The only amount of effort you need is the effort required to ask yourself the question ‘What is being noticed in this moment?’
Having asked the question, there is no compulsion to actually see the moment as new, or fresh, or just this moment because that doesn’t readily come to us. But if you’re trying to see that every moment as new, yes, that takes a lot of energy.
Although I always give the ideal situation like ‘every moment is actually new’, that doesn’t have to be so; just see whatever is happening as it is.
Sometimes we might come across situations where we feel like they are fresh, new and so on, that’s when the mind is in a state of realization of the presentness of the moment. There’s some kind of wisdom that helps the mind to see the freshness of each moment; but that may not always be available to us.
So, what is always available to us is just awareness; whether that’s good awareness or not so good awareness but it is still awareness. And that’s what we can rely on – the rest of it is changing; sometimes we can see it as being fresh and sometimes not. All we have to do is be relaxed about it.
I give you information not for you to try to be that information or experience that information; it’s just for us to know that if we do come across such an experience that we have some reference, ‘Alright, this is possible’ and not ‘I’m doing something weird!’
Sometimes somebody’s mind is on the brink of it and it helps them to see that more clearly or have the words to understand what they’re experiencing. But if that’s not how we experience it, we should stay with our experience as it is.