“This moment is all you have.” That’s an invocation often echoed during guided sessions on Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. It reminds meditators that the current moment—what you’re actually experiencing right now—is the only part of your life that stands a chance of being “real.” All else is either a memory of the past or a hope for the future, and is in your imagination. Most experiences pass, only partially noticed, as you become self-identified with the next thought, and the next.
Observing your own consciousness in the present instant is like “waking from a dream.” Every moment not spent in mindfulness (the vast majority of our lives) is like dreaming, or as he sometimes puts it: “most of your life is spent talking to yourself, about yourself.”
sabbatiblog 