Full Connection Meditation

This Full Connection Meditation came to me from Lama Surya Das, with love and blessings. It came on a day in which three other quotes on love from Ram Das, Martha Beck and David Brazier. Click on the links to check them out!

Wetlands in Marin County, photo © Jerome Freedman

The mind is not always
The best neighborhood to live in.
For a change of pace, try to find a physical and/or spiritual exercise or mindful hobby
That naturally takes you out of your thinking mind
And into your body, breath and beyond,
Try walking, jogging, swimming, playing a musical instrument
or gardening.
My ex-wife used to swim her prayers: one hundred laps, one hundred prayers.
Some teach Dancing Your Prayers.
I co-meditate with bodies of water,
And they seem happy to inter-meditate with me.
Saying thank you is the only prayer we need.

I enjoy cultivating this full connection meditation
on a treadmill
or while walking outside
along a river, lake, ocean shore or forest path.
As a daily-ish contemplative practice:
Just get wholeheartedly into the chosen activity, and intentionally
Drop other habitual preoccupations and electronic devices for a time.
Focus and concentrate entirely
On what you are doing, while doing it,
Letting everything else
go right by, like mere flotsam and jetsam
on your stream of consciousness.

This is the secret of natural meditation.
It is what I call remindfulness, remembering
To remember what you’re doing while you’re doing it.
God and Buddha are right there, or whomever
Represents and embodies your ideal Constant Companion
And higher or innermost, deeper power.
After all, what’s in a name?

Emaho!
“There is nirvanic peace in things left
Just as they are.”
Within the very immediacy
Of heightened nowness-awareness,
Beyond your habitual conceptual mind.
Awaken this instant into the holy now, timeless time,
And enjoy the buoyant joy
And organic great peace
of natural meditation.

With love and blessings,
Lama Surya Das

With regard to “physical and/or spiritual exercise,” I enjoy mostly playing tennis and walking in nature along the plentiful scenic paths in land and by the wetlands of Marin County.

What is your favorite “natural meditation?”