Stone with a hole in the center

I come upon a rock with a cavernous hole in the middle, carved out by the perpetual pounding of the waves. The rock is easily twice my height. It is perched at the edge of the beach, beside a bluff that rises straight up out of the sea, I crawl into the hollow and sit on a hard ledge, watching the breakers crash against the offshore reefs, sending plumes of spray into the air.
I sit as still as I can, my back straight; I make a valiant effort to empty my mind: I want to feel the cadence of the waves, the rise of the swells, the ebb of the tide. I want to move in unison with those elements, to become part of them as they become part of me.
I try to time my breathing with the wash of the waves, inhaling as a wave rolls up the beach, exhaling as it rolls back down. I concentrate on my breath because breath is the source of life. When I am aware of my breath, I am aware of myself and my place in the world.

Not all men are born to be saints, but I believe we are all born with a voice within that we tend to ignore until it becomes so indistinct we barely know it’s there. The voice doesn’t come from an almighty God in the sky; it comes from an in-dwelling God in the soul. The poet-philosopher Henri Bergson, author of  “Creative Evolution”, called it the élan vital, the vital impulse, the divine spark, the life force that drives us on.

Why do people all over the world flock to the sandy shore? I think it’s because the instant they touch the sand, the moment they hear the surf, the evil spirits flee and they feel at home in the world. I move slowly, deliberately, over the sand, aware that the universe is not a hostile place. “Drink your tea slowly”, Nhat Hanh wrote. “There is a great rush in our world to get things over and done with, but there is no reverence for the work itself.”. What I need now is to immerse myself in life – to express my reverence for the moment at hand, the moment in which I dwell, and for the beachcombing I want to do.