Examine for yourself what is real in this present moment
One helpful way to approach meditation is simply as working with the obstacles that prevent us from being fully in the present moment.
Have you ever experienced anything in your life in anything other than the present moment?
And if that’s all that we have, then isn’t the quality of this human experience only as good as the quality with which we show up in the present moment?
Examine for yourself what is real and what is not, in this very moment.Are any of the things in the future that you may have anxiety about, real? Are any of the things in the past that you may be angry or regretful about, real?
When I examine, simply and fully, this moment, I find just a few consistent things:
The breath and the sensations it causes in the body as it moves in and out.
The body, with its comforts and discomforts and the feeling of its aliveness.
The experience of my senses, the colors and light I see, what I’m hearing, what I’m smelling and tasting, the feel of the temperature on my skin.
And so we meditate, to practice being with just those things. We use mindfulness and breath anchoring to be with the breath and the body, as we remove energy from the random thought chatter in the mind. We use open/insight meditations to accentuate the experience of the senses, without labeling or judging any part of what comes in through those senses.
And this is really worthwhile practice to connect us deeper to the present moment. For in that place, I find that two more experiences emerge for me:
An access to a deeper wisdom beyond my thinking mind from which intuition and guidance can help me make choices.
A realization that what is left in this moment in me, is not very different from what is left in this moment, in you. And perhaps, this realization is no different than love itself.
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