While I had figured out that in him I had found another teacher whose simplicity in explaining truth matched my interests and learning style, the tooth-brushing lines were the clincher. Because of him I have strengthened my practice of living in the present.When I return from my early morning walk in the dark, I begin two or three exercise routines of a brief ten to fifteen minutes each. One is jogging on a blue, half-round, rubber ball that maintains and improves my balance. I specifically placed it in front of a window at first as initially I had to grip the iron security bars to keep from falling off. Now I jog with my hands free. I would sing rather loudly to songs on my iPod, that is until I read Thich Nhat Hanh, and then stopped the singing as I realized that my mind was not with my body but with the songs. Instead I began repeating “I am on the bosu ball,” but soon I added focusing on my in breath and on my out breath. Realizing that I could name what I was seeing, I changed to repeating neem tree, leaves, little green bee-eater, wild grasses, pink bougainvillea, and now I alternate my mind’s words. My voice has become quieter, and my balance has improved even more, freed from my voice following the change in the mood of the songs. When a thought begins a fantasy, I follow Thich Nhat Hanh and come back to focus on the in breath and the out breath. And it works—sometimes needing a repeated effort.
My realization is, “Change can be a slow movement of small adjustments that accumulate into a new expression of you; or change can come fast as suddenly you are practicing in a new form moving you to a different rhythm and destination.”
* The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh