Waking Up for Life

Those of us who meditate, or simply sit still from time to time, know the powerful effect of quieting the body and mind on our moment-to-moment experience. The present moment comes alive, not with busy thoughts and emotional agitation, but with the richness found when we truly open ourselves to what is right before us, and nothing else. Distractions fade away, everything slows down, we feel more spacious, and we discover the miracle and joy inherent in simply taking a breath. This is the beginning of mindfulness. … For writers in particular, this stillness can open a channel of memory and integration of thoughts and emotions that can be captured in the written word.

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… I was listening to a talk recently about how to use mindfulness when we are triggered emotionally, when we feel stuck, confused, disengaged, not present, or dysregulated in some way. Which, for many of us, happens on a daily basis.

The suggestion is that to begin feeling more centered and grounded, we first need to recognize when we aren’t – being aware of our current experience. For some of us, we may not realize we’ve been off-center until well after the fact. Maybe this led to a bad interpersonal interaction or a harmful choice we made. Not noticing that we’re ungrounded is usually part of being dysregulated.

The good news is there are internal signals or ‘gauges’ we can identify for ourselves that help us not only to recognize when we’re lost in that trance of dysregulation, but also to avoid it in the first place. …

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… A phrase came to mind, one I heard from a teacher once as she led us in an exercise: "We will move at the pace of presence." She meant no one will be rushed for the sake of conserving time; we will be fully present to ourselves and to each other, and that will determine how fast we move or for how long we speak. I find this a lovely invitation - to move at the pace of presence.

How present are we in our daily lives? We tend to move quickly, getting to the next task, the next place, the next thought, largely on automatic pilot. We might be intent on our task, but is the goal to simply get it done, or could we be present to it with our whole body, mind, and heart? …

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Getting comfortable with discomfort doesn’t mean putting ourselves in unhealthy situations or pushing ourselves past safe limits, physically or emotionally. It means being open and willing to meet what is true, with gentleness and care toward ourselves, even when it’s unwelcome or uncomfortable.

Sometimes looking our demons in the eye does take away some of their strength. Sometimes, not resisting an unwanted experience softens its grip.…

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Have you ever felt the urge to do less, acquire less, have less, worry less, attempt to control less, think less … the list goes on. I have had this urge foremost in my being for over a year now.

Even though I work part-time these days, I still feel quite busy. I have many interests, and they all seem to have a limitless amount to learn about…

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The other day, I had the most trivial of experiences (seemingly) in a restaurant. Yet it taught me, reminded me, of an important lesson I’ve worked on for years: the practice of not abandoning myself. Not going into that trance of unnecessarily putting up with something, when changing my situation for the better is easy to do and would not negatively affect anyone else.

It comes from a lifetime of conditioning. Being taught as a child not to have needs, to be quiet and not make a fuss, to be essentially invisible…

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I recently heard a talk by the poet Mark Nepo that gave me insight into how one season of life forms and readies us for the next and the next. His talk was on aging with creativity and drew on his excellent book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life. (Mark’s Substack is here.) Mark’s message is relevant to adults of any age because he talked about being open to changes in direction and doing something new, having a beginner’s mind.

‍Mark used two analogies that resonated with me. Maybe they will with you too…

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Today I was in my happy place: walking along the beach ankle-deep in the surf on Sanibel Island on a sunny, warm day…As I walked along the shoreline, looking at the vast ocean (Gulf of Mexico) and open, clear blue sky, I practiced with the Five Remembrances. I’ve written about Buddhism’s Five Remembrances before, and I continue to practice with them almost daily…There is one phrase that really stands out for me in this particular setting:

“Everything and everyone that I love is of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.” (Sometimes it’s written: “no way to escape losing them”.)

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“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree, and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so, I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.” -Ram Dass

Over the past week, I watched both the 2025 movie Nuremberg and the older 1961 movie Judgment at Nuremberg, each depicting the trial of various Nazi officials and judges before the International Military Tribunal. Both movies did a good job of presenting the complexity of that effort, asking the nuanced question of who was aware of and responsible for the actions of that regime. At one point in the trial, both films showed actual footage of the worst of the atrocities committed in the name of patriotism and nationalism. That footage was very difficult to watch. Chilling. Horrifying.

It made me wonder, and the films wondered this too, what conditions led to that widespread capacity for such cruelty and disregard for human life and dignity …