Sitting meditating this morning, I heard an airplane go overhead. As I looked out the window and up, I saw a large jet flying directly overhead and found myself wondering if it was flying too low, an association to 9/11. I realized that my mind automatically uses 9/11 as a reference point and that the airplane going overhead is just an airplane on its way to somewhere. I wasn’t particularly activated by this awareness, but I did notice that my mind needed to go through the exercise of remembering that an airplane is just an airplane.
This got me to thinking about how important it is for us to continually remind ourselves that the bad things that have happened in our lives are over. So often, I talk with people who live in the present as if they were still in the past, and the idea of giving up that past as their reference point can be challenging and uncomfortable. For some, it’s as though remembering bad experiences from the past feels like a way to prevent bad things in the present, or to be prepared for the bad things to come.

As I look out my living room windows as I write these words, I see a beautiful blue sky with small white clouds grouped together, moving in a stately progression across my field of vision. This is what is real in the present moment, regardless of what has happened in the past. When I can feel into this moment, and this moment only, I discover comfort and ease in my body, and am able to take in the fact that the view outside is inspiring and visually nourishing.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to notice those times when you reference the past in ways that keep it alive for you, rather than being fully present in the “now moment”. When you notice those times that you interpret current experiences through the lens of something that happened in the past, become aware of what you’re doing. Is it all right to let go of that past and fully enter the present moment? What feelings or thoughts come to you as you remind yourself that the past is over, whatever happened then is done, and that the only moment you have is this one, right here and right now?
As I write, I also notice that the progression of clouds changes its quality as it moves across the sky. Some of the clouds clump closer together, while others spread out more. The present moment constantly changes to the next moment, and no two moments are identical. The clouds I saw when I began to write are now in the past, no longer exist, and the invitation of the view outside my window is to notice what’s there now.

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