slowing, or not, at Whole Foods on computer with blueberries at left hand

Home internet is off for a bit. This means I get to come to Whole Foods
and eat avocado and blueberries
while I write up today's constant contact newsletter.

Hmmm.
Eating and working on the computer.

There is a story of a Zen student
questioning his master,
who was eating and reading at the same time.
"I thought," said the student,
"That when you eat, you eat.
And when you read, you read.
Isn't that what we were taught?"

The Zen master stuffed a little more blueberries
into his mouth,
grinned and chewed happily and then said,
"Yes, and when I eat and read,
I eat and read."

Alas, I wasn't "awake" at the both of them,
and either were a temptation to not really be awake
but to be lost in translation
lost in action
lost in the rolling ahead of life,
as it were.

And it's a good life,
blueberries,
it's a good life,
computer Internet nonsense.

And....
the awake life vibrates
or resonates
or glows
or something


What is it for you?

Here, for me, it's slower
and richer
and easier
no "worry" about the famous
"what's next?"
nor about
"am I doing it right"
nor
"am I getting enough done"

it's just
....
life

which is the present
the miracle
the joy
the yes


good

This moment of our lives

Go slow.

You've heard that here before,
you'll probably hear it again,
and for now:
go slow.

It's good Friday.
It's hot.
It's Friday.

People are dying, right now,
people are being born,
this is the moment of this moment of our life.

I just gave a "lesson,"
in the Anat Baniel Method.
I was
"tired"
and hence forced to go slower than usual,
and guess what:
going slow I could notice even more than
I usually do
(which most would say is a lot)
and noticing more,
and using an even lighter touch than usual
and smaller movements,
and letting myself find the laziest easiest way
to come up with the next improved movement,
the lesson went
extremely well.

And what about Good Friday.
There is a death story.
Go slow about what we are supposed to think
about a death story,
even though tradition
and habit
and culture all say:
think and feel X about this,
go slow.

Just breathe.

You are alive.

Slow down enough to savor that.
From that think about the death that comes
before resurrection,
or not.

Mull over Katie's third question:
Who and how are you when you attach to and believe the thought
and
the resurrection question:
who and how are you when you don't have the thought, or don't believe it?

Go slow with even these thoughts.

Take a walk.

Read a book you love.

Take a nap.

Go slow.

This is the moment of your life to be at one
with this
moment of your life.

Good,
April 22, Friday, 2011.

Thinking and Walking: Words, Gibberish, Silence

Don’t worry, be happy

In the Bible, Jesus urges people to think of the lilies of the field, urges people not to worry, counsels: Who by worrying has added an hour to their life.

And Mehr Baba said the famous: don’t worry, be happy.


And, easier said than done, though I’d venture that a vast percentage of drug and alcohol and over eating is based on trying to get the worrying to go away. Which means: it’s not easy.

Good. Something to learn.

Here’s the ticket: take a walk today, three times. That will spring you from the rushed schedule you think you have to maintain.

And on that walk, look at what is present, and listen to what is present and feel your feet on the Earth.

And notice: when does thinking as worrying creep in. When it does:

One: say hello.

Two: shift the words to a sort of gibberish that conveys the tone but not the particulars.

Three: See if a no thinking/ no word option is briefly available.

Four: one all three walks compare: empty, worded, gibberish. Enjoy.

Waiting for nothing and we're there

a wet and beautiful day
good

This moment
has enough

can we come to it
and
wait

wait for nothing

nothing will show up

can we bask in the silence
of
this nothing

and feed there?

waiting as a kind of
food

always
available

yum

Day 42: What to do, or How to Do it?

Going slow.

This is “hard” for us sometimes, or maybe all the time. We have an image of ourselves as “getting things done.” Or, the other side of image: we are hard on ourselves at the end of the day if we don’t “get enough done. And in order to please other people, we often say we are going to do more things than the day has time to hold.

Or we slip up and get present in one of our tasks of the day, and just “waste time” enjoying a conversation with someone, or simply being present in their company.

And then the “next thing” on our list gets shortened, or cramped, or rushed, or cancelled.

It’s a funny thing, this linear time bit: people want a lot out of us. We want a lot out of ourselves. There are lots of fun and amazing things to do, and lots of just “get this done” things to do.

And where are we in all of this?

