In my previous post, I summarized mindfulness as “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.” I’d like to explain more about staying in the present moment – or experiencing “What Is.”

One way of approaching this is by looking at the brain. The brain’s left hemisphere is the part that analyzes what we experience. It wants to name it, categorize it, pigeonhole it, and conceptualize it. Then to us, it is known. Alan Watts (a Zen pioneer in the West) said, and I am paraphrasing here, “You can’t know Beethoven’s genius by studying every semiquaver of his music.” We cannot know a thing by putting together all the parts of its puzzle. We cannot know a tree simply because we can define it as a maple, or ponderosa pine. What it is is far more (or less) than that.

To really know something, we need to pay attention to it in a different way than we habitually do. We need to move closer to it and see it from our hearts. As our distance from it becomes less, the experience or object becomes more real. Life can become more intimate and real as well. As we move closer to our experiences, we can see that they are not owned – not my experience – just experience itself.

To fully stay in the moment, try to quiet your mind and put down the burden of self-definition. Focus on the sounds, tastes, smells, sensations, thoughts, and feelings you are experiencing. Doing this, even for a moment, can help you widen your sense of who you are.