The reason many of us are unaware of our boundlessness, our infinite potential and limitless essence is because we are confined by the cages of our thoughts. One thought after another.
Racing. Running. Jumping.
Hoops, curves, and narrow alleyways.
From vacation to work to restaurants to friends to family to office and back. Lists, bills and paychecks. Growls, grunts, scowls and giggles. Life offers plenty to keep us distracted. A word spoken, and we are derailed. A page read, and we are transported. The train keeps moving. There are no off-peak hours.
We believe we are in control, in-charge, adult, mature.
Illusion.
We think we are in the driver's seat.
Illusion.
Our thoughts or rather our unconscious thoughts are.
We don't realize it but we are enslaved by our thoughts.
Thoughts ... that are not really well thought-out.
Recycled thoughts.
Belief-systems from ancestors past.
Ways of living and being from our parents' pain and their history.
Yet, loyal that we are (or unimaginative), we stay married to these thoughts and hold onto them for dear life. Funnily enough, we spend all our life in misery because of these thoughts, yet stay attached to them as if they were our salvation. The many paradoxes of the human condition!
When we stay deeply attached and committed to thoughts, we
lose out on an essential component of life: experience.
We all use the word ‘experience’ loosely. We all think we experience Life. But
do we really?
To experience Life means to be in the here and now. To be in the here and now means to be present. Not in the past. Not in the future. But in the present moment. This means one thing only: to suspend thought.
Here comes the power of meditation.
When we meditate, we learn to detach from thoughts. We learn to witness them as if they were suspended in air, floating in and out, with no strings attached to us. This is what it means to suspend thought.
When we enter this state of watching and witnessing we increase the space between the thoughts.
No longer do we jump through hoops and march through jungles with a machete.
Instead the jumping becomes a slow, long, leap, and the walk comes to a still stop.
This is how we enter the present moment with experience. Or what we like to call Presence.
Here comes the power of parenting.
Our children live detached to thought already. Sure they have thoughts and boy, do they know how to jump from one to another! But watch them closely and you will see that they are detached from their thoughts. When they jump, they really take that leap and forget all that emotional baggage at the last stop. Unlike us, they fly in the air without the weight of their last thought. They enter the new moment entirely free.
When we enter the parenting process with our children we are given the opportunity to learn from the best of the best how to detach.
Our children allow us to stay in the present, disregard the attachment to those old and stale belief systems, and enter the new moment with fresh spontaneity.
With them we are presented with a VIP pass to enter the state of Presence.
The question is: Do we accept the invitation or do we press on the brakes and reverse right back into our old familiar tunnel?
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I have heard about this recent study regarding surgery and marriage. A good married life could extend a persons' life after a heart surgery. The long-term study of survival after heart surgery is the latest piece of evidence that married people live longer and better lives than singles. Source of article: Key to survival after heart operation could be a good marriage. Compared with medical therapy alone, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) significantly reduced cardiovascular deaths and the composite end point of all-cause deaths and cardiovascular-related hospitalizations.
The history of engagement rings is very interesting. Why should not gifting diamond Engagement Rings, or let it be any engagement ring, considered romantic. In fact, one can say that from trend it has become more of a custom.
The child gains self-worth simultaneous to the emergence of various physical and mental competencies in an ever-growing number of essential venues, as adulthood is approached. Thanks a lot.
Regards,
child behaviour
My 4-year-old is wonderful to watch. She is truly living in the present moment. 2 days a week I have only her (as she is in preschool only 3 days a week)...while my other 2 daughters are at school. She treasures these days calling them 'special time'. She always has big plans of what we are going to do...all of them requiring great imagination and play. I have learned to embrace these times, although I still find myself resisting every now and again. I sneak off to check my email. Or catch myself looking at the clock. She is in heaven and I am sometimes not able to engage in the present with her. But when I do, it is magical. There is no sense of time or distraction. We are playing, imagining, creating. We recently taped 20 pieces of computer paper together and painted a huge rapunzel, which is still hanging on her wall. We played "Little Miss Twins Birthday Party", making invitations and creating a guest list of other stuffed animals who were to come. What I wonder is why I resist the present at times, and engage with it on other occasions? Or is this a natural part of the transformation into present moment living??
Nice to see you here, and happy to hear more of your wisdom.
Do we accept the invitation? We must do so over and over, for familiarity always beckons. It often it feels less resisting to return to familliarity, even if it is resistance which leads the way.
Leigh
brilliant insight...the best description of what meditation does I have read....and so right about our children
thank you.