Learning To Live in The Present

In an effort to bring peace of mind to my life, in the past few years I’ve been practicing Zen meditation with a local group that meets weekly.   We sit in complete silence for two 30-minute intervals and then afterwards discuss issues that arise from our experiences.  Sitting on a chair or a pillow for that length of time without moving is a good way of confronting one’s unrelenting chattering mind.   We sometimes accompany this with breathing technics and repeat koans or mantras.  If I ever thought I was an evolved sentient being, these sessions have shown me otherwise.  The challenge in this activity is training oneself to pay attention to the present moment. 

Despite our best efforts to slow our minds and stay focused, we almost always find our thoughts wandering elsewhere such as reliving the past or projecting into the future.  I’ve often observed myself trying to correct or resolve past mistakes, a fruitless activity because they’ve long since passed and so much has changed since then.  Preoccupying our minds with previous bad behaviors and poor choices only serves to prevent us from creating better conditions and situations.  By letting these preoccupations go while we are meditating, we often receive inner answers to concerns that we wouldn’t have come up with otherwise.

Equally futile is immersing ourselves in future events, ones that we may be eagerly looking forward to or woefully dreading.  In either case, they haven’t yet occurred.  If and when they do, our circumstances will undoubtedly be in a different place.  When we obsess on our hopes and fears we fall prey to a fool’s errand, a waste of energy and time. What we anticipate often winds up being far what we expected. 

Meditation practice helps us observe what is on our plate on a daily basis. Technics are found in a wide variety of cultural contexts, none of which has a monopoly on awareness and personal growth.  What works for one person does not necessarily work for another. Slowing our racing thoughts is like working with an inner personal trainer.   Just as we can develop and expand our physical abilities, we can also strengthen our mental and spiritual fitness. 

When we pay better attention to ourselves, we also become more aware of others, not to mention better appreciation of the animals, plants, and the natural world around us.  As you go through life, try to focus on being at one with each moment. Remember that the past is history and the future is a mystery. When it comes down to it, all any of us really has is the present.