Namaskar - Oct 09
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Dristi Santosha<br />
ENJOYING THE<br />
NOW<br />
Kim Roberts<br />
Here’s the truth: I am not always<br />
content. I sometimes feel dull,<br />
dreary and dark. Like all of us, I<br />
often don’t get what I want. Just as often, I<br />
get what I don’t want. And even though<br />
mostly I wander around with a wry smile,<br />
frankly, sometimes life feels cruel and coldhearted.<br />
In these moments, I forget to be<br />
happy.<br />
This morning when I walked outside and<br />
looked over the high peaks outlined in<br />
bright blue brilliance, I noticed my breathing<br />
deepen, my mind relax. A momentary calm<br />
settled in, inspired by the awesome beauty<br />
of nature showing her finest. The contrast<br />
to the darkness where I sometimes live is<br />
striking. How easy it is to get caught in our<br />
own little world, to focus on nagging details<br />
and negativities; to rest in a state of<br />
discontent, or rather to run after anything<br />
we think will help us alleviate it.<br />
The more we seek contentment, the more it<br />
eludes us. A peaceful mind is our natural<br />
state, and yet due to our inability or<br />
unwillingness to remain fully in the present,<br />
we wander in endless pursuit of happiness,<br />
only to have it elude us. This peaceful mind<br />
is in the experience of fully, consciously<br />
experiencing the present moment.<br />
Standing there staring into the immense<br />
space created by sky and mountain this<br />
morning, it seemed silly to waste a precious<br />
instant of this extraordinary life<br />
complaining about an injustice, an<br />
unfulfilled desire, an unwanted intrusion.<br />
How insignificant these phenomena seem<br />
in comparison to the utter stillness created<br />
by the forces of nature. So today, I decided<br />
to ally with the stillness, instead of the<br />
chatter.<br />
If we can take a step back to see the larger<br />
picture, our complaints become<br />
insignificant. Tomorrow, next year, in 100<br />
years, will it matter? What we take to be so<br />
important, if viewed from a larger<br />
perspective, is but a wrinkle in the fabric of<br />
time. Events unfold in a time-frame, or<br />
return again and again, only to be consumed<br />
by the stillness, the vastness of space. We<br />
spend our lives fixating on particular aspects<br />
of phenomena that we either want or don’t<br />
want. Caught up in the appearance of<br />
reality, we ignore the real, which is simply<br />
the spacious clear awareness of that<br />
appearance, without any of our opinions<br />
added. And immediately, once this<br />
awareness is recognized, there is peace.<br />
Some of the happiest moments of my life<br />
have been to the outside onlooker quite<br />
banal, read: boring. Walking on a mountain<br />
trail on a brilliant blue day, indulging in my<br />
favorite food, sharing a quiet moment with<br />
someone I love. What makes us believe<br />
there is anything better to attain? What<br />
keeps us striving towards an illusory<br />
happiness and away from the true gift of<br />
contentment that is right under our noses?<br />
In a word: desire. We mistake desire for<br />
contentment. We have this mistaken belief<br />
if we would only get what we want, we<br />
would be happy. But guess what? It’s not<br />
true. Quite often attaining our goals brings<br />
more suffering than before we had attained<br />
them.<br />
If we would abandon our incessant desire,<br />
we glimpse our natural birthright: a<br />
constant state of contentment. But try to<br />
tame any unruly mind and ask it to remain<br />
joyful, satiated and jolly, and it’s like asking a<br />
raccoon not to have fur. Or a tiger not to<br />
gorge on the bloody prey before it. It’s our<br />
nature, the original sin, if you will.<br />
Yet this downfall is also our boon. Because<br />
of this whiny undisciplined mind that<br />
claims to know what is right for us, we have<br />
freedom to choose. We have consciousness.<br />
And so these very distractions and<br />
diversions into the darkness become the<br />
alarm – the wake up call to rise from our<br />
communal slumber. Wake up. To what?<br />
To the timeless beauty of this moment. To<br />
contentment. When we notice our whiny<br />
mind, it is the signal to wake up, take a step<br />
back and look at the big picture.<br />
Circumstances are elusive, changing, and<br />
impermanent. Contentment means not<br />
being swayed by these external shifts in<br />
circumstance. We already have everything we<br />
need to be content inside; our state of mind<br />
is absolutely independent of our<br />
surrounding environment. But we have to<br />
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