The real magic happens when we become intimately familiar with the moment-by-moment experience of being alive. Instead of trying to force complete experiences to happen. I focus on setting the stage for them to happen by exercising my attention.

When remembering to notice that we're alive becomes a habit, we begin to erode the internal friction that obscures our view of the richness we're swimming in every day.

Lucky to Live Sad Moments

"Sadness is poetic. You're lucky to live sad moments...Because we don't want that first bit of sad, we push it away...You never feel completely sad or completely happy. You just feel kind of satisfied with your product, and then you die."

~ Louis C.K.

Feel In, Equanimity, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonSeptember 8, 2016Louis C.K., sadness, feelings, equanimity, humor, catharsis, complete experienceComment

Binge Watching Ordinary Events Playing Out in Real Time

I've shared strategies for using movies to strengthen attention. Just as in ordinary life, what makes tending to the sensory components of a film so challenging is the pull of the narrative. But what would it be like to focus on the changing sights and sounds without having to resist the gravitational pull of story elements?

Starting today, you can find out.

See Out, Hear Out, Notice FlowDaron LarsonAugust 5, 2016television, seeing, flow, travel, concentration, complete experienceComment

Too Strong

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before,
cannot imagine.

~ Dorothy Walters

Daron LarsonSeptember 15, 2015Dorothy Walters, poetry, vulnerability, broken heart, feelings, emotions, memory, complete experience, joy, love, stillness, pain, discomfortComment

The Transparency of Existence

"In this mode of consciousness, the most supremely banal transforms into the most supremely baffling and awe-inducing. That which is most obvious and taken for granted is simultaneously that which is most mysterious and astonishing."

~ Brian Maniscalco

180°

"When you feel the sting of separation inside, simply turn inwardly and intuitively around one hundred and eighty degrees and there will be your innocence, your beauty, your completeness. It may seem impossible, but give it a try until you reconnect with what in truth you never lost."

~ Adyashanti

Catch Yourself Absorbed

When you catch yourself absorbed by some immediate aspect of your environment, try to yield to the observation fully for a few seconds.

We Crave More

We assume that things we are attracted to will relieve our suffering and raise our happiness.

Daron LarsonJuly 22, 2014Arthur C. Brooks, happiness, pleasure, paradox, fame, wealth, evolution, complete experienceComment

Fully Present

When we are fully present, we are receptive to phenomenal world around us. Opening to sense perceptions, we become a sensate being, embodied. Being fully present, when we look, we actually see; when we listen, we hear; when we smell and taste, we savor it; when we touch, we truly feel. Connecting to the phenomenal world in this way is the key to contacting reality directly, beyond concept.

Daron LarsonJuly 21, 2014paying attention, Irini Rockwell, present, complete experienceComment

To Be Fully Alive

Daron LarsonJuly 9, 2014Phillip Moffitt, compassion, complete experience, equanimity, impermanence, life, mysticism, paradoxComment

There is This

Daron LarsonApril 13, 2014Barbara Ras, complete experience, control, poetry, uncertaintyComment

Let It Go

Daron LarsonMarch 4, 2014equanimity, feelings, music, shame, complete experienceComment

Let Me Die Living

Daron LarsonJanuary 20, 2014Jeff Foster, acceptance, complete experience, death, engaged, equanimity, lifeComment

Now and Now and Now

"You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise."

~ Wendell Berry