One Day at a time, a daily reflection

by surprisedbyjoy@yahoo.com

December 1

Walk securely

"The person of integrity walks securely, but the one who takes crooked paths will be found out."

Proverbs 10:9

The venerable Thich Nhat Hanh is famous throughout the world for his walking meditations. Quite frankly, he intrigues me. Consider reading some of his works or listen to some of his tapes. He is a remarkable Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist. The late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recommended him for the Nobel peace prize years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh refused to take sides during the Vietnam way and worked to bring peace by teaching people how to "be peace" to all they encountered. Because he refused to take sides during the war, he was exiled from his birth country.

He suggests we look at our neighbors and smile gently at one another. Smile your peace at friends and strangers while breathing gently in a relaxed manner. You’ll be tremendously empowered and so will they.

Thich Nhat Hanh also encourages us to make the effort to let go of our worries and anxieties, with the beginning of a smile. A small half-smile nurtures more peace and joy within us. Smiling can help us keep our steps calm and peaceful, refreshes our whole being and strengthens us. Smiling helps keep us in touch with our "soma" and walk through life more securely.

The popular ancient Greek word used for body was "soma." "Soma" refers to the whole human being of body, emotions, intelligence and will. "Soma" includes all our feelings, personalities, spirit, and physical experiences of hunger, thirst, sexual desires, fatigue, pain, pleasure and joy. Tasting, feeling, seeing, and fatigue can actually be the "SOS signal the body gives us before total disaster." Sleep is not only a time for healing our body, but a time for healing our spirit. If we are to walk with integrity, we need to honor both our body and spirit, that is, our "soma."

Smiling like a Buddha can reduce some of our modern day stresses. By learning to live peacefully with our imperfect bodies, we can grow in inner wellness and personal empowerment. Our bodies’ help us get grounded and centered, "companions to be loved and heard with passion and discernment." For better or worse, through sickness and in health, we are embodied beings often at war with ourselves. We want a different face, eyes, nose or body shape, feeling too thin, too fat, too old, too whatever. Our bodies carry our unhealed inner hurts and affect our emotional selves. "Our feelings are doors to our souls. They are our friends and lead us into much larger aspects of ourselves." How we relate to our bodies profoundly influences our inner wellness, how we relate to one another, in our spirituality and how we live.

By smiling like a Buddha, we can learn to live with our "soma’s" one smile at a time. We can then live better lives of integrity.

Prayer: God, help us smile like a Buddha while living better lives of integrity. Amen.