This Is A Moment - A Practice On Presence

This new talk is based on the phrase, “This Is A Moment,” which through practice can help us to detach from our busy, discursive, and negative thoughts, and bring us back home to the more calm, open, awake space of the present moment - just as it is - with great kindness, compassion, and care. It includes a 10-minute meditation at the end.

Transcript

GONG So,

So often when things are really,

Really difficult,

As they are for so many of us right now,

What's often needed isn't something complex or complicated,

But something much simpler,

Something we can easily remember and hold on to,

Kind of as a way to help us to get through it.

Especially when everything seems to be competing for our attention,

Or when our thoughts and emotions just seem to be continually derailing us or making us feel off balance.

We tend to need practices that are easily accessible,

Kind of in our pockets,

If you will,

Right there,

Fairly easy,

That can help us to come back home to presence more quickly.

And one of the best practices I know for this involves using very short,

Concise phrases that I like to affectionately call Buddha's sticky notes,

Since most all of them are short enough to actually fit on a sticky note,

Usually just three to five words.

So they're super easy for us to remember and to access.

The reason I'm such a strong advocate of these is because honestly,

Once we start to train ourselves in using them,

Maybe even by putting them on actual sticky notes where we'll see them regularly,

They tend to spontaneously arise at the exact moment that we need them.

You know,

They're just right there and we really don't need to go searching for them.

It's a wonderful and simple way to train the mind.

And this training actually often reminds me of another great mind training practice that I learned about three decades ago now from the Tibetan tradition,

Which I started out in.

And this was developed sometime in the 12th century by the master Chukkawayesh Dorge.

He came up with a practice that involves memorizing and using almost 60 different short phrases called the loggians.

And these are all actually a bit longer and are more like instructions for us.

For example,

One of the shorter loggians is simply don't expect applause.

I love that one.

Don't expect applause.

It's a whole practice.

Another one is regard all dharmas as dreams.

Regard all dharmas as dreams.

And of course,

There's a whole teaching that goes with each of these.

But most of these loggians are much longer,

Like a full sentence.

So,

For instance,

One of my favorites of these is if you can practice even when distracted,

You are well trained.

The idea is that we memorize these 60 phrases and then use them in our daily lives and practice.

And I learned about the loggians from one of my first teachers,

Pema Chodron,

Who,

If you're interested,

Has written a great book about these called Start Where You Are,

Which of course happens to be one of the shorter loggians.

In my own teaching and practice,

I tend to use very short phrases.

Again,

Just two to five words.

And for the most part,

Rather than being instructive,

These all tend to serve as more of a reminder for us,

Something that points to a particular truth or a practice.

And because I love them so much and use them so often in my teachings,

What I've come to recognize is that I've almost kind of unknowingly been collecting these since my early 20s from many different teachers and traditions,

Both modern and ancient.

But some of them,

Honestly,

Are just things that I've come up with myself over the years that I use again as a kind of shorthand to quickly remind myself of a particular practice or teaching when I need it.

And last month,

I was actually surprised to sort of accidentally stumble across a new one.

And because it's been so unexpectedly helpful to me,

Especially during this chaotic and stressful time that we're all going through,

I really wanted to share it with you in hopes that it might also be helpful for you.

This came to me actually during a meditation session on an evening when I happened to be experiencing a lot of sadness and a lot of grief.

I remember feeling both of these emotions very strongly in my body and,

Of course,

In my heart and also in my mind,

Which I recall was rehashing thoughts about the sadness and the grief,

Which is just what the mind tends to do.

But to be very honest,

Because it's been such a difficult time for almost all of us again this past year,

I don't actually recall right now what was causing me to feel so much sadness.

I just remember that sadness was present and that my mind was sort of racing with it.

What I do remember is that as I was clearly sensing the sadness,

I recognized that what I was needing in that moment was some compassion practice.

