Life is short! They say. How short is it? Let us see. The average life span of a person presently is about 70 years. So how can 70 years be short? Let us see this too. A person is made of two main entities, the physical body and the mind. The body is composed of different combinations of physical elements which are in a state of constant transition from one form to another. The speed at which these reactions take place is so fast that it is not recognizable and it appears as if there is a permanent being. This is comparable to a moving object in a movie: for a single action, say raising a hand, hundreds of frames, each with a slightly different position of the hand in the act of raising, move so fast that the naked eye sees only one action - the raising of the hand. So it is clear that though there appears to be a permanent being there is no such thing. Since the constituents undergo change continuously there cannot be a permanent body but only a constantly changing phenomenon that exists only for a moment. In other words, as a whole it comes into being, lives and dies all in a single moment.
How about the other component – the mind? It is a non-physical entity comprising of a flux of thoughts which arises, exists and passes away. Once a thought is gone, a new thought arises in its place and this too passes off in the same fashion. This process also takes place so fast, perhaps in one millionth of a second that one does not realize it. So the mind too is in a state of constant change. Now since mind and body both change constantly every moment, quite understandably there cannot be a permanent self. The following will help you to understand this fact. Suppose you say “I”. As soon as you have finished uttering it, you are not the same person who just said it but a different one because you have undergone change mentally and physically to become a new person. In other words a new person is born. This is how fast is the change that occurs, which clearly we fail to recognize.
It is now quite clear that both mind and body live only for a moment. The life span of a person may be 70 years but the existence of life is momentary. Thus every moment, one comes into being, exists and dies. Or else, in reality we live only for a moment. This is what really matters. That is, to live in a given moment (which will be referred to as the Present Moment from here on) is what is important in life; not the moment that you just passed or the one that is to arrive next: broadly speaking neither the past nor the future; just like in a bank account what matters is the last entry of balance. Past can never be brought back and corrected and the future can never be predicted. Therefore, it is futile to worry over the past or bother over the future. This does not mean to say to forget about the past and the future. When you are recollecting the past or plan for the future do so mindfully. And do not daydream. Stop worrying. Be positive and live in the present. Living in the Present Moment clears your mind of unnecessary burdens which leads to stress.
Make hay while the sun shines
If you are to live in the Present Moment, you have to be mindful of it; you must know what you are thinking; you must know what’s going on in your mind. Otherwise, you would be daydreaming; mind wandering aimlessly nowhere; wasting precious time. And when you wake up from the slumber you feel guilty of wasting so much time. Normally, this is how we spend most of the day, living in fantasies and illusions, recollecting happy or unhappy experiences; some grudge you have with someone; something embarrassing that happened to you; about someone who insulted you or contemplating whether the future would be fruitful, unsuccessful or fearful. When lost in such negative thoughts, you are not aware of what is happening or what you are engaged in at that moment. You would be brushing teeth but the mind would be at the work place where you had to face some unpleasant experience the day before or it would be in a hotel where you’ve planned to go the next weekend. Suddenly, when you come back to brushing, you don’t know which part of the dentition you have finished and which you have not. So back to the beginning: what a waste of time and energy?
This is also the time that you would think of finding, perhaps harmful solutions to your unpleasant, worrisome problems. You would plan to take revenge from someone; destroy something beautiful belonging to someone whom you don’t like; to cover up some wrongdoing etc. During this time, any violent solutions would look right, justifiable and reasonable. These unwholesome thoughts that crept in would go on pricking you from time to time, hurting you unless checked soon, causing unpleasantness and unhappiness i.e. suffering. You wouldn’t be a pleasant sight to others – an angry and an irritable person. What emerges would be dangerous not only for others but for you as well. Also, not focusing on what you are doing, causes in an unsatisfactory and an unsuccessful ending to it – result of not doing what should have been done at the right time and thus not being able to complete the job on time. These negative effects of not being in the Present Moment, lead to un-satisfactoriness.
Do not let this happen. Be aware of what you are doing. If you are engaged in some task, focus on it. If you are relaxing do so mindfully. This is how you should live in the present; how you should make use of the moment successfully; how you should make the most of the Present Moment. This has relevance to anything you do. When you are reading something, live in it; word to word; line to line. Then only you can digest the contents fully and enjoy the reading. If you are singing a song, live in it; lyric to lyric; verse to verse. This is what you call singing from the heart. You and the listeners will enjoy it. When you are eating something, say some tasty food, live in it. You will enjoy the real taste till the whole portion is over. Otherwise, you will get the taste of only the first one or two bites and the rest will go down without the feel of any taste. You lose enjoying the taste. This of course goes for anything that you eat or drink. If you have to cover a big job comprising of a large number of units, do not be negative and think, “Oh! How to do such a lot? Impossible”. But concentrate on each unit at the Present Moment and attend to it. You will finish the job in such a short time that you never would have imagined possible.
Living in the Present Moment should especially be applied to day to day routine chores, because we have taken these tasks for granted. These just happen involuntarily while our minds wander all over accumulating all kinds of defilements. So while brushing teeth, washing face, bathing, washing clothes, using the toilet, wearing clothes, ironing, eating, drinking, cooking just to mention some, pay attention to these, concentrate on them and do not daydream. Live in the Present Moment. These tasks will not be a burden. You will not be unnecessarily tired at the end of them; but will be happy and satisfied. Almost 99% of the factors leading to stress such as confusion, hastiness, irritability, over excitement and hindrances to progress such sloth and stupor could be avoided if you live in the Present Moment.
