When the Buddha talks about staying in the present moment, it’s always in the context of thinking that death could happen at any time. Death lies behind all the teachings, because there’s work that needs to be done.

"When [the Buddha] talks about staying in the present moment, it’s always in the context of thinking that death could happen at any time. It could happen tomorrow; it could happen today. There was one time when he was asking the monks if they thought about death often. One of them said, “I think about it once a day.” Another said, “I think about it twice a day.” It got down to one monk saying that “I think about it while I’m chewing my food, ‘May I live to the point where I can swallow this food and in that amount of time, I’ll practice.’” Another one was saying, “When I breathe in, I tell myself, ‘May I live throughout this breath so I can practice for the extent of this breath.’”

The Buddha said the last two were the only ones who really counted as heedful. You realize, okay, you don’t know how much time you have, but you do have this little span of time right here. So make the most of it while you can, because it’s not going to be here all the time. Death could come at any moment and you don’t want to be caught unprepared — and you don’t want to be caught thinking about all the time you wasted in the past.

So death lies behind all the teachings, particularly the teachings of why you want to stay here in the present moment, because there’s work that needs to be done."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Death is the Context"

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