In mindfulness meditation, mindful movement, and mindful living, to begin,

there is clear continuous feeling and knowing of the body as it is, in the direct experience as it is manifesting.
This is a matter of being, not necessarily doing.
Life’s momentum reveals its momentary nature through the six senses,

there is hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, seeing, and the sixth - the mind with its knowing.
There is clear continuous feeling and knowing that what is being felt and known is arising and passing away.
The senses are what they are. The objects of the senses are what they are.
The forms, the feelings, the perceptions, the intentions, the consciousness itself, is not me, mine or I.
I am not controlling this.

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There is change, flow, flux.
There is connection, relationship, interdependence.
The sense of a supposed self, or I, or me, or mine dissolves into selflessness.
There is acceptance, surrender.
There is a body.
There is breath.
The raw data of direct experience is felt as energy and known as information.
The overall attitude is to be with this life wholeheartedly, whole-mindedly, wholly.
There is tingling, vibrating, pressures, breathing, tastes, sights, sounds, smells,
thoughts, emotions, there are temperatures, textures, movements, some
pleasant, likeable and enjoyable, some unpleasant, unlikeable and unenjoyable, many are neither and neutral.
This is all felt and known through what are called and conceptually understood as
the skin, hair, nails, flesh, tissues, organs, blood and bones.
It is clear that the elements in the form of earth (solids), water (liquids), air (gas), fire (light) and

space (through the defining force of gravity) are present, in the body and in the environment

with no clear boundary or real distinction between internal or external.
The earth is felt and known in the solidity of certain objects, particularly the hardness of the body,

the floor, surrounding structures, trees and the ground.
The water is felt and known in the fluidity and liquid quality of certain objects,
particularly the blood, the moistness of the body, the coagulative binding of objects through

and with moisture, the falling rain, the dripping tap.
The fire element is felt and known through the heat of the body, the synapses of the nervous system,

the sun, and the overall experience of vision.
The space element is felt and known most clearly through the continuous pull of gravity,

and how the remaining elements are moving in response to this force.
The air element is felt and known most tangibly with the breath, the wind and the remaining space around the body.
It is here with the feeling and knowing of the breathing of the body that there is no clear distinction between

internal and external, and that the body is entirely dependent on the breath and a very specific type

of oxygen rich air unique to this planet.

It is in this clear and direct experience of interconnected interdependence,

that the fragility of life reveals its precious and precarious nature.
The particular flow of elements that results in life, this supposedly insignificant mundane process is clearly felt & known.
The awareness of the moment dawns and the understanding of conditionality and causality are revealed.
The cycle of life, the cycle of death, the cycle of change are experienced in this very moment.
With this felt sense of life, and contemplative response to death, unwholesome qualities of the mind are seen

for what they are, and wholesome qualities of the mind proliferate.
Doubt, in the form of the belief that this life is not enough is shattered.
Greed, in the form of craving for another life is dissolved.
Hatred, in the form of the feeling that this life is not enough is cut through.
The gentle, open, spacious quality of mindfulness truly shines its light of awareness freely and imbues everything.
This naturally occurring curious awareness awakens the quality of investigation.
The investigation leads to energy.
This energy brings joy.
Joy leads to tranquility.
Tranquility deepens concentration.
Concentration settles into equipoise.
The entire experience of life in equanimity.
And then?
And then things change again.
And if there is a holding on to what it all was, a craving to keep, a looking to recreate that experience again,

if ever a flag is pinned down and a declaration made, “This is it! I’ve found it! I’ve done it!”

Then we have to start all over, begin again.

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Life blows this way and that, the tides swell and push, recede and pull, and so the learning and unlearning continues,

but now something has changed. Change is felt and known.
The mind and body having tasted mindfulness, having tasted freedom, peace, contentment and non-attachment,

know it’s way back to embodied awareness.
When the mind is not mindful and distraction is present, it is known for what it is.
Even in the addiction to cycles of pleasant or unpleasant feelings, the boredom and spacing out to neutral feelings.
Even in the proliferations of narrow minded, negative, destructive, selfish thoughts, emotions, views & behaviours.
Even in the manifestations of the hindrances revealing themselves through sensual desire & lust,

restlessness & anxiety, sloth & depression, aversion & anger, and typically at the root - doubt.
Even in all this, even, this is equipoise.
Evenness. Sameness.
The practice made real.
Not just all the good, not just all the bad, all of it.
Because it is all seen and felt for what it is.
And the heart and mind open once more.
And compassion flows.
And wisdom grows.
And all the darkness is understood, for the light of mindfulness has moved through it - is moving through it.
And selflessness flourishes.
Not me, not mine, not I.
Ephemeral.
Free.
Always free.
And then?
And then, it changes.
But something has changed.
Change is felt and known.
Keep calmly knowing change.

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