The weather gave us a gift this weekend. We had sun, blue skies, and temperatures perfect for being outside. (Although nothing really seems to stop Germans from being outside, which I like very much.) I was out late Sunday morning revisiting a route I’d taken with a friend some weeks ago. We had looked in vain for sunshine that day and the walk was bound to feel different this time.
One thing I have always noticed about walking with my camera is that my senses are sharper, and not just my eyes. I see the world differently, but am also more aware of how it tastes, how it smells, how it feels, and where I stand within it.
In other words, the more present I am, the calmer and more peaceful I feel. The camera around my neck acts as a reminder. Likewise, the more experienced I become in meditation, the more easily awareness seeps into my everyday life. I pause more frequently, slow down, notice, breathe. This is what it means to be mindful.
Lately there have been several loving-kindness, or metta, meditations in my routine. The warmth that I experience through these practices is not unlike the warmth I experienced last weekend in the sun. The world opens wide and it calls.
What I like most about metta meditation is that it makes obvious our connection with one another. There is a physical sensation, a warm glow, that comes from that realization.
There is a warm glow that comes from wishing loving-kindness to others, similar to the sense of rejuvenation that comes from being in nature. I have learned that these are needs for me, needs rather than wants. I would like to think that I am a better person to those around me for having learned this and sought this out.
It is easy to form connections that are light and fun, to play outside on a sunny day. It is not always so easy to get out in the rain or cold, not always so easy to touch another person. But so often, it is the experience of doing exactly this, of embracing difficult conditions and searching for the light, that plants us firmly on the ground.
And this is when we can not only look, but see.
By Rebecca Michelle 
Seeing is profoundly different from looking, isn’t it? Seeing requires all our senses our minds and hearts to be awake and open, yet it is more than mere receptivity. It is active and done with intent, searching for how we connect with the world and with each other, isn’t it? “Searching for the light”, whatever this may be, as you put it and, as Lao Tzu might say, becoming “anciently aware of existence”. I ask myself, why something that is so beautiful as seeing is not pursued by everyone? What are they/we afraid of? Is it the work that must be done, the fear of what challenges might exist out there when we look beyond the sunny day, or is it a fear of confronting the inner self? What do you think?
LikeLike
I think you ask good questions and I look forward to conversation over a drink 🙂
LikeLike