[MD] an eagle

[MarshaV]

Greetings,


I love this little story titled Silent Awareness.  A friend sent it 
to me.  I have it taped on a wall where I can read it often.  It's by 
Mark Epstein.

-----


I unexpectedly had a sense of this on another meditation retreat.  I 
was in western Massachusetts during a very cold February, sitting 
silently over a ten-day period.  Every day after lunch, instead of 
taking my customary nap, I decided to put on five layers of clothing 
and walk in the surrounding countryside for an hour.  I tried to time 
my excursions to be back in time for the first afternoon 
meditation.  The winter had been filled with snowstorms, and the 
rural forests and farmlands surrounding the meditation center had 
taken on the ghostly and sparkling look of Alaskan tundra.

Each day I would walk briskly and meditatively with my eyes down and 
my attention focused on my body's movements.  There were empty roads 
and paths leading every which way so that after thirty minutes I 
would always be in a completely different place.  At that point I 
would stop and look around with the full force of my concentrated 
awareness before turning and heading back.

The first day I found myself in the middle of a frozen lake with a 
windstorm swirling the snow in circles about me.  The second day I 
was halfway up a hill looking up at the sky at the instant that the 
first flakes of new snowfall came fluttering down in slow motion on 
to my upturned face.  The next day I was standing silently in the 
middle of a completely still forest when, with a sudden whoosh, an 
owl swooped low over my head with one huge dark wing extended.

I began to think there was something awesome about my timing.  How 
was it that, at the exact moment of my stopping, such incredible 
things were happening?  It took me longer than I am prepared to admit 
to realize that such things were always happening.  It was only that 
I was finally paying attention.





Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars...