Reflect

Imagine for a moment that no one around you ever changed and that your own perspective on life never shifted from one decade to the next. What would it be like, this stagnant world? We’d read profound books without seeing the world anew. We’d experience beautiful music or gorgeous vistas without our hearts being shaped by them. We’d feel great joy and deep sorrow without our sense of life’s preciousness becoming more acute.

Instead, something rather extraordinary is possible. We are blessed with the capacities of reflection, abstract thought, imagination, and meta-cognition (we can think about our thoughts!). Our compassion and empathy can deepen. Our egos can be overcome. We can love in ways that transcend language. And each of these possibilities is not only the potential of an individual life, it’s the potential of our shared humanity and co-existence.

The healing that the world so desperately needs depends on our ability to truly see one another, to tame our greed, to seek understanding, and to allow ourselves to be changed. The famous neurologist and author Oliver Sacks writes, “We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually growing and revised…This is a neurological learning as well as a spiritual learning.” We have the choice to be fully awake, in body, mind, and spirit. Imagine what the world could be if we all stopped hitting snooze and truly woke up.

This week’s practices offer strategies for waking up to life and experiencing it as fully as possible.