It was sometime before sunrise, calm and serene. We were on an elevated hillock with the lights of a nearby village visible in the distance. The meditation session began.
“Keep your phone away. Minimize distractions.”
“Check your posture – soft straight spine.”
“Breathe.”
“Be in the present moment. Let go of the past and future.”
“Focus. If your attention strays from the practice, gently guide it back.”
“Be with yourself. Nothing else matters in this moment.”
“Right now, there is nothing else you have to do. Nowhere else you have to go.”
At daybreak on a Sunday morning, I was at the rural campus of my son’s school. The school had organised a fundraising trek. The day’s program started with meditation, followed by a short yoga session. After that was the 10-kilometer cross-country trek, finishing with breakfast.
During the trek, I pondered over the simple, yet effective instructions during the meditation session. I reflected, how, in day-to-day surgical practice, many surgeons, consciously or subconsciously, incorporate similar techniques during complex surgery. The best surgeons are the ones who bring into their surgeries concentration, calmness, focus and at the same time an element of detachment.
“Be here now.”
Rosemary Isaac says:
This advice is relevant to all professions and recreational pastimes I think. Great.