A quick note since it’s been awhile: For me, one of the finest moments (among many!) of the past week was when Barack Obama, after taking his official oath of office for his second term as president of the United States, after all the typical American show business was over, made his way up through the crowd to the portico of the Capitol and then stopped. He paused just inside the door, in the shadow, and turned back to take in the throngs of people filling the expanse of the Mall on a gray, cold winter midday, the flags flapping, the spindly trees standing tall, the celebratory, hopeful moment, unlike any other. I’ve never seen another moment like it myself, a president aware of impermanence and pausing to appreciate it. In Zen, we call it beginner’s mind.
In any case, it was another manifestation of what makes Obama, despite whatever failings he may have, so extraordinary: He is quite simply profoundly human.
No one has said anything about the moment in the press, the television commentators said nothing as I watched it live. But I managed to dig up a video clip of Obama’s beginner’s mind moment on the Web.
Obama’s beginner’s mind moment
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
http://www.swissfakeuhren.de
http://www.swissfakeuhren.de
in a songconest-audition a young guy is really singing.
Completely in his act. Present. Letting big silences fall between the notes.
Everybody is touched.
This silence is not empty – but full and o so "present" – naked and fragile.
the jury said:
"you took the moment"
" you changed the space – the atmosphere"
"this why we do this"
And it gave us something:
in this moment we – who experienced this – were all there – touched – together -interconected.
Arts –
"This is why we do this"
"a president aware of impermanence and pausing to appreciate it."
he said something like this: "let me look. i know that i will never see this, this way, again"
and if we looked more times during our busy days and just stop to comtemplate what is gone, what is dying at every second, and just letting something else to arise?
isnt so beautiful?
my work day is over, time to shower and prepare something to eat.