Remember, the reason we bother ourselves with a lifelong effort to gain a practicing mind is not to be able to say, “I have mastered the technique of present-moment awareness.” This is an ego-based statement. We work at it for one reason: it brings us the inner peace and happiness that we cannot attain through the acquisition of any material object or cultural status. What we achieve is timeless, always with us, and perhaps the only thing that we can really call our own.
