Make It Your Friend

    Recently a  trustworthy, thoughtful, and loving friend lent me a book.  I'd heard of the book before but I had brushed it off as new age banter that somehow could never work for me.  The thing is that I have a great deal of respect for this friend and he does seem to have an aliveness and spirit about him that I both envy and enjoy.  If he is lending me his well worn, well marked up copy, there must be something to it. 

      At first, I had a hard time getting beyond some of the vocabulary.  I want real words, words with which I am familiar, words that make sense to me, that seem rooted in research.  "The truth is within you?"  What the hell does THAT mean? Or "Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death."  HUH? Or, one more, "...enlightenment...is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being."  Oh no, I was thinking as I started the book, I can't do this kinda talk.  I am way too concrete for this.  But, again, given the respect that I have for the book's owner, I decided to put aside all my skepticism and read on.

       I read most of it over the weekend and the core message is 

- HA! - Be Here Now.  Be in the moment.  Whatever the present moment is, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Make it your friend.  Really?  and how am I supposed to do that?  Watch it.  Observe the moment.  Embrace the notion that it really is all that is.  The past and the future are not the moment and so they are not real.  What is real is right now.  Very tough to embrace.  I am  a thinker.  I have never felt particularly attractive or particularly gifted in any arena except, perhaps, intellect.  Genetics and a family atmosphere that valued reading, knowledge , and academic prowess made me strive hard to be an academic success.  To this day, I value reading, writing, thinking, intellectual conversation.  But, this book talks about the need to not be a thinker.  Rather, focus on being, focus on what you physically feel in the moment.  What do you see?  What do you hear?  What does your body notice?  Not so much what does your mind say but rather what does your body notice.  Perhaps that is why I enjoy my early morning bike rides so much.  On those rides I go FAST.  I must be completely present in the moment or I will not make it to the next moment.

     I am so fucking alive on those rides because I am in that moment.  I am all about what is around me in the now.  There is no thought to what was or what will be.  It is all about NOW.  And I am alive and loving it.  How can life be more like that all the time?