I awaken in the morning to the calls of birds in the yard and dogs in the distance, to the touch of breeze from the window and sunlight sifting through the trees. I am part of the world around me. We are all movements within a vast ecosystem. Move us into interstellar space and we become lifeless, frozen compounds.Life is dynamic. The world around us is in flux. Perceptions, thoughts, moods, and awareness arise, flow, shift, and dissipate. No two days are the same. No two moments are identicalLife is vast and we are small — like tiny birds resting in an ocean. Nature is not part of us. Rather we are part of nature. If we settle into the waves, we become part of them. We are embedded in the web of living beings. Fortunately, our minds and hearts are inherently fluid and responsive to the world around. We can’t control the waves that come our way, but we can learn to respond wisely to them. Peace and contentment are found in learning to rest deeply in things as they are.Contentment and wisdom are neither passive nor reactive. They are responsive as we rest in the waves around us and within us. And when we truly rest in the waves, we realize we are the ocean. And we always have been.This book is about the meditative art of resting in the waves. It seeks to understand the mind-heart rather than to control it. It welcomes the fluidity of the self, the mind, awareness, meditation, and life as it moves, shifts and changes. Rather than searching in vain for a solid place to stand, it encourages us to connect deeply with its aliveness and rest in the inner and outer waves.

Doug Kraft is a long-time Buddhist meditator, psychotherapist, and minister. He has learned that ease and contentment are not found in trying to control life, but in learning to connect more deeply with what it. The mind as a mind of its own. We are not pilots, we are navigators.