Are You Coming or Going?

Last week I went to the beach.  I love the seashore. I love the rough sand, the sound of the waves, the tides coming and going.   No matter how choppy the waves, there is something soothing, restful even, about the way the water moves, coming and going, coming and going.  If I spend enough time in the presence of this natural movement, I myself begin to move differently. I find that I begin to notice my own coming and going, begin to be acutely aware of the ways I lose or gain connection to myself, to my feet, to my own feeling, to my own thoughts.

Nothing is ever truly static in this world, never really standing still.  We are always coming and going. Consciously or unconsciously we move into our experience and we move away, often moment by moment. You can try this; stand still for even just a minute and see whether or not you are actually still.  There are always little movements, little movements that take us back to center, away from center, back into thought, away from thought, back into body, out of body. In each movement there is a coming and a going, a moment of arriving and a moment of leaving. These moments are precious.

The fact that we come and go is just that, a fact, a natural feature of our mind.  But the way in which we pay attention to the comings and goings is a whole other matter.  The precious gift of each coming and going is the power in each of those moments for you to change, for you to make new, novel decisions, try out new ways.   

Where are you in a given moment? Are you off in some fantasy? Are you thinking about lunch? Or are you here in this moment, boring, painful or peaceful as it may be?