Nowness Connects Everything

[Meditation] is what I do to start every day. It's a discipline and a setting of priorities. I'm not going to allow my mind to create situations, expectations and attitudes that may or may not be true, but can negatively influence my experience of the day ahead. Instead, I want to be led by the feeling, or the spirit of whatever the reality is and however it manifests.

The technique I use is called 'alertness meditation,' which is simply a sense of being present at every breath and understanding that the breath is the opening and closing of the door to life. It's just sitting in as close to a lotus posture as my battered body can manage and being conscious of my breath coming and going. Of course, the mind will race in to fill the gaps, but every breath brings me back to an inner silence and inner stillness. Eventually, there comes a sense of connectedness, a realization that everything that is exists in the same moment. This is now. This is now. This is now. And so on. The common existence in this same nowness is what connects everything, so that even the smallest microcosm in our particular world is connected to the most distant part of the universe.

[...] I've come to believe that signing autographs is actually a very phony, unreal way to connect with people. It's actually very easy and undemanding to sign my name on photograph or a piece of paper and not look anybody in the eye and then just walk away. Going face-to-face with somebody, saying a few words of greeting, and shaking their hand seems to be much more of a human connection.

-- Phil Jackson
As a basketball coach and a player, he has won the NBA championships eight times, most recently with Los Angeles Lakers last year). More here ...