“Breathe in, halfway lift.  Breathe out, forward fold”  the yoga teacher quietly instructs the class.  The man began to get the hang of being able to control his breath as instructed while he performed the poses.  He remembered the first day when he could not even think about his breathing while he attempted the challenging exercises.  Now, he was able to work with the concept of “one breath, one flow.”

As he followed the voice of his instructor, he remembered back to his first thoughts about why breathing is such an important part of yoga.  Still not knowing for sure, the rationale for the focus on breathing, he gestured his own thoughts on the subject.

“I’m betting the focus on breath is so that you can heighten your awareness.”  he thought.  “Much like focusing on your breath while meditating, it can bring you to the present moment.  It can also calm your mind, giving you something else to focus on to distract you from your own thoughts,” he pondered.

Later that night he wondered about the focus on breath and how that relates to the current moment.  He wondered what is the current moment?

“When I think about the current moment, it is no longer current.  When I think about the next moment, it becomes the present moment, but almost immediately becomes the past moment.”

“I wonder if there really is a current moment because it seems they immediately become the past.”

Then he thought some more about breathing and how many disciplines such as meditation and yoga place a focus on your breath.

“I wonder if maybe the current moment is related to the current breath?  When you release the breath in your lungs it becomes the past.  The current moment might be the breath that you currently have in your lungs.”

He then decided that it really does not matter what the exact length of the “current moment” is, because the point is to focus on this period in your life without festering over the future or lamenting over the past.  With those thoughts he fell asleep.

Ω

When we talk about the “current moment” an in-depth analysis may lead to a similar conclusion as the man in the story, for as soon as a moment is recognized it becomes a moment in the past.  The key is to understand that as soon as a moment becomes “the past” there is no need to further analyze it, unless of course it is to review the moment to help you with an upcoming moment.

The current moment can be thought of as a period in time.  A period where you are engaged in an activity.  Take for instance, a dinner party.  That evening could be referred to as a “single moment.”  Maybe you are on a week-long vacation, and you might consider that entire week as a “single moment.”

Of course, there are many micro-moments inside of the larger moment encompassing the event, but the overall moment can be considered the moment of the event. When you begin to look at macro and micro moments you begin to realize that this lifetime is a “single moment” consisting of many other moments that can be broken into smaller moments at infinitum.  Until you reach the moment of the breath currently in your lungs.

So the question we might ask, is what moment or “set of moments” are you living right now?  Maybe this is the “college years moment,” or the “kids are living at home moment,” or your “retirement moment.”  Each of these “activity moments” can also be considered to be “chapters of your life.”

The “pages” might be groups of moments around events within that chapter, such as the dinner party.  The “paragraphs” might be conversations at the dinner party.   The “sentences” could be people you engaged with, while the “words” and “characters” could be the topics discussed and the words spoken.

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There are many levels of granularity when it comes to “moments.”  It is up to you to understand that you may have missed a “micro moment,” but ultimately the largest macro-moment is this lifetime – which is still available to you.

Written Tue Apr 8, 2014 7:30 – 7:48 AM MT