Water Lily, Lochan Mor, Strathspey
Water Lilies grow in around 1 metre depth which, since I don’t have a high telephoto lens, necessitates getting wet to get closer to them, a potentially risky business whilst holding an expensive camera, ignoring the midges, and hoping not to slip… Its also hard to stay in focus as the flowers move around rapidly on the surface with even the slightest breath of wind. I love the blue colour from the evening sky through the trees reflecting on the water, contrasting with the flower.
I’ve been reading from the book below, which presents some amazing scientific and medical evidence on the healing power of meditation and mindfulness practice.
“Then there is the whole emotional component to pain: anger, frustration, irritability, not liking one’s body, feeling betrayed. When you hold these emotions in awareness without judging them so much, it pulls out the second arrow. It also releses you from shooting more arrows into yourself. You learn to cultivate a certain kind of equanimity in the face of discomfort. When you hear yourself saying ‘This is killing me,’ you might ask instead, ‘In this moment, is this killing me?’ The answer may very well be ‘No, but what about the next moment?’ But remember, with mindfulness we are trying to stay in this moment. We’ll deal with the next moment in the next moment. In that way, we learn to respond more mindfully to any kind of stressful situation rather than react in a highly conditioned, mindless, automatic way. Bodily discomfort is just one example.
Out of this practice, over time, moments can emerge where you actually experience freedom and peace, right here in your own body, in your own mind, in your own life.”
– ‘The Mind’s Own Physician: a Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama on the Healing Power of Meditation’