Flo

Michael’s blog http://cloud9000.com/michael/2007/01/25/living-in-the-past-part-2/ echoes something I recently heard and scribbled on the front page of last week’s newspaper “Sometimes in order to move forward, you have to stop looking back”.

I was struck by this the day I heard it, by the sincerity of it, the truth to it.  Looking back isn’t always bad, it depends on what you’re doing while you look.  I previously mentioned a meditation retreat I attended in October but didn’t talk about the process I went through that weekend.  I spent the first two days thinking about past and present every time my eyes were shut.  It felt like I had made enormous progress when I was able to shut my eyes and notice the sounds in the room.  I heard someone sneeze.  Another person blew their nose.  There was a shuffling sound as someone returned to their mat.  Someone took a drink from their water bottle.  Because my eyes were closed, sounds and smells were what I noticed.  Had my mind been as it had been at the beginning, I wouldn’t have noticed how lunch smelled, how insightful the words spoken to us were.  I wouldn’t have noticed that my body was comfortable and at ease in the meditation position.  If I hadn’t had two days of quiet sitting, my body and my brain would have never met up with each other.

Namaste’  Flo