Since my return home I have been surprised at this simple fact. It was easier to be “present” amidst the chaos of Kampala than it is while sitting on the beach of San Diego. Call me crazy… But hear me out!
When sitting on the beach, looking out over the ocean, watching the sunset, I am 100% content. There is not much that I love more than my feet in the sand, music in my ears, journal in my lap, and the waves in front of me. It instantly makes me feel at peace! But that doesn’t always mean my mind is present. Yes I am enjoying everything in front of me but simultaneously my mind is racing. My mind often thinks of recent memories from the past or drifts off into the future. Next thing I know I am off in some fantasy far from where I am at that moment… See? Not so present.
Now on to my point. You try running across a street with 14 taxis, 4 buses, 89 boda bodas, and 64 cars coming at you in no structured fashion with the mindset “right of way goes to the bigger and faster” while thinking of anything but the present moment… Impossible! In Uganda I was forced to think solely about where my foot was going to be placed next and if it was in the direct path of a speeding vehicle. Chaos gave me no choice but to be in the now. It was about life or death here people!
With that said I am trying to train my mind to be able to be present always. A close friend deserves nothing less than your full presence when sitting on the couch together, a patient deserves nothing less than both my mind and my body focused at the task, and I deserve nothing less than to allow myself to live for today… Not tomorrow… And surely not yesterday.
So I will leave you with a question. If A=B and B=C then A=C is true. And if meditation is the act of being fully present, and as I was running across the streets of Kampala I was fully present (again it was life or death), does that mean I was meditating while nearly missing oncoming traffic?
thepresentlife 
maybe?