Written by David Nichtern

“Just as we take our reality within the night dream to be completely real, during the “daydream” we take our projections to be real. We rarely have a good look at the quality of our mental activity to see how much of it is fabricated and distorted, and how much of it is accurate and clear. That’s where the practice of meditation comes in.”

According to the Buddhist teachings, we spend most of our time in this world in a kind of daydream. Within our “daydream” we are relating to what is going in our world but our sense of reality is heavily filtered by memories, habitual patterns of our mind, and projections about the future. During the night, when we are asleep, our story lines continue in the form of night dreams.

Just as we take our reality within the night dream to be completely real (e.g. if someone is chasing us in the dream we run), in a similar way, during the “daydream” we take our projections to be real (“that person doesn’t like me, I suck at my job, I’m in love and now everything is going to be perfect”). We rarely have a good look at the quality of our mental activity to see how much of it is fabricated and distorted, and how much of it is accurate and clear.

That’s where the practice of meditation comes in. During sitting meditation, we look directly at the mind’s activity and can recognize (on a good day) that we are often completely carried away by our thoughts. Periodically, within the meditation session, and sometimes in daily life, we awaken from our “daydream” mind and experience a clear (if brief and fleeting) moment of being awake, present, without a thick filter of thoughts and preconceptions. You can actually do that right now.

Take a break from reading this for a second and look away from your device. First, take three mindful breaths and then concentrate on the sounds around you, the sounds of the street or what have you. What is it that you hear? What does it actually sound like? Just simply be present and hear what you hear without qualifying or evaluating further.

Experiencing the moment in this way is, in fact, a glimpse of the “awake” mind that so many people write about these days — a simple moment of awareness unfettered by memories of the past and projections about the future. Recognizing this “moment,” and expanding that recognition, was and still is the essence of the Buddha’s teachings. The discovery of this kind of direct awareness is often described as finding a treasure hidden in plain sight or a jewel in a rubbish heap.

You can do it at work, on vacation, after a wonderful night of rest, or even if you’ve had three hours’ sleep the night before. This practice of awakening from the daydream — connecting with the awakened state of mind beyond judgment, evaluation, causes, and conditions — is available at any moment, and can be profound and surprisingly refreshing!