Peace With Every Step

I’ve known about Buddhism since college. But I haven’t been good at practicing. It made me feel spiritual to call myself Buddhist but I wasn’t living the Dharma.

The last few weeks I’ve really been making an effort to live my practice.

Like many other people, I’m constantly distracted. Stressed. On my phone. Answering clients. Usually my mind is everywhere but the present moment.

I’m on a trip with my parents. It’s is first trip together since I was like 2 years old (they divorced when I was 4). I don’t really get along with my Dad, so I didn’t have high expectations. But I’ve decided to keep an open mind.

So far it has been excellent.

Today we went to Roanoke Island and went to the site of the Lost Colony. Then we went to the Elizabethan Garden. I wasn’t that excited about it because I don’t know much about plants. But I decided to use it as an opportunity for walking meditation. It was magical. By walking mindfully, I noticed things I never notice. Bees buzzing on flowers. Mushrooms growing in the shadows of dead trees. Birds and squirrels playing. Sometimes I just stopped to look at them.

This gave me time to truly be alive and my parents an opportunity to have alone time holding hands or whatever.

I’m definitely going to find some beautiful wooded places at home to do walking meditation.

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