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"Mindfulness in Action: Pebble, Bell, and Walking Meditations"
This title has been reviewed for accuracy.
Cultivating Mindfulness in Daily Life
Thay shares how to invite the bell. The bell is the voice of the Buddha, calling us back to our true home. We practice as a Sangha, as a community, with three sounds of the bell to create the energy of mindfulness. Thay explains how we can use separate pebbles in different meditations—like flower fresh, mountain solid, water reflecting, and space free. He demonstrates flower-fresh meditation and then each of the next three meditations. He then talks about doing the same meditations while walking, which brings us freedom. He invites us to imagine ourselves as an astronaut stranded on the moon who knows they’re going to die. We must cherish being able to walk on the Earth as much as that marooned astronaut does—as his dearest wish. Mindful walking is the most wonderful way to learn to live deeply in every moment. If we do everything in our day mindfully—walking, eating—it becomes a deep practice. Thay ends the teaching with a request that the audience enter into a retreat of noble silence as a way to break the habit energy of mindless speech.
This is the first talk in a series of five given during the To Be, To Be Free, To Be Happy retreat, in the year 1997. Thay offered this talk at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, in the United States.