spirituality 05.pdf

7/29/2019 spirituality 05.pdf

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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 didnot even taste it? were you thinking about all the things you have to do next weekor all the things you should have done last week that you weren't evenconcentrating on what you were doing at that moment of eating lunch?

--past and futurethere are many nonessential things in life that seem to take up a lot of space inone's mind. we get easily carried away by unwanted or useless thoughts which

stand in the path of real achievement. more importantly worrying about everymisjustice, mistake, judgement or regret can seriously effect participation in thepresent. most of the time 95% of our mind is not on the task at hand, but insteadreminiscing some event that took place a long time ago. so much energy iswasted on the past and the fact is we can not do anything about the past. it issomething over which we have no control at all.

humans have a tendency to over think the future, in the hopes that by havingplans we might be saved from unwanted outcomes. worrying is the illusion thatwe are solving problems. thought of tomorrow is pleasure or pain; if itspleasurable, thought will pursue it, fearing its end; if it is painful, the veryavoidance 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 wayto experience the true nature of this constantly changing universe. everything isalways changing, changing, changing, moving, moving, moving, nonstop. thisthought should not create fear. the truly proactive person focuses his attention tothe active present in a way that he is calm.


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writers blockit is probable that there have been times for everyone reading this lesson, whenthey have started a project with a blank piece of paper and found that nothing isflowing from the pencil to the page. when 'writer's block' kicks in it is usually theresult 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 thehere and now, and that hinders any attempt at being active in something. youliterally can not see properly unless you aim to be fully in the present. if you try todraw a picture whilst agonising over the outcome then the picture is unlikely to begood. if, instead, you concentrate on the idea, the form and/or the object you aredrawing from then success is more likely.


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the present = a movie stillsee, sometime you go to a movie. you see an action movie about a good manand a bad man with lots of fighting, cars moving very fast, and explosions all overthe place. everything is always moving very quickly. our daily lives have thisquality: everything is constantly moving, coming and going, nonstop. it seems likethere 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 separatepiece of action. but in each frame, nothing is moving. everything is completelystill. each frame, one by one, is a complete picture. in each frame, nothing evercomes or goes, or appears or disappears. each frame is complete stillness. thefilm projector moves the frames very quickly, and all of these frames run past thelens very fast, so the action on-screen seems to happen nonstop. there is nobreak in the movement of things. but actually when you take this strip of film andhold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing moving at all. each frameis 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 shutterspeed is one divided by infinite time. we call that moment-mind. if you attain thatmind, then this whole world's movement stops. from moment to moment you cansee this world completely stop. like the film, you perceive every frame, thismoment, which is infinitely still and complete. there is no time, and nothingappears or disappears. but this movie projector, which is a metaphor of yourthinking mind, is always moving, so you experience this world as constantlymoving and you constantly experience change, which is impermanence. you loseyour 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 yourawareness. utilise the active present and you'll learn much more every day andbecome more effective in your actions. clearing the mind of unessential thoughts


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allows one to see more detail and underling form in the environment. your lifeonly happens right now, always in this single, eternal context called NOW. there'sno frame somewhere of a ten-year-old version of you falling out of a tree; that'sonly 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 someother time or place to be, besides right here, right now, we are cruelly andpathologically deluding ourselves.

thoughtis 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 delightand 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 thingswithout allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a dress, thebeauty 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 entitledwith pleasure that turns it into pain. watch it in yourself. the very demand for therepetition of pleasure brings about pain, because it will not be the same as it wasyesterday. you struggle to achieve the same delight, not only to your aestheticsense but the same inward quality of the mind, and you are hurt anddisappointed because it is denied you. joy is an immediate thing and by thinkingabout it, you turn it into pleasure. living in the present is the instant perception ofbeauty and the great delight in it without seeking pleasure from it.

---exercisego 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


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your foot a step away, place it directly in front of your other foot. with each stepvisualise in your mind the body weight moving from one leg to the other witheach 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 youwalking so slowly!)

finally, try not to think.

at first you will have the usual white noise that continuously fills our heads, butslowly you will begin to wake up to the environment around you, you'll smell andhear stuff that you would not have noticed normally.

spirituality 05.pdf

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