How to live in the Moment - from Raptitude

How to live in the moment
http://www.raptitude.com/2014/01/how-to-live-in-the-moment/



Excerpts. See full article here.

In my experience, if I actually look rather than just think about it, where I’m supposed to have a face I actually have nothing. It’s a clear space. Out in front of that nothing a little ways, there is a nose-blur and sometimes a hair-blur, and beyond that there is all sorts of interesting content which changes all the time — people, skies, computer screens, piles of snow, concerts, city lights, birds, throw rugs, music, food. But in every moment, no matter what the content, at the absolute nearest end is a great big nothing.

I am looking out of this nothing everywhere I go. On a plane. Across a diner booth from someone. From my pillow. While I’m doing a push up. Wherever I am, in every single moment of my life, no matter what I do, I am looking out of an empty space. 

If you don’t follow, point at where your face is supposed to be, where you’re looking from. In your actual experience — not what you think you should be experiencing — is your finger not aimed at an empty space?

You’re always looking out from this same empty space. Things happen in that space — walls, people, computer screens, sunsets, movies, books, your arms and legs — but it’s always just a space. It’s always open on your end.

This is a super helpful thing to notice, because it’s a way to return to present moment reality at any time. You look at something out there in the world, then you direct your attention back the other way along that same line, and see the space you are looking out of. Suddenly the world seems bare again, and you have the sensation of losing a huge weight, because have ceased investing everything out there in the world with its relationship to your story and your needs. You are empty for the world again.

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Most importantly, the space is always here. It’s the only thing that’s always here. If you notice it, you’re here. Welcome back.
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Ordinary things sometimes become strangely hilarious. I can’t describe the intrinsic hilarity of watching a spoonful of cereal come closer to your space until it goes blurry and disappears, then becomes replaced by an explosion of invisible taste, sound and tactile sensations. Then an empty spoon comes back into focus and your hand puts it back in the bowl. You swallow, which is another invisible but obvious set of sensations, and you want to do it again.

One-on-one communication becomes profound. You feel instant affection for the faces you do see. There seems to be nothing in the way of them. Rather than face-to-face, you experience these conversations as face to no-face, or face to space. Your space is a perfect place to put this visiting face. It’s much easier to understand what they’re getting at, because you’re no longer trying to keep track of how what they’re saying relates to your little third-person diorama of your life. Almost everyone is adorable when you’re face to space with them.

Perhaps the most profound insight from practicing this is that none of that diorama needs to be sorted out at all anyway. It’s an impossible mess of thought with no solution — most of it is just thoughts about future problems that might actually happen — and when you return to the present moment the whole thing seems like a foolish side project you were working on.

Any of those thoughts that represent real things will be dealt with in their own time, once they are actually real, right here in front of you in the space, because life simply doesn’t happen anywhere else. Life is much smaller and more intimate and more interesting than we ever thought.