Be Here Now

In the waning days of December, I find myself looking at the new calendar as a new leaf, as so many of us do, wondering what I can make of the coming 365 days, and what the world will make of my plans along the way. In this, January has a feeling of beginning, of commencement, and it's no accident that I find myself drawn to graduation speeches as I walk the weird week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.

"Be here now" is the oft-cited directive of philosophers of all stripes: Morpheus, Yoda, Ghandi, Jimi Hendrix.

 

But, as my writing student put it in her work yesterday, Mindfulness is hard. Or as another philosopher mentioned in one of my favorite commencement speeches:

"It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really is the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now. I wish you way more than luck."
----This is Water, David Foster Wallace 

I'm reminded of another quote, a bit in a movie that I love, Playing By Heart. Jolie's character is talking about love, and she says that she has this friend, a musician, who says that "talking about love is like dancing about architecture," a spin on a quote from Frank Zappa or possibly from Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus (Elvis Costello to you and me) despite his often denying it, or maybe from Martin Mull (philosophers, all). 

But Jolie's character (Joan in the film) goes just a step further, and this is what makes it all more than merely witty for me. She says "Talking about love might be like dancing about architecture, but that's not going to stop me from trying." 

 

Be here now. 

Mindfulness is hard. 

But that's not going to stop me from trying. 

Year of the Ox

Daily Meditation

When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle. We find again some of the joy in the now, some of the peace in the here, some of the love in me and thee which go to make up the kingdom of heaven on earth. --G. F. Sear

Perhaps we have feared discovering our center; perhaps we have feared finding nothing there. The struggle to believe in ourselves, to know we have an important part to play in the circle of life, the circle encompassing all life, is a hard-fought struggle for many of us. But we are learning. We are finding treasures within ourselves. Others are helping us find those treasures. 

All we have is here -- now -- us. We are all we ever need to be -- here and now. We are, at every moment, what we need to be if only we'd trust revealing our true selves, our centers, to one another. Our centers each need that of another.

​This program needs each of us for what we add to it. The worthiness of the program, the whole circle, is enhanced by the inclusion of our centers.

I will share my center today with you.​