In The Miracle of Mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh encourages those who are learning meditation to imagine themselves as a small pebble being dropped into the rushing waters below:

“The pebble sinks through the water effortlessly,” he writes. “Detached from everything, it falls by the shortest distance possible, finally reaching the bottom, the point of perfect rest.”

I thought of his words just this morning as I struggled to raise myself from the bed. I’d been weakened by the flu, bedridden for nearly 5 days. Yet, even in this frail, free-falling state I felt the urgency to ‘grasp’. After all, there was so much that had already been ‘missed’.

“If we can’t rest,” he writes, “it’s because we haven’t stopped running.”

It’s a race often charted before the heart finds its way. From the earliest age we are taught that hard work is the only path to success; that reward comes through doing. But, in actuality, the greater gain is realized in relinquishing our struggle.

““Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished,” Lao Tzu teaches. It is learning the way of our natural state, allowing mind to fall effortlessly into alignment with the flow of life – this is where we find our rest.

A little something to consider, my friends …

In peace…

Namaste ❣️