#26 The Miracle of Mindfulness

I call this Jim's Mindfulness Blog because of my spiritual practice, which is Zen Buddhism in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. I had the wonderful experience of spending last week at a six-day retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, and it was a beautiful, deep and lovely spiritual experience. There were 1,100 of us at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. We spent most of the time in silence, walking in silence, eating in silence, meditating in silence and, best of all, listening silently to Thich Nhat Hanh give his remarkable two-hour dharma talks. He is 82 years old and looks about 40.
I have been to about a dozen such retreats, but each one is a profound and transformative experience. This time I had some periods of awakening in which I looked deeply at my relationships with my two adult sons and my need to strengthen our ties. Thich Nhat Hanh tells me that they are in me, and I am in them, and we "inter-are." that connection cannot be neglected.
The real beauty of practicing mindfulness is that it is not something that we practice only at retreats or when sitting in meditation, but it is something we can practice every moment of every day.