Saturday, October 31, 2020

Noticing wonders

It can feel difficult and false to spend too much time on noticing miracles and savoring good luck.  It can feel that one has no luck and no connection to any miracles.  Yet, I think practicing awareness of miracles and good luck can be a big help in feeling good about life.


Here are some tools that can be associated with wellbeing and good luck.  

  1. Physical balance

  2. Breath and breathing

  3. Electricity

It is easy to walk around the house or sit in a chair and take balance for granted.  But talk to someone having trouble with balance and you will get a different story.  My elderly friend often has trouble with dizziness and inability to balance.  My deceased daughter had trouble near the end of her life sitting in a chair at a table without toppling over.


I learned that meditation worked for me when I used a single point to keep my eyes focused on.  When I realized I had let my vision and my thinking go to something other than that point, I noticed and returned.  It worked well: https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/2019/06/direct-meeting-with-yourself.htm


Later, I realized that focusing my attention on my breath was possible with my eyes closed.  Closed eyes can be rested while the breath serves as a good anchor for one's attention.  A student in Larry Rosenberg's "Breath by Breath"complained that focusing on his breath was very boring.  Rosenberg told him about Brooklyn meditation where one holds his breath while meditating.  After quite a few seconds, the man had to start breathing.  "Was that boring?", Rosenberg asked.


You can take electricity to be a modern miracle.  If you have had to do without that force in your house, you know how grateful you can be to have it and the tools and activities that have developed using it.  Computing, cellphones, tv, streaming, washers and dryers, stoves, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and last but most, electric lights are all wonderful even when we just assume they are part of what we deserve.  Each use of a light switch can be a moment to think of lighting a candle or a group of them.

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