Lingering in the present moment – The teaching of Kṣaṇa sthitih.

Dwelling in the present moment – The teaching of Kṣaṇa sthitih.

It's all about how you embrace and experience these small moments. The closer you get to yourself, the more sharply the realization dawns on you: nothing matters but being fully present in the current moment.

Only then can you truly understand acceptance, empathy, that which is born not from outside, but from within.

I write a lot about it, think about it, and teach it in my classes.

Because this sentence, the power of now, is so profound, as if every layer truly fell away for a moment.

All wishes, blessings that someone formulates during a nidra or meditation,

it floats in space.

But you can only truly feel it when you are in the midst of your own feeling.

When you are there with a presence that cannot be artificially induced, you just let it appear.

This moment is so powerful that it merges with holiness.

This is not a lack. But presence. In its actual reality, the small moments count.

Because these are the most sincere particles of life, those that cannot be rushed or replayed.

A glance, a breath, the pattern of the setting sun on your face.

They don't want to tell you they are important. They simply exist.

And in them, you are closest to the truth.

Buddhist teaching also says this: reality always happens now, everything else is just the mind.

Small moments, like a tear on your face or the feeling of an empty hand in your own, are not parts of the past. They are parts of the present.

But what is truth? Not a sentence. Not a theory. Not someone else's opinion.

The truth is what you feel when everything falls away from you.

When you don't want to impress, prove, or conform.

The truth is not loud, rather quiet, but relentless.

According to Buddhism, truth is not something to be achieved.

The truth is what has always been there, only the veils of the mind covered it.

Like the surface of water: if you stir it, it becomes cloudy.

But if you let it settle, you will suddenly see yourself in it, clearly.

Truth is subjective and not collective.

What I perceive as reality may be foreign to you, yet both are true.

Because we experience through our own filters: through desires, fears, and pasts.

That's why it's sometimes so hard to connect.

And yet, if someone listens to another truth with an open heart, that moment itself is love.

Buddhism is not a dogma, but a personal realization.

What you experience is your truth, not what you are taught, but what you live through.

And there's something beautifully sad about that too: no one else can know exactly what you know.

But if you convey it with an open heart, perhaps another heart will recognize its own in it for a moment.

But you also have to be brave enough to stop for a moment and say, “I will listen to you, and I will consider your truth too.” This is a very honest realization, and painfully familiar.

When someone offends us, the first instinct is often to withdraw.

Silence. An invisible wall.

And the feeling: “I don't want to be part of what you see as reality.”

This can be self-defense, and it can also be inner fortitude. But what remains if you don't ask?

The never-had conversations remain there.

The misunderstandings that will thus remain misunderstandings forever.

The opportunities that perhaps, just perhaps, we could have gotten closer, slip away.

The present moment carries these realizations: you are not alone in this world.

What can be handled differently? What should be observed?

Perhaps: the power of forgiveness.

When we apologize, what we are really saying is: "now I see with different eyes."

And when we forgive, we don't say it was okay, but this:

“I’m not carrying it any further.”

Such sentences do not change the past, but create the future.

A softer, more honest, more humane future.

Buddha does not apologize because he makes mistakes, as we do. But because he understood.

For her, an apology is not guilt, but empathy.

The teaching of Pavarana day: “If you have seen that I made a mistake, if you heard it, or just felt it, please tell me. And forgive it.”

This is not weakness. This is wisdom.

Buddha is not offended because he does not identify with the ego that we try to protect.

Forgiveness is not permission, not absolution, but the breaking of the chain of suffering.

“Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is an eternal law.” (Dhammapada)

And what is the truth?

A sincere awakening. To yourself.

The realization: no need to hide anymore.

Dharma is not external.

Dharma is seeing things as they are, not as you would like them to be or as you fear.

You are close to the truth now. Because you ask. Because you feel.

Because you're no longer running, but looking. This is the first light of truth.

And inside me?

Understanding is born. Buddha is not a deity.

Not someone to follow externally, but someone who has awakened.

You are Buddha. I am Buddha. We are the experience.

The path. The one on the path. Because we are all capable of awakening.

You don't need anything external, just to see who you already are.

This awakening is not solemn. Sometimes it's just this: you sit in a temple, look at the lanterns, and suddenly you know: there's nowhere to go. Nothing to prove. I am here. And for me, on this path, that is enough.

I lovingly welcome you sitting in the chair, as you dwell in the present moment, letting in the light, and understanding that you are the truth itself, which is liberating and uplifting, and carries a lifetime of love within it.

Hari OM Tat Sat

RENI