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The current moment is always the most precious one...

“The current moment is always the most precious one.”

~Tai Situpa



Lydia writes...


Silence

I’ve always loved the silence of early mornings. My commute these days involves just a few steps down the stairs and there’s no countdown ticking in my head rushing me to get out of the door and to the tube. So my day starts even more calmly now. I sit quietly looking out at this strange new menacingly peaceful world. No planes rumbling along above the rooftops. What was once known as “rush-hour” starts, but traffic noise barely increases. A chimney whirls puffy, white water vapour into the dawn sky without making the slightest sound. It’s just me and the first rays of sun noiselessly creeping across the carpet.

In these morning contemplations I keep coming back to something Tai Situ Rinpoche said in a teaching: “The current moment is always the most precious one.” No matter where you are, what you are doing, this moment right here right now, he explained, was always key.

I listen to the silence and the current moment somehow seems to become louder, more apparent. There are so many things we might not like about the situation we find ourselves in, but it is the current moment. Nothing before could have prepared us for it and there’s really very little point in worrying about an after that is so up in the air.

Morning turns into day with no longer any clear-cut demarkation. A magpie cackles, a seagull shrieks. I marvel at this new soundscape, the distinct rhythm of trainers pounding the pavement as people take their daily exercise run, the whizz of bike wheels speeding past. Occasionally going out for essentials there are times when I feel transported back to Victorian London. This is what the city must have sounded like when there were no engine-powered vehicles, no sirens, hardly any trains.

The ever-present passive aggressive background hum of our giant metropolis seems hushed. The beast is snoozing, while another invisibly tiny creature stalks our every move. But this is still the current moment. Whenever my mind stumbles across Situ Rinpoche’s words again, it makes me smile and reminds me not to resist – noise or no noise, stress or no stress – this moment, too, is precious. As is this one. And this one. COVID-19 may have brought us no end of new complications, but it is also giving us the gift of more silence.


What gifts have the last two weeks brought you?

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