And almost automatically,

My mind started silently reciting this very well-worn,

Well-loved passage from the Buddhist teacher Kristin Neff,

Who,

Among other things,

Is the author of Self-Compassion.

Whenever we're experiencing difficult emotions,

Kristin asks us to say to ourselves something like,

This is a moment of suffering.

Suffering is a part of life.

It's what connects us.

May I be kind to myself in this moment.

May I give myself the compassion that I need.

So as I was sitting there,

I started silently reciting this phrase a few times,

Placing a hand on my heart.

And as my mind and body started to just slow and soften a bit,

What happened is that as I started to recite the phrase again in my mind,

After those first four words,

This is a moment,

The rest of the words just sort of trailed off.

They disappeared.

And I was left lingering in the empty,

Non-conceptual space that had opened,

Almost as if I'd been in a kind of tunnel.

And suddenly the whole tunnel had disappeared.

And in that open space,

There was almost immediately a kind of soft,

All-encompassing awareness of what was happening.

So much so that I would almost describe it as blissful.

It felt very calm and clear.

It's like suddenly my attention had widened to include not only my body and my heart and the stories that were living in the mind,

But also to the exact moment in time,

To all of it,

To everything that was happening,

The whole flow of experience.

And even though the phrase,

This is a moment,

Was still suspended in consciousness,

There was also an understanding almost at a deeper,

More experiential level,

That this meant that there had been other moments before it and that there would be other moments after it.

But right now,

Right now,

I was fully aware that this is a moment and it's like this.

It's like this.

Now,

Second phrase,

It's like this.

It's actually another one of those really useful sticky note phrases.

This is a moment and it's like this.

And in that particular moment,

I was suddenly fully aware that this is a moment in time,

In history,

And I am alive within it and experiencing a sense of sadness and grief and all the physical manifestations that come with that.

A sense of achiness and squeeze in the heart,

Heaviness in the body,

Etc.

And this is a moment when I'm also experiencing the flow of each breath.

A moment when I am sensing the weight of my body on this cushion,

Feeling the coolness of the air on my skin,

Smelling smoke from last night's fire in the fireplace,

Listening to crickets outside the windows.

This is a moment and I'm experiencing all the aches and pain and all the joys and sorrows of living in this body that is absolutely unique.

And for each of us,

What's true is that in the whole history of time,

No one else will ever be entirely the same or experience the same moments in exactly the same way.

As the author Brenda Ulland tells us,

Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time,

You are incomparable.

So truly,

Each and every moment that each of us lives is completely unique.

It's incomparable.

This is true even though right now,

Each one of us is also a living part of this world and we're all experienced this particular moment in time together.

A time that of course includes a devastating global pandemic,

A major environmental crisis,

And massive political,

Racial,

And civil upheaval.

Which brings up another wonderful phrase from the Zen tradition,

Which is this is it.

This is how it is now.

This is what's happening in this particular moment in time.

This is it.

And what's also always true is that this moment right now,

However it is,

Is absolutely precious because just like ourselves,

There will never be a moment exactly like this one again.

And if we really think about it,

This is always true every single second.

In the Buddhist teachings,

This is the truth of anicca or impermanence.

Just a fundamental characteristic of life.

The truth that everything,

Including ourselves,

Is constantly always changing,

Constantly new.

Sadly though,

If we're not aware that this is happening,

If we're not awake to it,

Sadly we're going to miss out on truly experiencing all the moments of this precious and fleeting and very unique life that we've all received.

And this is really what the whole of the Buddhist teachings is pointing to,

Is asking us to do.

To wake up,

To awaken to this truth.

Unfortunately,

Every moment that we spend worrying about the future or regretting the past is a moment that we are not awake to our actual lives.

And instead we're asleep.

Because honestly,

Both of these ways of relating are really ways that we are living in a dream.

Just as for instance,

You might consider right now what you did yesterday.

Or even a year ago.

And ask yourself,

What is that now?

What is that now?

It's simply a memory or a dream,

Isn't it?

