In each moment we have the potential to be present, or to miss it. If we miss the moment, we never get it back, and when it happened we were essentially dead. Along the journey of evolution, we seemed to picked up the habit of not living in the moment, spending time either in the past, as memories, or in the future, as planning.Memories and planning are useful, they’re like reference books, allowing us to make sure the right words or details are contained. But we must move out from the books, and engage in the current moment. Regardless of what that moment may be, it is reality, and by living in reality, or the moment, we have access to unlimited choice, and unlimited learning potential.
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If we are in the reference system, we live on auto pilot, making the same choice and mistakes, essentially our human nature is gone, and we become machines. We develop habits, that grow in strength, and take away our freedom of choice, creativity- two qualities that make humans so special. The reference system of memory and thought seem so real.
We have these mental conversations in our head with people, playing out scenarios about what he or she says. We feel the emotion and conviction of the conversation, but it’s all a hallucination, there’s no one there. How we are considered sane when doing this remains a mystery to me.
In the same place as the mental conversations, we store memories and pictures, linking emotions such as happiness and anger to the events. We replay our favourite stories to invoke certain emotion at will. We become trapped in a land of fantasy, requiring constant access to the stories to sustain our mood. And as this is taking place, we continue to miss reality, we miss the moments of our life, trading them in for memories that we manipulate and create to our liking.
When we let go of these mental stories and conversations we regain access to the world, we gain access to reality. Our lives become enriched, we experience more, hear more, see more, taste more, all our sense come alive, with friendships becoming alive. Life takes on a dynamic nature, we become empowered with and by Choice and Change. What comes up begins to matter less, regardless of the content we can weather any storm, knowing all will pass, leaving the sky unstained.
We begin to really do what we want to do, we begin to leap, knowing that the net will appear, that we will be safe, and will not only survive but learn and flourish from the experience, regardless. Wisdom is developed, our world understand grows, not from a book point of view but through our direct experience. We begin to breathe lighter and easier, the stories loose their grip, and as a result, we gain stability and ease in the world.
In each moment we have access to this life, we have access to live. This all hit home in the evening gatha that was sung as the last thing before going to bed each night in the monastery.
Let me respectfully remind you,
Life and death are of supreme importance.
Time passes by swiftly and opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken.
Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.
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Totally agree with you. Living in the now is so very important, because at any one point in time, THAT is where we are and we must seize it right then and there and make it memorable.
Isn’t it presumtuous to assume that one can “squander” one’s life? Do we live life or does life live us? I don’t know, I am just asking.
And why is it so important to live “in the now”? Scott, you do not explain why and I am interested. The now is a concept which can only be recognised by our minds once it is turned into a memory thus is already in the past. I don’t know, I am asking. And why, if you could indeed live in the now, ever want or need to turn the moment into a memory (“make it memorable”)? What need would you have for the memory?
Without memories, without mind would you not be closer to simply “being”? And isn’t this what we so desperatly seek but are equally afraid of finding? I don’t know, I am just asking.
Cedric,
Perhaps we know we’re in the now because of foresight. In other words. We KNOW the now is now, because a moment ago we were expecting it to come. Does that not then make it the future that we’re living in?
It’s all pretty blurry in my mind to be honest. But If you can, for any given moment, be completely IN THAT moment, without consideration for the past or future, you can allow that single moment to be your total experience. This allows that experience to be your completion right then and there, and every moment is thus a true and unique experience.
I guess the difficult part is allowing one self to exclude the past and future. Leave your preconceptions and memories at the door, and enter the ‘now’ with a clean slate, ready to be given new experiences that are void of previous limitations put in place by your combined memories.
Like you I really don’t know… but I feel it’s important. Wish I could articulate myself better.
It seems the post begins to explain perfectly well why NOW is important when it states, as I paraphrase… in the NOW our lives become enriched and our senses become more alive.
But ultimately, the NOW is something we all must experience for ourselves to appreciate. It takes practice. Perhaps a tool I created to help bring more presence to people’s lives called The Now Watch can help. It’s a watch that works like any watch but also features the word NOW prominently on the face serving as a reminder that no matter what time of day it is… the time is always NOW.
Please check out http://www.thenowwatch.com and feel free to get in touch. Thanks…
Thank you for the responses.
*”in the NOW our lives become enriched and our senses become more alive.”* Adam, this is hardly a reason why now is important. It’s like saying eating is important because food tastes good. And I suspect that our senses need to be more atuned before we can live in the now rather than as a result of living in the now.
I wonder is the now any more important than scrartching an itch or anything else in life for that matter?
What drives us to these concepts, be it the now, god, law of attraction? What makes these things seem important? Do we seek these things out of fear, hope, curiosity, a promise of a better future? After all isn’t the placing of importance to anything a form of attachment and isn’t attachment the one thing that prevents us from seeing the moment as it is?
