I walked out of my office this morning to wait for my client in the cool air and sunshine. I was reading a passage from The Wisdom of Forgiveness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Victor Chan on compassion, emptiness, interconnectedness, and interdependence.

At that moment, I heard the chirping of birds and through the barren trees saw the striking beauty of Mount Timpanogos to the east. I was overcome by a sense of peaceful happiness as I considered how interconnected all things are. I heard the bird, felt the chill in the air, felt the warm sun, smelled the cold of the air, and squinted at the brightness of the sun. My five senses took it all in—in a single moment—and my spirit thrilled. It was so apparent how connected all my senses were to that around me and how dependent they were on these things to have sense in the first place.

Mindfulness is not a constant state of being for me. It is a state of being I enter as often as I am mindful to do so. These mindfulness moments are all around me every day for me to experience (i.e., bardos moments). All I need to do is pause, breath, and see the vastness of all that is interconnected with that I am interdependent with. "He that has ears to hear, let him hear."

Mindfulness is a great gift for creating and recreating that key relationship with self that is the great influencer of how I then relate with those around me.

Peace,

Jonathan