What problem do I have, in this moment?

Eckhart Tolle offers an interesting pointer in one of his books.

When you are struggling with some issue, the instruction is to ask:

What problem do I have, in this moment?

The initial response will likely be a thought: I’m stressed, I slept poorly, I ate the almond croissant etc.

But the question is to ask what problem you have, right now, in this moment. Not just then or in a few minutes.

I notice a stark silence whenever I ask this question.

Sure, there are unpleasant feelings in my body. Tiredness. Aches. But are they problems? When I ask this question, the idea of a problem seems to disintegrate.

That doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Now I’ve asked the question, I can sense my body more acutely. I feel more of the discomfort. But still… I can’t find a problem here until I pop up into a thought about why this is a sign of something bad or an omen for the rest of the evening.

Asking this question is not a way of avoiding problems or pretending everything’s ok. Like all contemplative and philosophical pointers, it invites you to inhabit your experience, without a storyline. To no longer cram reality through your judgement sieve. To live in this space where there are no hard lines around problems or the people who “have” them.

Contemplation is a lost art. There is no simple answer to this question. Instead, it’s a way of engendering a novel attention to life.

This can be liberating, infuriating, or anything in between.

As I ask the question again now, I feel pleasantly disorientated, as if realising I was chasing a phantom. In that space, something interesting opens up and I feel a strong inclination to smile.