I also suspect that the experience that comes when one is in the now is akin to what is known as satori and the sutras tell us that satori is the realisation that there is no I and if there is no I then who is there to live in the now (or experience satori)? And this begs the question, if there is no I then did the now (satori) ever exist? And if the now does not exist (“now” being a function of time or timelessness) then neither does past or future; time itself. And maybe therein lies the illusion. As I’ve said before, I don’t know.
I also suspect that a key may lie in the question I asked in my previous comment. Do we live life or does life live us?
Lots of questions there Cedric. That’s cool… I tend to think questions are better than answers.
Let me suggest one thing because I like to do something similar… although it is hard for me to remember to do so. Next time you eat alone, and have some spare time, try chewing your food to a count of 30, before you swallow. In that time maybe around 20, allow the food to rest on the back of your tongue, perhaps rest under your tongue. Don’t watch TV, read, listen to music… just be there alone with your food. If you need to think, consider where that food came from and appreciate the ease at which, I assume and hope, it came to you. That will be eating in the NOW. If you like the experience… let it serve as a simple example of why NOW is important. Then you can consider being in the NOW in other circumstances. I need to remind myself most of the time… that’s why I wear my Now Watch. But that reminder stills my mind, focuses my attention on whatever is at hand, it’s kinda “stop and smell the roses” type of experience. Everything is more beautiful and to me that’s an indication when I’m in the NOW I’m doing something important.
Perhaps this quote attributed to Osho will resonate- “If Past to Future is on a horizontal line, the present moment is not in time – it is an vertical movement – transcending time.” I think it means that the NOW is not a function of time or timelessness… it just is.
I believe your suspicion is correct about connection between the experience of being in the NOW and the realization that you and I, as a individual entities separated from the Universe as a whole, are illusions.
As for whether we live life or does life live us? I like the question. Perhaps we live life only to find out in the end, if it actually lived us. A question of fate or free will I guess. Like you… I don’t know.
@Scott, Mate, great to see you posting here, didn’t know you were a reader. Thanks for your comments
@Adam, thank you, your watch sounds very interesting, when I get out of here I’ll investigate it a bit more, I’m being sneaky using the internet in the monastery to keep posting
@Cedric, great to see you asking some tough questions.
The only answer I can provide to all your questions is try it out for your self. Experience that which is beyond the words and see what you think of it all. Anything said after this point is intellectual, and is more a distraction, but I would like to try answer.
The question you ask about the now (satori) ever exist, can only be asked from the relative perspective. Satori takes place in the absolute, thus when it takes place there is no satori taking place, to say satori is taking place is to not be in satori.
Time is a invention of man, useful for co-ordination.
Your final question, that requires either a life or a we to live separate from the other, like one is outside the other, or one controls the other. From satori, nirvana, now, absolute dimension there is neither a life or an us. There just is.
That’s my take on all of the above, but that’s only my take. As I said @ the top, it’s our own experience, this is based on my understanding, and who knows if it’s right or wrong.
It’s a pretty heady topic, and regardless of the answers it’s great to see some really amazing and big questions. Thank you all for your questions and answers.
Gassho,
Wade
@Wade
Thanks.
VERY nice article – many thanks.
Regarding the ongoing stream of emotions and narrative, in this past year there has been an awareness arising, most clearly upon awaking from sleep early in the morning. It seems to be an awareness of emotions, kind of an emotional soup, and they are subtle. The striking thing, and the reason for this post, is that they seem to be stirring around and seeking a thought to latch onto and grow with. So, for example, if there is a feeling of exuberance (which is fairly common for me at that hour), then a thought comes of a plan for the coming day, and the exuberant feeling may grow. On the other hand, maybe there will be a feeling of despair, and that would search for a thought possibly having to do with e.g. the idea of a bad night’s sleep, and would grow with that. I just wonder if anyone else has noticed this kind of progression. It is kind of counter-intuitive, I think, since I have always had the idea that it works the other way, i.e. that thoughts (either memories or hopes or fears for the future) produce the emotional responses.
@Keith, thanks
@Mark, fantastic that you are seeing all of this going on. Seems like the narrator of Ego’s still busy doing his thing, but you’re no longer really buying into the habitual stories. Things are, they are not the stories or the reason we tell our selves about them. I wake up tired, I don’t look for reasons, I’m simply tired, and work with that.
I’ve found it really liberating/enabling to no longer assign stories to states. Telling myself I’m tired due to bad sleep, and carrying that around all day actually influences my whole day. Letting the story go, and being present, it’s a beautiful thing.
May all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful.
Peace,
Wade
Yes, well, there is, once that process of emotions and stories is witnessed, a kind of dissolution or softening, and maybe that is what you refer to as you say “..Letting the story go..” Because, then, it’s as if the stage is set for THIS moment, instead of the waking-up moment from the past, or the what’s-going-to-happen-today hoped-for-moment. And, if THIS moment HAS all that content, then we see. There is such a HABIT, isn’t there, to insist on constructing a story for all the feelings, and then the story sort of gives the feelings more power and more momentum. I guess that is what I’m talking about here.