Taking Refuge in the Present Moment

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The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 22, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Taking Refuge in the Present Moment

Good morning. Welcome, welcome. It's nice to see you all. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Diana Clark. I teach here on Monday nights, and here I am on a Sunday morning substituting for Gail. Happy to be here.

So, it might be that we have these meditation sessions before we hear a dharma talk, and it might be that during meditation we sit down, take our meditation posture, and maybe have this intention to be with the breath, the sensations of breathing, or whatever our anchor is. And maybe we're with the breath one, maybe two, maybe three times. And then noticing, "Oh wow, I've been lost in thought for quite some time. Wow, I'm feeling really restless. Like, gee, when's the bell going to ring?" And it's only just been a few minutes.

I know that when I started my meditation practice, that certainly was my experience. Not only was there this idea of, "Okay, I should be on the anchor, the breath," but also there was this subtle sense of measuring. Like, "Am I settled? Am I on the breath or not?" And with this measuring, it seemed like I was always not measuring up. There was a sense of lack: "I'm not doing it right. Everybody else is doing okay. Look at them, they must be awakened by now. And here I am, I can't even be with my breath."

And not only that, not only was there this subtle settling, subtle measuring, but there was also this subtle sense of ill will which was showing up with everything that seemed to be a distraction. This like, "Can you please stop breathing so much?" toward the person next to me, whatever it was, right? "Can the temperature be warmer? Can't it be cooler?" All these things. I kind of had this subtle ill will towards everything.

So, there can be this way in which we bring to our meditation practice some of these habits of mind we have in the rest of our life that we don't even notice. The sense of measuring, evaluating: "Am I there yet? Do I have what it takes to even do this?" And then the subtle ill will, the aversion of, "No, I don't want that experience. I want something else."

And so there's this real irony that can show up. That is, that meditation, which can be a place of release and a place of freedom and ease, instead can be this place in which we're just reinforcing these same habits that make it so that we don't have so much freedom in our lives. These habits of evaluating the present moment, these habits of measuring ourselves and coming up with this idea that we can't do it, we're not there yet, and there can be this collapse of, "Oh, when am I ever going to be able to get there?"

I'd like to read this poem as a way to introduce a different way. A different way that we might not only meditate, but a different way in which we might approach our life, the ordinary experiences of our life, so that we can have more freedom, more ease, more space, instead of just this feeling of grinding and not ever quite getting to where we want to be.

This poem is called "Waking Up," and I love the play on words here. "Waking up" can mean so many things. What we do in the morning after a night of sleep, as well as with meditation, we use this language: waking up. And it's by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer^[1]. Those of you who know my teachings know I'm often using poems by her. I think she's an amazing poet.

So, "Waking Up" by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer. Before the poem, she has this little epigraph, and it says, "Wait a minute. What if this is it?"—a quote by John Tarrant^[2], a Zen teacher. So, this poem starts with, "Wait a minute. What if this is it?" And then here's the poem:

This is it, I think, as I lie in bed, not wanting to leave the warmth. This is it. My feet meet the cold wood. This is it. I water the orchid. This is it. I boil water, make tea. I think I'll be a better person tomorrow. This is it. Me dreaming of fresh starts. This is it. Defuzzing the sweater. This is it. Paying bills, answering mail, frying eggs, washing pans. No life but this one. No fresh start. But here, this is it. The cat sits on my papers. This is it. The phone doesn't ring. This is it. The floors need mopping. The letter needs written. The class needs planned. This is it. Me wishing I could be more perfect. This is it. This. This only. This. This is it. This flutter in my chest when the sun enters the room. The natural leaning toward the light. This is it. This silence, this cold, this warmth, this longing, this song on my lips. This is it.

This poem is pointing to something simple and profound, I would say. Something very simple, again and again, this refrain: "This is it." And when I'm reading this poem, sometimes I feel like, should I emphasize this is it, or should it be this is it, or this is it? [Laughter] Right? It could be all of those, and maybe it doesn't matter.

So what is this "it" that's getting pointed to? It's not some special spiritual moment, not some special extraordinary experience, or some perfected version of the poet. It's not a future moment when everything will finally be okay. It's this, like this here. What's happening now in this moment.

This poem includes so much about ordinary life and ordinary resistance to life. Lying in bed and not wanting to leave the warmth, the feet on the cold floor, watering the orchid, and my favorite, defuzzing the sweater, making tea, paying bills, just ordinary things. As well as this way in which there's often some of this resistance, or just not being with our experience. She writes, "I think I'll be a better person tomorrow"—just like in the future, not what's happening right now, but this sense of something at some other time. She writes, "Me wishing I could be more perfect." She recognizes there's this idea of wanting to be better tomorrow, but then she is also recognizing that she had that thought.

So this poem isn't idealizing the moment. It includes wanting, and dreaming, and resisting, and longing. All these parts of what it means to be a human. All of it is included. And there's something very tender in this. She's noticing the body, she's noticing the mind, she's noticing the attitude in the mind, this wish for things to be different, the thoughts. She's noticing what's happening, but also how she is relating to what is happening. She has this awareness of posture, awareness of sensation, and awareness of the attitude that's not wanting.

And this is one way we might understand practice with something simple, like noticing the sensations of breathing. Over time this field of mindfulness can widen to not only what's actually happening—the sensations of breathing or sounds, for example—but as we practice more and more, we start to notice our relationship to the object, how we feel about it. This slight way in which we are saying, "No, I don't really want this." We begin to learn how to be with experience without immediately pushing it away, thinking, "I want something better. I want something more pleasant." Or without immediately grabbing on to it, feeling like, "Okay, I just want to be able to rest here. I just want to be able to keep it like this, and then everything will be fine."

Instead, this poem has a sense of ease to it. It's not rushing. It's not fighting with the day, and it's not waiting for some other life to begin. This moment isn't treated as an obstacle, as a problem to solve, instead, it's just being met. It's just being experienced. And there's something beautiful about that. That's quite some part of the power of this poem for me. It's not pointing to resignation. It's not pointing to passivity. She's not just sitting on the couch doing nothing. But there's this letting go of postponement, this letting go of, "Okay, well, it'll be better. I'll be happy, or everything will be perfect. I'll finally have what I want in the future." It's this relinquishment of postponement.

And not only that, in this poem, there's this noticing that everything is changing. There's warmth and there's cold, there's silence, and then she ends with "this song on my lips," this expression. So, there is this recognition that, oh yeah, experiences are coming and experiences are leaving. They're arising and passing away. That's the nature of all our experiences. Of course it is. So often we're not recognizing this, but of course, that's our experience.

Seeing this, seeing the arising and passing of experience, really supports this letting go. This insistence that things be just how they are, like we're holding on to them, or that they be different: "Go away. I don't want this experience. Please give me something else." It's amazing how subtle this movement can be within the mind. But I would say that the freedom is in noticing our relationship to our experience. This is where the freedom is.

I would say we can take refuge in this present moment experience, in not asking it to be different. For example, maybe in your daily life when you're not meditating, you open an email. Sometimes this happens to me, and in the email, there's something that feels uncomfortable. Maybe there's a criticism or they want something from you that you feel like, "Oh my goodness, I don't think I can do that, but how do I say no?" Or maybe it's picking up a conversation that was already uncomfortable and they're continuing that, or they really want something or don't want something. Emails or text messages, right? Of course, they bring whatever they bring.

Sometimes there's this way that the mind wants to contract as our body maybe even contracts. Maybe there's this tightness in the chest and the shoulders go up, and we want to defend ourselves, or we want to just ignore it. But perhaps just for a moment, there can be this recognition of just feeling that little intake of breath. Just feeling the armor in the chest. Just feeling maybe the sense of heaviness that arises with that text message or that email. A little less pushing away, a little less wishing things were different, a little less kind of just hanging out and feeling misunderstood, or self-righteousness, or whatever it might be.

In that moment can be a moment of freedom, can be a moment of ease. It's not because the email or the text message is what we want, because it's not. It's about how we meet it. We meet it with some resistance. Okay. But can we not resist the resistance? Can we meet the resistance? Resistance feels like this tightness or aversion, not wanting it to be there. When we're able to do this, when our relationship to the present moment is one in which we can just be with what's happening, including this relationship of not wanting to be with what's there, is there a way that we can consider that this actually can be a refuge? We can rest here with not resisting the resistance.

