Have you noticed how Zen practice brings back to us a sense of wonder, a sense of awe? Without an intentional practice of being in the undivided present, really all here, many little details of ordinary routines and responsibilities can blind our eye to wonder. Wonder – so immediate and surprising. Instantaneous. Just a moment. Small moments in a day, light up! Awe is always ready. The silence within an early autumn breeze. A waving field of grasses, pinkish-golden in late August afternoon radiance. Awe shows up as a proprioceptive sensation that fills the flesh body and causes the thinking mind to stop altogether. That first timelessness, so intimate, long forgotten, instantly natural. In the embrace of forces beyond the personal ~ there is nothing but this. We can forget and get so busy. A lovely practice to allow wonder back in, is the practice of stopping. When you’re walking, or doing anything really, caught up in activity, you can simple and completely STOP, for a moment, into an instantaneous opening up. Spaciousness you hadn’t noticed spontaneously extending every direction. A moment ago you were blind. And now you see.
