Bitch PhD shares a way to meditate, and live in the moment:
As soon as you finish reading this paragraph,Stop reading for a moment, and imagine that you are going to die in one minute. The last things you are going to experience are reading these [words], sitting in this room, thinking and feeling what you are thinking and feeling right now. This is the end of your life. . . . You have no time to write a note or make a phone call. All you can do is experience what is, right now. This is a very simple exercise, but it is quite profound. It brings you into presence very quickly. You stop fighting, you stop needing, you stop being concerned with physical comfort, you stop wanting, you stop achieving, and you stop maintaining. Enlightenment, attainment, realization all become meaningless. You are just present.
- Ken McLeod [via]
Most of the time it’s so hard for me to quiet myself — usually I end up thinking of a grocery list or some other “productive” thing I should be doing. I think this exercise above may help.
(of course, I can hear the detractors now lamenting the emptying process of meditation — thankfully, I’m not scared of demonic boogeymen any more.)