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The Now
Alright, I'm a bit confused guys.
From what I understand, you can never escape 'now'. But my experience of now, the thoughts and emotions, can never be experienced exactly as things are happening, right? Even if it's nanoseconds after the event, my experience is always a reaction, never the actual event.
So if my experience isn't happening in 'the now' does that mean that all of experience is an afterthought? Have I already made the decisions and are constantly experiencing the results of my decisions?
Or I am not making the decisions at all, and decisions are something as automatic as the heart beating and the lungs breathing?
My experience feels like it's always one step behind. That by thinking, or rather by identifying with thoughts, I have already turned away from 'now'.
I want to understand it, but it's like trying to look at my own eyeball.
From what I understand, you can never escape 'now'. But my experience of now, the thoughts and emotions, can never be experienced exactly as things are happening, right? Even if it's nanoseconds after the event, my experience is always a reaction, never the actual event.
So if my experience isn't happening in 'the now' does that mean that all of experience is an afterthought? Have I already made the decisions and are constantly experiencing the results of my decisions?
Or I am not making the decisions at all, and decisions are something as automatic as the heart beating and the lungs breathing?
My experience feels like it's always one step behind. That by thinking, or rather by identifying with thoughts, I have already turned away from 'now'.
I want to understand it, but it's like trying to look at my own eyeball.
0
Comments
:bigclap:
you are aware of your experience at some point. the things that caused this happened in the past.
i'm not sure if we're thinking of the same thing, but by your words: I see that they could describe something I have been thinking about.
How much of our (mental and physical) action is conscious and how much is subconscious?
A human is a machine, a program, and a consciousness. The program creates a "reality" and then uses these ideas to seek or avoid. The actions of seeking and avoiding can take many forms, including speech, thought, and ego.
The relationship between the program, the actions it causes, and consciousness is confusing, and I think it has to do with what you're talking about?
making a decision, being aware of making a decision. Same thing? Who's making the decision? Who knows that a decision has been made? Who then goes about the task of justifying why that was the right decision? is it different when you're being more mindful and less reactive?
To reinforce this, recent scientific evidence seems to show that every time we "recall" a memory, the process of doing so distorts it just a little more, polluting it with conditioning and experiences in a subtle way that we are largely unaware of, and due to other limitations about the way the brain works.
Learning this really helped me to embrace the Buddha's "Discourse on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone".
It's kind of like looking up at the night sky full of stars, ennit? When you think about it, What you're looking at happened tens or hundreds or thousands or millions or even billions of years ago. So is that now or not?
I'd say don't try to analyze everything, Marmalade. Just sit with it.
Palzang
Palzang
oh, by the way. if i was to do tantric consort practice and the only one i would do that with was Prajnaparamita, would i be a mother f...er?
Palzang
Palzang
Palzang
Palzang
Palzang