“Since the entirety of our virtual world is being...

Since the entirety of our virtual world is being constructed in the present moment, it is crucial to learn to pay attention to this moment. Paying attention sounds simple; one might think we do it all the time, but we actually pay attention very little to what is going on in our present experience. The human mind is constantly swinging into the future and the past, and like a pendulum it passes through the present moment barely enough for us to keep our bearings. The Buddhists are not saying that we should cut off our sensitivity to the full range of experience and live ordinary life in some sort of eternal present. But in order to get beyond some of the embedded habits of the mind, in order to get free of some of the distortions and confusions to which we are subject, we need to train ourselves to attend very carefully and very deliberately to the process by which we construct past and future experience in the present moment. And this is largely what mindfulness practice is all about. It is accessing the present moment, and it involves cultivating the intention to attend to what is happening right now. Left to its own inclinations, the mind would much rather weave its way through some thought pattern that makes us feel good about ourselves, and lead us away from any kind of insight that might threaten our ideas about ourselves. The mind needs to be carefully and gently encouraged through constant practice to look carefully and deeply at what is unfolding in the immediately present moment.

Andrew Olendzki, with thanks to Whiskey River.