683rd Week: More Foreground/Background Dynamics: Finding Home Base

683rd Week: More Foreground/Background Dynamics: Finding Home Base

ByNancy Napier

Recently, I talked about finding a deep experience of peace as I sat in Central Park, and how I could stay with that inner sense of quiet even as children, dogs, birds, all kinds of people came and went in the area where I sat. It was fundamentally an experience of playing with foreground/background dynamics: I chose to have the sensations of peace stay in the foreground of my awareness as the sounds of activity came and went in the background.

Playing with foreground/background dynamics is its own kind of mindfulness practice… Read More “683rd Week: More Foreground/Background Dynamics: Finding Home Base”

682nd Week: Meeting Surprises with Curiosity

682nd Week: Meeting Surprises with Curiosity

ByNancy Napier

During a recent vacation, I spent quite a bit of time snorkeling with local fish. People staying at the resort jumped as enthusiastically as I did into the custom of feeding the fish with leftover bread from meals. I enjoyed that process, along with simply floating amongst them, allowing the sea to rock me and offer a way of relaxing not readily available in my busy, urban life.

One day, a small boy apparently held his piece of bread too long and a fish jumped up and bit his finger. My first surprise… Read More “682nd Week: Meeting Surprises with Curiosity”

681st Week: Resonating with the Essence of Peace (Playing with Foreground/Background Dynamics)

681st Week: Resonating with the Essence of Peace (Playing with Foreground/Background Dynamics)

ByNancy Napier

Sitting in Central Park one weekend morning, a morning that was cloudy and quiet in the park, I felt a deep sense of peace radiating from all the trees around me. The quality of the trees and the environment they evoked reminded me of the Japanese practice of “forest bathing”, where people go amongst trees to soak in the healing that naturally emerges.

Attuning to the peaceful quality of the trees is, for me, similar to tuning in to a particular radio station, television channel, or on-line program… Read More “681st Week: Resonating with the Essence of Peace (Playing with Foreground/Background Dynamics)”

680th Week: What We Radiate Into the World

680th Week: What We Radiate Into the World

ByNancy Napier

Walking through Central Park one morning, my usual, meditative state of mind—which emerges naturally when I walk through areas of trees—focused on a small act of kindness that someone had recently done for me. I touched back into the quality of friendliness the person seemed to radiate and I realized that the actual act of kindness offered was only part of what made the interaction meaningful. The other part was the quality of who this person is in the world, and that felt like the most important aspect of the experience.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with an acquaintance one afternoon in Starbuck’s, where she began to speak apologetically about how she didn’t feel like she ever did anything really important or meaningful in her life… Read More “680th Week: What We Radiate Into the World”