It doesn't actually exist in this world.

And of course,

Most of us don't usually recall the past very accurately anyway.

I love to think about siblings or other relatives and how often they remember things that happened,

Like in our childhoods,

Much differently than we do.

And of course,

The future for all of us is absolutely unknowable.

So in essence,

That's really a dream too.

The Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh tells us,

We cannot enjoy life if we spend our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.

If we're afraid all the time,

We miss out on the wonderful fact that we're alive and can be happy right now.

Just recently,

I was reading an article by Cheryl Stratton,

A meditation teacher in DC who is really grieving and saddened right now.

Because she's no longer allowed due to the coronavirus to bring the practice into one of the prisons where she's been volunteering her time for many years.

And what's making her even more sad is that most of the prisoners are being kept in isolation,

As you might imagine.

For 23 hours at a time,

With no access to things like recreation or fresh air.

And Cheryl wrote that during normal times,

This lockdown status might last for hours or days or in extreme cases a week,

But never for months.

She said,

Quote,

The isolation and stress they must feel is unimaginable.

And yet she also wrote that she was,

Quote,

Humbled to her core by a letter she received from one of her students who wrote this.

When I am alone in a cell most of the day,

I have a choice to feel physical bondage or mental freedom.

It changes often,

But something about doing this meditation in the quiet I'm in had me reflect my breath to waves rolling into the shore.

I believe focusing on the millions of cells,

Maybe even billions,

Are individual victories of having the freedom to still be alive,

Able to still breathe when so many people don't have that right.

I have to keep this in mind and breathe for those who can't.

So learning to live in the present moment,

However it is,

Is so incredibly powerful and hopeful,

Actually.

As the teacher Sharon Salzberg tells us,

In times of great struggle,

When there is nothing else to rely on and nowhere else to go,

It is the return to the moment that is the act of faith.

From that point,

Openness,

Possibility,

Strength,

Patience,

And courage can arise.

Moment by moment,

We can find our way through.

Moment by moment,

We can find our way through.

And of course that returning is in fact our actual practice.

The idea is that we want to train ourselves to be able to return to presence in more and more moments of our lives,

Using our mindfulness practice,

Or sati,

S-A-T-I,

Which in the Pali language literally means to recall,

To remember,

To recollect.

And for me that simple four word phrase,

This is a moment,

Has been really helping me with this lately in my daily life.

In particular,

When I can recall,

Remember,

And recollect it throughout the day.

It's been helping me to remember to pause and become aware of what's happening.

To become more and more mindful of even more of my moments with kindness and care for whatever's here.

And again,

To cherish it because it's precious and it's passing.

Mindfulness or sati is actually considered the first foundation of our practice.

It's our bedrock.

It's what everything else relies on for support.

It's often been described as a bare,

Immediate,

Whole body and mind awareness of the present moment.

When we are mindful,

We are fully present without judgment with what is.

We're right here,

Just this moment,

And then just this moment and the next.

And this means that even if the moment is unpleasant,

With mindfulness,

We are simply experiencing it.

You know,

The fear,

Anger,

Grief,

Pain,

Whatever it is.

We're experiencing it as it's happening without adding all of our layers of thoughts and conditioned beliefs and biases and stories to the moment.

We're making the pain of whatever's happening worse by adding all of our negative narratives to it.

At the same time,

Our practice also involves learning how to greet whatever's happening,

Especially if it's a difficult emotion with great kindness and care and compassion.

I really love the way Thich Nhat Hanh describes this.

He says,

Mindfulness is like a mother recognizing and embracing suffering without judgment.

So the practice is not to fight or suppress the feeling,

But rather to cradle it with a lot of tenderness.

When a mother embraces her child,

That energy of tenderness begins to penetrate into the body of the child.

Even if the mother doesn't understand at first why the child is suffering and she needs some time to find out what the difficulty is,

Just her act of taking the child into her arms with tenderness can already bring relief.

