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Maitri's Motto: How Slow Can You Go?
It has long been my motto ~ How Slow Can You Go? I have looked around me for years and watched the world go faster
and faster and faster. I was one of the last people to get online that I knew, and I bemoaned the loss of "snail mail"...
For years I published a quarterly journal called The Contemplative Way: Slowing Down In A Modern World, and it was
all laid out by hand and hand assembled, all on beautiful blue paper, well before I was online, and I bemoaned the loss of
letter-writing and said I would never sell out and get online and do only e-mail. The loss of letter-writing was too precious
to lose. Sadly, I became an ardent e-mailer because no one answered my letters anymore. I used to write long, long letters
with dip pens and
pressed flowers and quotes, filled with tiny treasures, perfumed pages, and sealed with sealing wax. Now, I type fast, hit
send now, and the next day forget what I wrote. No beautiful papers to hold in one's hands. I think I am a born Luddite in
the computer age, and I have been swept along with technology like the rest, but the practice of Snail Mind is very
important to me. Here is how you do it...
Look at the little picture above. Start with your eyes open. Look at the very center, the tightly wound place that the snail
trail originated. This is where you are, doing too much, moving too fast, taking on ever more and ever more. People are going
so fast today they can't see the consequences of their own actions and just rush on with wild abandon wreaking havoc and causing
chaos wherever they go. It's time to start now. See the tightly wound center of the trail the snail left behind? This is where
you are right now. This is you, a tightly wound being in an ever dissipating world. Right now, you need to leave it all behind.
Nothing else exists. Focus on the center of the snail trail and start breathing.
Breathing slowly in and out, as slowly as you possibly can, follow the trail around and around, counterclockwise (you are
going backwards, slowing down time...) following the snail's trail. When you reach the snail himself, close your eyes and
make very slow lazy circles in your mind's eye, still counterclockwise, as if you are slowing the clock down. Breathe... Breathe
very slowly. Your body may sway a little in circles with the pictures in your mind.
Finally your mind has unwound itself and there is no clock, there are no circles, there is no snail, just the silent space
of your own mind. When you reach this state keep focusing on your breath. You don't need to see the snail, you have
become the snail. Keep breathing in and out until you feel completely at peace and your breath naturally comes to a
stop. Sit very quietly in this moment and breathe naturally. Keep your eyes closed until they naturally and slowly open. You
are now the snail. Carry this pace and this peace into your day.
You need to practice this not only every day but as many times a day as you need to until you fully realize that you are slowing
down in your mind. It actually only takes a few moments once you've practiced it. Put a picture or little drawing of a simple
snail on a post it note on your computer, or your refrigerator, or anywhere you will see it often during the day. Let it be
a reminder. After a time, just seeing your new totem animal will cause your whole body to relax and you can achieve Snail
Mind by closing your eyes, making slow circles accompanied by your breath for a moment or two. It will change the tenor
of your day. It will transform your life.
Start a revolution. Do Snail Mind Practice every day. As you slow down, like a force of nature, those in your circle
will be slowed down as well. You needn't say a thing. Talk slower and more softly. Walk slower. Slow down all of your daily
movements. Eat slower. Chew every bite well, don't wolf down your food. Take a very slow walk and notice everything. Pick
the tiniest wildflower you see and put it in a tiny vase (an old salt shaker works well!) and cherish it. Slower, smaller,
gentler, kinder, Snail Mind is the way to change the world. And we've no time lose. If not now, when?
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