The following is an excerpt from the book Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart by Mark Epstein, M.D.   While the natural wonders he notices are a metaphor for deep awareness in general, I appreciate his discovery that an abundance of natural wonders can be enjoyed if we but open our eyes and notice them.  The author is attending a meditation retreat.

     ”I was in western Massachusetts during a very cold February, sitting silently over a 10-day period.  Every day after lunch, instead of taking my customary nap, I decided to put on five layers of clothing and walk in the surrounding countryside for an hour. I tried to time my excursions to be back in time for the first afternoon meditation.  The winter had been filled with snowstorms, and the rural forests and farmlands surrounding the meditation center had taken on the ghostly and sparkling look of Alaskan tundra.

     “Each day I would walk briskly and meditatively with my eyes down and my attention focused on my body’s movements.  There were empty roads and paths leading every which way so that for 30 minutes I would always be in a completely different place.  At that point I would stop and look around with the full force of my concentrated awareness before turning and heading back.

     “The first day I found myself in the middle of a frozen lake with a windstorm swirling the snow in circles about me.  The second day I was halfway up a hill looking up at the sky at the instant that the first flakes of a new snowfall came fluttering down in slow motion on to my upturned face.  The next day I was standing silently in the middle of a completely still forest when, with a sudden whoosh, an owl swooped low over my head with one huge dark wing extended.

     “I began to think there was something awesome about my timing.  How was it that, at the exact moment of my stopping, such incredible things were happening?  It took me longer than I am prepared to admit to realize that such things were always happening.  It was only that I was finally paying attention. 

     ”These walks taught me much about the function of meditation.  My practice was like the methodical 30-minute walk.  It could take me somewhere, but I had to remember to look around once I got there.  Those moments of silent awareness in the forest were precious because of how open and connected I felt.  Rather than feeling one with the universe, I still felt my own presence, yet my experience of myself was altered.  Like a child whose mind is free to roam because he is secure in his mother’s presence, I completely let down my guard.  I had the awareness of just how unimportant my efforts to understand myself were.  Relaxing my mind into its own deeper nature, as I was doing spontaneously when I interrupted my walk I could reach beyond my personality into something more open.”  

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 5:43 am and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.