Being in the moment?

grainne

I get caught up in dopey stuff sometimes but here is another beginners question!

How can you ever really "be in the moment" by the time you realise your in it, the moments over, isnt it?

Simonthepilgrim

At the level of our senses, we perceive at many removes.The nearest thing to immediate perception is the Stimulus-Reflex arc, functioning below cortical level. Even then, the stimulating sensation will only be perceived consciously after the response has been initiated.

Thus, Grainne, you are right: being 'in the moment' is not an available function of the conscious mind in normal mode. Aldous Huxley (and others of less intellectual worth) maintained that certain psychoactive substances, such as mescalin and LSD, reduce the temporal and perceptive 'distance'.

It is, in my experience, one of the results of meditation that awareness of this moment rather than that one just gone arises. It appear natural, a sort of 'default' position, which became distorted by the process of living. In Transactional Analysis, we speak of "life scripts" which we 'write' and then play out. These are usually more or less complete by the time we are a few years old (possibly even months). I think that they are more like "life spectacles" through which we see the world.

The practice of mindfulness is exactly this: take off the spectacles, unhook the hearing aid, expel the anaesthetic and be here, now as fully as possible. The more I do it, the more I can do it: a bit like any other skill.

Does that help?

kinlee

This is awesome.

Simonthepilgrim wrote:

At the level of our senses, we perceive at many removes.The nearest thing to immediate perception is the Stimulus-Reflex arc, functioning below cortical level. Even then, the stimulating sensation will only be perceived consciously after the response has been initiated.

Thus, Grainne, you are right: being 'in the moment' is not an available function of the conscious mind in normal mode. Aldous Huxley (and others of less intellectual worth) maintained that certain psychoactive substances, such as mescalin and LSD, reduce the temporal and perceptive 'distance'.

It is, in my experience, one of the results of meditation that awareness of this moment rather than that one just gone arises. It appear natural, a sort of 'default' position, which became distorted by the process of living. In Transactional Analysis, we speak of "life scripts" which we 'write' and then play out. These are usually more or less complete by the time we are a few years old (possibly even months). I think that they are more like "life spectacles" through which we see the world.

The practice of mindfulness is exactly this: take off the spectacles, unhook the hearing aid, expel the anaesthetic and be here, now as fully as possible. The more I do it, the more I can do it: a bit like any other skill.

Does that help?

buddhafoot

kinlee wrote:

This is awesome.

I've always said that Simon uses his tongue pertier than a $20 hooker!

I kin just imagin all them perty word rollin' off a his tongue while he's sittin' in some big ole fancy English chair suckin' on some big ole fancy pipe talkin' like a big ole fancy English guy.

-bf

masteravatardavidsta

grainne wrote:

I get caught up in dopey stuff sometimes but here is another beginners question!

How can you ever really "be in the moment" by the time you realise your in it, the moments over, isnt it?

Not a dopey question at all. Very intelligent and thought-provoking. I think that we can't HELP but be in the moment all the time. Problem is - Our mind is almost always either focused on the non-existant "future" or trapped in some long-dead "past". Hope this offers some light!

Palzang

You are in the moment when you're not aware that you're in the moment.

Palzang

LatinaMermaid

Yes, we have all experined that, but I do not think we are aware of it. We think it is something mystical and only a few can attain. But we already have that ability. Children are wonderful to be around for this reason.

not1not2

What Palzang said. There is no way to be 'not in the moment'. That's simply impossible. I think maybe we are more talking how to uproot mental proliferation & division so that our mind is unified.

metta
_/\_

MartinofNorwich

Everything flows. Perhaps we're in the moment when we're accepting, not wanting the next moment to contain something we don't have at the moment (or to contain the same as the present one, for that matter), just being with what's in this moment.

Martin.

Drolma

grainne wrote:

I get caught up in dopey stuff sometimes but here is another beginners question!

How can you ever really "be in the moment" by the time you realise your in it, the moments over, isnt it?

Investigate! :thumbsup:

The nature of the present moment is that it is passing,
seeing the emptiness, the selflessness of the present moment
- we do not fall into aversion and grasping.

Be aware of the three characteristics of phenomena in cyclic existence -
impermanent - in the nature of suffering - their selflessness.

So when we say this present moment is all there is
what we are saying is
- look deeply right now - don't get sidetracked by stories about the present moment - look deeply right now : what is the nature of what is in front of us?

When we look deeply , we realize that happiness does not depend on grasping at these things, nor on aversion - on pushing away these things - nor on just ignoring, so when we look deeply into the present moment what also happens is we free ourselves from the things that prevent us from being in the present moment

keep checking up, keep looking

:bigclap: