“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.”

This morning I sat to practice — half an hour of Vipassanā, followed by a silent reflection on Advaita. The body was still enough, but the mind was a restless monkey, leaping between unfinished tasks, imagined futures, and subtle self-congratulations for “being spiritual.”

At first, I fought the distractions — tightening attention as though I could wrestle the mind into silence. But the more I fought, the louder the inner noise became. Only when I softened — simply noticed the movement — did something shift. The distraction itself became the meditation. I saw that awareness was never disturbed; it was only the contents within awareness that changed shape.

Advaita reminds me: the witness is untouched. The waves of thought rise and fall, but the ocean remains ocean. Vipassanā sharpens this seeing — sensation by sensation, breath by breath — showing that each moment, when seen clearly, dissolves into impermanence. Together they teach me that stillness isn’t the absence of thought, but the absence of entanglement.

Afterward, I recalled Seneca’s words: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.” I felt their truth not as philosophy but as direct experience. The hours I lose are not stolen by others; they vanish in distraction, in the subtle comfort of half-attention. Every moment spent chasing trivialities is a small betrayal of presence.

Time, I realized, is not measured by the clock but by awareness. A distracted hour is scarcely lived at all; a single mindful breath, fully known, is eternity condensed.

Today, I renew a quiet vow — not to conquer distraction, but to recognize it, to meet each wandering thought as an opportunity to return. To waste less time is not to do more, but to be more — fully, simply, here.

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The eternal Now

I sit to watch the breath,

but the mind wanders off —

into errands, memories,

imagined applause.

I pull it back, sternly,

then softly, like a child’s hand —

only to see

that the watcher was never lost.

Thoughts flicker,

like sunlight on ripples,

yet beneath —

the still lake of awareness remains.

Vipassanā shows me movement,

Advaita shows me rest.

One unmasks illusion,

the other names it home.

Distraction is not an enemy —

only a shadow cast

by unexamined light.

Seneca whispers through the centuries:

It’s not that time is short,

but that we waste it.

And I see —

waste is not what I do,

but what I forget to see.

Every moment unattended

is life unlived.

Every return to presence

is a resurrection.

So I bow —

to the wavering mind,

to the faithful breath,

to the eternal now

that never leaves,

though I leave it

a thousand times a day.