Live in the day: pay attention to the day you’re in.  Watch the birds, listen to the fountain, hear the hairdryer, decide for five minutes to give up circular thinking, to put down those thoughts, beliefs and worries that you carry around with you all of the time.

 

 

Lay down your burden of thinking

Live in the day: pay attention to what your senses bring you instead. Is the sun warm on your back?  Enjoy. Do you eat something you like?  Give thanks. May all beings be as well fed as you are now. Can you let go of physical tension too, with each out breath? Do that now.  You can always do one really intense yoga pose. Or stretch.  Whatever.  Drop all tension. It does you no good.  It is a stone in your shoe that must be let go of immediately. It has no good to bring you.

 

 

Let habitual thoughts go

 

With them will also dissolve emotions, which are feeling-states that you use the world around you to evoke. “I am sad because a couple is splitting up.” “I am worried because someone is sad.”

When your mind is in the present and has let go of tension and habitual thoughts, there is nowhere for it to get fuel for negative feeling-states. You are in the blessed present, noticing all there is to notice, realizing that the peace and beauty, calm and quiet you are now experiencing, by your choice, is a glimmering brocade in the endless fabric of your life. Give thanks.  May all beings be as peaceful.

 

 

Choosing the joys

 

Can you see that contemplation of the past and future are the source of all your negative feeling-states?  From the past come blame and regret. From the future come anxiety and fear. You could not summon any of these if your mind was always in the present, choosing the joys, gifts and satisfactions you want in your life. Blame, regret, anxiety and fear would be no more.