In the Space of a Breath, Life Occurs

A short time ago, as I was thumbing through a Buddhist magazine that I picked up at our local Barnes & Noble, I came across this sobering thought: "We are literally always one breath away from death."

Something about those words struck a nerve, and for the next three days they were constantly in my head.

At first those nine words might seem bleak ... even a bit macabre, given our species’ apparent simultaneous preoccupation with and aversion to death ... but they serve as a stark reminder of the Buddha’s admonition that nothing is permanent; our lives are fleeting, no more than a mote in the eye of time.

Time … I thought … if we are but one breath away from the end of our lives, time itself was an illusion, a phantom which we are forever chasing.

And in that profound realization comes great power: we have only Now; therefore, how we fill THIS moment is our choice of HOW to live. Our choice expresses our values.

We humans often approach life as if we are immortal. We screw around and waste time in meaningless pursuits, our minds enmeshed in insignificant dalliances, arguing over things that just don’t matter; we fret, we worry, we flail about and drown in a sea of "what if", "if only", "would have, should have, could have" … but never DO. We blame others for our failures and shortcomings. All the while we forget -- or ignore -- that the hour of our death may be upon us at any time. 

How many of us reach the end of our lives with regret for unfulfilled hopes and dreams? The number is significant enough that the very idea has become a near cliché.  The actor Michael Landon once famously said, "Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”

Sadly, we are not assured of ANY tomorrows. We do not live day to day; we only live breath to breath and we all affect our world – or allow it to affect us -- in the space of one breath to another.

What are we -- as individuals and as a species -- doing with the limited amount of time allotted to us?

Are we living in compassion and hope? Or do we wallow in self-pity and despair?

Are we devoting our time and our minds and our efforts to creating a better world? Or are we merely bitching about the one we see as being foisted upon us?

Are we extending an open hand to our fellow man? Or a fist?

Are we productive? Or destructive?

Are we loving? Hating? Or worse … indifferent?

Will the legacy we leave be fondly recalled? Or vilified?

We all like to believe that we are gifted with the same 24 hours. But, really, we are only kidding ourselves. Millions of people who fall asleep tonight will not wake to see another sunrise. The unvarnished Truth is that we are not guaranteed ANY time; all that we have is this present moment, this singular breath.

Many of us become prisoners of our own minds. Our internal dialogue turns doubtful and negative, bogs us down, keeping us from enjoying the moment. Like a tire stuck in mud, we allow our thoughts to trap us, keep us spinning in place. "Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall," wrote Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the book "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are" and the man who introduced meditation into mainstream medicine. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the equilibrium that evades us, we need to pause, to breathe, to focus on our breathing and, as Kabat-Zinn says, to "rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just being."

Being and doing aren’t necessarily separate, as long as we do what we do with mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a state of attention on the present, on this moment, not bound by the past or wrapped up in the future. When you worry about what might be, or wonder what might have been, or dwell on the regrets of the past you ignore what IS. You must instead awaken to the notion that YOU are not YOUR THOUGHTS. Observe your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them. Let them go. And breathe. For in that moment of breath, the only moment we truly have, life occurs.

The idea of living in the now, in the present moment of this one breath is nothing new; it certainly did not originate with me. Sages, philosophers and thinkers have realized its value for centuries. My voice is merely an echo of theirs.

What it boils down to is that in reality there is no time to waste; we only waste the Now. Each moment that we have, every breath we draw is a gift more valuable than money, or jewels, or any material possession. To waste the Now is to waste Life itself.   

Make sure you are using that time wisely. Your life is your message and your message is your legacy.