As you read this, we will be in the afternoon of our first day of sesshin in our Buddhist retreat centre in the middle of France. We might be sitting in front of this Buddha right now.
We might be sitting quietly in the bamboo grove, or walking slowly and silently through the beautiful countryside, or chanting or bowing or singing. Maybe we'll be drinking a cup of lemongrass tea, slowly and mindfully.
We won't be talking to each other. We won't be on our laptops or our mobile phones. (Wish us luck!)
This will give us the perfect opportunity to look out for small stones. We'll be catching them all in our notebooks and putting them online at the end of the week.
But you don't have to go on retreat to find small stones. The whole point of the practice is that it fits into all kinds of lives, no matter how busy they are. Who doesn't have five minutes to spare in a day? If you don't have five minutes, then just NOTICE your small stone instead - thirty seconds should do it.
Try not to get too caught up in whether your small stone is any good or not (although I'm sure most of you will, because you're human). Just notice. Just write them down.
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While we're away we won't be sharing these articles anywhere - do help us out if you can by sharing the links with your friends and on Twitter and Facebook if you enjoy them. And do support each other in your small stone practice. Deep bow.
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