So often we're waiting for something that's perfect, a place that's pleasant, a place we can hold on to and just stay there. I certainly did this early in my meditation practice. I definitely thought I would go on these long retreats, lots of long retreats, thinking that I'd finally be able to find that elusive magical place where I could just hang out for the rest of my life. To be sure, I did discover some places where I could hang out, but not for the rest of my life. I did find places where there was some ease, but those arise and pass away just like everything else. Of course they do. But somehow I had this idea that there would be some cloud I could float on [Laughter] or something like this. It turns out this doesn't exist, not in the way that we want it to, anyway.

So instead, we find ourselves always looking and looking for this. But the refuge, what we're looking for—this place where we can rest and this place that can be a lasting source of happiness—is in not resisting the resistance. Because there will always be things that don't match our preferences. Always.

We're often waiting, getting all the ducks lined up, but the ducks don't stay lined up. They go swimming off doing whatever it is that ducks do. So this refuge in the present moment is about this change in relationship. Not trying so hard to hold on to what's happening, or trying so hard to push it away. Because when we're doing that, then the present moment is no longer an object of mindfulness. It becomes a shelter in some ways. If our relationship can be, "Okay, this is what it's like right now. This is it," without the pushing and without the pulling, then that can be a place of ease. That can be a place of resting.

I know if somebody had told me this early in my meditation practice, I would have said, "Yeah, but you don't understand. My life has this, and this, and this, and I have all these difficulties, and my body is like this, and all this kind of stuff." I kept on thinking, "As soon as that life situation gets settled, and this body situation gets settled, and then this thing out in the world gets settled, then finally, okay, maybe I can listen to you, but right now I can't listen to this. That's ridiculous."

Have you noticed that there's always this sense of, "Later it's going to be better"? And there's always a sense of, "First I have to take care of this, first this thing has to change, first this other thing has to change." You can spend your whole life, your entire life, waiting for things to finally be okay. And people do, I would say most people do. Just waiting for their whole life to be okay. Waiting, waiting, waiting while they're frantically trying to engineer, manufacture, manipulate, and get everything okay. But it doesn't matter. You change this, but then that other thing isn't quite right. You change this, so that finally the greater world out there is different, but now there's this other problem.

So what I'm pointing to, and what this poem is pointing to, is what if it's not about getting all the ducks in a row? What if it's not about getting things already perfect, but instead just shifting our relationship to what's happening? Because what's happening is what's happening. If we shift our relationship to one of "this is it," instead of waiting for something else, then there can be ease.

In some ways, this sounds like a radical idea. How can there be ease when there are so many things that aren't quite right? Well, it turns out that there are experiences that happen. We don't control them. Certainly not in the way that we wish we could or think we can. But our relationship to them is something that's happening in our minds. This quiet way that's saying, "No, thank you. I don't want this. Make it go away." That's just happening in our minds. So of course it can be different, because what's happening in our minds—how many thoughts a day do you have? There can be other thoughts, there can be different ones, and part of practice is to cultivate a different relationship to what's happening.

I might even say that's the biggest part of practice: cultivating our relationship to the present moment experience and this whole idea of refuge. Then the present moment becomes a place where we can actually take refuge. Because when we're not in the present moment, we're often anticipating the future. "I got to plan. I got to be prepared for the future. And oh my gosh, what if that terrible thing happens?" All this terrible stuff is happening in our minds about the future.

But can we just be with this moment right here? Often it's not nearly as terrible as what we're imagining is going to happen in the future. I don't remember who said this quote. I'm sure many of you will be familiar with it. It goes something like this: "There are a lot of terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened." [Laughter] Right? We're always anticipating all this terrible stuff. But what if we're just with what's actually happening? This is it. This is it. Without the pushing and the pulling.

This idea of taking refuge in the present moment experience means to soften and put down this idea that things will be better later, that those are things that are happening in our minds. Or softening that idea of pleasant memories and just getting lost in them. There's nothing wrong with pleasant memories, but when you come back to the present moment, it's often with a sense of disappointment and frustration, "Oh, things were better then. Why can't it be like that?"

