Being in the Present
Q: I can’t figure out the concept of time at all. I see that when I think back on something, that memory is a moment in time. Then I remember the present and—zip! it’s another moment in time. These flashbacks into the past and “blink-backs” into the present switch back and forth, like a slide show presentation. I don’t have a feeling for the difference. Where can we stand and actually observe the passage of time?
A: A good glimpse into the world of time requires the perspective of the present moment, for in the present moment we can see that time is a concept created by the mind, that it is merely a belief. If we are not grounded in the present, we get absorbed in time-bound memories and are drowned in time. We see the world as made up of discrete experiences rather than as a continuously moving flow.
If you look carefully, you’ll see that memories are not fixed things, like slides, but are more like mini-movies. You said that you could jump from remembering the past to remembering the present. If you are only remembering the present, it is as if you are living in the past. If this makes the present a sort of virtual reality, then for myself I have to say I prefer the old-fashioned, natural, handwritten version.
You don’t need to remember the present; you need to be the present. The present is the truth, for nothing happens in the present and everything happens in the present.
Q: I believe meditators can train themselves to be able to visit the future or go back in time to visit the historical past. Is this a skill I can learn quickly?
A. This is what you already do most of the time! You visit the past when you “click” on memory. You are instantly propelled into the event you are recalling, and then you add all kinds of emotional components to that memory byte. Again, the past is regurgitated as a projection into the future. This is not much different from memory of the past, except that the future is born out of a mind bent on hopes, plans, or fantasies. This is the “forward” mode, and we are off and running with it.
Neither of these time travel experiences lands you in reality. The past and future threaten to overwhelm the present, since our habits shift us in and out of these dream states, “forward” and “reverse.”
Have you ever wondered where you would be without a past or future? Or who you would be? You would be everywhere. You would be who you are.
Don’t go farther astray from reality. Train yourself to bring the mind to the here and now, and be awake.
The future, built out of the past, is the great distracter. We want the future to be rosy, all fun and happiness. But all our hopes and dreams sabotage the possibility of a happy future simply because they make us miss the present.
I find this even after all these years of spiritual training. Sometimes when I am walking alone down a country road, free of responsibilities and worldly dealings, my old urban habits nevertheless induce the mind to think and worry about how much farther I need to go before I arrive where I’m going. The big joke is that this way of thinking emerges even though I can arrive almost anywhere, anytime. I can set up my umbrella just about anywhere—the next village, the village after that, or just here off the road where there is water and a flat bit of land. The notion of time and space still dogs my footsteps.
As I approach a village, I’ll see children carrying their school books. They walk past me with a lightness born of being present—not stuck in the molasses of time-space reality. “How far” and “when” don’t clog their minds.
Those of us who have lived lives determined by the clock and almost entirely by the rational mode of mind feel threatened by a lack of precise information and are tormented by memories of past mistakes. All this weighs on us more heavily than our backpacks.
Many people embrace the idea of time in order to plan for the future and make it secure. To some extent this is useful and intelligent, but the reality is that the future cannot be made secure. This should be too obvious to have to say, since our very lives are not even guaranteed into the next hour.
One of the fruits of wisdom is outgrowing the need for a future, secure or insecure. With wisdom comes an understanding of time. From the standpoint of wisdom, time is no longer the sacred construct that modern people believe it to be. The support for the reality of time is withdrawn, and time just dangles. We are free of it.