Life Challenges

Creative Ways to Transform Challenges:
Living in the Moment

Finding peace in the moment Paul Ferrini

Each moment unfolds with its own integrity, its own requirements. Your job is just to be present, to be at peace, and to let words and actions come from that peaceful presence.

When you speak and act and you are not at peace, you can only attack or defend. Acting from agitation creates greater agitation. And so the cycle of suffering proliferates.

If you want to be free from suffering, you must stop creating suffering in your life. "But how do I do that?" you ask. You do that by asking the question "Am I at peace in this moment?" before you speak or act. And if you are not at peace, you take a deep breath and bring your awareness back to the present moment.

All suffering originates in your own mind. And that is where it is undone.

Continue your practice to include your thoughts and feelings. Whenever you think or feel something, ask "Am I at peace right now?" And if you are not at peace, take a deep breath and bring your awareness back to the present moment. Do not let your thoughts and feelings run amuck, or you will have to life your life through their filters.

Every thought, every feeling is a filter. Every word that is spoken and every action taken limits truth in some way. Truth itself neither thinks nor feels, speaks nor acts. Thus it never strays from itself. To rest in the truth, question each thought and feeling, each word and action. "Am I at peace right now?" And if you are not at peace, bring your awareness back to the present moment. When you can be in the moment free of thoughts or feelings about thoughts, free of the need to speak or act, then you will dwell in the heart of truth.

From Waking Up Together: Illuminations on the Road to Nowhere by Paul Ferrini, Heartways Press, South Deerfield, MA, 1996, pp. 65-66.

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