In honor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s birthday month I am sharing aspects of his teachings that will make you think and may just change the way you live. Today I am thinking about present moment awareness, or what the Buddhists call “mindfulness.” Here are Thay’s own words about an action we all take in the Fall—raking the leaves.

“In autumn I like to rake the leaves at my hermitage at Plum Village [France]. I do it every three days or so, using a rake. . . . Raking the leaves is not simply to have a clean path to jog or walk along: raking the leaves is just to enjoy raking the leaves. So I hold the rake in such a way that makes me feel happy, peaceful, and solid during the whole time of raking. I want to ensure every movement is an act of enlightenment, an act of joy, and an act of peace. So I am not in a hurry because I see that the very act of raking is at least as wonderful as having a clean path. I would not be satisfied with anything less than that. . . . If you make one stroke in such a way that you are fully invested in the act of raking leaves, then you will be rewarded right away.” -Thich Nhat Hanh, At Home in the World

I get the idea from reading this that Thay was struggling with something that we all encounter—making meaning out of those tasks that we must do in order to get to the activities we want to do. When we carry out a task with this mindset—that we must it get done quickly so we can do something else we value more—then both actions, the thing we have to do and the thing we want to do, are diminished somehow. Certainly the first task is diminished because we don’t like it or appreciate it. But the second activity is also diminished because it is not long before we are looking forward to what is coming next. Will it be even better than what we have now?

Here is the secret to living so that “every movement is an act of enlightenment, an act of joy, and an act of peace”:

Assume the attitude that every action is important and bring complete awareness to each one

What are those tasks that are difficult for you? Mine are the household routines of doing laundry, cleaning the cat boxes and loading the dishwasher. Today I will “hold the rake in such a way that makes me feel happy, peaceful, and solid during the whole time of raking.” Will you join me?

Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh turns 95 years old today! He lives peacefully at his root monastery where he was ordained a monk as a teenager. He uses the phrase “continuation day” instead of “birthday” for a very special reason: He want us all to realize that nothing is ever born and nothing ever dies except in our own perception of it. Every flower becomes compost so more flowers can bloom. Every person brings her/his energy into the world in order to transform it before moving on. Everything is part of the grand cycle of life.

Here are two ways you can celebrate Continuation Day this week:

Spend time in nature, and no, walking between the house and the car does not count. Walk in a park or traverse the neighborhood where you live. Smell, see, touch and hear all that nature is offering you. Consider the truth of impermanence—everything you encounter will seem to pass away, but just because you cannot see it doesn’t mean it is gone. It will come back in some other form. Continuation is just another way of affirming impermanence.

Practice being in the present moment. Too much of our time and energy is spent pining away for of feeling regretful about the past. Even more is spent working toward and worrying about the future. The only moment we ever truly have is the present moment, the precious gift that sits before us right now. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches many ways to connect with the present moment through mindfulness, such as doing our ordinary activities with awareness and insight. Think of all the things you are engaged in throughout the day. What could unfold if you drank your coffee or tea without distraction truly appreciating what you were drinking or emptying the dishwasher or dryer with deep gratitude for these time-saving devices?

Enjoy your explorations this week and you just might decide to make every day “continuation day.”

Ayurveda has a lot to say about food, which is probably why I enjoy studying it so much! This is a critical time for eating well because it will determine how well you feel as fall and early winter arrive. You see, Ayurveda has this interesting perspective: How we eat in one season will determine our health in the next season.

Here are the five foods to favor as we make our transition from summer to fall:

1) Beets: Ayurveda considers fall the second best time to detoxify, and there is no better detox food than beets. (Other red and purple fruits and veggies score high here too.) Try to eat beets every day this month. They need to be fresh beets, not canned or vacuum sealed. Ayurveda always favors fresh foods over canned, powdered, frozen or processed.

2) Leafy greens: These are versatile detoxifiers. This time of year we often go back and forth between hot and cool days, so eat your greens accordingly. On hot days, eat raw salads, best eaten for lunch when the digestive fire is hottest. On cool days, eat cooked greens, such as kale or collard greens sautéed with garlic.

3) Turmeric: If you want to stay well in fall and winter, you can’t beat the anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial effects of turmeric. You can buy the root (it’s part of the ginger family) at the grocery store and put it in stir-fries. You can also use the powdered form. We put it in everything we eat at our house!

4) Ginger: This warming spice is another powerful anti-inflammatory. Chop up the fresh ginger to cook with veggies. Also put several pieces in your daily tea. Drink black and/or green tea with ginger every day to keep the diseases away.

