Making Now First - Meditation For Attention

These days we often hear touted the importance of being in the present moment. We’re told that the “now” is all that exists and if we’re not here “now” then we’re not really living. This makes a great deal of sense to me. Oftentimes, I find myself distracted by thoughts about the future. Or, I replay past experiences in my mind, often unproductively.

Being in the moment frees us to experience life more fully, which is a good thing. Use this meditation to help be in the now.

Transcript

So.

So,

As the bird song washes over you,

Take note of your mind.

Where is your mind right now?

Is it like the bird song?

Focused,

Attentive,

Taking action,

Expressing itself.

The mind can be like this.

To enter this place with your mind,

I want you to step into the present.

At the moment,

Your mind may be worried about something that happened an hour ago,

A day ago,

A month ago,

Or even years ago.

That's when we're being in the past.

We're living,

We're breathing now,

But we're being in the past.

The other place we go is the future.

Planning,

Making lists.

This takes us to the future.

The beautiful thing about the human mind is that we can reflect on the past,

Make changes,

And that we can plan and go into the future.

These two skills give us skyscrapers.

They give us families.

They give us all of the things that we have as humans.

They are also our problem.

When we sit in the past or stay in the future,

We forget about the now.

When you're looking for a happy moment,

The easiest way to do this is to find your breath and just start following it in and out of your body.

This calming tool that you have at your disposal will be with you for your entire life,

So it's always there for you.

Take a couple of minutes right now and just observe your breath coming and going over and over.

When your mind says that this is boring,

Realize that you've trained your mind to jump to the future and jump to the past instead of being with yourself right now.

Jacob.

Esther.

Birds chirping birds chirping birds chirping birds chirping birds chirping birds chirping Now that you have spent some time with your breath you may start to notice,

To understand how your mind is pulling you to the past and to the future.

There is no need to be upset about this.

Remember you have been training your mind to do these things for years.

So it will take some time to be present.

But every time you practice being present for one minute,

Five minutes,

Ten minutes it will build up this mental muscle to be in the present.

When distractions come at you and if you viewed the bird song as a distraction just take note of that.

And instead remind yourself that your breath is your doorway to the now.

It's a doorway to less judgement and more appreciation.

I look forward to continuing to meditate with you.

Thank you for joining me today.

Peace be with you.