By Laura Rose

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here today.

I want to begin this talk with a story– a parable that has stayed with me since I first heard it in high school, and one I still come back to often.

It goes like this:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two younger fish keep swimming, and eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

This story comes from a commencement speech given by the writer David Foster Wallace. The speech is titled, “This Is Water,” and the point he makes is that the most important and obvious realities of our lives are often the ones we are least able to see. Not because they are hidden, but because they are everywhere. To use the language of the parable–the water is so constant, so total, so utterly ordinary, that the fish stop noticing it altogether. And I think a lot of us live this way too. We move through habits, routines, worries, responsibilities, and thoughts so automatically that we rarely stop to notice what is going on around us and within us. Often, we move through our lives automatically, as if on autopilot. This is what I want to talk about today. 

Autopilot

The truth about autopilot is that, if we are honest, most of us spend a significant portion of our lives somewhere other than where we actually are. I know this is true for me. 

Often, I am physically present–I am physically here, in this body, in this room–but mentally, I am somewhere else. I’m in tomorrow’s meeting, last week’s argument, the email I forgot to send, the thing I said five years ago that still makes me cringe. I am running calculations, worrying, rehearsing conversations that may never happen. And all the while, my hands are doing the dishes, my feet are walking the path, my lungs are breathing…and I have no idea. I barely notice any of it. 

This is autopilot. And the hard part is that when we’re on autopilot, we usually don’t know we’re on autopilot.

And I also want to acknowledge something important here: Sometimes autopilot is not just distraction or habit. Sometimes it’s protection. For people carrying trauma, overwhelm, anxiety, or chronic stress, leaving the present moment can become a very understandable survival response. The mind learns to go elsewhere because at some point, elsewhere felt safer. So this practice is not about forcing ourselves to be present at all costs. It’s about gently creating enough safety and compassion that returning becomes possible.

The Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki once said, 

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind, there are few.” [End quote]

Autopilot is what happens when we become experts in our own lives. It happens when our morning routine, our commute, conversations with our loved ones, the experience of our own body, becomes so familiar that we stop living presently in that experience. We stop being beginners. We stop experiencing each moment as freshly arising, as we may have as a child. 

And the tragedy of this is that: if we are not here, then who is living our life?

The Dishes

I noticed this very clearly the other day while doing the dishes. 

My hands were in the warm, soapy water, but I was going through the motions. My mind was somewhere else entirely; it was spiraling through the list of everything I still had to do. After the dishes, clean the counters. After the counters, take out the trash. After the trash, fold the laundry. And then somewhere in the middle of all that, I thought: “Oh, I still need to prepare a dharma talk.” And then I thought: “Autopilot. I’ll talk about autopilot.”

And there I was, thinking about autopilot while doing the dishes on autopilot. (Physically, I was doing the dishes; mentally, I was writing a dharma talk. I was rushing toward a future that had not arrived, and thus I was not truly living now.)

I had to laugh a little as I realized what I was doing. I then paused and asked myself two simple questions: Where is my mind? Where is my body?

That was enough to bring me back. I took a few breaths and let myself come back into the room, into my body, into the freshly arising experience of nowness. I let my mind settle back into my body like sand settling to the bottom of a still pond. And suddenly I could actually feel what was happening.

I was really there, in the kitchen, with the dishes. I felt my breath moving in through my nose and out through my mouth. I felt the warmth of the water. I felt the weight of the plate in my hands, the resistance of the sponge against its surface. And then, unexpectedly, what had felt tedious a moment before began to feel almost reverent. There was a quality of care and presence that had been completely unavailable while my mind was somewhere else. 

The rest of those dishes were washed differently because my relationship to the moment had changed. Later that night, as I worked on this dharma talk, I did that, too with a quality of reverence, presence, and joyous effort that was only possible because of this changed relationship to the moment. My mind and my body were in alignment, really living in this moment. 

Thich Nhat Hanh and Ordinary Life

This all reminds me of something that Thich Nhat Hanh wrote:

“When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life. Just as when you are drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life. Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole world revolves — slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.”  [End quote]

That phrase makes me pause every time: Only this actual moment is life.

He doesn’t say that this moment contains life, or includes life. He says that only this actual moment is life. The present moment is not a vehicle for getting somewhere. It is not a means to an end. It is the whole thing. All of it. Right here.

And yet, how often do we treat this moment as an obstacle between us and the next moment? How often do we do the dishes so we can be done with the dishes? How often do we get through Monday so we can get to Friday? How often do we tolerate the present in favor of a future that, when it arrives, we will also tolerate because by then there will be some other future to rush toward?

So much of our lives can become this constant leaning into the future, thinking things like “I’ll relax when…” or “I’ll be happy when…”

In Dharma Breeze, Nabuo Haneda writes that much of human suffering comes from what he calls “an endless continuation of ifs.” We move from one imagined future to another, always believing fulfillment exists somewhere ahead of us. And he says what Buddhism calls “the other shore” is not some distant place we finally reach someday. It is the ending of that constant future-oriented dreaming. It is becoming fully settled in appreciation for what is already here. 