5) Apples: Just when we need them most, Mother Nature gives us plenty of types to choose from. Throughout the summer, heat builds in our bodies and apples have the amazing effect of releasing this pent-up heat. Eat at least one apple every day to create the best inner environment for strong immunity.

Bonus recipe: Beet and apple salad
Use your food processor or hand grate one organic beet and one organic apple (with the skin on). Mix together with 1-2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice for a delicious daily salad that detoxifies and cools.

I had two fascinating conversations in the past week—one with my sister and another with a young friend. Two very different stories, but both provocative examples of the value of letting go and letting be.

My sister recently fell down the stairs and broke her arm. She had surgery to insert hardware and now she is waiting to heal. It’s a tough break because it is her dominant hand, which means she is quite limited in what she can do. This is doubly frustrating for her because she is an active person who takes on all responsibility for the house, inside and outside. Her ability to clean, cook, work in the yard and do household projects has been seriously curtailed. When I asked her how she was handling the abrupt change, she said “Honey, I do what I can do and ask for help.” Letting go and letting be.

My young friend is at a crossroads in his life. Presented with two options, he is frustrated, scared, angry and stuck, unable to take the next step. As I talk with him, it sounds to me that he is unhappy with the options he sees and wants things to be different than they actually are. He doesn’t quite have the imagination for the practice of letting go and letting be, but I wonder what could unfold for him if he could step into the future with the confidence that the road would rise up to meet him? Letting go and letting be.

I first heard this phrase from one of my yoga nidra teachers. When we move into that deep rest and hypnagogic state which is the gift of practicing yoga nidra, we enter the realm of letting go and letting be, where there is nothing to do and no one to be.

You are accepted completely as you are.

There is nothing to do to prove your worthiness.

You inherit the same gifts which are freely given to all.

You might enjoy reflecting today on what “letting go and letting be” means to you. Where do you practice it more easily (like giving in to a pleasurable experience, no guilt allowed)? Where do you struggle to do it (resistance of any kind, especially the need to have things go your own way)? Perhaps you’ll be able to take a leap of faith and let the arms of love catch you today.

Welcome to the Autumnal Equinox! Which is just a fancy way of saying the seasons are changing. The changing of the seasons is a fantastic opportunity to reflect on the nature of change in our lives. I will freely admit that I do not roll with change gracefully. I LIKE routine. I LIKE things the way I like them to be. I DO NOT want certain things to change. And yet they do, continually. Why?

Change is the nature of life

About two years ago my partner and I were riding in the car just having spent a lovely morning at one of our favorite places in Tulsa. We gushed “It is so wonderful! We hope it never changes!” Within a few months all the world was locked down and most everything in our lives have been changed forever, including our favorite place. LOL

Here are a couple of reflections on change and some practices to help us all embrace the changes of life with dignity and grace.

Try observing the cycles of life. A change of seasons is the perfect moment to see how life is continually shifting. When I was in the Navy we used to have a saying about the weather: “Smooth seas today, but the storm is coming.” It was a reminder to always be prepared for stormy weather because it was going to come—maybe not this week or next, but someday for certain. Of course, the opposite is true too, when life is stormy, it won’t last forever. Ride out the storm and you will see the sunshine and calm waters again.

Practice: This practice will help you see how you have weathered storms in your life. Look back at some important events in your life. Notice the changes that took place—changes in you, in the people involved, in the circumstances of your life. Were you prepared for the changes? How did you respond to the changes? What can you learn from change?

Try embracing impermanence. I first learned about impermanence from Buddhists. They taught me that not only does everything change, but everything I have and everyone I love will pass away. I, too, will pass away. Rather than see this as a cause for sadness, we can rejoice in knowing that whatever we have in front of us right now is all we have—a beautiful sunset, a loving relationship, and even a difficult situation. They are only here for a moment so be with them fully.

Practice: I have been watching a garden spider for the past two months. Each day her circumstances are a little bit different. It is quite fascinating to behold! I invite you to find something in nature—a plant, insect, the moon—and to observe it each day for the next month or so. You will attune yourself to its subtle changes and this will open you up to the subtle changes in your own life. Embracing the small impermanence will make it easier to see, appreciate and roll with the bigger impermanence.

Happy Autumnal Equinox, friend, with gratitude for the constant changes of life.

They walk quickly in a line, almost two-by-two, as they travel from the corner of the kitchen window, onto the sill and along the side of the wall until they reach the kitchen counter. There they divide into two separate lines, one group hugging the seam of the counter moving toward the sink and dishwasher, another group climbing into the compost bowl.

