Zen Moment

I was thinking about those Zen moments today. Those moments when there is an awareness of being aware. When we meditate we reach these moments during the meditation practice but when going about our daily tasks it is harder to be mindful. We know we should practise awareness during these tasks but it is so easy to be in the future or past with our thoughts. Even worse we can get swept away by negative emotions such as anger.

How wonderful then, when we are jolted into awareness and feel connected to and part of everything. At that moment everything is perfect. It can be, and usually is, something quite ordinary which is the trigger.

I wrote my poem ' The Rooks have Gone ' after one of these moments. You can see this poem in My Poetry if you are interested.

I had been away for a month and before I went the rookery in the nearby trees was incredibly noisy, with the constant coming and going of the adults feeding the young rooks. During my absence the young rooks had left the nests and all the birds were now away or quiet.

I was hanging out the washing, mind quite relaxed when I heard the call of a wood pigeon. When the rooks were there it was impossible to hear any other birds as the noise was so loud.

At that moment, on hearing the call, I was aware of the pigeon and aware that there were no rooks and aware of being aware.

It is so mundane but I was awakened to the eternal now by the pigeon, to the passing of time by the pigeon and of the future by the pigeon. At the same time everything became one in the perfection of that moment. I can think of lots of similar Zen moments. I guess to be ' an awakened being ' is when all of life is lived in awareness and the mundane becomes a miracle.