Living in this Moment
Friday, December 15, 2006
What is it to “live in this moment”? I always admire those who can do that and I tried to remind myself to do it: living in this moment–the moment you breathe in and breathe out. No past, no future, just now. Enjoy and embrace this moment of your life, always. But a lot of time I forgot. So I complain when the food is not as good as I expect and I complain when the weather is too cold or too hot. When I have a boyfriend, I am happy in the first few months then I find fault with them. When I am alone, I complain that I don’t have a partner in life to share my happiness and sorrow. When I am with someone I feel suffocate that I need to escape from them to find freedom and space. But when I am lonely, I long for that intimacy and companionship…. I am always unsatisfied. I always need more, need to change, need to move on for new direction…. Actually I was very frightened when I first discovered my own defective personality. Then I learned to live with it and got to understand why I was never settled, always in a status of turbulent mind, always searching, looking out….
Talking about “looking out”, a senior nun once said that common people like me always try to look OUT to find peace, to find fortune, to blame others for disappointing us, but those saints (or, budda), they look IN to find their peace and wisdom, to blame themselves for not doing any better for others. Very interesting perspective yet very wise, isn’t it? It seems to give me an answer of why I’m always “restless”. I actually looked for the wrong direction: I should settle my heart and look into myself before eagerly looking out for solutions. I thought I had to constantly hurry on to next destination. But, actually, I guess it’s telling me to change my perspective of how to live– to live in this moment, to slowly savor every bitterness and sweetness of life, every little things in our repetitive daily life: love, family, work, friends, things go in my way, things get me mad… even the least important things in life (which actually make up a lot of our life!) Therefore I should change the attitude in me, not the worldly things around me. What a lesson!! And how I now finally realize when I am writing down all these thoughts.
