Once we’ve arranged ourselves onto the cushions, the room becomes silent. The instructor, cross-legged in front of her altar – a low square table covered in Indian cloth, topped with a Buddha statue, incense, a small vase of frangipanis, a scattering of shells, a lit candle – asks us to gaze with soft eyes on the flame and become aware of our breath. ‘Don’t try to control it, simply observe. Feel the rise and fall of your stomach, the release that comes with each exhale.’ My ankles push into my towel. I hear my heartbeat over my breath. I watch the flame and think of the altar we make to my mother each year, and realise I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ve turned what started as a moment of reflection into a furtive chore to rush through before getting on with Christmas. I’ll tell Charlie I want to try a new way to remember our mother, as she was before she got sick. And I’d like to include the children. The decision to drop our shrine-building makes me feel more relaxed than I have since I walked into this hall. My shoulders ease down.

Out of nowhere, I remember Charlie saying ‘karma’ when I was trying to explain the laws of motion. Perhaps action and reaction and cause and effect are not that different.

‘Breathe in, breathe out.’ The instructor advises us to find peace in the truth of this moment. I don’t know what that means. But the promise of peace, that word used on her poster, is what drew me to this class so I should at least try to experience it. ‘Try not to think about the past or the future, or the stories you tell yourself about your life, but instead think about what is happening in this moment. Be here, now. Be willing to truly feel, in all its glorious expansiveness, everything that exists in this breath, and in the next breath.’ The idea of not allowing my mind to think about the past or future is intriguing but bewildering. I’m committed to keeping the bad thoughts at bay, and dropping my mind into a lower gear, but to corral my mind into one moment seems incredibly limiting, the opposite of expansive.

‘Let go,’ the instructor whispers, as if reading my thoughts.

We sit in silence until she says: ‘A poem.’ Which we all take as an invitation to resettle our bodies.

‘Let us consider the words of Zen poet Ryōkan as we begin our brief look into the three paths to peace.’

How strange that the Western scientist and Eastern seer divide their truths into threes: did they artificially construct three laws and three paths, or is that a division preferred by nature that they merely put into words? Surely life is scrappier, messier than their three-part theories would have it.

‘To find truth, drift east and west, come and go, entrusting yourself to the waves.’ The instructor looks directly at me and suggests we close our eyes. ‘To find happiness and peace in our lives, to feel genuine contentment, first we must know the truth of ourselves and the moment, and pay close attention to what is inside us; second, we must encourage kind and loving relationships with those around us; and third, we must relax with true awareness in the waves.’ She pauses. ‘This last one can meet resistance from those of us more comfortable trying to control than to observe. But a wise mind entrusts itself to the waves, and is able to remain calm even in chaos, knowing that life is never still, and that we are a part of that perpetual movement and change. Even as you sit here your heart pumps, your blood flows, your lungs empty and fill. And outside, flowers bloom, a bird breaks out of its shell, another may lie down to die. The earth moves around the sun. We don’t control any of this. We need only to be aware of it, fully awake to everything around us, both outside and inside our bodies. Live and love, entrusting ourselves to the waves.