. It is found in the changing light and the moisture in the air.
It is also found in the most ordinary of tasks… such as while washing dishes. It happens in those moments when we don’t mind what we are doing. Because when we mind, we are in a state of resistance and in resistance, we are separated from the moment. And so it happens when we aren’t running commentary in our head about the chore of doing dishes, or what we’re going to get up to as soon as we finish the dishes. We’re just doing the dishes.
In this way, meditation is not limited to the cushion or the Yoga mat. It is active as much as it is still. Similarly, it is exhilarating as much as it is calm.
There is splendor all around. While walking through the forest, or along an ocean’s shore, or through the middle of a sandy desert… inwardly take in the aliveness of your senses as you fully experience your experience.
Notice the water on your toes and the thrilling current this sensation sends through your body… feel how your nervous system comes alive! Notice the way your breath changes with this feeling. Stay with your breath…embrace this feeling and this moment, wholly… this is meditation.
In these moments of full and conscious participation in our moment, whatever kind of moment it happens to be, we are enraptured by a kind of knowing. But we don’t know what it is we know because it is not a factual kind of knowledge. It is not a mental kind of knowledge at all. It is rather, the spirit’s recognition of something that lies beyond the trials and tribulations of the material world.
In this experience of conscious awareness, the spirit recognizes that it has come home. It has, through the simple gesture of presence, joined in union with God. And by God, I simply mean that which is sweeter than bodily comforts. That which is infinitely more comforting than all the other creature comforts that we chase after most of the time. I mean that which feels unmistakably like refuge. This is what the spirit knows. It knows it has found sanctuary.
And in these moments, we are instantly delivered from our angst. We are liberated from our preoccupations with trivial concerns. Our fears and our anger dissipate as we begin to identify with the timelessness of the soul. Our material needs are reduced to incomprehensible chatter, like smoke dissolving into the sky… into distant nothingness. As we fall with delight into the arms of the infinite. And here, in this moment… everything is as it should be.
