“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.” — wrote Rachel Carson while contemplating how we can renew our delight in the mysteries of earth, sea, and sky — “If I had influence with the good fairy that is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

Many of us live in small apartments made of cement, metal, and hard wiring. Our bodies are strained by the lack of movement, our lungs are filled with polluted air, our senses are bombarded with an endless stream of stimuli. It is more challenging than ever to find a few moments to stop and just be. Recent tragic events that swept across the world have reminded us with alarming clarity how small and tiny our dwellings are, how everything can shift in a matter of weeks, days even, and how vital it is to be closer to nature.

Everything that surrounds us becomes part of us, infiltrating our physical sensations and our sense of life. Everything is us, and we are everything: a ray of sunlight, a cloud whose shadow reminded us that it’s passing, the faces of passers-by, a burst of occasional laughter, a conversation fragment, and then the sun above us, an everlasting source of being. It is now more than ever that we feel the need to reconnect with Mother Nature, be awake, be alive — a sentiment reaffirmed in an exquisite poem by Gregory Orr This Is What Was Bequeathed Us included in an immensely gratifying collection How Beautiful the Beloved.

THIS IS WHAT WAS BEQUEATHED US
by Gregory Orr

This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.

No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.

No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.

No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.

“This is something everybody can do. Don’t underestimate yourself: you have the ability to wake up. You have the ability to be compassionate. You just need a little bit of practice to be able to touch the best that is in you.” — wrote great Zen master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, pointing to our shared ability to be present, alive, and fully awake in the here and now — “Enlightenment, mindfulness, understanding, and compassion are in you. Very simple practices — such as meditative walking, mindful breathing, or washing dishes mindfully — make it possible for you to leave hell and touch the positive seeds that are within you.”

For most of us, our meditation practice is bound to a quiet place in our home, in our mind, in our soul. A place we hold dear and sacred, away from the daily rush with its noise and stresses. But so often, we let it slip out of our minds that meditation is essentially a life practice, something that is intended to be integrated into our daily activities, no matter where we are and how we feel. Its essential aim is to make us deeply aware of our human condition, more resilient, and more open to other people and the simple wonders of nature around us, so simple that we learned to ignore them and not pay attention to their healing power.

This is what author Roxane Marie Galliez and illustrator Seng Soun Ratanavanh explore with exquisite tenderness in Thank You, Miyuki, a splendid children’s book about mindfulness, simple wisdom of connecting to nature, and attention as an essential form of meditation that everyone can practice, regardless of their age.

The story opens with Grandpa silently sitting in meditation when his granddaughter Miyuki, playful and joyfully curious as ever, interrupts him to offer him a cup of tea that she made just a few minutes ago.

Thank you, Miyuki, but I just want a moment to meditate.
What’s meditate? Is it a game? Teach me! I want to meditate, too!

Grandpa regards Miyuki with delight, gives her a kiss, and takes on her generous offer of tea. As he drinks it, he pays close attention to all the flavors Miyuki describes and savors it as if it were a rare tea. Then he silently stands up and heads towards the garden, and Miyuki follows him excited and intrigued at the same time.

When do we start to meditate, Grandpa?
Grandpa takes Miyuki’s hand, and together they watch the bees hovering, the stones standing still, the grass slowly growing.

On their way back, Grandpa stops to smell a rose before it closes. Miyuki smells the rose too and then asks again:

But Grandpa, when will we meditate?
Miyuki, we have meditated all day long. When we walked on the path in silence, admiring the garden, the bees, the stones, and the grass, we meditated.
(…)
And when we smelled the rose we meditated?
Yes, Miyuki.
Grandpa, we have meditated!

“Out in public, we have the opportunity to notice and interact with people who are different from ourselves. Perhaps they are richer or poorer, handicapped, a different race or ethnic group, gay, straight, young in a place of old folks, or old in a place full of young folks. Spiritual practice is the art of taking time to see each other, to let our eyes meet, smile,” — wrote Christina Baldwin while giving impetus to journaling about our spiritual journey and manifesting its core values in the mundane, the often uninspiring, and dreamed-through parts of our life — “Spiritual energy brings compassion into the real world. With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.”

Compassion is one of the core Buddhist practices that allows us, at least for a few moments, to step out of our ego-created protective shells and direct our energy towards others, wishing to relieve them of their suffering, to feel what they feel, and soften our hearts. But this is often very hard to do, for to truly allow ourselves to feel another person’s pain requires not only open-heartedness but also courage.

This is exactly what Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun of immense wisdom and kindness, sets out to teach us with a simple, on-the-spot practice called “Just like me,” included among 108 other whole-souledly exercises in Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion. When we find ourselves in an unwelcome situation, for example, stuck in a waiting room or a traffic jam, we should look around us not to see the obstacles or causes of our frustration but our common humanity, “Just like me, these people have somewhere to go. Just like me, they feel trapped and frustrated. Just like me, that person doesn’t want to suffer. Just like me, she doesn’t want hatred coming towards her.”

“JUST LIKE ME”
by Pema Chodron

As a result of compassion practice we start to have a deeper understanding of the roots of suffering. We aspire not only that the outer manifestations of suffering decrease but also that all of us could stop acting and thinking in ways that escalate ignorance and confusion. We aspire to be free of fixation and closed-mindedness. We aspire to dissolve the myth that we are separate.
(…)
I do this sort of thing in all kinds of situations—at the breakfast table, in the meditation hall, at the dentist’s office. Standing in the checkout line at the market, I might notice the defiant teenager in front of me and make the aspiration, “May he be free of suffering and its causes.” In the elevator with a stranger, I might notice her shoes, her hands, the expression on her face. I contemplate that just like me she doesn’t want stress in her life. Just like me she has worries. Through our hopes and fears, our pleasures and pains, we are deeply interconnected.