The present moment

Everything is movement.

The water of a river that flows, sometimes gently, sometimes more swiftly.

The wind that blows and sets the leaves dancing, lifts them and carries them off in a whirl.

Like the breath, the air that enters and leaves, and never stops circulating.

Nothing is truly still.

The present moment is in movement too.
It is not a situation frozen in time and space, a moment one could hold on to.
The instant is already becoming another instant.

And yet we often spend a great deal of time elsewhere.
In what has been.
In what we wish had been different.

In what we imagine for tomorrow, in what we hope for, in what we fear.

And meanwhile, something is happening here.
Now.

Perhaps we can simply return to this instant.
Feel the contact of our feet with the ground.
The coolness of the grass beneath our steps.
The scent of the earth in a forest, early in the morning.
The mist rising gently above the sea.
The movement of the air on the skin.
The breath that comes, then goes.

And feel our body too, still in appearance, yet always in movement.
The heart beating.
The breath circulating.
The sensations that appear, change, then move away.

One instant after another.
Without needing to go back.
Without needing to go forward, toward that horizon we do not yet know.
Simply being here.
Here.
Now.

Without trying to hold on to the instant.
Without trying to change it.
Without analysing what is here.
Just feeling.
Being present to what is being lived, to this precise instant.
Then letting it pass.
Like the water of the river.
Like the breath.
Like the leaves carried off by the wind.
And simply welcoming this continuous movement of life.

One instant.
Then another.
Then another still