28. Living In The Moment- Now Is The Only Time We Have
We have all heard this expression so many times that we say ‘Yeah, yeah. I know all about that.’ But most people have little idea what it really means to be here for the now.
It is a key ingredient of spiritual behaviour to try as much as possible to live in the moment and handle each new moment with skill and freshness. Living in the moment is fundamental to happiness. Living in the moment is alternatively referred to as awareness, or aliveness, or being awake and in Buddhism it is called mindfulness.
Increasingly people are unable to give the here and now their attention preferring instead to be thinking about the past or the future or distracted for example by their smart phones or other similar gadgets. It is becoming increasingly rare nowadays to see someone who is not staring at their smart phone regardless of whether for example they are also walking along the road, eating a meal, watching TV, or even worse while with a friend or partner. Nowadays many people are never really ‘present’, just taking a momentary glance every so often at their actual surroundings, or situation, preferring to immediately re-immerse themselves into diversionary distractions. We do not need time travel to enable people to visit the past or the future; they are very good at doing that for themselves. We need time travel to enable people to visit the present!
During your whole life there has only ever been Now. And for the rest of your life there will only ever be Now. The time on your watch is always Now. The past no longer exists and the future does not exist yet. Nothing ever happens in the past or the future. Everything only happens Now. And yet how much of all that Now did you notice or do you remember? For how much of all that Now were you present? How much of that Now have you spent thinking about the past or the future? For how much of that Now have you just allowed your mind to endlessly hijack your attention with its own agenda, worries, irritations, concerns and desires?
Before I embarked on my own journey of spiritual learning and searching I thought that living in the moment just meant being alive to and noticing and savouring for example a particularly beautiful natural landscape or sunset or beautiful music etc. But I have learnt that spiritual behaviour takes living in the moment to a whole new level that most people never know about or experience. It means connecting with and synchronising with the moment and consciously choosing your actions and responses with care. Living in the moment is one of the most important manifestations of spiritual behaviour and therefore this is an inevitably lengthy chapter in which I will give you several examples to illustrate what it means.
Consciousness is a mystery and a miracle that should not be taken for granted and it is a travesty that people squander their thoughts in so many ways instead of using them to be here for the present and now. What does it take for people to see that 1 second of consciousness is the greatest most exquisite and precious possession of all in the entire universe?
Some examples of what it means to really live in the moment are:
(i) Tune in and wake up!
You can always tell if you are on autopilot by whether you are noticing and observing your thoughts. If you are just daydreaming or sleep walking and allowing your mind to just go wherever it wishes then it will always have your attention and never allow you to be in the Now. I want you to conduct a little experiment right this minute. I want you to get up and if you can go for a short walk on your own preferably outside if possible. Just a few minutes will do. A garden, or any outside space would be great but even a balcony is fine. I want you to try as hard as you can to notice everything you can, every second. I want you to put all your senses on alert and notice all the sounds, voices, laughter, music, smells, colours, lights, the temperature, and the wind or breeze on your face. While you are there I would like you take off your foot wear and walk barefoot if that is feasible and also if possible touch some trees, or plants, or grass, or even dip your hands in water if there is any available. Notice the natural beauty of the world in all its forms which surrounds you. Pay attention to the work and ingenuity of your fellow humans who have invented, designed and built so much in your life upon which you rely and enjoy and which again surrounds you. Take some really deep breaths, and fill your lungs, and just celebrate feeling and being alive. If it is dark, look up at the night sky and savour its wonder – even if there is light pollution! I want you to see how much you can notice in just these few minutes. I want you to take everything in and look around you at the wonder and magic of it all. If you falter and think of something mundane from the life you are going back to after this time out, just reject the thought and return your attention to this explosion of the senses. Your normal life can do without you for a few minutes. This can be quite an emotional and disturbing experience. If there is so much to take in and experience in these few minutes, how much of Now have you missed along the way?
(ii) Avoid conditioned thoughts
This is about monitoring and observing your own thoughts and reactions and not believing and accepting everything you think and instead applying your own fresh intelligence to each moment. The conditioned responses presented by the mind will mostly be from the orientation of your ego or desire (craving) and as such are raw or basic emotions. By monitoring your thoughts you are seeking to block conditioned responses of for example defensiveness, aversion, attachment, and other negative emotions.