Hey: that’s the task for today: to go slowly inside of each and every event/ task/ job/ subset of our day. Take time to just sit, to take a walk, to listen and not respond right away, to take two breaths before you respond, to sense yourself and feel “I am alive” all the while that you are doing whatever it is you are doing.

Feel your Being inside of all your Doing.

Day 39: The Pause that can Change Everything, or Just some little thing

Daughter and now dead Dog. Life moves on. All loving is its own reward.


In between the thought and the action is a space where you can realize: this action could be hard, soft, fast, habitual, new, tight, soft, “right,” “wrong,” and so on.

We often lunge from one thing to the next, forgetting that pause, that place where we can go forward, can progress, but don’t have to.

Don’t have to.

This is the present of being present and unhurried at moments of transition, and a good martial artist learns to be present and awake and unhurried even in moments of “hurry.”

What does that mean?

Ponder a bit, and let it be something you experiment with today: to be unhurried, even in your hurry, and if you don’t “need” to hurry, be unhurried in you unhurry.

And this is our game today: to watch the pausing points, the points when we are tempted to lunge// rush/ fall / clunk forward into the next event and be pulled along in our lives as if we have no say.

So watch for the pausing points.

Find the pausing points, or some of them.

Pause at them in some experimental way. Sometimes a little longer than usual. Sometimes a lot longer. Sometimes actually taking a break of the walk, sit and meditate, little nap sort. Watch your fears that if you don’t keep your nose to the grindstone you won’t “get anything done.”

And if you let little breaks take over your day and it ends of true that you “don’t get anything done,” take pauses and breaks inside the diverting activity and see if they can give you a chance to divert back to your original path. So go slow, find the pausing points. Use them to open to ?????

Day Twenty-six: Loving the space in between

We do this. We do that. Yesterday we talked of not rushing from one to the next. Today let’s make the “pauses” between each activity a sweet and precious part of our lives.

We do A.

As per yesterday, we keep with A, let the next thing ( B ) be in the quiet distance.

No rush to it, no planning it while we are doing A.


And then A comes to an end. In life, little tangled threads often appear, and A has developed almost tendrils, reaching out for more and more. Oh, well. We have to learn to trust our feeling that “enough” has been done on A. (It can almost be like a getting “fed up” feeling, but if we don’t go too long, we can start to sense the “enough for now” feeling.)

Good… A is done.

B is waiting.

Today’s game, let it wait. Really wait. Take a walk. Sit and close your eyes and follow your breathing. Do a few pieces of one of the movement lessons we’ve been playing with. Call it meditation if you want.

And rest, pause, go into the quiet. Real quiet and let that be something that refills you before you do the “next thing.”

Enjoy.

Day Twenty-two, What to Do?

What to do, is really a question of how to be, and today’s game, to be, to be, to be of good cheer, whether things are “going your way,” or not.

The present is always here. Today’s game is to be present, as is the game of every day. To be present in your body, noticing both arms and both legs and spine and breathing.

And to be of good cheer.

Walking in and out of your house, sense your arms and legs and spine. Notice your breathing. Be of good cheer.

Walking, talking, silent, riding a bike, driving a car, walking, riding a bicycle: be of good cheer.

Making your food: be of good cheer.


Things not going your way: be of good cheer.

Feeling tired and awful: be of good cheer.

People not treating you right: be of good cheer. (And, by all means, do the Work first, if that will help you. These lessons/ actions/ meditations/ practices/ games are to be played any and all the time you want and find them useful, not just on the ‘assignment’ day.


Hint: slowing down, being present, not falling into the rushing to the next thing way of being, this will immensely help this game.

The game, even as you read this: be present in your sensing, and
Be of Good Cheer.
Now, now, now.


And what happens when we “fail,” and get in a grumpy mood. It happens, we find that we’ve “messed up,” which is to say, “forgotten ourselves,” and have drifted out of good cheer, so what? The world isn’t over. We get an A+ for just playing this game, so why not be of good cheer about forgetting and remembering again.

What a miracle to remember the present.

Day Seven, The Kingdom of Heaven, Resting on Seventh

The Kingdom of Heaven can be an abstract concept, or an ongoing experience. To coax it more fully into our lives, slowing down, at least occasionally, is essential. Some traditions call for this every seven days.

