A minute

(from a dhamma talk by Ajahn Sona)

A minute, though short, can be a transformative moment. How often have you experienced or heard of how a person is changed for life by one single experience? A kind word, a harsh word, a brush with death, a touch of love... They can all change a person so quickly and so profoundly.

And so too can a minute of real peace, real serenity, change our minds and lives. Even if  in the ten days we have been on this retreat, or in our entire existence on this world, we experience one single minute that tells us that there is indeed a sense of liberation and lightness, other than being chained by troubles and burdened by negativities, that alone is enough to make us change, make us strive to be a better person, to strive for a better life infused with spirituality and mental development.

Unfortunately, most of the time our minds and lives are entangled in thought, lost in reliving memories and deluded by imaginary projections.

How often are we obsessed with the future? How often are we preoccupied by the past? It is only human, so it is pointless to fault ourselves for it. It is  our conditioned way of thinking and being to long for something we have lost, to cling onto something we experienced before, to live with regret and remorse why that beautiful experience in the past did not last...

The past does not exist (note the present tense), for it is only a fabrication of what we (choose to) remember (or not). once gone, it can never return, can never be saved or savoured again. Do not just try to untangle the knots, but cut off the past, and live for the now, live for what  you have now right now, right here. Nothing else matters, and you free yourself from the heavy, heavy burden of loss, regret and clinging.

 It is also human to dream of a better place, to imagine better conditions of being, to escape into the infinite possibilities of the future. But the future is yet to come, yet to be determined by our present actions and thoughts, and all subject to change and unpredictability.

So why fill our minds with regret and sense of loss, or fill our minds with made up fantasies and daydreams? Why live with memories of the past and imaginations of what could have been, when you are missing the beauty, peace and very existence that can be enjoyed in the very present?

We are all guilty of it, of wanting to relive the past, of longing for a better future... But often the most beautiful is the moment all around us, and the people we have before us. Take a moment, one single moment, one single minute of silence, and try to realise real peace, real happiness.

Relish the moment here and now, take in the each moment that comes and goes, and live it in the fullest,  the best,  the greatest way you possible can. That is real living, that is real being, and that is the key to real happiness and freedom from longing and from fear.

It really is not hard to live a light and simple life. It really is not hard to relish in every moment and enjoy the presence of everyone person you have around you now. It is much harder to want something you cannot have, to change things you cannot change. So why go though life and spend your moments weighed down by longing, desires and regret when you can live with contentment, appreciation and In celebration of what you do have?

When we live this seclusion and serenity of the monastery, take these realizations and truths with you. Meditation is not just sitting down and being isolated from everything and everyone else. The real practice, the real test, is living out in the real world, dealing with all the people and emotions that cross our paths from moment to moment.

But when you remind yourself every single moment that a moment is just a moment that will come and go, you learn to really live in and experience freedom and happiness.