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Did the present already start?
Vastmind
Memphis, TN Veteran
How long is the present moment? When does it start and when does it end?
If I am to be in the present and not live in the past or in the future…how do I measure that?.. If it is continuous moments…how would I be in just one?
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Comments
Think you missed it @Vastmind, it was earlier today. Better luck next time!
You can think of it as a wave which is always transforming the future into the past, and the only place that is real on the entire wave is the leading edge where the transformation happens. The closer you can get to that edge, the more present you are…
How long is the past, or future? When do they start and when do they end?
If I am to be in the present between two unmeasurable states, how is that measurable?
Maybe being present just describes a measurer no longer bound by measures.
Experimentation is called for. I propose a momentary length of two seconds, the first of which being the present moment itself, and the second being the transitional period going into the next moment.
I generally view it as a workable chunk of time…like a day. I can work with that. Enough hours have gone by for reflection, right, right now can call for a pivot …..or pure joy in a tearful laugh or feeling my heart sink…., and maybe after lunch, I’m hoping my memory will serve me enough to activate some mindfulness one way or another. Can’t go back on yesterday, and no one is promised tomorrow.
It’s all just a New York minute, ain’t it?
AFA it being defined by not being measurable…I would argue that refutes impermanence. I’ve already predetermined and accepted the theory that nothing lasts forever and is subject to change, therefore expecting an ending/change and maybe preparing for it. Practice, practice paying attention leads to it happening more naturally.
Perhaps..”being” in the moment is when I go from brain to mind ……..(HERE)..…. back to brain…. and that time frame can vary.
I can…in part…the wave is a good descriptor for the transition of the moments…… Question…what do you practice that gets you closer to that edge? How do you know you are approaching or on the edge.
Can I get an ETA?
Fun fact. The faster one moves through space, the slower they move through time. That difference is imperceptible to us at our scales of movement. For a photon, moving at the speed of light though, time does not pass. It is always just now. The light from that star you're looking at that took 100s of years to get here, to the photon it just left, or it never left, or something.
The present can only be experienced. Trying to conceptualize it is like trying to grab water, it just slips out of your fingers. I've had fun in the past trying to work it out, but I've forgotten all the stuff.
^^^ I like that post. Yeah, I don’t know what it says about me, but sitting around on the porch, chewing the cud can be fun sometimes, hahaha. I too usually forget about it…until it’s 2 am and I don’t. 🤪
Here’s something more true: there is no way to get away from the edge of the wavefront. All you can do is be aware of it, or not. If you direct your awareness into your memory, you will be dreamily bringing moments from the past to your minds eye, which is in the present. But if you choose to direct your awareness to your senses, you can become more aware of the here and now. The mind tries to distract you, the more quiet it is, the more you see.
More true than what?
You didn’t answer my questions…you just gave me more advice/guidance. All I can do…if I direct my awareness..if I chose..etc.
I asked about what you do..how you approach it.
Well, I just focus on enjoying the quiet in my mind. I let thoughts come and go. I try to observe the world without judgment. And the present moment just is.
The best we might say, it is attention devoid of distraction (remember we are the distraction)
Oh look a day of distraction happiness
https://guidedmeditationtips.com/a-secret-method-to-spend-a-happy-day/
Bonus Distraction:
The moment is a purely subjective value, not measurable by objective means. As such, its parameters are almost arbitrary. If I happen to be washing dishes, I generally seem to regard the time spent on that task as a single moment - though I've amused myself at times by breaking it down further into time spent scrubbing one plate, that has seemed an unnecessary refinement. The objective for me is just to avoid thinking about all the other tasks that need doing and to focus on just the one.
Your question is actually good! @Vastmind
A practice of being present is sometimes experienced in Buddhist circles as a balanced serpentine wander along the upright edge of a razor blade. The blade edge represents being present with either side of that edge possibly being the past or the future. Our measurement of success at being present can be described as how quickly we turn our wandering back over that blade edge each time one finds oneself off it. Where one person might only occasionally pass perpendicularly across that blade, a meditative adept spends more & more of their time upon that edge as they balance back and forth across it in the constantly correcting wiggle of a tightrope walker. As the practice of being present progresses, those corrections become less erratic and more instinctive. The time one might of spent in measuring such things, simply gets diverted into a quicker course correction. Here no mentality need hinders its actuality.
Some less severe views of a practice of being present, and one of my favorites, counter warn the meditator, to not end up becoming like a cat watching a mousehole.
In my meditative practice of being present, just not actively supporting deliberate thought has been one of the best helps for me.
Thus have I heard. (that is, brought to my attention_..._
Every moment is a moment of events and no moment passes by without an event.
One can not notice a moment without noticing events taking place in that moment. Therefore, the moment one tries to pay bare attention to is the present moment.
Undivided attention is a gift we often give to others, but habitually forget to offer to ourselves. True self-awareness and being fully present in the continually flowing moment are key to cultivating harmony and a sense of well being.
We don’t have to be able to measure it. We can think about the effect of changing the width of “Now” and look at the impact of the changes. So, as we define Now in shorter and shorter widths, we more precisely approach the demarcation point. In calculus we say “as delta T goes to zero (that is, as the change in time, — or width of Now — gets smaller) . . . “ we can see a line becomes a point, or a curve has a constant slope (y=mx+b at the point of tangent). This is mathematically satisfying, and we’ve had several posts looking in different ways at a narrow delta T, or a skinny Now.
But we might consider the human aspect of making Now wider, not narrower. Again, we don’t have to quantify; we can look at the effect of making Now wider. The wider it is, the more of the past and future it contains, and the better we can perceive the curve instead of the point. With a narrow Now we can look at how the scene changes at this point in the play. Choreographers care about this. With a wider Now we can look at how the story evolves from the first to the second act, or how this play is a sequel to the first one, or how Theatre changes over the years or millennia. Cultural historians care about this. When we make Now wide, interesting things come into view, interesting perspectives lead to interesting actions. When we make Now narrow, we prevent these perspectives.
There is a think tank that studies this, and the concomitant implications , the Long Now Foundation. There are various facets of their work. Interesting reading.