Happy NOW Year!!!

2010 has passed. 2011 spreads out before us. Between the two is all that matters. Right NOW.

I wanted, very much, to look back at the year and recount my achievements in this post. Every time I sat down to write this, however, I felt troubled. In the end, I finally decided to take my favorite piece of Buddhist wit "Don't just do something, Sit there!" and put it to practice (if you'll pardon my play on words). I held the question of why this writing of my New Year post was troubling me so much in my mind - "as the sky does the cloud" as one of my favorite analogies goes - while I just sat in meditation. I didn't try to solve it, just let it sit there with my acknowledgment and cocked my meditative head to one side and observed it to see what it would tell me.

To my chagrin, it told me nothing. Having read of this method from others I was sort of expecting it (my mistake) to unravel before me, laying the answer bare. Instead it just sat there.

However, by thinking on the question, and not in it, I was able to learn more about it. What I saw while looking at the question was that here was no reason to answer it. The recounting of past events, as I looked at it without trying to address it, made me realize that the reason it was bothering me is that there was no reason for it.

As I have embraced this mindfulness lifestyle which I have always found attractive, and which I finally started practicing seriously in July, I have tried hard to always live in the moment. This is where the great skeleton key lies! That key which opens all doors. It's not always easy to do, and I'm certainly not perfect about it. But I am always getting better at it. It was this present mindfulness that disagreed with the urge to write about all the things I have accomplished in 2010 & to tell you all the things I hope to achieve in 2011.

It was the "NOW" ignoring the "monkey mind", as they say.

If I made a bullet list out of my achievements in 2010, what would I accomplish? Nothing. These are all things that a reader of the blog already knows. Heck, this blog is - itself - a recounting of those achievements. That is it's nature! So, really, all I would have accomplished would be to boast. To toot my own horn, as they say.

While I am very pleased with what I have done, and hopeful about what I hope to do in the future, I will get there the same regardless. So, I am better off just enjoying where I am right now. The first day of a new year and everything I want and need to make me happy is all around me.

So. Instead of recounting things I have done and stating things I will do, I invite you to join me in this moment and take a nod from Thich Nhat Hanh. Take a few minutes, more if you can, and breathe in and out a few times focusing simply on gratitude for this very moment. As I said at the beginning "2010 has passed. 2011 spreads out before us. Between the two is all that matters. Right NOW."

Have a great moment, every moment, and please know that I am very grateful for you taking the time to visit here!

Happy NOW Year!!!

MondoSamu