Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes,

Flowers at your feet, duties in your hand,

The path is right just before you.”

-Robert Louis Stevenson

This is a good beginning to a positive day. It seems to only get easier to get spun out on what is broken and needs fixing, to our anticipations and expectations of what is to come, to the weight of what remains unresolved in our hearts.  Keeping a vigilant focus on what is nearest to us, what costs us nothing but our attention, seems like the truth to me.

This has been a challenging practice for me recently. My attention feels like a wild colt pulling against any form of training. Even my sleep is distracted lately. I come back to and try to remind myself of one of the most essential teachings of meditation practice, which is that you don’t do it to always get the same result. Sometimes practicing is just about watching your mind dart all over the place.

Coming back to the smallest details that you experience through your senses, how the air feels on your skin, what a single breath feels like in your nose, the smell of flowers,  the sound of wind, cars, dogs barking, children laughing. Then it becomes possible to choose the next thing in front of you. The path emerges in front of you.