Present Still

Some days feel heavy when I keep telling myself that I have to do well, take responsibility, and see everything through . When that voice runs all day, the exhaustion can feel close to burnout. It often comes less from the work itself than from the weight the mind carries while doing it.  This thought is so familiar that we rarely notice it is a thought at all.  But is the "I" we take for granted, the "I" who does everything, actually real? Photo by the author A Question That Came Up During Sitting Meditation: Am I Really the One Breathing? A few days ago, I did a sitting meditation, watching my breath. At first, I deliberately placed my attention on the air moving in and out at the tip of my nose.  Then I noticed my breathing growing quieter and quieter. And then, for one very brief moment, the breath seemed to be breathing itself. I was startled.  It was as if I wasn’t making the breath happen. I kept watching the in-breath and out-breath until the session ended. ...

Why did yesterday's beautiful sky suddenly look sad today? The sky hasn't changed. So what has? Venerable Beopsang suggests something simple: before putting a name to what you’re feeling, pause and simply look. We tend to believe we’re seeing the world exactly as it is. But Ven. Beopsang explains that what we experience is already filtered through thought and judgment. At some point, those thoughts even give rise to the ideas of “me” and “mine.” The more we believe these thoughts are simply true, the more we end up suffering inside the world they've created. Is the World We See Really "As It Is"? Picture a clear blue sky with pretty clouds drifting by. One person stops in their tracks to take a photo. Another only looks up after noticing someone else staring at the sky. A third walks right past that same beautiful view without a second glance. It's the same sky. Yet everyone experiences it differently. Photo by the author I've had a similar experience myse...

You're lying in bed, replaying something that happened earlier that day, when suddenly a completely unrelated worry slides in and takes over.  Maybe you've caught yourself there before. Maybe you've even blamed yourself for it afterward, wondering why your mind won't just be quiet. Here's the short version. Much of what troubles you isn't something you chose to create.  And in Buddhism, thoughts like these aren't automatically treated as "you" at all. Strange thought, isn't it?  That the thinker and the thought might not be the same thing.  So what does that actually mean? Why We Assume Our Thoughts Are Really Us Most of us treat our thoughts as naturally, obviously ours. We simply take them to be part of who we are. I thought that. I've always been an anxious person. I still haven't forgiven what happened. But thinking doesn't happen in a vacuum. It reacts constantly to past experience, to the environment around us, to whatever se...

Do you ever lie awake worrying about tomorrow, next month, or years down the road? Will the presentation go well tomorrow? Will the deal with that client close next month? Will there be enough saved for retirement in ten years? When these worries take hold, your heart races and your mind spins, yet you can never quite pin down where in your body the anxiety actually lives. Venerable Beopsang offers a simple practice you can try right now.  The next time anxiety rises, close your eyes and search for exactly where it sits, somewhere in your head, somewhere in your chest.  But when you actually go looking, you won't find a solid lump or a fixed thing called anxiety waiting there. Why is that? Photo by the author Why Fear Has No Substance When fear shows up, you feel it in your body, unmistakably. Sometimes your hands and feet go numb. Sometimes your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in your throat. The core of this practice is simple : see the gap between what your body actu...