People have all kinds of expectations, not only about how their lives  will be, but how today will be, or how this moment will be. But reality  is not an idea. It is what it is. Tada.
In the colder autumn air, the trees are changing colour and fallen  leaves line the gutters of the streets. And seeing this, we know winter  is coming. But although most of us sitting here today have seen this  happen again and and again, year after year after year, we don't really  know what the cold of winter will actually be like. We have memories of  cold fingers, the sound of snow crunching underfoot, memories of having  to put on many layers to protect ourselves from an icy wind. But  memories of cold are not the reality of cold. It is what it is and we  will know cold when it is...cold. Tada. And now, before the snow comes,  we see the colour fading from our immediate world as the trees lose  their leaves and bare branches stand out black against a graying sky.  And mixed into, and swirling along with the leaves in the street, are  discarded paper cups, gum wrappers, used Kleenex and the odd sandwich  wrapper. All swirling in the wind. Is it beautiful? Is it ugly? Neither.  Is it good or bad? Neither. It is Tada.
"Tada" is a Japanese word that means "Just, exactly, of course, just  as it is." It is sometimes, as in the Teachings of Eihei Dogen zenji and  Anzan Hoshin roshi, used as a synonym for the more techincal term  "immo" or "tathata" in Sanskrit, which means Suchness. Suchness is the  reality of all dharmas, all things or experiences. The "actual nature"  is another technical term for this. It means that each thing is sunya or  empty of all of our ideas about and knowledge of anything, that it is  impermanent, that it is the radiance of the Luminosity of experience.
Impermanence is so blatantly obvious. We see our grandparents die,  and as we ourselves age,we see our parents die. We see other people  around us die. We know that all around the world countless people die  every day. But when someone close to us dies, we are so surprised. We  are surprised when our relationships change, when the economy changes,  when our environment changes and we are surprised that we have to change  and that what we do has to change because of these changes. We are  surprised when we become sick, surprised when we let things slide and  difficulty ensues. And most of this surprise is due to a conflict that  comes about when our ideas about reality do not match up with what  reality actually is. Reality is Tada: Things as they actually are.  Suchness. Tada.
That itch behind your ear? Tada. That's it. The sensation of your  hands resting in the mudra? That's it. The moisture you feel on your  tongue? That's it. The movement of the breath? Just as it is. The form  of the person sitting next to you? That's it. The release in your neck  and spine when you straighten your posture? That's it. The sound of my  voice and the quiet pauses between words? Exactly so. In the moment of  Waking up from a thought, the recognition that streaming thoughts that  can never settle on any one definitive "truth" because all that they can  ever be is a continuously changing streaming? That's it. Tada.
The details of each thing stand out clearly and distinctly just as  they are and experiencing is new and fresh, moment-to- moment. There is  no need to embellish, to ponder, to strategize or hold on to anything  whatsoever because each thing that is known is simply being known as  detail arising within the Knowing of it. Tada. So simple.
But, of course, if you let attention narrow and focus, the distortion  that focusing will produce is far from simple. We make such a big deal  out of our stuff....
We can make a big deal out of a yawn: "Y-AAAAAAAAAAAAA-W-N".
Out of a sneeze "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-Choo!"
Out of a sensation "I have a....headache"; "I'm tired", "My knee  hurts".
Out of a feeling tone (whiny, plaintive voice) "Oh but I thought I  was supposed to....". "But you told me..."
Out of a stance "I'm right and I know I'm right and that's all there  is to it".
Out of a petty memory: "I remember when you did that thing and how it  made me feel and I will never, ever forgive you".
We can make a huge deal out of having to get up in the morning.
Out of having to go to bed at night.
Out of having to eat when it is time to eat.
Out of having to go to work.
Out of having to wait for a bus,
Out of which seat we get on the bus,
Out of simply having to sit down or stand up.
We make a big deal over the simplest of tasks.
Before we do them: "Ugh I have to do yada".
While we are doing them: "Ugh, when is this going to be finished?"
And even after we've done them "I did SUCH a good job of that. Never  has such a good job been done of that thing by anyone, anywhere, and  everyone else should acknowledge that."
We make a big deal of how we look at other people and how they look  at us because we think it all "MEANS" something. It "MEANS" something  about "ME".
"I am so sad. Look at my mournful eyes, so deep and full of feeling". 
"I am so angry, look how I GLARE at you". (that one can be pretty  funny).
"I am sick, look how haggard I am, how near death I am".
Just stop with the "yada yada yada." Just tada. Just practise.
But we can make a big deal out of anything and everything, including  our practice. We can make such a big bloody deal out of being mindful  that instead of just practising it's ME practising. Tadaaaaaaaa!
But that's the wrong kind of tada. The richness, the dignity, the  intimacy of our experience just as it is, without all of our  fabrications and contractions and manipulations is inconceivable. It is  literally and completely beyond concepts and ideas and stories. In order  to realize this, we need to just let go of our habits of attention in  all of the ways they are manifested by body and mind.
The Roshi has pointed out that a sense of a "me" is more directly and  basically a "sense of locatedness" and that along with it there is a  directionality, as it can seem to us that attention moves from a central  point, a "me", out and towards experiences. When this sense of  locatedness first begins to form, it is the wordless presumption that  knowing moves from "here" to "there" in order to know. And yet, this  sense of locatedness as a self can itself be known and so obviously  cannot be a "knower" or a "self". It is a freezing or crystallization of  attention which is much like a frame and from this frame, attention  seems to move out and towards what is known. This is why instead of just  practising, it can seem to us that there is a "ME" that is practising.
In Rhythm and Song, a series of teisho on Dongshan Liangjie daiosho's  text the Hokyo Zanmai, Anzan roshi recounts many mondo-kien or  encounter dialogues between Great Master Dongshan and his students. One  student was Xuefeng, who much later became a great Teacher after  receiving Transmission from Deshan who unlike Dongshan did not mind  beating students with his staff. But while he was studying with  Dongshan, Xuefeng was still full of himself and full of ideas about  Suchness and emptiness. Here is one story:

Once Xuefeng was carrying a bundle of firewood. When he arrived in  front of the Master, he threw the bundle down.
The Master asked, "How heavy is it?"
Xuefeng said, "No one in the world can lift it!"
Dongshan asked, "Then how did it get here?"
Xuefeng didn't know what to say.

Poor Xuefeng. What a tool. He was a tool because he was trying to use  everything around him as equipment to aggrandize himself. Even a bundle  of firewood. Even the simple act of carrying it. For him even samu,  caretaking practice, was about the profundity of his idea of his  understanding of emptiness. What a tool.
In Rhythm and Song, Anzan Hoshin roshi calls out to us from what all  of the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors of our Lineage have realized and  practised,

Intimacy is revealed when we release. We release when we realize that  there is nowhere apart from us that we can drop away all of the things  about ourselves that we wish were not the case; all of the thoughts and  feelings and strategies that at times we are so tired of, and at others,  so convinced of.
It is not as simple as that.
It is much, much, easier than that.
It is the simplest thing.
Nothing is true about us. Our nice thoughts do not make us nice. Our  devious thoughts do not make us devious. Our bad thoughts do not make us  bad.
A thought cannot make anything.
There is nowhere to hide because there is no need to hide.
There is nothing that is true 'about' us because we are that which is  true. We are that which presents itself everywhere as everything and  yet is itself nowhere at all, no thing at all.
You are this deep intimacy.
Where have you been?

So please join me in not just saying, but in actually being: Tada.