So to take refuge in the present moment is to be here with what's actually happening as best we can, without the pushing and pulling. And then we recognize that it's this turning again and again towards what is trustworthy. What's trustworthy is what's actually here, instead of what we think might be here. That's not trustworthy. It doesn't show up the way we want it to. And what has been, that's just a memory. It doesn't exist in the way we want it to.

This idea of refuge is: can we orient, can we turn towards, again and again, what is trustworthy? This moment. Trustworthy doesn't mean it's pleasurable. It doesn't mean it's exactly what we want. It does mean it's something that can be reliable in the sense that there's always a present moment experience. But trustworthy also means, can we be less entangled, and be with non-harming? Not harming ourselves, not harming others, we're just with what life is bringing us that moment, that minute.

In this way, each time we return to our experience without so much pushing and pulling, these old habits, these patterns that we have of saying no to life, and these patterns we have of thinking, "Okay, this moment is inadequate," somehow slide away. Or when it slides into, "And I'm inadequate." This moment isn't enough, and it slides into, "I'm not enough." Or maybe it's even the other way around. Maybe we have this core belief that I'm inadequate, not enough, and therefore all my experiences are inadequate and not enough. And ouch, this is a painful life to live. I've lived parts of my life with this. It is not fun. Not that life is to be about fun, but it's sometimes more difficult than it needs to be.

So, this orienting again and again towards this present moment experience without pushing and pulling, to orient towards what's trustworthy, non-harming, and less entangled. It doesn't depend on getting out there just exactly how we want it to be because it will never be exactly how you want it to be.

This is what the Buddha is pointing to in the First Noble Truth^[3]. There is dukkha^[4]. He's not saying there is dukkha except for when the ducks get all lined up. He's not saying there is dukkha except when that changes, and that changes, and that changes. He's saying there is dukkha because all moments have this sense of, "Well, if only it could last longer, or if only it were like that other thing."

Usually we look for safety. We look for refuge in things we can hold on to. I know I certainly spent a good portion of my life and even my meditation practice looking for, "Where's this place where I can rest? Where is this thing that I can hold on to that is going to finally be everything that I'm looking for?" It turns out that it's not about holding on. It's about letting go. It's not about holding on for dear life, "Okay, this here, finally this will be what I am looking for."

Instead, it's not clinging to experiences. Not clinging to the idea that they have to be different. Not clinging to, "Okay, finally this is going to be a source of lasting happiness." Things are changing. But this sense of being free from this drive, this compulsion we have to push and pull on our experience—instead, not clinging, letting go is this quiet safety. Maybe this unremarkable safety, but reliable, which is what we really want. Reliable safety is this absence of demanding that things be different. Just this moment is all we're asking. Just this moment. Just this moment.

Notice how there's all this resistance to what I'm saying. [Laughter] All this protest: "No, this moment can't be okay. No, it has to be different." It's fascinating, right? How we have these patterns. It can't be different. It is how it is. This is it. This moment.

And so to know even a little bit of what I'm pointing to—to not be pushing and pulling in our present moment, and instead to take refuge in this different relationship to what's happening—means that we can just be with what's happening. And then the heart and the mind start to change. Even if we can just do this for one moment, the heart and the mind start to have this sense of rest. They start to recognize, "Oh, what a relief to not be pushing and pulling. What a relief for things to be okay."

Then this one moment, and maybe later there's another moment, and then maybe another moment. But in those moments, the heart and the mind start to recognize, "Oh, there's an alternative to the usual way that we've been meeting our experience." And then the heart and mind says, "Actually, I want to be there where I can rest and just have some ease and some spaciousness with what's arising, even if it doesn't match our preferences." Because honestly, how often do they match our preferences? To even know a little bit of this is to be changed by it.

This is what the Buddha is pointing to with the Second Noble Truth and the Third Noble Truth. The Second Noble Truth: the source of suffering is clinging. The Third Noble Truth: freedom is possible, and freedom is possible by not clinging. Clinging is showing up as resistance, and then resisting the resistance. So freedom is possible, and it's possible in this moment. It's putting down this quiet, insistent demand that this moment be something else. Instead, just recognize: this is it. This is it.

And with that, I think I'll close. So, thank you, and wishing you a wonderful rest of your Sunday and safe travels home. Thank you.