Sadly many people live their entire lives ‘asleep’, completely unable ever to realise that every behaviour, every thought, every response, that they have has been learnt from someone else. They never have a single thought that is truly their own. The free choices that they believe they exercise are in reality from a menu that they have been brainwashed with by their parents, the media, and the relentless consumer marketing that characterises our society. Unless we are ‘awake’ we think we are free but there is probably not a gesture, a thought, an attitude, a belief, or an expression that is not coming from someone else. We are in many ways conditioned clones of each other.
You must live in the moment because the consequences of not doing so are that your autopilot will merely respond to situations with conditioned responses so you will always be constrained by your past and childhood and you will never be free to grow and improve.
Whenever you are wanting or craving for something bigger, better or different you are by definition not in the moment appreciating life just as it is. You will be familiar with the idea that the brain is composed of two parts; the conscious and sub-conscious. The majority of the brain is the sub-conscious part where memories and experiences are filed and stored. This sub-conscious offers up to the conscious part suggestions that it believes to be ‘helpful’ based on past repeated experience. This is how addiction works. The sub-conscious brain offers up suggestions of thoughts about learned habits that have provided temporary pleasure in the past such as having an alcoholic drink or cigarette. It is the same process when your sub conscious feeds you negative thoughts such as ‘you don’t like people from different cultures, or maybe noisy children or cats!’ These reactions to all the things ‘that you don’t like’ are called aversion.
If you are applying your own fresh thinking in the moment you will not just be repeating learned behaviour and operating out of habit.
People who do not live in the moment dismiss and ignore opportunities for connection with other people. They do not really listen to what people are saying to them and are instead eagerly waiting to respond with some prepared, well worn and frequently transmitted package of opinion or advice.
Remember that the moment may not always require you to be transmitting, and a spiritual person feels for the rhythm of the moment, and recognises when it simply requires you truly to listen. Is someone reaching out to you? Are they trying to say something more deep and meaningful to you and looking for empathy and an encouraging signal that you are genuinely there for them in that particular moment. Most people blunder on, desperate to be dominating the conversation, and thereby missing and obliterating potential opportunities for genuine and meaningful connection. Try not to be always wanting to offer your own views or anecdotes. Really try to respond to what people are telling you and not always be trying to steer the conversation to what you want to be telling them about. You should be concentrating on what they are saying and genuinely trying to build on it rather than trying to switch to a ‘bigger and better’ subject or story of your own.
I find it frustrating when I listen to, or am part of, conversations which just leap all over the place where no participant is trying to listen and build on what anyone else is saying. It is as if people are together physically but in reality are all still locked in their private bubbles with their egos fighting each other for air time.
If you do not live in the moment you will miss so much that there is to enjoy; you will not see the beauty that is all around you. When I am stuck in traffic I play a game and look for something through the windscreen that I find pleasing or beautiful outside. There is always something to appreciate if you look for it instead of just becoming frustrated by the delay. It does not matter what it is –there is no right and wrong in taste or interests.
Often when you go with people to a beautiful place they can be competitively obsessed with spending the entire time telling you about another beautiful place they have been to in the past. One wonders whether they paid attention to that one either! Similarly I meet people who, while having a wonderful meal at one restaurant feel compelled to spend the entire time telling you about another wonderful meal they have had somewhere else. It is as if some people really are unable or frightened of actually living and experiencing the now.
So when you are in a beautiful place or having a wonderful meal or any other exquisite or sublime experience please be there for it and not somewhere else in your head. Be sensitive to the real needs of enjoying the moment which may be for quiet contemplation and not always be transmitting regardless.
The modern day curse of the anecdote has become so prolific and destructive that it deserves special mention. Telling long and rambling anecdotes has become such a widespread and prolific custom because people believe that it marks them out as a witty, funny or entertaining person. The problem is when these anecdotes are increasing rolled out, one competing with another, when they have little relevance to the here and now and thereby obliterate the real opportunity for an exquisite moment to be enjoyed. I have been in beautiful restaurants with wonderful food and views with people who just transmit the same repertoire of stories and anecdotes regardless of their surroundings and the company. It is as if they are trying to block out the here and now.
