finding the present moment

You don't need to leave your room.  Remain sitting at your table and listen.  Don't even listen, simply wait.  Don't even wait.  Be quite still and solitary.  The world will feely offer itself to you.  It has no choice.  It will roll in ecstasy at your feet  - Kafka


It's remarkable how - even when you have in mind to be mindful (ha!) - true, clear presence can elude you.  The moment you realize "hey, I'm present!" you're really not present anymore, you know what I mean?    Simple as it sounds, being present to the moment that is, without wishing for it to be any different, without thinking ahead or remembering behind - it's so rare.  Think of times when you've been driving somewhere - say, the grocery store - and it's only as you are reaching your destination that you realize you can't really remember the journey there.  Your mind has been on what you're going to buy for dinner, which might jog the memory of the last time you had that for dinner and the friends that you shared it with... which then makes you think of the time you all went camping together and how fantastic that was... etc, etc.   Yep. 

So now, sitting here in this softly lit room, I listen.   I hear frogs singing through the open windows to the back garden.  I wait.  John Gorka's "The Water is Wide" begins to fill the room.  Now, I will be still.  I will allow the nighttime World to offer itself to me, and I accept it with gratitude.