Now,

Some of us might assume that,

Of course,

We're always aware of the present.

We're always totally right here living our lives.

Where else would we be?

But if we really start to examine this honestly,

Most of the time this just isn't true.

The Thai meditation master Ajahn Buddhadasa has summarized our habitual way of living again in three words,

Which is lost in thought.

One of the wonderful gifts of our mindfulness practice is that it helps us to really notice how often we aren't really here to see how often that we really are lost in thought.

The more we practice,

The more we might start to notice that what we're really experiencing so much of the time is the mind having a variety of different conversations with itself,

Maybe even about the present moment.

It's like when we're watching a movie,

Right?

And then we turn on the director's commentary and now there are other people talking over the movie.

So there's the movie and that unreal drama.

And then there's a second conversation of commentary on top of all of it.

And in our lives so much of the time,

We're experiencing our lives from the viewpoint of the director and constantly being distracted by and caught up in all the director's opinions and views and explanations about what's happening.

And when we're doing this again,

What we're really doing is dreaming.

We are asleep because we're not experiencing our lives as they are in that moment right now.

Through our meditation practice,

We can start to really observe how we do this so that we can catch ourselves whenever we're doing this in our daily lives.

So,

For instance,

Maybe we're meditating,

Listening to the crickets,

Aware of the breeze on our skin,

Aware of our breath,

Aware of the state of our body.

And then suddenly we hear a plane flying by.

And without warning,

Our mind starts thinking about how much we're afraid of flying and then almost instantly about maybe how much we want to go on a vacation and about how we might go about doing this right now during COVID.

And then maybe we start visualizing or planning how we could do this and then worrying about how we can best protect ourselves.

And pretty soon we're just completely filled with fear and anxiety and frustration and need to get up and stop meditating and go get a beer.

All from the simple sound of an airplane passing by.

The Buddha calls this process of mental construction papancā,

Which is sometimes translated as elaboration,

Embellishment or conceptual proliferation.

And the word papancā actually always makes me think of popcorn because it sounds like that.

Pop,

Pop,

Pop,

Papancā.

And think about when you're actually making popcorn.

It starts out slow.

There's a few pops here and there.

And then quite suddenly there's an explosion of pops all at the same time.

And if you're totally distracted and let's us keep going,

What happens?

Everything gets burnt and the smoke alarm goes off.

So it's the same thing with our minds.

When we're letting our minds drift further and further into the storyline,

Which includes all our opinions and stories and beliefs,

This can lead to the fire alarm going off.

We start to feel the burn or the frustration,

Fear,

Anger,

Envy,

Shame,

Greed,

Etc.

So mindfulness practice is so much about training ourselves to see our thoughts and our natural tendency towards papancā and training ourselves to wake up and come back again and again and again to the present moment right here.

So,

For instance,

Maybe we're washing the dishes and start to become lost in thought.

Our mindfulness can remind us to come back to the immediate bare experience of simply washing the dishes.

Feeling the warm water,

Smelling the soap,

Hearing that squeaking,

Feeling and sensing our feet on the ground,

Noticing our breath or the sunshine through the window,

The shadows.

And when we're suddenly present,

Not lost in thought,

We might recognize that,

You know,

There's an emotion here that's present.

Maybe there's sadness or grief,

Maybe a sense of gratitude or contentment.

Whatever's happening with mindfulness,

We are fully awake to all of it,

Letting it flow through us and reminding ourselves in some way,

This is a moment.

Remembering that there will be other moments and that this moment is fleeting and it won't last if we simply don't grasp onto it and let it flow through.

We don't resist it or cling to it.

And as we practice this way,

What happens is that more and more we start to trust that we can just be with our thoughts,

Observing our thoughts rather than being our thoughts,

Identifying with them,

Becoming our thoughts or becoming our emotions.

More and more we can recognize we are simply experiencing a feeling or even a belief,

Observing it as it's passing through rather than becoming it or believing it,

Wrapping our identity up into it.

