Author's Description:

“The energy of mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps us to be here, to be fully present in the here and the now. When you drink tea in mindfulness, your body and your mind are perfectly real. When you sit in a cafe with a lot of music in the background and a lot of projects in your head, you’re not really drinking your coffee or tea, you’re drinking your projects, you’re drinking your worries. You are not real, and the coffee is not real either. Your tea or your coffee can only reveal itself to you as a reality when you go back to your self, and produce your true presence, freeing yourself from the past, the future, and from your worries. When you are real, the tea also becomes real and the encounter between you and the tea is real. [...]

You are not fully present in the here and the now, so life is not really available to you… In order to be really alive, in order to touch life deeply, you have to become a free person. Cultivating mindfulness can help you to be free.

The energy of mindfulness is the energy of being present. Body and mind united. When you practice mindful breathing or mindful walking, you become free of the past, free of the future, free of your projects, and you become totally alive and present again. Freedom is the basic condition for you to touch life… Train yourself to drink your tea mindfully, to become a free person while drinking tea. Train yourself to be a free person while you make breakfast. Any moment of the day is an opportunity for you to train yourself in mindfulness and to generate this energy.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, a well-known Buddhist monk, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Bee here, Bee now, Bee like the BEE, taking life one bloom at a time.

Are you really here while reading this? Or have you already zoomed away?

Photo Notes: Taken with a Nikon D300. Location: Deep Cove, British Columbia