I have been with people in what could be a perfect shared moment for example looking over a mirror calm sea looking at a perfect and spectacular sunset; when all that was needed was some quiet contemplation to savour the moment in the quiet companionship of good friendship. But sadly so often someone would feel the need to block out the experience by filling the space with a long and tiresome anecdote the relevance of which is only in the mind of the expounder. The group are then dragged away from the present to another time and place and most will merely shut down or switch off and chuckle politely at the end.
Similarly I see friends and couples out together perhaps having a meal in lovely surroundings where the moment absolutely calls for them to be concentrating on each other and engaging and connecting with each other, but where instead they are just staring at and playing with their smart phones. They might just as well have stayed at home in a small city flat as they are making no effort whatsoever to enjoy and be there for the real moment and life that is in front of them. Instead they are falling back into a habit of aimless playing with texts, social networking, and apps which are a comfort zone that dull the senses and do not require any effort to face the present with freshness and enthusiasm.
(vi) Be there for other people- not somewhere else.
Be present for the people that you meet and interact with during the day. Increasingly people do not even concentrate on conversations with their friends or partner. Often people are just nodding while actually thinking about something else, or glancing at their mobile phones or the TV. You might think that the other person does not notice, but trust me they do and they feel devalued, isolated and disappointed that you treat them in that way.
(vii) Do not always be planning the future
You will have heard the saying ‘Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans’ usually attributed to John Lennon.
Many people spend their working week looking forward to the weekend and their weekend looking forward to their holidays. But until you learn to live in and enjoy the present and the Now your weekends and holidays, when they finally arrive, will almost always be a disappointment.
So do not spend your life looking forward to things. In any case the things you look forward to the most often do not live up to expectations whereas those times that you have little expectations about can often turn out to be unexpectedly enjoyable. Learn that you cannot predict or control how life is going to feel. Spending your time looking forward to things does not make them more enjoyable and is just another way of ignoring the present.
Some people spend their lives preparing for the future and sacrificing the present as something that they have to get through in order to build their dream life. But this is doomed to failure because preparing to live rather than living now becomes a mindset. Always thinking that at some mythical point you will allow yourself to start enjoying the present is a delusion because sacrificing the present becomes a habit that is very hard to break. Don’t get me wrong, you can be saving for a deposit, or working for a qualification and still enjoying the present. So by all means invest in a better future for you and your family; just make sure that you savour and enjoy life along the way.
(viii) Do not always be thinking that the present is ‘not good enough’.
It is the case that for many people life is what happens to them whilst they are busy believing that for one reason or another they are being prevented from spending their time on what they planned or wanted to be doing. Instead they feel frustrated that they are for example spending it on finishing some other job that is taking longer than it ‘should’, dealing with some unexpected problem or accident, or having to talk to a stranger who wants to be sociable and thereby ‘waste’ their time. They are searching continuously for something ‘more’, believing that everything would be fine ‘if only’. The reality is that your life is the time you spend stuck in traffic, is the time you spend mopping up the drink you have just knocked over, is the unplanned and unscheduled conversation with a stranger in the supermarket. It is the picking up of a book or newspaper and getting engrossed in something interesting, is investigating why the heating has suddenly stopped working. Life is as it is and is happening perfectly. Enjoy the ride and stop struggling. There can be magic and fun in every moment if you turn off that part of the mind that chatters on telling you ‘if only’ you were somewhere else with somebody else, doing something different! It is in the very ordinariness of mundane life that the extraordinary reveals itself.
(ix) Be Flexible
Living in the moment requires that you do not stick rigidly to a pre-conceived plan for how your day should be. When someone in your life is suggesting that you do something different from what you had originally planned, then listen with an open mind. Living in the moment is about being flexible and light on your feet. Sticking rigidly to your own plan is a form of trying to prevent life unfolding as it is. When someone else wants you do something different, of course, they may be ‘wrong’ but they may also be ‘right’ so be open minded. When someone persuades you to change your plan or schedule it can often turn out that this was a better decision. It also has the benefit that the other person feels better because they have succeeded in influencing you. When you do change your plan to accommodate someone else’s suggestions buy into it whole heartedly and give it your full commitment. Living in the moment means not being stubborn and inflexible, and clinging to a preconceived plan that is in your head. Life is a lot more fun if you are open spontaneously to enjoy unplanned events and unexpected opportunities that come your way.