So,

For instance,

We might start to recognize that we are simply experiencing sadness or fear,

Anger that it's passing through rather than thinking of ourselves as a sad or a fearful or angry person.

It's also really important to remember that with our mindfulness practice,

We are not practicing to float away somewhere to some blissful other state where we're free from all thought,

Free from emotion.

We want to use our mindfulness practice to keep us grounded here in the present more and more so that we're not constantly floating away into the past or the future or daydreaming or getting caught up in pappancha.

This means that if during our meditation practice,

We find ourselves drifting off to someplace that feels more like we aren't here or maybe somewhere that feels otherworldly or even like nothing,

Like we're completely gone.

We're not practicing mindfulness.

We are practicing going away again and into a kind of a dream world.

And this can become a real habit.

We're not practicing mindfulness going away.

What we do want to do instead is to make our mindfulness a powerful grounding force,

Something that helps us to anchor ourselves more firmly here in the present.

This grounding force of mindfulness is often compared to a stone or a rock and the teachings of mind without mindfulness is compared to a pumpkin.

And Bhikhu Bodhi explains it this way.

He says,

A pumpkin placed on the surface of a pond soon floats away and always remains on the water surface,

But a stone does not float away.

It stays where it is put and at once sinks into the water until it reaches bottom.

Similarly,

When mindfulness is strong,

The mind stays with its object and penetrates its characteristics deeply.

It does not wander and merely skim the surface as the mind destitute of mindfulness does.

And this object that the mind stays with could be the breath or sound or maybe a physical sensation or even our thoughts themselves.

We are using our practice to very intimately observe all the characteristics of our object.

And when we can use our bare awareness to keep the mind focused on a particular object,

It can simultaneously calm the mind even more so that we can see things even more clearly.

It's very calming.

So,

For example,

Maybe we discover that our mind is really racing for some reason.

When we can recognize this,

We might literally choose to stop and close our eyes and go to what are often called our touch points,

Which are our feet,

Our hands and our seat,

What we're sitting on.

And then we place our focus on our breath,

Another touch point,

And make a conscious effort to just stay with the body and the breath moment by moment.

Or maybe we stop and just look at something for a moment.

It could be as simple as a cup of water shimmering in the sun,

Reflecting whatever it's reflecting.

When we can do this,

It can temporarily take us out of the dream world and directly back home to the present moment.

And then we might see the mind like that water a little more clearly and be able finally to see what it's reflecting.

Maybe what it's been saying to us or what it's been believing.

And then we can question that without automatically believing our thoughts or acting out on them.

So that's the calming grounding element of mindfulness.

It helps to bring us back to right now,

This present moment.

It keeps us from floating away into our worry,

Fear,

Anger,

All our negative commentary grounds us right here.

And finally,

Before I offer a short meditation,

It's important for us to remember that mindfulness is also referred to as the knowing aspect of our practice.

And to use another of my favorite forward phrases from one of my teachers,

Biku Onayo,

Who famously summed up our entire practice in this way.

He tells us,

Keep calmly knowing change.

Whole practice,

Four words.

Keep calmly knowing change.

So to summarize this a bit,

We keep remembering,

Recollecting calmly,

Without resistance,

With patience and equanimity,

Knowing,

Being mindful of,

Aware of change.

And that last part,

The change part,

Includes being continually mindful of,

Remembering,

Keeping in mind,

What are called the three characteristics of life.

Dukkha,

Suffering,

Anicca,

Impermanence,

And anatta,

No self.

And to simplify this,

The teacher Louis Richard uses some short phrasing again to describe these,

And I really find them helpful.

He says,

Everything is connected,

Which is anatta,

No self.

Nothing lasts,

Anicca,

Impermanence.

And my favorite,

You are not alone.

Just dukkha,

Suffering.

We all experience it.

Everything is connected.

Nothing lasts.

You are not alone.

So I think I'll end here for the moment and offer you a simple meditation based on that new phrase.

