Mindfulness, Awareness and Dumb Luck

Here is an interesting little exchange between a man and Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now:

Tolle: Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the "off" button?

Man: You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can't, except maybe for a moment or two.

Tolle: Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken, freeing yourself from your mind"

Much of what I post is centered around the theme of mindfulness. The reason I want to encourage people to live in the Present Moment is because that is where Intuition and Creative Force lives and is accessed. Thinking is always about the past or future. You can not think, that is, you can not be caught up in thinking and be in the here and now at the same time. Try it. Its impossible, though frighteningly, that is were most people function from.

To be in the present moment your mind must be still, not thinking, or at least, you should aware of the thinking. When you are aware of your thoughts you are objective to them and present. You must be in the moment to access the guidance and protection of the Present. When lost in thought, for example, when crossing a busy street while thinking about what your going to have for supper tonight, your guard is down, your awareness is not full. You are liable to be hit by a car.

There is a video of a man carrying a pizza box across across a busy street and being killed by a car instantly as he mindlessly steps right in front of it. You can see it in the attached video: (WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0EpI5nwlXA In the harshest manner this poor man illustrates how simple awarness could have saved a life. Unfortunately he was not of quiet enough mind to acess awareness which would have alerted him to the dangers in that moment. Lost in thought is a dangerous way to travel through life. Dumb luck will take you only so far.

I will tell you a real life story that happened to me to illustrate the point some more.

One Day In 2007

I went for walk one day in the bright sun and cool crisp ocean air of Rockport, MA, a sleepy peaceful sea-shore village on Cape Ann north of Boston where you can still leave your front door unlocked when going on an errand somewhere. Not much bad happens on this part of the island.

With nothing pressing to do and plenty of time I added an additional route for my walk. My story begins on, well, Story St. My mind was still and everything in the world was as it should be. It was a wonderful meditation. As I walked along the sidewalk I found smack dab in my path long, strong stick that seemed to have placed there, and seemed to call my name. Now, I don't normally use walking sticks in walking, and hadn't used one in the month I've beening walking while on being back home here in New England, but with a wordless impulse I picked up the stick, broke off a bit of one end for proper length, found that I now had a perfectly formed walking stick. How cool. I then marched onward toward the ocean roads and paths. It was a glorious morning.

Several miles later, while walking through a very quiet, peaceful, wooded neighborhood in Pigeon Cove that I have walked hundreds of times before, I suddenly found myself confronted, from out of the woods 50 yards ahead of me, with a vicious, fast charging dog with glaring eyes set dead upon me. He literally came charging after me as suddenly as a bolt of lightening out of a blue sky. It was a bit surreal but as he came within range I instinctively pointed my stick at the beast who, apparently blinded by rage, did not see it, or didn't care, and ran his chest right into the blunt point. He was suddenly, and painfully I'm sure, deflected from his attack projectory as I guided him out and around to the side of me while continuing to run full speed behind and away from me just as fast as he came at me. Stunned and with tail tucked between his legs, he turned his head back to look back at me. With neck hair hair still raised, eyes still glaring, teeth bared and growling madly like demon, he disappeared into the wood just as suddenly as he appeared.

Whoa! That was freaky.

But just then my head turned to see a second dog come charging at me from the same wooded place ahead of me. He too was on the same intercept course with me but I could tell right away that this dog did not have a heart for the attack. He was a follower not a leader. A few wide and rapid swings through the air with my stick was enough to dissuade him from further attack. He stopped in the road and gave me a wide berth as I continued past him and on my way.

One of the first things I do in the aftermath of a stressful situation is that I look within, to give myself a check over. I look at my thoughts and feelings and am on alert particularly for any negative thoughts and feelings. In this case I found a kind of quiet, warm joy that I had remained calm of spirit and was able to deal with the situation with Presence of Mind. There was also little bit of adrenaline in the body as to be expected but it subsided quickly. I can only imagine what might have happened had that stick not been in my path and had I not been present enough to "hear" the impulse to pick up something I ordinarily would not have. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had been lost in thought and not even seen the stick seeming laid out before me.