[There is no future, there is no past, I live this moment as my last.
There’s only us, there’s only this, forget regret, or life is yours to miss…](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/theater/16broad.html)
Enjoy,
Steven
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
So, there being no future, is it worth looking for a good restaurant to eat at one in that nonexistent time?
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. May I suggest Milliways? The pork really is delicious.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Does motion happen between the different instances of ‘now’, or inside them?
[/QUOTE]
Another excellent question, but you’re thinking of it in the wrong way. Actually, the problem is that you’re thinking. Stop that.
Life goes on in the now, but you need to change your relationship with time.
Here’s a good exercise: Stop thinking about it and just grab some interesting object near you. It doesn’t matter what it is. Turn off you brain and look at it. Feel its texture. Feel its weight. Smell it. Enjoy it.
Gives Alvin Toffler a hand up from the floor
[QUOTE=tdn]
Another excellent question, but you’re thinking of it in the wrong way. Actually, the problem is that you’re thinking. Stop that.
Life goes on in the now, but you need to change your relationship with time.
Here’s a good exercise: Stop thinking about it and just grab some interesting object near you. It doesn’t matter what it is. Turn off you brain and look at it. Feel its texture. Feel its weight. Smell it. Enjoy it.
[/QUOTE]
I can do those things while I also think. I’m good at multitasking like that.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I can do those things while I also think. I’m good at multitasking like that.
[/QUOTE]
Of course. But the point is to stop multitasking. The point is to stop thinking and just be.
I know it’s a hard concept to grok. Like I said, it took me a few months.
I don’t like the sound of it - besides, if I stop thinking, how will I know I’m enjoying it?
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
It’s important, because if ‘now’ is a dimensionless point, how can anything happen at all - no duration=no time for anything to occur. Whereas if it has a fixed duration, where do things go when they fall off the end?
[/QUOTE]
Thus, the arrow cannot move.
That reminds me. I’ve been wanting to get a copy of the song “Wish I Were Here Tonight” by Backwoods Jazz. The group disbanded awhile ago and it may or may not have been recorded on vinyl.
The odds of me putting in the effort do actually find it, though, are small. But the theme fits in nicely with this thread. Wish you could hear it now.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Here’s a good exercise: Stop thinking about it and just grab some interesting object near you. It doesn’t matter what it is. Turn off you brain and look at it. Feel its texture. Feel its weight. Smell it. Enjoy it.
[/QUOTE]
Great, I took your advice and he slapped me. Thanks a heap.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I don’t like the sound of it - besides, if I stop thinking, how will I know I’m enjoying it?
[/QUOTE]
I think the best answer I can give you is: I’m eating chocolate. It’s yummy.
Don’t think of it as diminished awareness. On the contrary, it’s enhanced awareness. It’s almost hyper awareness.
Tolle has a good way to think of it. Have you ever found yourself in a life-threatening situation where you had to act really quickly? Did a strange sort of calm come over you? You weren’t thinking about how you need to pay your phone bill tomorrow, or about the fight you had with your boss last week. You were 100% fully in the situation and did exactly what you needed to do at that moment. You were focused on the reality of your life instead of fretting over the phantoms of the past and future.
Yeah, that’s all well and good when the big hungry cat is wondering if you’d taste good with ketchup, but what about other situations? If you can summon that calm when you’re in danger, you can certainly summon it at other times.
How will you know you’re enjoying it? I think the big dumb shit-eating grin on your face will clue you in. 
Wow, I’m proseletizing. Sorry. I didn’t mean to.
Chocolate is yummy.
[QUOTE=Otto]
Great, I took your advice and he slapped me. Thanks a heap.
[/QUOTE]
I said object. Maybe you should stop treating men like objects.
Hey, my eyes are UP HERE.
[QUOTE=tdn]
There is no future. The very concept is an illusion, caused by our busy minds. There is no past, for the same reason. The only thing that really exists in the entire universe is Now. This very moment. Just me and my relationship to the present.
