I am fortunate to be based in Singapore, where we aspire to be a “City in Nature”.
Even though Singapore is fully urbanised, we live in an abundance of nature and lush, green spaces made easily accessible to us, where a casual walk along the streets means that we also get to enjoy beautiful views of unique, majestic tree-scapes.
As inhabitants of the city, we inhabit a place, but we may not always feel truly connected with where we are.
Instead, we get readily absorbed in our own world at the expense of taking notice in the beauty and realities of our environment.
Our eyes would rather be glued to the phone screen than taking in the shades of green around us and the clouds of white above our heads. Our ears would rather be plugged in to the latest TikTok video than welcoming the sounds of birds singing the praises of this wonderful world.
And the mind would rather space out or dwell in an endless stream of thoughts, than connect with our immediate experience in the here and now.
We are living, but we are not necessarily alive most of the time.
It is through our senses that we interact with this world, and when we shut off our senses, we are essentially shutting out the very environment that nurtures and sustains us. Over time, we are inevitably teaching ourselves to disengage from what really matters.
True connection lies in paying attention.
In this Take A Pause session recorded on 18 August 2024, the TAP community practiced opening our sense of sight, sound, and touch as a way of directly experiencing and connecting with the present moment.
We invited curiosity to all that the senses are receiving, and cultivated the beginner’s mind in observing what is here in our environment, even when we have encountered them countless times before.
At the end of our practice, we tuned in to William Stafford’s poem, Being A Person.
Practice Begins: 06:27
Reading Begins: 27:09
Meditation Duration: 20 minutes
Being a Person
– William Stafford
Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke
the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.
Let any season that wants to come here make its own
call. After that sound goes away, wait.
A slow bubble rises through the earth
and begins to include sky, stars, all space,
even the outracing, expanding thought.
Come back and hear the little sound again.
Suddenly this dream that you are having matches
everyone’s dream, and the result is the world.
If a different call came there wouldn’t be any
world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.
How you stand here is important. How you
listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.
“Don’t just do something, sit there.”
The Big Sit x Guoco Tower
The Big Sit is a community initiative encouraging the use of public spaces for mindfulness practice and intentional activity that fosters mental and social health.
We simply sit together in the CBD of Singapore, and practice connecting with ourselves, with one another, and with our urban environment.
Join us for our final Big Sit of 2024:
WHEN: Saturday 30 November 2024, 6 pm - 7 pm Singapore Time
WHERE: Urban Park, Guoco Tower (Tanjong Pagar MRT)
Share this post