Is within. The Kingdom of Heaven is within, says Jesus in the Bible. Within. Not up in the sky. Not some high grade Santa Claus’s reward for being good little boys and girls in our life.

Within ourselves.

Within our own bodies, these temporary shells, in there, right Now, is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Maybe now IS the Kingdom of Heaven. To be explored later. For today, let’s look within our bodies.


For today, day seven, spend some time doing as little as possible.

You know, take a walk. Lie down and move slowly. Take a nap. Meditate. Go TV free. Go book and reading free.

Go eating light or large, but if large do it slowly and in the middle of the day and don’t have dinner.

Slow down on the seventh day and do a lazy and open minded and happily awaring search scan meandering listen for the Kingdom of Heaven within.

You.

Who are you?

How does slowing down help you find you.

How does it taste and feel and sense to get some inkling of an experience of the Kingdom of Heaven?

Within.

You.

Now.

day 104: slowing down

Go slow. Go slowly

We’ve done this before, and it’s getting near the end of our one hundred and eight days and going slow is one of the great helpers on the road to a waking life. Slowing down enough to put our awareness on sensing ourselves. Slowing down enough to know we are breathing. Slowing down enough to pull out a pad of paper and “do the Work,’ when our thoughts want to rush us into madness.

Be it madness of believing in nonsense, or madness of anger at ourselves or others. What if we slowed in the middle of emotional nonsense and sensed ourselves and took a deep breath and knew we were breathing and then began to sense ourselves

Would life begin to make more sense then? Probably.

Would we be able to act from the moment rather than react from something like a robot in our patterns of behavior?

Probably.

The busy-ness of life and the business of life. They happen. We don’t have to believe in them. Somewhere inside we can have our attention on real sensation, and real light and real sound.

Right now real sensing and real light and real sound.

Good.


Clocks and time pressure want to pull us away from our real lives. We don’t need to go on vacation, or stay in a trance, or meditate in solitude all day.

But we can make all of the day, this day, any day, every day, our meditation.

We can refuse to take the busy-ness personally.

We could be present to our breathing and your five lines and find something slow and sweet and amusing about each moment we are in.

Slowing down to recapture our selves in our lives in this moment, that seems like a fine way to spend the day, yes?

85: Permission/ suggestion: pause and do "nothing"

"Buddha barn"

Take the nothing break, as many times as you would like, enjoy, benefit, wake

Give yourself permission to do “nothing” for five or ten or fifteen minutes a number of times today. Maybe even “many times,” just sit down, or lie down, or take a walk, or stare out the window, or pull the car over and get out and look at the view, or get in the tub, or lie on your office floor or a park grass or a firm wooden floor anywhere, or sit in a comfortable chair.

And

Do

Nothing.

Yes, just be..

No cell phone.

No reading.

No “to do” list. You can play around a little tiny bit with arching and folding to get happier and more connected to yourself as a body in gravity and awareness.

But the point is to just “chill,” as they say.

Breathe, which we will anyway.

And sometimes notice your breathing and sometimes not.

Think, which you will, and as much as possible find something more interesting than thoughts to put your attention on: what you see. The sunlight. The sky. The birds.

What you hear in the moment. Birds, wind, cars, music, your own movement of breathing. Whatever.

What you are sensing, as the air comes in and out, and you are sitting or standing or walking or lying in some shape and relationship to gravity.

How it feels inside your body.

What it is like to just be. Be yourself. Now. Without any program or productivity.

Just you.

Alive.

Now.

Maybe even smiling. This is your day. This is your life.

83:To taste again

Coming back to Orcas Island in mid January

Tonguing along in life

We have tongues. Talk with them. Taste with them.

And in both eating and talking: we have a hard time staying present.

Oh, well.

This book is about going about life in a whole lot of fun ways that open possibilities of learning and loving life again as we did when we were young.

And when we were young, food was bliss.

The strawberry, bliss.

The banana, bliss.

The celery with peanut butter in it, bliss.

The slice of orange, the carrot, even the spinach if it was real from a garden and the adult who was cooking knew how to steam it lightly and put some nice rich spring butter on it.

Yes, bliss and then more bliss.


And then the rules came along, no elbows on the table, no playing with your food, have to eat everything even the stuff the adults have ruined by overcooking or buying it too old. Or we just don’t like it, have to eat it.

Time comes along, the clock world, hurry and eat, and eat and hurry, and it’s no fun a lot of the time.

