In order to enter this experience of the present moment, which is also the experience of eternity, we must move from our left brain awareness to our right brain awareness. Taylor says the way to do that is to quiet the chatter of the left brain, which speaks to us constantly in the story of our life. So that is what meditation teachers have been trying to tell us!

I am usually a very left brain sort of person. I like the way the left brain organizes everything and notices patterns. I like how it tells a story from the memories of my life, and tries to make meaning and find the purpose of things. I like how it can see the patterns of the planets and stars and moon, and create calendars. I like to listen and read and write and talk. One of my spiritual practices has been to journal, and I can see that this is a very left brain spiritual practice, a way to tell a story and make meaning about my life.

But with the insights of Taylor’s perspective, I also feel more comfortable with that other process, that process of stopping the left brain, to experience being. The process of letting go of the past and future to notice the abundance of the present moment. She says,

“The feeling of peace is something that happens in the present moment. It’s not something that we bring with us from the past or project into the future.”

The right brain has the capacity to appreciate the miracle of life right now: that we are here, that our cells work together to see and hear and taste and touch. The right brain has the capacity to experience the connection between ourselves and the larger whole of which we are a part. The right brain is inherently grateful and nonjudgmental, compassionate and curious, awake to beauty and joy. The right brain is aware of the dance of life, not attached to a separated small being, but joined to a flow of energy that is not divisible by time or space. William Blake has put it this way:

To see a world in a grain of sand
and a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour.