Treats for Your Mind

A wonderful gift came into my son’s life almost 2 years ago, the gift of a dog named Booker. He is a Bernedoodle with all the intelligence, sweetness, joy and unending capacity to love, which this breed exhibits along with occasional bursts of stubbornness. Since the covid lock down, when Booker was almost a year old, my son and I have gotten together a few times a week to walk in the woods. In the beginning this was very challenging for me because Booker was all over the place. My son had trained him to sit, to stay and to come but hadn’t yet trained him to heel. So, in a world of myriad smells and multiple dogs, he was constantly pulling at the leash or even running off when he saw a possible playmate on the path before us. 

I finally got smart enough to bring a bag of treats every time we walked and very quickly, he comprehended the command to heel, although he is still a work in progress around joyfully running to play with a new dog. Training Booker reminded me that I too had learned how to train my mind. For a long time in my life, it was just like Booker, running here and there, following different thoughts like Booker follows smells, getting itself into trouble, and resisting any invitation to come back to this moment. 

Being lost in our minds for most of our lives, we are not aware that tumbling from one thought to another all day long is not our natural state. Our natural state is wakefulness – the ability to be with life exactly as it is. This happens when we discover how to gently, without judgment, pull our attention out of whatever our minds are thinking about and place it right here – open to however life is appearing. 

Is this easy in the beginning? No! Most of us have lived decades with our attention captured in the world of thought. But just like Booker, repeatedly inviting it to just come here without criticism, whether you stay for a split second or five seconds, is where the pathway to freedom lives. This is where you reclaim your capacity to be fully awake to life, right here, right now as your mind slowly returns to its natural openness.  

If you give yourself the gift of maybe five minutes every morning to choose something that doesn’t need your thoughts like the sounds around you, or the rising and the falling of your breath, and simply return to that focus no matter how many times thoughts recapture your attention, amazing things begin to happen. You begin to know the joy of having your attention and your immediate experience come together. You’re not so seduced by the struggles in your mind because you have learned how not to take them personally. And your body, your mind and your heart start to relax as you reconnect with the radiant joy you knew so well when you were young. 

We all have an amazing ability to escape back into the world of thought. No need to judge whatever happens. Some of the most profound meditations I had at the beginning were when my mind wandered most all the time and then I had a moment or two where I saw I was lost thought and then brought my attention back to my focus. Maybe I only stayed for a second but in those moments of seeing I was again captured in thought and then bringing my attention back to life truly matter. And over time these kinds of moments accumulate as you again reconnect with your natural wakefulness, discovering again the joy of becoming more fluid and open.  

Slowly, Booker is learning how to sit and stay while a dog is coming closer and closer. This is so challenging for him that sometimes he trembles. And sometimes he can’t hold the stay and off he runs to say hello to the new dog. The same is true for our minds. Some of the beliefs in our head are very seductive and we have fallen into them over and over again.  So, some days your mind will be more settled, and it is easier to let go of its grip on your attention so you can be fully here. But other days it will be stubborn and resistant. Be gentle, be kind, and give your mind the treat of reminding it that coming back to this moment is where the good stuff is!