spirituality - lesson 5: active present

what did you have for lunch today? did you taste it? can you recall the flavours and the textures? did you like it? did you really like it? or did you eat it so quickly, so autonomously that you did not even taste it? were you thinking about all the things you have to do next week or all the things you should have done last week that you weren't even concentrating on what you were doing at that moment of eating lunch?

-past and future there are many nonessential things in life that seem to take up a lot of space in one's mind. we get easily carried away by unwanted or useless thoughts which stand in the path of real achievement. more importantly worrying about every misjustice, mistake, judgement or regret can seriously effect participation in the present. most of the time 95% of our mind is not on the task at hand, but instead reminiscing some event that took place a long time ago. so much energy is wasted on the past and the fact is we can not do anything about the past. it is something over which we have no control at all. humans have a tendency to over think the future, in the hopes that by having plans we might be saved from unwanted outcomes. worrying is the illusion that we are solving problems. thought of tomorrow is pleasure or pain; if its pleasurable, thought will pursue it, fearing its end; if it is painful, the very avoidance of it is fear. both pleasure and pain cause fear. this world is impermanent. nothing stays but is always in a process of change. there is a way to experience the true nature of this constantly changing universe. everything is always changing, changing, changing, moving, moving, moving, nonstop. this thought should not create fear. the truly proactive person focuses his attention to the active present in a way that he is calm.

writers block it is probable that there have been times for everyone reading this lesson, when they have started a project with a blank piece of paper and found that nothing is flowing from the pencil to the page. when 'writer's block' kicks in it is usually the result of one problem; worry and most likely it is worry of the outcome - 'will it be good?...it needs to be great! help... I can't think of a good idea!' this preoccupation with the future blinds us from seeing what is going on in the here and now, and that hinders any attempt at being active in something. you literally can not see properly unless you aim to be fully in the present. if you try to draw a picture whilst agonising over the outcome then the picture is unlikely to be good. if, instead, you concentrate on the idea, the form and/or the object you are drawing from then success is more likely.

the present = a movie still see, sometime you go to a movie. you see an action movie about a good man and a bad man with lots of fighting, cars moving very fast, and explosions all over the place. everything is always moving very quickly. our daily lives have this quality: everything is constantly moving, coming and going, nonstop. it seems like there is no stillness-place. but this movie is really only a very long strip of film. in one second, there are something like fourteen frames each frame is a separate piece of action. but in each frame, nothing is moving. everything is completely still. each frame, one by one, is a complete picture. in each frame, nothing ever comes or goes, or appears or disappears. each frame is complete stillness. the film projector moves the frames very quickly, and all of these frames run past the lens very fast, so the action on-screen seems to happen nonstop. there is no break in the movement of things. but actually when you take this strip of film and hold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing moving at all. each frame is complete. each moment is completely not-moving action. even one second of our lives seems full of so much movement and change in this world that we see. but your mind, right now, is like a lens whose shutter speed is one divided by infinite time. we call that moment-mind. if you attain that mind, then this whole world's movement stops. from moment to moment you can see this world completely stop. like the film, you perceive every frame, this moment, which is infinitely still and complete. there is no time, and nothing appears or disappears. but this movie projector, which is a metaphor of your thinking mind, is always moving, so you experience this world as constantly moving and you constantly experience change, which is impermanence. you lose your moment-mind by following your conceptual thinking, believing that it is real. as for the filmstrip analogy... are enlightened people 'frozen' contentedly in time?

develop an appreciation for the present moment! be active and value your awareness. utilise the active present and you'll learn much more every day and become more effective in your actions. clearing the mind of unessential thoughts

allows one to see more detail and underling form in the environment. your life only happens right now, always in this single, eternal context called NOW. there's no frame somewhere of a ten-year-old version of you falling out of a tree; that's only a memory now, and that's all it is. it exists nowhere but in your mind. everything we call the future is absolutely nothing but fantasy and commentary, that is, present memory rearranged. if we continue to pretend that there is some other time or place to be, besides right here, right now, we are cruelly and pathologically deluding ourselves.

thought is never new, for thought is the response of memory, experience, knowledge. thought, because it is old, makes this thing which you have looked at with delight and felt tremendously for the moment, old. from the old you derive pleasure, never from the new. there is no time in the new. so if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a dress, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives delight if you can look at it without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear and therefore joy. it is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate what we have experienced and entitled with pleasure that turns it into pain. watch it in yourself. the very demand for the repetition of pleasure brings about pain, because it will not be the same as it was yesterday. you struggle to achieve the same delight, not only to your aesthetic sense but the same inward quality of the mind, and you are hurt and disappointed because it is denied you. joy is an immediate thing and by thinking about it, you turn it into pleasure. living in the present is the instant perception of beauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it. --exercise go to a park, or local green space and walk like this: lift your leg up as if you were going to take a normal step but instead of placing

your foot a step away, place it directly in front of your other foot. with each step visualise in your mind the body weight moving from one leg to the other with each step. (10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%...) keep your breathing calm. try not to look at your feet once you have got used to the step. don't rush. just keep walking (and don't worry about people looking at you walking so slowly!) finally, try not to think. at first you will have the usual white noise that continuously fills our heads, but slowly you will begin to wake up to the environment around you, you'll smell and hear stuff that you would not have noticed normally.