We are talking about present moment in our last post.. How to be in present moment? We talked about walking meditation. We talked when we are in present moment we are happy. We continue our talk.

 

They are subjected to the danger of a heart attack or a stroke. And all of them desire to have a heart like ours, the heart that functions normally.

 

When we touch our heart with mindfulness, we see the fact that our heart works day and night non-stop in order to preserve our well-being. And that is the kind of insight you develop when you practice mindfulness on the presence of your heart. Suddenly compassion arises: “Oh! My dear heart, you work so hard and yet I did not know how to take good care of you. I drink, I smoke, I eat in such a way that gives you a hard time!”

 

Yes, that is true, that is part of our insight. We have drunk, we have eaten, we have worked, we have lived in such a way that we have made it very hard for our heart. So out of that mindfulness, out of that insight, love is born and you decide what to do and what not to do, in order to preserve the well-being of your heart. That is true meditation.

 

Enlightenment is always enlightenment about something. Let us not be abstract. I am mindful about the fact that my heart works hard and needs my support and love. I am enlightened about how to live my daily life so that my heart will have an easy time because the well-being of my heart is my whole well-being. When you smoke a cigarette with mindfulness – “Smoking I am aware that I am smoking” and if you practice mindfulness of smoking, you will stop very soon. That is called smoking meditation.

 

Or, when you drink your whisky in mindfulness it is called whisky meditation. I don’t say you have to stop smoking and drinking before I can give you instructions about how to meditate. Instead, I say: “Yes, you can begin by smoking mindfully and drinking mindfully because I know if you really do it, you will stop smoking and drinking very soon…”

 

We know that within the territory of our person there is a lot of damage that has been made by ourselves. We have done damage to our body, to our feelings, perceptions, and consciousness. We know there are a lot of conflicts within.

 

There is a lot of war, a lot of pain within. And listening to the voice of the Buddha we have to go home and take care of the situation at home. And it is exactly with the image of mindfulness that you can go home without being afraid, because with the image of mindfulness we are able to embrace our pain, our sorrow. And we can survive. Embracing our pain our sorrow we can calm them down. And if we continue, we will be able to transform them into other forms of energies.

 

(Extract from the writer Thich Nhat Hanh’s recent publication: `Under The Banyan Tree’.)

 

Ref: timesofindia