From the book, ‘The Power of Stillness:’
Truly Knowing What Is Here
In a well known mindfulness exercise, participants start to experience . . . for themselves by taking ten to fifteen minutes to eat a single raisin. Five minutes into the raisin feast, wild new realizations, sensations, and observations have arisen—about something that, till that moment had merited no particular attention.
If being fully saturated in a mundane experience can change a simple raisin moment, what about all the other moments of our day? A conversation, a person we pass on the street, the landscape on the horizon . . .
But what if the moment with that person (or the raisin) is quite unpleasant? Rather than trying to insist on enjoying something, as we sometimes do (you should be feeling joy, you know), how about just watching for the moments of sweetness in which we can immerse ourselves? As Elder Uchtdorf has taught, “No matter our circumstances, no matter our challenges or trials, there is something in each day to embrace and cherish. There is something in each day that can bring gratitude and joy if only we will see and appreciate it.)”2 And on those days when it feels truly miserable, we can expand our capacity to hold even that with wisdom and depth.
For example a mother, whose elementary school child died in a school shooting described how she related to her chronic, devastating grief. She didn’t want it to consume her, nor could she eliminate or deny it. Instead she decided to create a sacred space in her heart, surrounded and contained by love, where that pain could be held and tenderly acknowledged.
In the midst of all circumstances, then, our faith can help us be more here—and not just run away. In reflecting on the closure of his religious abbey, one Catholic leader in Utah said, “I’m not threatened by the change.” After describing how he leaves “yesterday to God’s mercy,” he spoke of moving forward in “what we call the ‘sacrament of the now moment.'”3
Two Ways to Be in the Moment
When you start to speak of “living in the moment,” don’t be surprised if you get a few eyebrows raised in religious communities: Hmm, kind of sounds like doing whatever you feel like, no matter the future consequences, right?
That kind of “living in the moment” is not what we’re talking about here. There is a difference between living in the moment and living for the moment. And what exactly we seek in that present (exclusively our pleasure or something more) creates two very different kinds of “living in the moment.” One draws us to relish more deeply the richness of whatever is here in our own lives. The other tends to be a kind of hedonistic quest for pleasure, or to “feel good,” and draws us to hungrily crave more and more of a certain kind of sensory experience or whatever richness we see in others’ lives.
They are definitely not the same! Even while decrying hedonistic living, Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “We need to concentrate on what has been called ‘the holy present,’ for now is sacred. . . . The holy gift of life always takes the form of now.” 4 ~ Jacob Z. Hess, Carrie L. Skarda, Kyle D. Anderson, Ty R. Mansfield, The Power of Stillness, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 95-6
References: 2. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘Of Regrets and Resolutions’ Ensign, November 2012
3. Citing a 4300-year-old text, “The Sacrament of the Present Moment,” by Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade, teaching that each day is sacred, and each moment to hear the voice of the Almighty. . . .
4. Neal A. Maxwell, “Why Not Now” Ensign, November 1974.
