The Attention of a Bike Ride

This weekend, I arrived in Camden, Maine.

My mom and I took a long ride through town on electric bikes.

After passing through shops, restaurants, and crosswalks, we meandered along quierter coastal roads.

We rode past cottages with gardens that spilled over with lavender, hostas, ferns, and flowers I couldn’t name.

We cruised along  pastures with striped cows, contained by stone walls that looked as if they’d always been there.

Along the way, we stopped at small overlooks where sailboats rested in the harbor below.

The tide had pulled back, leaving seaweed clinging to the rocks.

With the ocean air moving past us, the whole ride felt like a kind of meditation.

— The insight —

Meditation does not always happen with the eyes closed.

Sometimes attention opens while the body is moving.

While the wind is crossing your face.

While the shoreline appears between the trees.

While old homes, stone walls, gardens, cows, and sailboats pass through awareness.

There was nothing to hold onto.

Nothing to figure out.

Just one scene after another.

Each one arriving, filling the senses, and moving on.

The practice was simply to keep seeing.

— The shift —

At some point today, let attention widen.

Look around without trying to name everything.

Notice color, sound, movement, and space.

Let the world come toward you for a few moments.

Meditation can begin with simply seeing what is here.

— Heard this week —

“Sometimes rest is not stopping. Sometimes it is moving slowly enough to see.”