Meditation on Being More Present to Experience MORE Beauty, Joy, Connection, Feels, and Love

To me, people are incredibly important, because life is about love.  It’s about using our energies to increase thriving and flourishing for each of us.  I say this because one of the best gifts we can give anyone, ourselves included, is presence.  An ongoing goal for me is to be more present, which starts with getting sucked in by my devices less.  Naturally, then, these words from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh sing to my soul and I believe have life giving power for us all.

“You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea,” he says, as “Only in the awareness of the present can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.  Only in the present, can you savor the aroma, taste the sweetness, appreciate the delicacy.  If you are ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future, you will completely miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea.  You will look down at the cup, and the tea will be gone.  Life is like that.  If you are not fully present, you will look around and it will be gone.”

Part of the juicy stuff he’s getting at is while we definitely can learn from the past so we can grow and become evermore kind and courageous, and plan for the future so we’re not caught unprepared, when we stop dwelling on and let go of the past, when we cease worrying about a future that might never happen, THEN we will BE in the present, which is where “the delicacy and beauty of life” reside and bliss is found.  When we’re present we get ALL the flavors of life, we avoid nothing to experience EVERYTHING.  While being HERE and NOW will bring some discomfort and awkwardness, it’s also the only way to enjoy the FULL beauties, joys, and amazingness of life.  So, today I invite you and I to be more present, which will open us up to see more beauty, hear more joy, feel greater connection, smile bigger, cry louder, and give and receive more love.