And Buddhism gently asks: What if this moment is your actual life? Not the future. Not later. This. Right here. 

This is not a criticism. It is a description. It is the water we are all swimming in.

The question is: can we learn to see it?

The Paradox of Noticing

One thing I find both humbling and a little funny about this whole practice is that the moment I most need to wake up is usually the exact moment I forget to.

There’s a line I love by A.A Milne who wrote Winnie the Pooh:

“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”

That feels very true to me.

I have a note on my quote board that says, “This is water.” I put it there as a reminder to wake up to my life. But when I am deep in autopilot, I walk past that note without even noticing it. I see it without seeing it. It becomes part of the scenery, part of the water.

And that’s the strange paradox of mindfulness practice: the moment you most need awareness is usually the moment awareness feels least available. You can’t remember to come back to the present moment if you’re fully lost in thoughts of the past or future. You can’t read the sign if you’ve forgotten you’re looking for signs.

So what helps?

Honestly, other people help.

Waking Each Other Up

One of the gifts of sangha — of practicing together — is that we can serve as mirrors for one another. We can help wake each other up.

You can feel when someone has mentally drifted away. You can see it in their eyes, in their quality of attention, in the slight absence behind their face. You can feel when someone you love has gone somewhere else mentally, even while their body remains in the room. And sometimes, gently, lovingly, we can invite each other back. You could say something like ‘You seem far away. Where did you go?’

These small invitations back– offered without judgment, offered from a place of care– are one of the most profound acts of friendship I know. To notice another person’s absence and to invite them to return. To relay an underlying message of: ‘I want you here. This moment wants you here.’

We can also create little reminders for ourselves, external anchors in our own lives. A bell on our phone. Three conscious breaths before opening a door. A phrase we return to. A hand on our heart. Feeling our feet on the floor. Something that can reach us even when we have forgotten to reach for it. Small anchors that help interrupt the momentum of autopilot.

As I mentioned in my last talk on interbeing, the poet Mary Oliver famously asked: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

And I think mindfulness practice adds another question alongside it: What is it you plan to do with this one wild and precious moment?

Because this moment is all we actually have, now is the only place life is ever actually happening. The future is a story we are telling ourselves. The past is a memory, often imperfectly reconstructed. This–just this–is real.

In Moments, No Separation

When I returned to those dishes, something else was briefly available to me too. 

For a few moments, there wasn’t really a “me” washing dishes anymore. There was just washing. Just warm water, movement, breathing, and attention. And many traditions point to this experience in different ways–those moments where self-consciousness falls away, and we become fully absorbed in what’s happening.

Thich Nhat Hanh called this interbeing. In psychology, it’s called flow. In yogic traditions or Buddhism, it is called samadhi, or mushin in Zen. Many names for the same quiet miracle: the moment when self-consciousness falls away, and there is only the full presence of what is happening.

You’ve probably experienced this before. Maybe while listening to music, maybe while running, maybe while gardening, cooking, painting, or holding someone you love. These moments are not rare spiritual achievements, they’re ordinary human experiences of interbeing. The practice isn’t about forcing these moments to happen, it’s about becoming open and present to a larger oneness, an instrument in tune with the flow of the moment. 

What We Are Really Practicing

I want to say something that I think is easy to misunderstand about mindfulness, about this kind of practice.

Mindfulness is not about never thinking. It’s not about becoming permanently calm or serene or empty-minded. We still plan, we still remember, we still worry sometimes, we still get distracted. The practice is simply about returning. Returning to this moment, returning to this body, returning to what is actually happening right now. We are practicing choice. The choice to be here rather than elsewhere–not because elsewhere is bad, but because here is real. We are practicing the capacity to notice when we have drifted, and to return.

And it is important to note that: the moment you notice that your mind has wandered is not a failure. That is the practice. That small moment of recognition, of thinking “Oh, I was gone, I was lost in my mind,” that is mindfulness. That is awakening. Every time you notice, you have already woken up a little, and then the practice is simply to come back, gently, without judging yourself, without turning your wandering mind into another problem to solve. Just come back, like returning home.

An Invitation

So this week, I want to offer you a simple practice:

Notice when your mind has wandered.

Not in order to judge yourself for it. Not in order to make it stop. Just to notice. To ask yourself those two questions: Where is my mind? Where is my body?

And when you can–when the noticing is there–take a breath. And return. To this moment. To this body. To whatever is actually in front of you.

It may be dishes. It may be a conversation with your child. It may be a walk, a meal, a drive, or a moment of looking out a window at the rain. Whatever it is–it is your life. And it is happening right now.

The water is all around you.

Can you feel it?

Closing

I began with a story of two young fish and an older one.

The old fish asks a simple question: “How’s the water?”

And then he swims away. He does not wait for an answer, he doesn’t explain anything, he doesn’t lecture them. The question itself is the teaching because the question interrupts the autopilot. It wakes something up. And I think this sangha can be like that for each other. We can be reminders. We can help each other pause long enough to notice the easy-to-forget miracle of simply being alive. Here. Now.

This is water.

This is water.