"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste"
A Midsummer-Night’s Dream (Act I, Scene I)
A friend asked me today, what does it mean to be "in the moment"? Surely you can only remember the past and think about the future, she said, the present actual moment is too hard to get hold of.
She had confused 'being' in the moment with 'possessing' the moment.
Being and clinging are not the same. One is from the inside-out, the other from the outside-in. They are as different as love and lust.
A sacred moment is not something you hold onto or possess, it possess you.
The less you desire it the more precious it is, to the point where it is bigger than your entire life. In any day, month, year or life-span, there are only a few moments that shine, when we are truly alive, the rest is just habitual noise as we grind through the motions (not the emotions) of living. We exist in these moments, these are our moments of truth.
I am "in the moment" when I:
- Crack the code on a business problem
- Hear my father laugh so uncontrollably, he begins to cry
- Feel my mothers smiling eyes looking right through me
- Get lost in a Chopin piano concerto
- Step bare foot on a drawing pin
- Take the final glance at the physical remains of a loved one before the casket closes
- Am disturbed by an idiot on a cell phone in the cinema
- Go to a temple alone but not lonely
- Take that first bite of cheesecake or chocolate
- Laugh with my brothers
- Drive to a client engagement with no expectations
- Hang on intently to the words of a dying relative
- Am pushed gently by the ocean waves
- Realize I have been betrayed
- Breath properly
- Watch my children's eyes light up when I come home
- Sing in the car
- See the snow melt into spring
- Arrive at the vacation destination
- Acknowledge my mistakes
- Shake off the grip of nightmare
- Am cleaning, organizing, polishing, decorating
- Step back into reality as I shuffle out of a crowded theatre, into the parking lot after a great film
- Step back into reality in the middle of a lousy film
- Am running late for a meeting
- Try to brake as my car slides across a sheet of ice
- Hold my lovers hand
- Wake up in a new bed
- Realize the anger is mine
- Stretch out the toxins
- Feel completely vulnerable
- Finish a good book
- Watch the circumference of the city grow as the plane comes in for a landing
- Open my mouth for the dentist
- Meditate
- Lay down in a hot bath after a long hard day
- Hear a genuine compliment or criticism
- Get paid
- Wave goodbye at the airport
- Welcome a guest into our home
- Dance with utter abandon
- Notice my children on the sofa, watching me work
- Know that I am imperfect and impermanent and it doesn't matter
"Lives not alone immured in the brain,
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp’d:
Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails"
Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act IV, Scene III)
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