Be open to each new moment. Accept with gentleness what comes and you will get the most from it. If we take a stance, a posture of defense or attack against what we think is about to happen, what we fear might hurt or control us, then we enter into the experience like a lump of wood thrown into a pool of still water. Our solid form disrupts what it meets and creates a loud splash, a collision with the people and circumstances we encounter.
Be instead like a graceful diver, or a blade, slipping into the water with a minimum of resistance and disturbance. Be like the manager who motivates staff with support and encouragement, rather than controlling them with demands.
Did you ever walk on a sprained ankle? Did you notice how the more you tense the damaged area in expectation of pain, the more it hurt? But to breathe naturally, fully relax the area and walk instead with gentleness we find that it hurts much less. If we tense then every tiny sensation is perceived by our mind as pain, because that is what we expect, that is the color of the lens we are looking through. When we are open, gentle and careful to notice what is actually happening we realize that there is feeling, maybe an increase in sensitivity, but it is not pain, not yet, and maybe not at all. Keeping the area relaxed we do not stress the damaged muscles and ligaments, we let the joint take the weight, just as it is designed to do. As long as we keep mindful, walk with care and don't try to push ahead we can keep walking in comfort.
We must be open to each moment, dropping the stress we usually carry with us through each experience of our everyday lives. Instead of reacting to each experience as we expect it to be, we learn to respond intuitively to each moment as it really is, we move in a harmonious dance, surfing the wave of Now and learning to accept the gifts it has has to offer.
