I don’t think it takes much. Maybe just being able to get out of our own way. I remember going for a walk while on a silent meditation retreat. I was scraping the gravel beneath my feet, looking upon the rural midwest landscape. There was nothing particularly spectacular about the scenery: Some open fields, sparse pockets of forest, and homes with spacious front yards.
Then I began to weep; then I began to laugh. Crying and laughing at the beauty of a lone bird perched on a delicate tree branch, in love with the rocks under my feet, and even feeling connected to a metal mailbox so perfectly placed.
Glimpsing wholeness, for me, has been an experience of simple beingness. When I can get out of my own way (e.g. temporarily suspend striving and aversion), this beingness is near at hand. It can feel like an expansive openness and love, or it can feel quite subtle like a cool, gentle breeze.
When I’ve talked with others about their experience of wholeness or goodness, they share words like lightness, buoyancy, okayness, settled, and content. But that doesn’t have to be your experience. You can see for yourself. What is the experience of simple presence for you? What is it like to be you, free from grasping, pushing away, or spacing out?
For me, it’s not just that this is a nice experience to have every once in a while, like enjoying a piece of chocolate after lunch (though that’s nice, too). Rather it seems to touch something deeper, something that precedes anything performative. In other words, this wholeness is not predicated upon experiencing something pleasant or “doing good.”
So many of us internalize the belief that doing good makes us good. And if I do something wrong or bad, it makes me bad. Can you sense an anxiety and insecurity that’s baked into a statement like that?
When we practice mindfulness, we practice – to the degree that we’re able – letting go of wishing for the moment to be different. Practicing acceptance, in other words. Maybe you’re someone like me who has a history of valuing their worth on getting things done.
However you’re arriving to practice, I invite you to glimpse wholeness. It can begin to degrade the belief that our worth is performance-based, while calming negative self-talk and compulsive doing.
Here is how I learned to do this from my meditation teacher, Stephen Snyder:
Begin by settling the body and mind for a few minutes, either by bringing awareness to the breath or with another object of meditation.
1. Allow awareness to gently rest in the heart area.
2. Maintaining awareness in the heart space, picture yourself at a time in your life when you can connect to your own goodness. This can be a current image, or an image of you at a younger age.
(Some find it easier to call to mind an image of someone or something else that embodies a kind of innate goodness, e.g. a puppy, a spiritual figure, a part of nature, or anything that works for you.)
3. While holding this thought or image in mind, notice any shifts in your body. Rest in any pleasant feelings that arise.
4. If your mind wanders, bring the image back into awareness and continue the process.
5. After a few minutes simply rest with this embodied feeling, breathing goodness into the heart center, and accepting what’s here.
When I first started doing this practice several years ago, I would kickstart the process by looking at a photo of myself as a baby. That baby did not have to perform or do anything to earn the love of his parents (thankfully!). Just by simply being, his presence was enough. But see what might work for you. It’s the value, beauty, and goodness that, for example, a puppy or newborn baby emanates that we can connect with and ideally see within ourselves.
If the above practice doesn’t “work” for you, there are countless other ways to return to simple presence. In the MBSR courses we offer, the first class is titled Returning to Wholeness. Our first practice is simply to touch into wholeness by bringing mindful awareness to the sensations in our body. It’s helpful that our body is always present.
How does this strike you? Is any of this relatable? Even if the answer is no, can you tune into your heart’s desire to be happy, and notice the beauty and goodness in that? Perhaps we can notice the gaps in a day when we can take a conscious breath.
The space of that one breath would be more than enough to notice a bird landing on a tree branch or the smell of fresh coffee at your favorite cafe. Or perhaps it’s a sweet childhood memory, manifesting now as embodied wholeness.
When I’d returned from my walk during that retreat – and for weeks after I’d eventually flown back home to Seattle – the goodness I’d experienced within me and around me never felt too far away.
Yes, life is busy; there is a lot of doing that has to happen! Strong emotions can grip me in an instant, and I can still be really hard on myself. But those instances are much less sticky now, and continue to be, even a year later. I often just need a moment, a glimpse to remember.