When we practice meditation, one of the things we learn is how to begin again in each moment.

You notice that you're distracted, you've been lost in thought for who knows how long, and then suddenly you return to a clear witnessing of the contents of consciousness (appearances. You notice a sound, or the breath, or some other sensations in your body, or you see See the present thought itself unraveling.

And in this clear noticing of this next appearance in consciousness, we're training our minds. We're practicing a willingness to simply return to the present moment, without judgment, without disappointment, without contraction, with a mind that is standing truly free of the past. And it's always possible to recover this freedom no matter what happens.

Let's say you notice you're distracted, and rather than just observe the next sound or sensation, you're immediately plunged into self-judgment. You're annoyed. You subscribe to this damn app, and you're supposed to be meditating, but you just spent the last five minutes thinking about something that you saw on television last night.

But you can break this spell and begin again at any point by just noticing self-judgment and frustration as appearances.

And the truth is there's good as anything else you can notice when it comes to revealing the intrinsic freedom of consciousness. Its openness, its centerlessness, its selflessness. Honestly, frustration — real frustration — a mind like a clenched fist, is just as good as the breath or a sound or even an expansive emotion like joy. If you'll just drop back and recognize what consciousness is like in that moment.

Now, this ability to begin again has ethical force as well. It's actually the foundation of forgiveness. The only way to truly forgive another person or oneself is to restart the clock in the present. And this habit of mind allows for a resilience that we can't otherwise find. And there are literally hundreds of opportunities each day to practice it. If you notice that a conversation with a friend or a family member or a colleague isn't going very well, or you're not having fun at a party, or you've been trying to get some work done, but you found that you've just wasted the last hour on the internet, or you're working out in the gym, but you haven't been been making much of an effort. The moment you notice this ghost of mediocrity hovering over the present, you can fully exercise it just by beginning again and then fully commit by relinquishing the past.

There's no real reason why the next 10 minutes in the gym can't be the best you've had in years.

There's no real reason why you can't put this conversation that's almost over on a new footing by saying something that is truly useful.

So the practice is to stop telling ourselves a story about what has been happening and to fully connect with experience in this moment.

Notice this present thought, this fear, this judgment, this doubt, this desire to be elsewhere as an appearance in consciousness.

And then, just begin again.

One of the core teachings of the Buddha is that everything that has the nature to arise will also pass away. Everything. Every good thing and every bad thing. Every experience. Every mental state. Every situation. Every stable seeming thing. If something appears at any point in time, it will by the very nature of its coming into being, eventually disappear. This is a deep truth about our world, and it has many implications. In particular, it reveals why the ultimate wisdom of meditation can't be a matter of producing any new experience. There's no feeling of peace or bliss. There's no peak experience that ultimately matters. Because everything that has the nature to arise will also pass away. The real purpose of meditation is to recognize the implications of this in this moment and to feel beyond any doubt that holding on to experience isn't even possible.