And guess what?

We aren’t children any more.

We can take our time, it’s our time, our time is our life.

We can take our time and wrap our tongue around our food, and chew it slowly and savor every bite.


This is today’s job: to return to the soul of the soil’s gift to us, our food. Slow down, chew. Breathe while we eat. Breathe while we taste. Don’t talk or read or watch the tube while we eat. Just eat.

And when not eating today, as much as you “can” sense and enjoy sensing, your tongue.

66: Pick up Sticks

Pick up sticks

Lean over and touch the ground.

Did you keep your legs straight?

I hope not. We don’t need to “try” so hard when we move in ways that are fun and interesting as we do them easily.

That sentence is worth reading a few times.

And again, bend your knees, and lean down and touch the ground and let your hands hang out on the ground and let your head flop freely. And here, straighten your legs just a little, just as much as is easy, not any more and go from more bent to back here to easy.

And as you do this, slowly, easily rotate your head right ad left. And enjoy this. And aware this.

And rest, standing up “straight-ish.”

Then bend toward the ground again, and in the leaning over position, rotate your hips right and left, in a slow and easy and gently way that makes sense to your spine, feeling the vertebrae twisting more down at the bottom of your spine (which is higher up in the air) and less at the top of your spine (which is closer to the ground.)

Do this awhile and rest just leaning/ hanging over like this and play with the possibility of turning / rotating your head in one direction, while your hips rotate in the other.

Then come to a standing rest.

Now, come near a wall, or a chair to balance, and lift one knee towards your chest and take it with one hand, and pull it towards your chest. Do this slowly and experiment with a way that just seems to move the leg and a way the seems to let your pelvis curl in as if it, too, wanted to come nearer your head.

Notice your breathing, and see what form of breathing would make this most easy.

Undo and rest. And then play with the other knee and leg like this. Rest. And then touch the floor again. Feel good. Notice spine all day. And if you see any sticks, pick up a few.

Love, Forgiveness, Busy-ness

To love means
to spend a kind of time
with another of
God's creatures
on this sweet and amazing Earth

a kind of
timeless time,
real time
out of time,
just being there

where you slow down,
we slow down,
I slow down,
we all slow down

and listen to each other.

One person talks.
Another listens.

You/ we / I
look at the person we're talking to.

Our schedule
our hurry
our timetable
isn't more important than
that other person.

They are there,
they are precious.
We neither of us will be here
forever
we extol in that wonder.


Too busy
for love.
Maybe we don't need to
do
that to ourselves.


And forgiveness.

Well, we mes up.
We realize we did
something out
of the me-me-me
mode
(that's always how we mess up)

we realize that

we ask for forgiveness


other people grant
this
or they
don't

and here's the kicker:
if they don't:
it's their business.

Easy enough to remember times
we were to me-me-me
to forgive
and go ahead
and forgive them
for their lack of forgiving us.

Cutting all the corners:
we might as well forgive ourselves.

Slow down, travel plans, do you want to host?

I have this nice little ongoing
sermon in
this blog:
slow down
and be present.

And I have,
Sometimes,
or even often,
hurried through whatever I was going
to write,
not being present as the words
were being typed along.

Now,
I'm here.

I invite you
to whatever your present is right now.

This is my idea for
a good life:
to live and assist others
in Awakened Gardening
Awakened Movement
Awakened Relationship
Awakened and Ecological Living

Being present is a kick
and a great place to be of use
to myself, others and the planet.

Plans,
alas, are not in the present,
and they do present
a chance to the present
in some other "place"
at some other "time."

I'm interested
in additional hosts,
interested in allowing me to
assist them
as they assist me with a place to stay,
and an "in" to the local plant, nature and people world,
one month at a time.

During that time, I would be delighted to
assist
in all the Awakened pathways
mentioned above,
including either giving
or trading Neurological Upgrading Lessons.

Giving one a day if you have a child
with Special Needs,
or someone recovering from a Stroke or Accident,
or if you are someone
wanting to radically improve your golf,
tennis, feeling inside yourself,
connection to pleasure
and skill,
anti-aging, vitality,
grace and ease of thinking, moving and feeling.

Trading if another practitioner of
the Feldenkrais Method
or the
Anat Baniel Method is my host.
To give and receive daily lessons:
imagine the heaven of that.