The ants drive me crazy!! My sweet husband says “Don’t worry about them, they’re not doing any harm.” He is right, after all, but for some reason they really annoy me. When I stand against the counter to wash in the sink, they climb onto my clothes tickling my skin. When I need to prepare food, I have to thoroughly wash the counter to clear them all away.

We do not use harsh chemicals at our house, so I researched essential oils that deter ants. I mixed up the lovely scents and sprayed the window, wall, seams and countertop. It works! The ants stay away for a while, but they soon come back. The tenacity of those ants.

What can I learn from those little bugs?

Keep moving. They are always on the move, never deterred from their task of finding food. And the kitchen is a great place to do just that! I can learn to look in the right places for what I’m seeking and to stay focused on the task without distraction.

Work in teams. There are no lone ants; they stay in a line and work together. I can learn to stay in my own lane but to rely on the assistance of family and friends as I make my way through the day.

Perseverance. No matter how many times I chase them away, they keep coming back. I must decide what really matters in my life and keep coming back to it again and again.

Perhaps now that I have come to appreciate the ants they will be persuaded to go away. Or maybe we will just learn to co-exist.

I have been a student of Thich Nhat Hanh for 30 years. I’ve not had the opportunity to meet him in person, but he has been an old friend, mentor and guide for most of my adult life. This is what makes one of his final books At Home in the World so precious to me as he is reflecting on various events of his life now that he is in his 90s.

Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thay as he is known by his students, is a Zen Buddhist monk from Vietnam who rose to prominence in the 1960s for speaking out against the war in his country. His community did not take sides in the war but insisted that all war should be abandoned. He traveled around the world and especially throughout the United States since most of the money and weapons were provided by this country. He became close friends with The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who nominated Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Vietnamese government would not allow him to return home and he spent most of his life in exile in the community he founded in France. He continued to travel all over the world to teach and he published over 130 books. He is also well-known for his poetry and calligraphy. In 2014 he suffered a severe stroke and can no longer speak. In recent years the Vietnamese government allowed him to return home to the monastery where he was ordained a monk to live out the rest of his days.

I love Thay’s teachings because they are so accessible to everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, for those who are drawn to the deep philosophical levels of Buddhism, and those who want to keep their practice simple. His style makes me think of the original Buddha who was such a popular teacher because he could explain the most complex teachings through stories and allusions to everyday life.

If Nhat Hanh is new to you, this would be a lovely book to read to get to know him better. The stories are short and they follow the main outline of his life from childhood to the last years of his life. He tells a story then he reflects on the deeper meaning of that story. It’s amazing how many layers there are to each one, kind of like finding the sliced strawberries under the whipped cream of a chocolate layer cake. Surprise!

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Drawing of the Buddha: He remembers seeing a drawing of the Buddha when he was just seven or eight years old. The Buddha looked so peaceful and calm and he decided that he wanted to be like that too. He invites us to adopt this same way of being when he writes “Anyone who is peaceful, loving and understanding can be called a buddha.” This is a primary teaching of Buddhism and one that can support us during these difficult days of dissension.

Drops of Compassion: This story is set just days after the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. He was in Berkeley, California set to give a lecture to 4000 people. Wow, what a challenging time this must have been! He writes “I reminded everyone that responding to hatred with hatred will only cause hatred to multiply a thousandfold, and that only with compassion can we transform hatred and anger.” He shared the practice of mindful breathing to calm the body and embrace the fear everyone was feeling. Twenty years later his words are prophetic and the teachings still resonate in response to the challenges of the pandemic.

I know that many more generations will read Thay’s words, practice mindfulness in retreat centers, and study with the many monks and nuns ordained in the Order of Interbeing. Truly, “there is no way to peace; peace is the way” in our world, in our communities and in our hearts.

Nhat Hanh, Thich. At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk’s Life. Parallax Press, 2019.

We just returned from our Retreat in Dallas—the first one since the start of the pandemic. I really recommend annual retreat, even if it is in an urban area like Dallas. We ate great food (I’m always looking for vegetarian Tex-Mex), went shopping, took naps, cooled off in the pool, read books, and practiced daily yoga and meditation for extended sessions.

I was amazed at the many opportunities to commune with Nature in this urban oasis. Our hotel was right off a busy highway, but our room was at the back the property along tree-lined sidewalks. We met many traveling dogs, large and small. We spotted a black and white cat sitting in a window watching the bunnies and squirrels. After breakfast one morning I had leftover half a bagel that I tore into small pieces and dropped in the grass. Within minutes a sassy squirrel was following its nose to the spot. Sitting up it held the bagel in its claws and enjoyed breakfast too.

