Moment-to-Moment Awareness

It is an erroneous belief that time is often our enemy: with more time, we could do much more to improve our lives. Dissatisfied with life, many of us would strive to do more, to attain more, to be more. But time cannot increase our mind power, nor can it change our lives; time keeps on flowing, just like water, forever flowing downwards. Time is neither our enemy nor our friend. Time does not change; only we do, and it's all in the mind.

Increase our mind power with moment-to-moment awareness, which can change our perspective on life. The human mind is burdened with emotional baggage from the past and worries about the future. Many of us do not see how our past experiences in the form of memories can affect, positively or negatively our current behaviors, choices, decisions, and actions -- the realities of our lives. Only with moment-to-moment awareness can we understand how we may have become slaves to our memories, letting them become our masters controlling our lives.

With emotional baggage from the past and worries about the future, we subconsciously make our minds compulsive; that is, overly preoccupied with past memories and future expectations, such that our minds do not quiet or slow down and do not stay in the present. To illustrate, many of us have many career goals, planning this and that for our families; our minds are forever on the go: we talk on the phone while we are eating, or even driving, and we wish we had more than 24 hours a day to finish our daily chores. 

But with moment-to-moment awareness, you may realize that not going through your children's homework tonight does not mean that they will not go to Harvard some day; even not going to Harvard does not mean that they will not receive a good education. It's all in your mind -- your conditioned mind. Just learn to let go your attachment to time. It is your ego that makes you think you can make the world do your bidding. Given that your ego is focusing on the past and the future, and not the very present moment, your ego is not aware of what is going on in the world right now, therefore, letting your ego decide what is best for you is unwise. That is why moment-to-moment awareness is important because it enables your mind to stay in the present so that it can perceive and understand what is the best for you, what is real and what is unreal. 

With moment-to-moment awareness, you will do, by doing and no more, what you need to do, and you will learn, by going, where you have to go. Life becomes simple and stress-free. It is not easy, but with practice, you can do it. Remember, you always have choice, but you don't have control over the consequence of your choice, nor over what others may or may not do in response to your choice.

Practice meditation to enhance your moment-to-moment awareness. Learn how to think, as Albert Einstein once said: "Thinking is hard; that's why so few people do it.".

Stephen Lau

Copyright © by Stephen Lau