An Awe Walk

1/12/2024

Based on the article excerpted from Dacher Keltner’s new book, below is my reflection:

A moment of surprise with an open and curious mind creates awe to me. Seeing a child smiling, a flower blooming, watching the cloud sailing in the vast blue sky, seeing a lotus smiling in the muddy water, children giggling with no reason, and a friend showing up unannounced brings surprising and joyful feelings of awe in my heart. I welcome them as guests gratefully. When I keep the door of my mind and heart open, a new arrival comes with a gift of awe and wonderment. I sit near a window in my study room and I see clouds coming and going, birds chirping, leaves changing colors.

When my mind is free and is unoccupied by past thoughts and feelings and not worrying about the future, I am in the here and now consciousness. I see the panorama of natural sights and sounds and it offers me gifts of awe, joy and wonderment. There is a beautiful saying in Sanskrit: khshe khshe yat nanvatam upeti tadeva roopam ramanniyataha: Beauty is that brings newness every moment. It is not easy to live in the here and now consciousness. Mind gets occupied by past pleasant and unpleasant memories and imaginations or worries about the future. Mindfulness of what is going in the mind and heart without being bound by these thoughts and judgements creates witnessing consciousness and it helps me to see wonders of the present moment. In such moments, the dividing line between you and me fades away and it creates moments of here and now wonderment.
Namaste!

3 Comments

Therese M Griffin link

1/13/2024 02:55:20 pm

Awe moments are a-ha moments, they could be called God-bumps (goosebumps), spiritual awakenings, humility is teachability too, Yes, we have a Playful God.

A friend picked me up this morning for a Recovery Club Breakfast gathering with a fine speaker and friends. I'm cautious with my cane and snow with hidden ice chips.

Yet, it's been years since I was in the Chicago on a wintery morning. Suddenly, I heard some old familiar sound. It was the pure white snow with thin ice below and a little added slush to the music of Chicago Winter Sidewalks. I listened to the fine crunch with an added crackle, and the snow had a crisped or chirp tone too. Those simple moments brought back my deep love for Chicago, remembering my childhood. I do miss Chicago, my kind of town.

As I walked into the building, I realized that I left my beautiful memories of the musical sounds of the city streets saying crackle, snapped, popped with fresh snow. With my beautiful gift of aging, I know in my heart that it wouldn't be safe returning to my past love because of my aging process. I am grateful to have the moments of awe - these were past sounds that were refreshing. My inner child enjoyed the happy stroll down memory lane. Awe…

Elaine Noonan

1/13/2024 03:57:40 pm

I loved living your memories about Chicago (which I love and live near) with you. I could hear and feel the crunching and spectacular snow, ice glamour.

What did the snow smell and taste like as it landed on your tongue?

I'm glad you got a visit from Suzy Snowflake dressed in her snow white gown!

Debbie Podwika

1/15/2024 02:19:38 pm

I love this piece by Dachner Keltner. I'm going to order his book. I agree we get so busy and even when our body is not moving our mind stays busy with the past and future and we miss out on those moments that could be filled with awe. Yesterday, I was doing a live class of Qi Gong in my sunroom and then I sat down on my meditation pillows to do our meditation. I was up against the windows and when we finished I saw the hawk that frequents the area fly by and I turned a bit more and saw two cute little puffy black birds with a white underbelly in the bush.. I watched them for quite some time and even look them up. I believe they're Juncos. I think because my mind was so calm from the meditation that I actually saw these birds which gave me feelings of awe, especially since we're having negative 30 wind chills and these birds are still doing okay out there.

Saturday I missed Satsang because I was having fun with my nieces. The little one and I were outside trying to make snowmen, but we couldn't because the snow was powder. That filled me with awe looking at the snow and thinking of all the different types there are. Then my little niece did not get upset that we couldn't build snowmen she just fell backwards and started to make what she called a family of snow angels. She gives me feelings of awe.

I love the idea of awe walks and will try to incorporate them in my life. And I'm loving that the research shows it just continues to increase. I'm going to share this with others.

Mindfulness

An Awe Walk

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