One of the most learned and highly trained American-born lamas in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. He is a meditation teacher and author.
The mind is not always
The best friend to spend all your time with.
For a change of pace, try to find a spiritual exercise or mindful hobby
That naturally takes you out of your thinking mind
and into your body, breath and beyond.,
Try walking, jogging, swimming, a musical instrument
or gardening.
My ex-wife used to swim her prayers: one hundred laps, one hundred prayers.
Some teach Dancing Your Prayers.
I enjoy cultivating this full connection meditation
on a treadmill
or while walking outside
along a river, lake, or forest path.
As a daily-ish contemplative practice:
Just get wholeheartedly into the chosen activity, and drop
Other preoccupations and devices for a time.
Focus and concentrate entirely
on what you are doing, while doing it.
Letting everything else
go right by, like mere flotsam and jetsam
on your stream of consciousness.
This is what I call remindfulness, remembering
To remember what you’re doing while you’re doing it.
God and Buddha are right there, or whomever
Represents and embodies your ideal Constant Companion.
“There is nirvanic peace in things left
Just as they are.”
Within the very immediacy
Of heightened nowness-awareness
Beyond your habitual conceptual mind.
Awaken this instant into the holy now,
And enjoy the buoyant joy
of natural meditation.