One of my goals this summer has been to live mindfully. To enjoy each day and each moment as it comes. Life is really in the present moment. It is not in what we project nor in the past we have already lived. Only the present moment is what matters. We live and die in the present moment. Yet, all around us we are encourage to live otherwise. I have not been completely successful as you might have imagined with my goal, but I do come back to it from time to time over the summer. My recent trip to St. Francis Inn in Philadelphia, Pa. was an experience in mindfulness. Washing dishes as I did during my stay at the inn forced me to focus. When I run as I do several mornings a week forces me to focus on the in breath and the out breath. Moving away from judgement and living more in the now is more and more important to me. I waste those moments of my life when I am consumed with worry or apprehension. Worry and apprehension are not mindful. They are pre-occupation with the future and some imagined concern. “Give us this day our daily bread.” from the Lord’s prayer is yet another call to mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh is one of my favorite writers. In the video that follows he speaks softly of mindfulness and living in the present moment.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8gEpW7DraI]
If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there – thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems – then the child is not really there for you. The technique of being alive is to go back to yourself in order for the child to appear like a marvellous reality. Then you can see him smile and you can embrace him in your arms.–Thich Nhat Hanh