There are some things that we can remember deeply and other things we can only remember conceptually. An odd example of this relates to our body. We can remember the idea of being cold, but we can’t quite directly relate to the experience when we’re comfortable. The same is true with being very hot. Even being quite sick — we can remember it, we can describe it, but the actual experience is very hard to grasp when we’re feeling good.

It turns out the body only understands the present.

On the other hand, we’re able to have fear, anger and desire most all the time. Why is that? Because in daily life, the seeds of these things tend to stay with us. We don’t fully put them down when our frame of mind changes. In the background of all the ‘stories’ we move between, there remain the foundations of fear, the desire for love, the (imagined) rationales for anger.

Once we break through all that, dissolve the seeds of fear and our mental obstacles and confusions (known in Tibetan as kleshas), we can still describe fear, for example, but its heart would remain as distant as last winter’s ice.

As we develop ever more deeply the habit of awareness, we move back to the present. As our habits of mind create less negative karma, we turn towards the present. And, as our fears and obstacles become weaker and less frequent, less obstructive, we discover that the only place we can be is right now.

The present.

Welcome home.