Practice is about suspending those entrenched habits of mind that actually cut us off form the very weird fact of being here at all. We spend so much of our lives inhabiting a fictitious future or nostalgically indulging in memories and reminiscences that we fail to notice this extraordinary thing that is happening to us right now. It has taken four billion years of evolution to generate this kind of organism with this kind of brain, and yet we wake up in the morning and feel bored.
Stephen Bachelor, in an interview with Wes Nisker, Inquiring Mind
We all know the top hit of the ego’s silent soundtrack — “If I do this I’ll feel better.” Seeing through our own particular version of this is part of the process of waking up. Again, the essence of this entitlement is the assumption that we can make ourselves, and life, be the way we want them to be. But this can only bring disappointment. Why? Because no matter what we do, there’s no way that we can guarantee a life that is free of problems.
A very common familiar analogy for being awake is the sun that is always shining behind the clouds. The clouds cover the sun, but the sun is still there….This precious unique moment is always here, always accessible to us. It never went anywhere. But we spend so much time pushing it away and resisting it and not liking the form in which it is happening, that we miss it. This is like the clouds coming in. We identify more with the clouds of our nature than with the sun. Pretty much, that happens again and again. What’s always available to us – which we can come back to, to connect with – is the vastness and openness of our heart and mind in any moment of time. 
A woman said to Suzuki Roshi that she found it difficult to mix practice with the demands of being a householder. “I feel that I am trying to climb a ladder, but for every step upwards I slip back two steps” “Forget the ladder” Suzuki Roshi told her. “When you are awake everything is right here on the ground” He explained how the desire to gain anything means you miss the reality of the present. “When you realize the truth that everything changes, and find your composure in it, there you find yourself…” The goal is to let go of anything special and meet each moment with beginners mind.
