By Michael Doko Hatchett

A mind that never stops thinking believes that it is noticing everything that is going on....but it isn't. One thing it doesn't notice is that we are living within a sense that there is always some kind of problem that needs fixing, specially the problem of 'me'!

For many of us, from the moment we open our eyes in the morning until we fall asleep at night we are planning and doing things as a solution to some vague idea of something that needs to be fixed, improved upon, or made to go away. This tightness then becomes our state of being. This is not to say that problems don't exist, it's more so that this agitating, rajasic buzz  never switches off. We are always 'on', always on guard against some vague enemy and everything we do is coloured by this. The tyranny of this buzz is a great energetic leak and it wears us down.

In terms of taking care of ourselves, we do what we know is good for us merely as a solution. But... beautiful things such as lovely healthy food, a good sleep, our breath, a poem, a ray of sunlight and our self-compassion are so much more. Look and see what these things really are! Such beauty! Such gifts!

By seeing this dynamic, accepting it and soothing it, we learn how easily our everyday efforts at health and happiness can stay immersed in beauty, not in solution. All of our living can begin and stay within a sense of being at home, rather than as a means to get home. This can be practiced as a sense of giving thanks to the world, rather than a sense of what should I take next?

The Sufi poet Rumi wants to know if we are noticing that "there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground". Your bowl of morning porridge...isn't it one such way?

It is unnecessary that our wanting to take care of ourselves, heal imbalances, and maybe even wanting to be the 'best we can' come from the exclusive, vague and unending notion that there is a problem.

Live now, right now, in beauty.

Bye for now,

Doko