The encounter that made the biggest impression on me was the cockroach who joined me at breakfast another day. Sitting near a wall a saw something move out the corner of my eye. It was a big cockroach on the wall! Its antennae were moving all around as if it was trying to communicate with me. We sat there together for quite some time while I munched on my food. I was well aware that if another person saw the roach it would likely be destroyed, so I gently told it to get out of sight. “You have a good thing going here. Don’t mess it up!”

I have been spending more time “sitting” with things that used to scare me. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of life due to the pandemic or perhaps it’s just the evolution of my spiritual practice, but it’s been quite interesting to see things in a more detached way with less anxiety and fear.

Try this practice: The next time you see something you don’t like, rather than destroy it or move away from it, stay close for a little while longer. Do you feel anxious or afraid? What does that feel like in your body? Notice what strength it takes to do something different than you normally do. Now ask yourself, does the thing I think I don’t like have a right to be here too? How can we coexist in this world that belongs to all of us?

These are great journaling questions that will definitely get you looking at yourself, your life and others in a very different way. You might even be pleased to make friends with a cockroach.

Those of you who know me personally know me to be a generally happy person, very even in my responses to things. Hey, I’ve worked long and hard to get here! But like everyone I have my moments when a switch gets flipped and I go from being open, happy and relaxed to closed, frustrated and angry. I had such an experience this week.

The details of what happened are not really all that interesting, but what was fascinating was to watch this shift take place in my attitude. I decided to bring curiosity to the moment and explore how and why it happened rather than get caught up in what happened. (Isn’t that what we usually do? We dwell so much on the play-by-play that we end up blaming someone else rather than taking responsibility for our own feelings and actions!)

I recently learned that three things contribute to the flipping of this switch. And they are definitely worth exploring:

First, we can be blinded by emotion. This occurs when we hold fast to a belief or attitude and refuse to budge. We won’t see any viewpoints other than our own, so it’s easy to get triggered by something someone says or does.

Second, we can be locked into trauma because of past events in our life that we haven’t yet fully integrated. This can be memories of perceived wrongs or actual experiences of violence or betrayal.

Third, we can simply be physically ill, tired or hungry. We all know we are not at our best when our energy is low.

After I noticed the switch in my attitude, I did a couple of things to calm down (I’ll share them below) and then I was able to see that I was both tired and hungry. Wow, now I understood what had really happened and could stop blaming another person for “making” me angry.

Here are two practices to calm the body and mind so that you can see more clearly too:

One, take a full breath in through the nose and a full breath out through the mouth. Do this 3-5 times. As an alternative, hum on the exhalation. You may remember that humming releases nitric oxide into the body which has a calming effect on the nervous system. Research has shown that humming releases a whopping 15x more NO into the body than nose breathing!

Two, cross your wrists over your heart and place your hands on opposite sides of the upper chest. Your fingers will touch your collar bones. Gently alternately thump your hands on your chest by bending at the wrists. Do this slowly for a minute or more. You will be amazed at how quickly you calm down. (If you have kids, teach this one to them!!)

Observe your reactions to the world and take responsibility for what you see. Life will look different to you, I promise.

Today I want to share with you Natural Breath. Isn’t this a funny concept? We breathe every day, many thousands of times every day, so breathing is a “natural” thing for us to do, right?

In yoga, we put a unique spin on every activity, and breathing is no different. Natural Breath exercise posits these questions:

What would happen if I brought my full attention to my breathing? What might I discover there?

Natural Breath can be practiced anytime during the day for a quick check-in or right before bed to relax the body. It’s also a good thing to do right before practicing any yoga pranayama exercise to establish home base.

Practice in an upright seated position or lie down comfortably on the floor. It’s important to be comfortable so you are not distracted by pain in the body.

Start by breathing naturally. Do not try to interfere with your breathing by making the breath longer or deeper or directing it into any place in the body.

To observe the natural breath, begin with the nostrils and progressively make your way through your whole body, observing how the breath feels
In your nostrils,
In your throat,
In your lungs,
In your chest and upper back,
In your belly and lower back,
In your pelvic floor,
In your arms, and
In your legs.

Feel the whole body breathing as if you are breathing through every pore. Linger here or at any point along the way.

To finish, you can either transition into a yoga pranayama or slowly come out of your position and gently move into your day.

If you like, you can make a few notes about where your breath felt tight and restricted or open and free. Did you see colors? Did you feel sensations? Did particular thoughts or emotions arise?

Ahhh, this is the beginning of a meditation practice, and a deepening of your relationship with your own body.