Practices FOR CultivatING Awe

TRY SOME OF THESE AWE-INSPIRING PRACTICES

When you click on the photos below, you will connect with a practice that will help you cultivate awe. Afterwards, we invite you to share your experience, and see what other people have discovered during their own explorations.

SHARE YOUR MOMENT OF AWE

Connecting With A Stranger

Watching Movement

Where Are You?

Cook Like A Zen Monk

Space

Sliding Into Slumber

Showering

Eye Contact

Remembering You

Enhance the Dance

Home as a Museum

Connecting With Your Pet

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Connecting With A Stranger

Standing in line can be experienced as an interruption in your day, or as an opportunity for a moment of AWE. Next time you’re standing in line, begin to consider this as a gift of space and time in your busy life, and choose gratitude.

Imagine breathing from your heart, take a deep breath, and begin to notice the scene around you.
Look around for strangers, with whom you can connect, perhaps the person behind or in front of you.
For only a moment, allow yourself to have eye contact with this other human being—who’s also been given the gift of time to stand in line.

Watching Movement

On a day with a breeze, place yourself in a natural setting, a park, a shoreline, or in the mountains.

Stand or sit quietly and begin to watch. Simply observe the movement of trees, grasses, flowers, water, clouds, birds, insects and people.
Become aware of any movement.
Begin to notice that everything has a rhythm. Every tree or blade of grass, every cloud will catch the breeze and move in it’s own unique way,

As with nature, so are we…..moving through the world in our own special, individual ways. Unlike clouds and plants, we animals self-propel ourselves, perhaps soothed by, but not propelled by the breeze. Over 7 billion people on the earth, yet no one person moves like any other.

Where Are You?

You’re sitting on a planet in the middle of nowhere,

Spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour.

Floating in empty space that has no beginning or end.

Where will you be tomorrow?

Sitting on a planet in the middle of nowhere,

Spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour.

Floating in empty space that has no beginning or end.

Cook Like a Zen Monk

The most envied job at any Zen center is that of the Tenzo, the cook. He or she gets to practice meditation in action for most of the day. You can be like Tenzo today, by giving the preparation of a meal all of your attention.

Using your senses, notice the feel, the weight of each ingredient, utensil, drAWEr pull.
Notice the cold coming toward you when you open the refrigerator door.
Notice the heat from the stove.
Notice all the things you never noticed before while cooking.
Notice the aroma of each ingredient.
Consciously notice putting one ingredient away before reaching for the next one.
Notice each movement that you make—the stirring, the lifting.
Spoon your meal onto your plate as though it were a gift to yourself, which it is.
Sit quietly and eat consciously.

At any point in the process, attend fully to what you’re doing, waiting, pausing, inhaling and fully exhaling into AWE.

Space

Take a human hair.

The width of that hair is around a million atoms across.

And atoms aren’t just tiny, they are 99.9% empty space.

If you removed all the empty space from the atoms that make up all the humans on the planet, you could fit all of us, every human on the planet inside a single apple.

SLIDING INTO SLUMBER

Before you get into bed. Note how fortunate you are to have a comfortable bed to sleep on. This isn’t true for everyone. Wear as little as you’re comfortable with in order to have more skin contact with your sheets.

Notice your hands as they pull back the covers exposing the sheets.
Slide yourself between the layers and sense the soft coolness as you move yourself inward to cocoon yourself for the night.
Take a deep breath, feeling your body expand as you inhale, and allow your whole body to sink into the bed as you exhale deeply.

Be grateful for these next hours of rest without having to do anything.

Showering

Showering is an ordinary activity we do almost every day. It’s a good place for creative thinking but also a great place for an AWEgasmic experience.

Slip into the stream and notice the sensation of the water bouncing off and stimulating your arms, head, face, back, and neck.
Turn around and around and stay with the sensation of water contacting your skin.
Play with different temperatures, hot to warm to cold and back to warm again.
Notice the sound of the water and the scents of soap and shampoo and the smooth soapy contact of your hands on your body.

Eye Contact

Gaze into the eyes of a friend or a loved one.

Take time to notice, not just to look.
Imagine the history of this person,
all the loves
and losses,
joys and disappointments,
fears and accomplishments
written on their face
and reflected in their eyes.

. . . Inhale deeply, open your heart,
understand and love them for who they are
and all they might like to be.

Remembering You

Think of a person who has been most dear to you in your life. They may be living or they may have passed away. Take time to create a clear picture of that person, maybe a particular memory or scene that captures their essence.

When you have that image in mind, microdose on it.
Hold the image in your mind, give it your full attention.
Wait the length of a full inhalation, or maybe more than one, while you take time to appreciate this person.
Consider what they mean to you, what you learned from them, or how you grew as a result of knowing them.

Then, when you’re ready, exhale fully and allow yourself to feel the release of energy.

Enhance the Dance

Listening to music is a way to wake up our senses and make us feel more alive. When we take in the music and LET our body move itself to the rhythm, the music can express itself through our bodies.

Choose a song that you love.
Stand with closed eyes. Begin to breathe in the music.
Don’t move, first just feel the rhythm.
Then let the music move your body from the inside out.
Sense the music in your belly, in your heart, neck, arms and legs.

Home as a Museum

Take a bit of time to wander around your home, as if you were in a museum, and stop long enough to appreciate some of the things you have in your home.

Do you have a piece of art, a photograph that you can look at and appreciate?
Do you have any sculptures, light fixtures, mirrors, or lamps that have a story behind them? Or a blanket, pillow, rug, perhaps a vase?
When something captivates your attention, stop, wait, and breathe in slowly while giving your full attention to whatever you’re looking at.
Notice its qualities, characteristics, and details and what you never noticed before.
Does it conjure any memories?
Who gave it to you?
What happened to them?
How did you end up with this in your home?

Connecting With Your Pet Through Touch

Our pets appreciate it when we slow down and are present with them. Connecting with our beloved—humans or animals—is one way to experience awe.

Lie down next to your beloved pet.
Slowly extend your hand to their paw or foot or face.
Fully take in this sweet moment and gentle connection.
Lay there for a while. Notice your breath.
Notice the pace of their breath compared to your own.

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