Learn to Live in the Now

The overwhelming majority of the suffering and anguish that torture the human mind does not happen in the real world, but on the imaginary stage of our thoughts. We spend precious hours of the day rehashing conversations that already happened, feeding guilt over old choices, or terrifying ourselves with catastrophic scenarios about what might go wrong next month.

Monja Coen opens her book with a direct and compassionate reminder: the past is a memory that has already vanished like smoke in the wind, and the future is merely a mental projection that does not yet exist. The only territory where life truly pulses, where the heart beats, and where we have the concrete power to act is the present moment, the here and now.

In everyday life, we see the cost of this distraction at Sunday family dinner: people sit around the table before an appetizing meal, but their eyes are glued to their phone screens checking work messages or internet gossip. The body is physically present in the room, yet the mind wanders lost in distant lands, stealing the beauty of a real encounter.

To rescue the mind from this chronic distraction, the ancient tradition of Zen Buddhism offers the foundational practice of zazen, silent seated meditation. Contrary to what many imagine, meditating is not about trying to force the mind to go blank or erasing thoughts by force, which would be a biologically impossible task.

Zazen consists of sitting with an upright spine, relaxing the shoulders, keeping the eyes half-open and directed toward the floor, and resting your attention on the natural flow of conscious breathing. When a worried thought or a memory pops into your head, you do not fight it and you do not cling to it; you simply watch the idea pass like a drifting cloud crossing the blue sky.

This posture develops the sovereign ability not to react on autopilot. In the corporate workplace or in heavy city traffic, practicing zazen teaches you to create a space of pause between a coworker's provocation and your response, allowing you to choose serenity instead of exploding in uncontrolled anger.

One of the brightest conceptual pillars passed on by Monja Coen is the universal truth of the impermanence of all things in life. In the cosmos, nothing is static, frozen, or eternal: the seasons change, trees lose their leaves in autumn, bodies grow old, and feelings fluctuate continuously.

Acute suffering is born from our stubborn illusion of wanting to cling to what is fleeting. We try to freeze moments of youthful euphoria or despair, thinking that a phase of sadness will last forever. Embracing impermanence brings immediate relief: the ache you are facing in your chest today will pass, just as the hard phases of the past have also been left behind.

This awareness does not lead to cynical discouragement, but to a renewed gratitude for every instant. Knowing that the porcelain cup you hold will one day break makes you handle it more gently; knowing that the embrace of your partner or your parents is finite makes you hug them wholeheartedly and with true love today.