Child

Quality

Use your inner stop—STOP. Watch what is going on in the mind and the body. Quickly, passively, with a smile, scan your mind and body. Relax and fall back into Awareness, even if it is just for a second or two. Use your inner stop particularly when you are lost in thought, agitated or in an emotional interaction with someone.

As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love – even the simplest action.

The moment you realize you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence.

If you find it hard to enter the Now directly, start by observing the habitual tendency of your mind to want to escape from the Now. You will observe that the future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory. Through self-observation, more presence comes into your life automatically.

Be present as the watcher of your mind – of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react. Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don’t judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don’t make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.

The Present is the only time we have control. If we want our lives to change, those changes need to happen now. Looking too far back or forward keeps us distracted. We aren’t in the past or future. We are here. We are now. This is where our focus should be.

We  shouldn’t live in the present completely out of context, however. Rather, the past and the future should act as tools to help us make decisions, rather than be the driving force behind them.

Take mountain-climbing, for example. If we took a helicopter to the top of a mountain, it wouldn’t feel nearly as satisfying as it would if we’d climbed it ourselves. In this case, we needed the past events of physically making the climb to make reaching the peak in the present meaningful.

Conversely, aimlessly wandering around at the base of the mountain forever wouldn’t be satisfying either! It’s the plan of reaching the top in the future that inspires and guides us forward. Where the past gives the present meaning, the future gives it direction.

Quality of Child: Honour Present Moment