There are times when we feel untethered from the present moment of our lives We look back on a week or a month of time and wonder where did it go?
Was I present for any of it?
When I had dinner with my family When I had a lone time with my significant other when I was Exercising when I was driving somewhere did I really embody the present moment or was I always somewhere else?
There might be a hollow sense that there isn't a lot of life in your years But we can always enliven the present moment with our awareness We only have to fill it with our breath Take a moment to get into a comfortable position either seated or lying down Close your eyes Imagine yourself standing along a dirt path surrounded by a grassy prairie land The path is clear.
There's no foot traffic.
No bikes.
No animals This is because this path is your life This is the present moment where you're standing at this point if you look behind you you'll see your past moments both significant and insignificant stretching back to your birth you might see your breakfast today or when you put out the garbage Some of the memories are joyful laughing at a joke your friend said Others are milestones the birth of your child Some are devastating losing your mother to cancer others very traumatic like a car accident Events at the beginning of the path might seem foggy You may only see images of various importance that you've carried around in your heart for all these years This is a life and it leads the wise being you are in this present moment If you turn to look ahead on the path,
You'll see your future It's not certain but it's full of possibility hope and promise It may seem to stretch out into eternity if you're young Perhaps if you're older,
It seems the path behind you is much longer than the path you have let to go The only thing that's sure to happen along the path is your death,
But there's no way of knowing when So that leaves you here in this present moment The light dusting of brown dirt on your shoes planted firmly on the ground in this moment Now that might leave you feeling a little deflated and empty-handed until you recognize that life doesn't just stretch out in past present and future time There's what Zen Buddhist teacher Lewis Richmond refers to as vertical time Vertical time happens in the body in this moment free of time of Aging free of the stories we tell ourselves about our past Or about how our future should be free of all the concepts of duality of birth and decay young and old it is timeless and eternal free of sorrow or pain and We experience it with our breath When you take a deep breath in this vertical time stretches up into the sky When you exhale it plummets back to the ground flattening out It's the topography on the path of your life filling each moment with energy and consciousness as You breathe in think to yourself.
I know I am breathing in On the out breath think I know I am breathing out I Know I am breathing in I Know I am breathing in I Know I am breathing out I Know I am breathing in I Know I am breathing in I Know I am breathing out This is an important practice grounding you in the present moment We always have a choice to live in this moment free of regret about the past and free of anxiety about the future Breathe into the spaciousness between past and present Rest your attention on this open spacious breathing body In vertical time there is no loss or gain writes Lewis Richmond There is only this body and this breath in the limitless space in which they both live Continue to breathe With the in breath,
I know I am breathing in With the out breath,
I know I am breathing out As We bring this practice to an end.
See if you can bring this sense of awareness and peace into the rest of your day
