[Gem]

Since Thich Nhat Hanh passed through death's door, I was thinking about the things he said. He was into mindfulness and was famous for applying mindfulness to breath and walking meditation. Walking meditation is a practice in which each conscious step brings you here, to the reality of this moment (different to how we usually walk toward a future destination).

Most of us have been told that meditation helps us toward a future destination, so we try and expect to experience spiritual states. However, breath awareness is to be conscious the real-lived experience just as it is now. Since you can't possibly feel your future breath, or the breath you took a few seconds ago, the current breath, indeed this very moment, is the only one you can experience.

This is the moment in which existence lives.

You are aware of how your breathing feels, as it is, in the way it is experienced by you, in this living moment.

Only right now you can feel what your breathing is like. Fully focusing to know the intricacy its feeling, paying close attention, curious about what it really feels like, awareness of its details, examining closely the intimate experience of what it is really like.

Just one inhale, nothing more, paying full attention while it comes in. And, All the while it goes out, paying attention to only this exhale. Just for this inhale I'm aware. This exhale I'm aware.

Examining with close attention; not for a long duration for many breaths. Only for this inhale. Only this exhale. I know this complete inhale. I know this complete exhale. Paying careful attention to the subtlest aspects of your real-living experience.

It makes the mind quieter because you stopped to look. It makes the mind concentrated because you have to focus so as to feel the subtle reality of what it's actually like.

Not for a long time. One inhale. One exhale. One inhale. One exhale. A single moment of knowing - this is the reality of what it's like for me.