The only reality (moment of Now) is your breathing. Everything else goes through the strainer of the mind… even what you’re feeling.
When you close your eyes and ask yourself a question “What am I feeling right now?”, the mind doesn’t really take a break… it just redirects from whatever it was sucking you in, towards identifying/giving a name to what you’re experiencing in that moment… like joy, calmness, irritation, sadness, excitement, tiredness, gratitude, etc. And that labeling is made by your mind influenced by your past experiences…. And judgment steps in right away… (sadness = unpleasant = bad, pain = uncomfortable = bad, joy = liberating = good, hope = promising = good… and so on).
Only when we switch our attention to the process of breathing and remain in it for a while, is when we manage to set ourselves aside from the incessant flow of thoughts, from overpowering mind, from labeling, from judging, from linear thinking… The breathing as the objective, as the tool and as a via… three in one.
Breathe….