I’ve been trying to understand this for a few months now, and I was just not getting it. I was overthinking it. That was exactly the wrong way to go about it. I needed to stop thinking and just be in the moment.
It happened on the way into work this morning. I was thinking about the people I was just talking to, my day ahead, my week ahead, what happened last week, what happened… Stop. I’m walking in the rain. The air smells good. I’m here. I’m smack dab in the middle of Now.
And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Utter, pure, unadulterated, profound joy. A happiness like I’ve never felt before. I’m truly an atheist, but this is that deep connection to God that everyone’s always going on about. It’s not about ten commandments, it’s not about hating thy gay neighbor, and it’s not about running planes into buildings. It’s about connecting to the present.
Share the awesomeness.
Anyone else having a great day?
[/QUOTE]
The experience you describe is the entire goal of Zen Buddhism. Congratulations. You have achieved a genuine moment of Zen. Some people try for years and never get there (because, ironically, “trying” to get there obstructs one from getting there).
Yay! It’s pretty awesome, isn’t it? I think this is why I’m a tree hugger - it’s much easier for me to be here, now, when I’m not in the midst of clutter and chaos and life. I completely understand why so many religions have a system of either cloistering or hermitage for their priests and mystics. Real life can really get in the way of this enlightenment stuff.
(And, since for you at the moment there is no future, I’ll simply write this for your present awareness: often after a moment like this there can be a crushing course of depression, often clinical, when you realize that it’s hard to maintain the level of ease you’re feeling right now. I didn’t know that, and so I thought that I was the only person who’d ever “figured it out” and then lost it, and that was, itself, crushing. You aren’t alone in this awareness, and you won’t be alone if that happens, too. Of course, you might be better at this than I was initially, too! Either way, welcome and good luck!)
Dio, yeah, it’s a totally Zen Buddhist thing. But I don’t know much about that. Years ago I studied this, though:
It has a whole new meaning to me today.
WhyNot, thanks for the advice. That was actually a concern for a little while there. I’m still in a great mood, but I could really feel the connectedness slipping away, and I almost got into a panic trying to get it back. It occurred to me that that’s probably a dumbass way to go about it.
[QUOTE=tdn]
Dio, yeah, it’s a totally Zen Buddhist thing. But I don’t know much about that. Years ago I studied this, though:
It has a whole new meaning to me today.
[/quote]
Yes, Zen is heavily influenced by Taoism, or at least by the Taoism articulated in the Tao Te Ching (modern Taoism, in practice, is quite different).
Meh. It’s all Satanism.
I’ve had that moment myself a few times – where suddenly (and without chemical intervention, hee) I feel completely at one with and in love with the world, like the top of my head has opened up.
The feeling that I find much deeper and more frightening is that extra-complete awareness feeling. Have you ever been completely and utterly aware of your presence? That you are whirring thoughts in a casement of flesh and bone, balancing on two limbs, surrounded by amazingness? It’s like turning off your filters.
It’s… frightening, though, and it makes functioning normally impossible if you keep doing it. If I keep doing it I can’t do much more than stand there in slackjawed amazement and distress. It also gives a sense of mortality, see, and serious confusion.
It’s been coming on more often and more strongly every year, to the point that I am uncomfortable in silence without something to occupy my mind for fear that I’m going to be overcome again.
Thanks for explaining that so well.
I sometimes try to get others to understand the feeling and they look at me blankly or with that awkward silence. You did a good job describing the feeling.
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja]
The feeling that I find much deeper and more frightening is that extra-complete awareness feeling. Have you ever been completely and utterly aware of your presence? That you are whirring thoughts in a casement of flesh and bone, balancing on two limbs, surrounded by amazingness? It’s like turning off your filters.
[/QUOTE]
No, I don’t think so. Sounds pretty weird. It almost sounds like panic. I’ve had times when I’ve had so many thoughts running through my head, so many epiphanies, that it was hard for me to function. Is that kind of like what you’re talking about? It’s kind of totally opposite of what I experienced this morning.