Questa Mattina

I wake up early in Columbus, as I always do the day after flying in from Europe. A gentle peace accompanies me from the very moment I open my eyes, and I feel deeply grateful for a safe and pleasant trip getting here. I wonder if it has something to do with the hours of deep meditation I did yesterday on the plane. I love meditating on airplanes.

Just a moment after waking, something happens that has never happened to me before, or at least not that I remember. I become aware, from consciousness itself, of the thinking process before it even arises. It’s strange. I can see the mind scanning the present moment, trying to position itself in relation to it. Do I like this moment or not? Am I happy to be here? Do I want to be here? The mind seems to sift through memories and emotions to select the most suitable filter for interpreting the experience.

All of this unfolds in fractions of a second, but today, for some reason, I can witness it in slow motion from a timeless awareness.

Normally, I notice all this after the thought has already formed and the “I” has taken a stance toward the moment, one I may later release. But today I was able to remain present at the very source, at the origin. I released the process before it took shape. I chose pure presence from the start. I didn’t let the mind take a position one way or the other. I simply was. Without dialogue, judgment, or debate. Absorbing the moment from the unity and peace of life itself.

It was a brief but profound experience.

A few minutes later, the mind began moving again, back and forth, with its usual arguments: “I like being here because of this… but I dislike it because of that.” Then came the fears: “This is lovely… but what if that happens, and everything gets hard, like it did that time?”

Ah, the egoic mind and its stories.

After a cup of coffee and some peaceful presence, I sit to meditate in conscious alignment.

The practice unfolds.