Anyway:
as I write about this as yet non-existent world,
the plan world,
I was
slipping out
of the
present,
and here I am again,
back
home,
now

and you are whatever and however and wherever
you are.

So far, these places seem to be part
of my path:
Tucson, Arizona
Atlanta, Georgia
Orcas Island, Washington,
Amish rural Ohio
Chicago

Will keep filling in cities and places
as the pathways get more clear.

Thanks,

Chris

Thanks four all the learning and amazement

rounding and arching in Tai Chi, some hints in Saturday's piece over at Brain Plasticity and Learning Blog



life is pretty fun

especially once I get the hang
of realizing that my
own shortcomings,
often seen in other people first,
and then,
when I "duh" into awakeness
and realize:

hey:

that's me,
2


also thanks to
Yes Magazine

a great issue
on saving the Earth
by
slowing down
and
by
being mindful
and
by
happiness


if you read this blog
you might see why I'd like that

a nice idea
in there,
which was why no blog yesterday:

taking one day a week
and doing:
no car, no computer, no phone

(from idea of Secular Sabbath,
mentioned in this issue of Yes!)

just going simple

nice idea

thanks
for
good ideas
out
and about
in the world

the friendship boat

what can be said
from the place
of waking?

two people
are lucky
to be friends
and to make each other's lives
sweeter

for a day
for a year
for eight years


it's all good

and
forever after
isn't better than
not forever after
in spite of what
the fairy tales say

and the wish for something permanent
is deep
deep

and there is something permanent
the good old Universe

and even that
may fade away
and or blow up
some day

oh, well

while we're here,
let's enjoy it

there is only one
forever after:
now

ah
good

Feeding the Earth, nourishing our Soul/ Soil

a lot of people
sweet wonderful people to be
sure
think gardening
is about planting plants
and watering and growing them

that's a lot,
lot
lot
better than not growing
anything

and is on the way
to what gardening is
really about:

feeding the Earth
so the rich wonderful
soil
can feed the plants

Marlie
and I plugged away today
and converted some old falling apart plants
and bare ground
to a living mound of composting
soil
in
which just about anything will
grow fabulously

and
if you are in mild climate areas:
now's great time for
getting beds ready for winter vegies
and
in other areas,
getting soil ready for spring veggies

how to get soil ready:
like nature does,
drop leaves and grass and anything
organic on top,
stir around,
let the micro orgamisms be your rototillers

enjoy
the
work
the motion of your body
the breathing of the air
the creation of a new soil place

it's all pointed in the
fine direction:
slow down
feed ourselves
stay out of cars
feed the Earth
come back to the slow sweetness

of
Now

slowing down, part twelve

SLOW DOWN

Like how fast we are driving?

Like how fast we are talking?

Like how fast we are eating?

Like how many things we are doing?

Yes.

And even better, spend a day not being in any cars.

And talking less than usual, say letting the phone kind of take care of itself, and letting other people talk, but not feeling compelled to tell them all our brilliant and wonderful ideas.

In keeping with that, I won’t tell you a bunch of wonderful ideas about the slow food movement, or just the slow living movement, or any of that.

You are smart enough to be curious about what would this day be like if you took plenty of time between things to sit and do nothing. Or sit and contemplate what you’ve just learned and experienced.

To sit and sense yourself.

To lie down on the floor and try the day one activity, the pelvis clock.

To sit in a chair or on a log and try the pelvic clock.

To sit anywhere and follow your breathing and have an empty mind and see if you can allow to percolate up in you what you really want to be doing next.

Yes, yes, of course you have your obligations, and a little slowing and not rushing off might surprise you about how much or little you really want to do the next thing that is on the “to do” list.

What would it be like to be present in our transitions from one activity to another?

What would it be like to not know for awhile, or even for big patches of time, what we are going “to do” next?

What if we veered off on a walk, or a stroll, or a roll around on the ground, or a roll in the hay, or took a nap?

Would the world fall apart?


Who knows?
What will we discover when we slow down to the level of life lived in the present moment?

Who knows?

You will, if you do it.



Danger, though: this could become a habit, and a very pleasurable and life shifting one, at that. Ah, well. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

la, la

yes yes, no no and life goes on

i tried this on Sunday

no car
yes garden

no computer
yes reading

no compulsive working
yes puttering

turned
out to be a pretty
good
day