This is a moment.

So if it's available and you're ready,

I'd like to invite you to find a comfortable posture and close the eyes whenever you're ready.

And right away,

You might start to bring your focus in and notice the breath.

You might take a nice deep breath in and slow breath out.

A couple of rounds of these to get in touch with the breath.

You might even add a slight smile to the corner of the eyes and the lips.

This is a way of bringing kindness here for whatever's here.

Some sort of allowing.

You might even soften the body,

Maybe noticing the whole area of the face.

Imagining the skin all around the face,

Softening forehead,

Eyes,

Jaw.

Still aware of the breath.

You might notice the neck and shoulders,

Allowing the shoulders to drop.

Maybe noticing the belly,

Allowing the belly to be a little softer.

You might sense the weight of your body on whatever you're sitting on.

And just let the body relax,

Drop down a little more into the support of the earth.

It might even be helpful to imagine the skeleton and the skeleton is supported by the earth and the muscles all around are simply dropping,

Softening.

If you like,

You might even go ahead and place a hand on the heart,

Or one hand on the heart,

One hand on the belly.

Maybe just imagine that your hand is on the heart.

If the hand is on the heart,

You might sense the rise and fall of your breath as the body breathes.

You might even imagine yourself sending your heart some kindness and care through your own touch.

As you continue to breathe,

You might just gently bring that phrase to mind.

This is a moment.

Notice what's happening right now.

This is a moment.

You might even go right to your senses.

Maybe noticing what sounds you're hearing right now all around you.

Again,

Very lightly holding that phrase in the mind.

This is a moment.

You might notice the flow of the breath each inhale and exhale in each moment.

Noticing how the breath is right now in the body,

Aware that right now you are alive and breathing in this moment.

See if you can even find some gratitude for that,

For the simple act of breathing.

You might now become more aware of the body itself.

Notice how it's feeling in this moment,

On this day,

In this particular time in our history,

In this minute.

Again,

Without judgment,

With great care and compassion.

Maybe recalling the words,

This is a moment and it's like this.

You might now gently tap into your heart.

And again,

Notice what's here non-judgmentally with kindness and care,

Tenderness.

This is a moment.

You might now even take a look at what's happening in the mind.

Any narrative that might be here,

Again using the same phrase.

This is a moment and it's like this.

Being willing to suspend judgment,

Instead just observing with care.

It's like this.

Finally,

You might now see if you can open your awareness even wider and become more and more aware of each moment as it arises and passes.

Again,

Maybe very gently holding that phrase in the mind or maybe letting it go altogether as you become more aware.

And finally,

With the eyes still closed,

Please listen to this poem from one of my favorite poets,

Julia Fehrenbacher,

Who writes,

After a few mindless moments of clicking,

Scrolling,

Scanning,

Body and mind are full,

Flooded with horrific,

Heartbreaking news.

Burning Australia,

Koalas,

Kangaroos,

People running for their lives.

Cancer,

Stealing a breath from a treasured friend.

More pettiness in politics.

How far we travel in a single moment.

I am an unwatered plant in need of sunlight and good news.

In the next breath,

I notice evening light has found bare oaks,

Has set them ablaze with beautiful.

This moment of noticing brings me back to here,

To the only place plants can be watered.

The only place sun ever shines.

Namaste and blessings.

I hope you enjoyed this talk.

These talks are always offered freely so that no one is ever denied access to these teachings and your support really makes a difference.

Donna is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart.

If you feel inspired to offer Donna,

You can do so by visiting my website at www.

Mindfulvalley.

Com.

Thank you so much.

Reviews

This is the moment. It is as beautiful as it has been designed. It is gifted to me by a power beyond my imagination. This is a wellspring of love. I just need to keep giving that unconditional kindness.

This was wonderful to hear and as always, so prescient. Thank you, Shell 🌟

Beautiful, thought-provoking and filled with so much knowledge and love. Thank you so much Shell ❤️