Moments

There are times in life when simple awareness can be extraordinarily comforting. The five hindrances can be such a frequent part of our lives—feelings of anger, fear, restlessness, desire, (even sleepiness!)—that a clear moment can bring us back to the here and now with astounding grace and beauty…

Consider the foggy morning I was standing at the bus stop, alternately fretting over the duties I had before me to accomplish that day at the office and worrying about incidents within my family that were taking place recently at home. Out of the blue, I noticed that the car coming toward me down the road had the most amazing aura around it I’d ever seen! What’s happening here? I remember thinking. I continued to watch for a moment, fascinated, as the car approached, passed my position and moved on. As the next car passed and the next, I suddenly realized that they all had this amazing glow about them—it was the fog, of course: a multitude of microscopic droplets of water, refracting the headlights of each car as it passed in a golden, hazy, eye-catching glow—like a candle, upon a far sill.

Suddenly, I realized anew there was a part of my heart that rejoices in these small moments of beautiful awareness. And I started thinking back, to other moments I had known:

The first summer after I moved in with Dave and the kids there was a lot of adjusting to do on my part—this was the most people I’d ever lived with in my life! So, of course there were conflicts. One evening I went out on the front steps to brood, and simply sat there…angry and frustrated thoughts roiling in my brain.

Gradually, I noticed there was a lovely glimmer to the grass…and a moment later I could clearly focus on an intrepid spider’s web caught amongst a few moist and shimmering blades only a few feet away. I remember thinking: Isn’t that extraordinary! Look at the way the slanting evening sunlight catches the web and makes it sparkle! I started to think about the spiders and ants and all the little creatures living at that level of our world—wondering what their lives were like. How wonderful! I thought—to have no care in the world besides bumbling along in the grass, carrying food back to your family. No one among those blades worries about what someone said to them or whether they can live with another’s messy habits. How amazing that simple, peaceful lives like these go on under our feet, every day, every moment. What we humans could learn from ants about simple acceptance and personal equanimity!

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