A Practice of Presence

What a wacky and wild ride, this being human.  

To attend to our humanness, at Kripalu we’ve initiated an eighteen-month training for staff, to drill down into the six core values of the community.

The first value—Presence.

It was an easy winner for number one.  You gotta be here before you are anywhere else…….

The practice of being present?  

What does that even mean?

Aren’t we already right here, right now?  

Yes, we totally are.

But we forget. 

We keep forgetting, you guys!

This is truly the human dilemma—we forget that we are already home.

Again and again, we forget.

Our practice is to remember, to notice, to return, to come home.

Without judging the forgetting,

Without making ourselves wrong.

Over and over again, 

We practice returning to presence.

Here is a twelve-minute reminder, a video of my teaching about Presence.  Walk with me around the Kripalu grounds—excuse my huffing, which I find slightly embarrassing.  Yet, despite the huff and puff, let the grounds, the trees, the emerald-ness of everything remind you—

Of the beauty of the return.

Dear Friends,

How can you practice presence with a bit more intentionality?  For one week, between the reading of this blog and next week’s, what riverbanks can you bring to your practice?

Examples:

• At every red light, I’m going to take three breaths.
• At noon every day, my phone will remind me to stop, look around, and see what is there.
• On my daily walk, I’m going to listen to and focus on the sounds around me.
• When I wash dishes at dinner, I’m doing to consider the temperature and feel of the water and the soapsuds.

Any other ideas?  Keep me posted. I am aruni@rnetworx.com

Thanks for joining my Presence with Intentionality Practice.

Oh, the beauty of the return—
All blessings,
Aruni