life

Pause:  I allow stillness to meet reactivity and in this space unbinding of my story begins.  The karmic pattern that generated reaction is interrupted, cut off from its source.  I step out of habit and meet the moment fresh.

Relax:  I relax into my body and bring mindfulness to those places where I tend to accumulate tension and simply allow the tension to relax -- I recognize tension and choose ease.  I let my heart-mind yield to experience where accepting to my mind is what relaxing is to my body.  This becomes intimacy with the experience itself and I become available to myself and to others.

Open:  I expand my accepting mindfulness to the world and open the door to mutuality.  When I open after pausing and relaxing, my awareness may shift between the internal and external, moment by moment, and I become a spatial extension of non-clinging.  My constructed self softens at the edges, opening.  I can meet the moment awake, loving and spacious.

Trust Emergence:  I acknowledge that the present moment is changing constantly, that the now is far more complex and fluid than the mundane glance can know.  It's about embracing impermanence and finding a place to rest there. It's letting go into the changing process I call "now" replete with its uncontrolled sensations, thoughts, emotions, interactions, words, topics, energies and insights.  It's about trusting that when I meet the unknown with mindfulness and acceptance, I will emerge from the experience wiser and more compassionate... trusting that my perceptions are more true and accurate because they don't originate in delusions of stability.  In the absence of certainty, spontaneity emerges.

Listen Deeply:  I open the senses, heart and mind to receive the moment fully so I can notice and be touched by the experience of another.  I stop taking my conditioned interpretations to be the other's truth.  The act of listening itself is a dynamic and fully engaged mindfulness practice.  This quality of listening brings the moment alive with the energy of inquiry.  Listening deeply includes a delicate inward listening that enables receptive listening to the other.

Speak the Truth:  I extend an invitation to bring my highest intentions and most refined perceptions into language.  To speak the truth, I must first know the truth -- the truth of my experience.  Clarity arises when my mind is energetic, mindful, calm and spacious, and unattached.  Only by means of this clarity am I able to discern the truth of the moment.