Treat Your Time Here Like It’s Precious by Bill Wofford

Put away your phone. Listen. Practice. Have intentional conversations.

These were some of Anandji’s first words of guidance during my recent residency at Sattva in the Himalayas. Most obviously, he was speaking to our cohort of 55 students in the Master Level Teacher Training program, encouraging us not to fritter away those three weeks with idle chit chat and Instagram. But as with most of his teachings, they apply not just to that residency — but to every “now” I am given in this dance of life.

This simple invitation brought to mind a phrase that has stayed with me in recent years: the way you do anything is the way you do everything. In an ideal world, that might mean patiently. Carefully. Wholeheartedly. With integrity. With loving intention.

Sometimes, though, it has meant reacting from fear. From a sense of trying to prove my worth. From wanting praise or security. And too often it has meant doing something with only a fraction of my attention, while mentally parallel-processing the rest of my life.

Of course the phrase isn’t literally true. But for me it serves as a reminder to focus wholly on what is in front of me — to give it my full attention, to let heart and mind align, rather than operating from craving or fear. If something isn’t worth my full attention now, it can wait. And if I can’t engage with a clear mind and open heart, perhaps the wiser move is to steady those first — and then return.

Why is this so hard to do, and so easy to forget? Probably because alluring distractions and fear of loss are built into the rules of the game. The challenge is not a flaw. It’s part of the design. Embracing it is part of how we grow. That’s why I’m grateful that meditation — the cultivation of single-pointed focus — sits at the foundation of these teachings. It helps.

Which brings me back to the preciousness of this time.  If time is precious anywhere, it is here — in this moment, in this community. With the studio closing in May, our time together in this space is not endless. That makes it even more worth inhabiting fully.

So come practice. Have the conversations. Sit in stillness together. Not out of urgency or fear, but out of gratitude.

We don’t get forever.
We get now.