The Art of Mindful Living
Because we are so distant from our mother earth, we become sick. That is why we need to go out from time to time and be in nature. It is very important, we and our children should be in touch again with mother earth. IN many cities, we cannot see trees, the colour green is entirely absent from our view.
We could imagine, one day, a city where there was only one tree left. The tree was still beautiful but very much alone, surrounded by buildings, in the centre of the city. Many people were getting sick and most doctors did not know how to deal with the illness.
But one very good doctor knew the causes of the sickness and gave this prescription to each patient: "Every day, take the bus and go to the centre of the city to look at the tree. As you approach it, practice breathing in and our and when you get there, hug the tree, breathing in and out for fifteen minutes, while you look at the tree, so green and smell its bark, so fragrant. If you do that, in a few weeks, you will feel much better than ever".
People began to feel better, but very soon there were so many people rushing to the tree that they stood in line for miles and miles. You know that people of our time do not have much patience, so standing there three to four hours to wait to hug the tree was too much and they rebelled.
They organized demonstrations in order to make a new law that each person could only hug the tree for five minutes, but of course that reduced the time for healing. And soon, the time was reduced to one minute and the chance of being healed by our mother was lost.
We could be in that situation very soon if we are not mindful. We have to practise awareness of each thing we do if we want to save our mother earth and ourselves and our children as well. For instance, when we look into our garbage, we can see lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and flowers. When we throw a banana peel into the garbage, we are aware that it is a banana peel that we are throwing out and that it will be transformed into a flower or a vegetable very soon. That is exactly the practise of meditation.
When we throw a plastic bag into the garbage, we know that it is different from a banana peel. It will take a longer time to turn into a flower. "Throwing a plastic bag into the garbage, I know that I am throwing a plastic bag into the garbage". That awareness alone helps us to protect the earth, make peace and taking care of life in the present moment and in the future. This is an act of peace, a basic kind of peace action.
When we throw a plastic disposable diaper into the garbage, we know that it takes even longer for it to become a flower, four hundred years or even longer.. Knowing that using these kinds of diaper is not in the direction of peace, we look for other ways to take care of our baby. Practising breathing and contemplating our body, feelings, mind and objects of mind, we practise peace in the present moment. This is living mindfully.
Nuclear waste is the worst kind of garbage. It takes about 250,000 years to turn into flowers. Forty of the fifty United States' provinces are already being polluted by nuclear waste. We are making the earth impossible to place to live for ourselves and for many generation of children.
If we live our present moment mindfully, we will know what to do and what not to do, and we shall try to do things in the direction of peace.
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