Just pretend that this moment is the only moment that exists

A friend of mine - an Ishaya teacher of meditation - loves to tell his students to pretend that this moment is the only moment that exists. It simply means to be completely alive and present here, now, assuming that no other moment in time exists.

How about that? How about just letting go now, and being present to this, what is here, what is now.

To do it means to assume that everything else is beyond your control. It means you assume you only have what is in front of you.

The thing is we spend so much time trying to change the past or control the future. Life gets extraordinarily simple, not to mention easy, when you take it one moment at a time. Just now. And now. And now.

Here you are. Really be here. Don’t worry about anything else.

When you do that you can meet the need of the moment, free of the burden of the past and the future.

Really, honestly, if I could give you one thing it would be to realise that a peaceful, happy, enjoyable and efficient life is right here.

Bring yourself back and you will find it easier and easier to stay.

Being alive - being present

“Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive” Thich Nhat Hanh Being present is the single greatest thing you can do for your life.

Being present means you can be focussed, clear, creative, and full of confidence too.

Being present means you can give 100% to whatever you do. Everyone wins when you are present.

Being present means you can be calm and content, no matter the circumstances. When other people are losing it, you keep it.

Being present means you can be free from reactive patterns and flying off the handle. It means you have choice, very real choice in the what and how you live your life.

Being present means life becomes enjoyable, and easy. Life makes sense when you are here and alive to it. Life takes on a simple purpose when you show up for it.

Being present is so simple. There is nothing simpler. Just wake up. Be alive, be here, be in the same place as your body.

Stop sleep walking through your life - be alive!

Who's the boss?

Do you feel like you are wrestling with a constantly active mind? Do you feel like you have been given to your mind, as opposed to your mind being given to you?

Your mind never rests, it is never content. It is always active - that's what it does. You find a bit of happiness and calm, and then your mind is gone, searching for the next thing. Your mind can never be content because its always on the hunt, but that's its job.

We have a problem with over-thinking because through habit we have let the mind become the boss. We've let it into the driving seat and its gotten away, going for it, predicting, guessing, checking, comparing, the whole works. Its not relaxing because the mind is constantly busy doubting and worrying. Its inefficient too. Because the mind is never present, we rarely can meet the true need of this moment. We rarely show up for life.

In all ways, for the fullest life possible we have to learn to again be the boss of the mind.

Being the boss of the mind doesn't mean closing it down or shutting it up. It means realising what the mind is, and having a different perspective, a bigger perspective.

We are awareness. We are what we notice. For the longest time all we have noticed is the same old loops of thought that are floating around inside our skulls. We're so involved in the detail we don't see anything else. We notice the content but rarely the context. We notice the fish swimming, but rarely the water. We notice the words, but rarely who is reading. The universe is a big place, a wondrous place, but we just don't notice much of it.

Being clear, calm and content does not require force. It involves relaxing, taking a step back. When you stop and become presence, even just for a moment, everything changes. By becoming aware of the bigger picture the mind becomes smaller, quieter in comparison. You become content. Not that you weren't contentment already, its just that you were distracted, listening to your mind trying to be helpful by telling you everything that was wrong.

You also become ready. Ready for anything. All possibilities. You can meet the need of this moment because you're not absorbed in the mind talk about the last moment or the next one. You can direct your considerable attention to anything you wish, not just what your mind believes is important.

If you become the boss of your mind, you are free. Free to put your attention on anything you wish. Free to follow what is most important to you, your highest desire. Free to finally show up for life, to participate fully in it. Yet most importantly, you are free to realise who you really are.

Awareness

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware - Henry Miller

It’s all about awareness.

In awareness, in awake-ness, there is aliveness. We spend living our lives in a tiny part of the universe - largely in the space between our ears - and even there in that small tunnel of perspective we’re not really aware or awake to what we are telling ourselves, to how we construct our life.

We have taken on beliefs, judgements, customs, ways and means and they have become Truths: The Way Things Are Done and The Way I Am and The Way You Should Be. These patterns of thought and these habits of doing are not Truth, not even close.

It’s not natural that we do these things, it’s just an agreed way of seeing and being in the world - sometimes as individuals, sometimes as societies. Some of these things serve us, many do not.

Unconscious rigidity in these ways doesn’t serve. It leaves one humourless, serious, static, unyielding and unbending. When life changes - and it does because life is change - it will inevitably meet up against the combined total of our assumed truths, that being that This Should Not Be Happening To Me. People’s unaware rigid expectations means they suffer, simply because they are sleep walking through life.

Awareness gives you the flexibility to make free choice. If you can be aware of what you are telling yourself, of the patterns of how you construct your life, then you can choose differently. Life doesn’t become an inevitable reaction, you don’t keep recreating the same situations time in, time out, you don’t keep giving energy to the same useless circle of thoughts: Awareness means life becomes Life.

It takes zero effort to be aware. Awareness just is. Open, watching, receptive. Awareness isn’t about stopping thought, that’s where the effort comes in.  It just is seeing, attentive to all things, avoiding nothing. You can’t make your life aware. You can only be aware now. It matters not a doddle how awake you have been, only in this moment can you see clearly.

The beauty of awareness is opening your perception beyond the narrow tunnel of thought. There you discover much more about yourself and the world. Awareness has so little to do with thought and patterns of behaviour - awareness allows you to discover the still silent presence within. There you can discover unchanging permanent Truth. There you can live through anything with peace in your heart. There is absolute aliveness, it is the source of Life itself.