Being Present

My foot slips on a narrow ledge: in that split second, as needles of fear pierce heart and temples, eternity intersects with present time. Thought and action are not different and stone, air, ice, sun, fear and self are one. What is exhilarating is to extend this acute awareness into ordinary moments, experiencing which, in the moment-by-moment, finding themselves at the centre of things, have no need for any secret of true being. In this very breath that we all take now lies the secret that all great teachers try to tell us, “the precision and openness and intelligence of the present.” The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. To be anywhere else is “to paint eyeballs on chaos.” When I watch the blue sky. I must watch the blue sky, not be thinking of sex, danger or the present, for this present - even while I think of it - is gone.

 

#petermathissen

Done