Near the end of class today at the university, I noticed that it was raining, so we all got up from our seats, made our way outside, and slowly walked in the rain for a few minutes with the intention of just being with the rain. Removing labels. Letting go of stories. Feeling sensation. Being with what is as it is.

When we reconvened in the classroom to debrief, one student talked about the sensations of the rain drops falling onto her face and how she is usually in such a hurry to get out of the rain that she doesn’t notice.

That initiated a discussion about how we are so often in a hurry to get somewhere else that we completely miss what is actually happening most of the time.

Another student referenced the high number of vehicles that speed through a red light just to sit at the next one. Rushing. Speeding. On our way somewhere else.

Everywhere but here.

Anytime but now.

This led to the following inquiries:

Where is it we’re trying to arrive? Where are we trying to get to?

Is there any end to the scramble? Is there any rest?

Where is it we will find what we’re looking for? Is it over there? Maybe we already missed it? Was it back then?

Will over there always be “over there”?

How will we know when we are there?

What if we are there - where we imagine that we’ll be and feel when we have arrived - already?

Could what we’re trying to find over “there” actually already be here, now?

What if the sense of unrest we feel in our selves can’t be satisfied by any “thing”? What does that tell us?

What if the other side of the sense of unrest we feel is the rest we’re looking for?

What if the yearning is actually a call to come home to this moment?

Home calling gently and persistently: “Come here. Now. Be here. Now.”

What if that sense of satisfaction we imagine having later is always available right now?

What is there to be learned from a slow walk in the rain?

What is there to be learned from being with life as it is, as we are?

Eckhart Tolle says, “When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action” (The Power of Now, p.68).

He invites us to slow down, to make some room, to create some space, to find the life that is waiting for us.

Before our slow walk in the rain today, our class engaged in a brief meditation from Tolle as a way of connecting ourselves with the only place and time we can ever be: Here and Now.

Here is how it goes and I encourage you to give it a try and experiment with it if you feel like you are caught up in everywhere and anytime but the present:

“Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don’t interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don’t judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch something — anything — and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the “isness” of all things. Move deeply into the Now” (p. 63).

Ahhh….

What might happen if you either slow down or bring attention, intention, and conscious awareness to whatever it is that you are doing?

Tolle encourages us to give our fullest attention to whatever the moment presents and to inquire:

“What, at this moment, is lacking?”

“If not now, when?”

And to make it our practice to withdraw attention from past and future whenever they are not needed. He says, “Within the sphere of practical living, where we cannot do without reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor: Any lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied now. Any planning as well as working toward achieving a particular goal is done now” (p. 57).

I have the great pleasure in working with students who are getting ready to set out on the next stage of their lives - their careers. Imagine what this world will be like if they realize that they already have what they are looking for and that they can do their work and go about their lives without the expectation that they are trying to get somewhere to be someone someday. A whole layer of human suffering would end in a generation.

What if they don’t seek permanency where it can’t be found and instead live out of the joy that is often described as simply the joy of being? The joy that people often do not find until late in life when they realize they’re never going to “get there” or after an illness or great loss. The joy that they then realize was “here” all along and had nothing to do with their circumstances.

Much suffering and violence would simply end.

Tolle says, “As far as your life situation is concerned, there may be things to be attained or acquired. That’s the world of form, of gain and loss. Yet on a deeper level you are already complete, and when you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do” (69).

Playful, joyous energy.

Perhaps we could all use more of that.

Perhaps take a slow walk in the rain and see what you find.

Peace