Making a Friend of the Moment

Become friendly with the present moment regardless of what form it takes.
-Eckhart Tolle


Big Request!

Wow! That is a big request isn't it?  How many of us can make friends with the moment that takes someone or something we love away?  With the moment we are consumed by overwhelming pain from a ruptured appendix? With the  moment we are told we have three months to live?

Heck most of us have a hard time being remotely tolerant with the moment we are told that we have to a wait an extra few minutes in line  to get service for a technical issue we are having with our phones. And now we are being encouraged to be friendly with every single moment regardless of what form it takes??? Get real, right?

Most of us react to the moments that are less than what we assume is needed to make us happy by calling out to the heavens, "No, this isn't fair! Why me?  Why are you always doing this to me?" When things seemingly "go wrong" we are more likely to resist the moment and make enemies with it, are we not?  We see the "hard times" as punishments and things thrown at us to hurt us...don't we? We feel the need to defend and attack. We do not tend to allow or accept most moments, let alone make friends with them.

Making An Enemy of The  Moment.....

Yet...what happens in our life experience when we resist these moments...judge them, label them as problematic, and feel we have to fight or struggle our way through them?  What happens to our experience of the moment...the only life we can live...when we react this way to the form that moment is taking?  Our lives are greatly diminished with each moment we deny, struggle against or resist. We quickly become deflated, exhausted and depressed. And the moment doesn't change does it?  No matter how much we resist it...it is still going to be as it is.  We are exhausting ourselves for nothing.

Or Making a Friend Of It.

What would happen if we do as Tolle and many Buddhist teachers suggest...make friends with what is regardless of what it is? What would happen if we put away our resistance to "suchness" or "isness" and embraced each moment like a best friend regardless of how it looked when it showed up? If we accepted the moment unconditionally, allowing it to be what ever it was...would we not find more peace, joy and rest in our experience?  We would be healthier, wouldn't we, if we didn't waste all our physical and mental energy trying to fruitlessly change what is when it is already what it is?

The moment is going to be what the moment is going to be.  And we have two choices we can make.  We can fight it, resist it, deny it, refuse it while it remains what it is.  Or we can accept it, allow it, embrace it and even appreciate it despite the fact that it is what it is.

The second option, I am discovering, is the healthiest one. And it is something we can all do.  If I can embrace the moment in my pre-evolved state...anyone can ...With a willingness to practice...it is certainly possible to find peace regardless of the circumstances the moment presents.

A Personal Example

Six weeks ago I was more or less told I could have a life threatening condition.   Some  particular tests   would have to be performed to rule out that possibility but there was a likelihood that it was cancer.  I did not believe it was at the time so I took the news with a grain of salt.  I did not resist it.  I did not deny it.  I accepted the possibility.  I can't say I made peace with the possibility of it because I couldn't...the reality of what I had to deal with  was projected into the future after these tests. So I made  peace with the fact that I  wouldn't know what I was dealing with until after these tests were performed. 

I would be lying if I said I was not at all worried because I was...but with practice, I have been able to keep bringing myself back to the present moment where there was no firm diagnosis either way. The form my moment was taking then  was one of "a not knowing" ...a being in the middle  between two external opinions...one that strongly believed it could be and another that said it likely wasn't.

In the past, living in a moment of "not knowing" would have been more traumatic for me than a knowing it was would have been.  Part of me did resist the "not knowing" form my moments took.  I actively sought to find out why there was  a delay on these urgent requests for a diagnostic mammogram ( a biopsy would not be performed without) ...why the "urgent" requests from two different professionals were denied, not once,  but three times.  Sensing an ego interference  while I was beginning to notice other alarming signs, I became angry and resistant to the form my moments were taking. I found myself crying out, "This is crazy!  Why is this always happening to me?  After everything I have been through!"  Oh I was on my way to making a big drama of struggle out of this story.

When I realized that making an enemy out of the moment and the  people "I assumed" were delaying my knowing (and it is all assumption) was going to get me nowhere but down over the holidays I decided to be friendly with it.  I accepted that I would have to wait for the tests and therefore delay my knowing. I accepted the form my moment was taking, I allowed it, I embraced it and I began to find reasons to appreciate it. Oh I slipped from time to time back into the drama and a projection into the future...but I would quickly realize I was doing so and I would gently bring myself back.   As a result I have found a certain amount of peace and even joy in most of my moments despite this crazy form they are taking.

I don't know what Monday holds for me.  It doesn't matter.  That is a moment up ahead in the future ...not the moment I am living right now.  And this moment...here and now...is all there is. I can truly  look at it and call it my friend.

How cool is that?

All is well in my world. . . .