Living in the Present Moment can bring solutions to a tight situation even if you haven’t faced it before. Once, a huge 24 wheel container truck in the United States got stuck in a tunnel just as it was going in. The driver couldn’t move the vehicle either forwards or backwards. He phoned an automobile engineering firm and an engineer arrived at the scene. By now there were growing lines of traffic on either side of the tunnel and the motorists were getting uneasy. The engineer and the onlookers were trying to find some solution to the problem frantically but they found the situation very complicated. All of them were confused. First all started blaming the driver. “What an idiot? He should have known that such a big truck couldn’t be driven through this tunnel”. The engineer chipped in, “No common sense” (all of them thinking of the past). He had one or two solutions but he was thinking whether these could lead to serious consequences, which fact prevented him from implementing them. Would the truck get damaged more? Would the tunnel develop cracks? Would I be blamed if any of these happen (contemplating the future)? This is when two nine year old boys who got out from a car were watching what is going on. One of them casually said, “If you deflate the tyres a bit the truck will ease out with no problem”. Finally this is what was done preventing damage to either the truck or the tunnel. How did the little boys get the wisdom to solve the problem which was so complicated to the adults? Clearly, this was because they were living in the Present Moment. The elders on the other hand, including the expert, were living in the past or the future and they failed to see common sense which the engineer thought the driver doesn’t have. Since their minds were preoccupied with something else there was no room for the solution to come into being. So here living in the Present Moment helped to ease out a difficult situation.
Live Present Moment brings relaxation. This is because there is no clouding of the mind with thoughts concerning the past or the future. It is hundred percent focused on what one is engaged in. Therefore, there is no access for the defilements to enter the mind. This removes confusion and thus stress, resulting in enjoyment of whatever task is being done. It also brings you mental calmness. This allows you to think clearly causing wisdom to develop. Living in the Present Moment even for a second could make you discover something new; an invention which may go to great lengths. One of my own experiences comes to mind. Once our research team required an air conditioned environment to grow a newly emerging parasitic organism in test tube culture. The organism grows optimally in the temperature created in such an environment which is a few degrees below the average room temperature. However, we were short of funds to purchase an air conditioner. The only solution was to think of an alternative to obtain the required condition. I was racking my brains over this for days. Then one day after a hard day’s work in the culture room I went to the tap to wash my hands and as soon as the cold water touched my skin, I knew that I had the answer to my problem. Why not immerse the cultures in tap water? I instantly knew how Archimedes would have felt when he discovered the law of specific gravity while getting into the bath tub! We progressed on this discovery and successfully invented a device to culture the parasite. We were able to publish the finding in a prestigious international medical science journal of the Royal Society in England. It also won an award from the biggest medical science association in the country. Further, it was nominated for Presidential Awards. All these achievements were made possible because I was able to forget my worry for a moment and focus attention to the present – feel of cold water- i.e. living in the Present Moment. Such could be the fruits of living in the Present Moment. So live in the Present Moment and make the most of it.
Further, living in the Present Moment would help you in a life and death situation. I experienced this once when I went to bathe in a river once, with some friends. I was about 10 years old at that time and I didn’t know how to swim. I saw some boys smaller than me swimming in deep water and thought, “Oh! If those small boys can float why can’t I?”. I jumped into the water and tried to swim but soon my legs gave way and I was sinking in deep water. My first thought was that I was going to die and I had the vision of me standing right in front of home with all my family members watching me. It was so clear that for a moment I thought I was really there. I didn’t feel that I was under water. But again I thought that I was too young to die and must keep my head clear and focus on what should be done to get out of the situation. This brought me to the Present Moment and instantly I remembered someone telling before that if you go down in water you must kick the river bed with the toes which will shoot you upwards. I did exactly this and to my surprise I went upwards fast and broke the surface. I took a deep breath and cried, “Help!, Help!”. But my friends have thought that I was joking. I went down a second time and came up. Fortunately, one friend who thought that I was drowning swam towards me and saved my life. Had I not concentrated on the Present Moment in that instant most certainly I wouldn’t be there to write this article. My being in the Present Moment saved my life. This is how critically important it is to live in the Present Moment.
Can we enjoy the benefits forever?
The living in the Present Moment as we have seen so far helps one enlighten on worldly things. However, this does not bring a permanent state of happiness in the mind. This is because your actions and reactions when living in the Present Moment are based on worldly knowledge and intelligence accumulated since birth. The data for this accumulation are evaluated and judged by a mental factor, from the sensory inputs brought in by the sense doors eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. This is where the catch is, because the evaluation is done from what appears to be and not from what they really are. Thus, the conclusions and decisions arrived at on the same thing differs from person to person and from time to time. This is why the worldly knowledge and intelligence are misleading, miscalculating, unreasonable, blind and dangerous. How can we get a permanent state of happiness by living in the Present Moment? The nature of the mind is such that it wanders aimlessly most of the time. To live in the Present Moment one has to focus the mind on the present. Normally, this happens occasionally when you pay serious attention to something important. So is it possible to increase the number of times you live in the Present Moment so that it covers most of the day at least, rather than once in a way so as to reap its benefits. Yes, you can! This may not be easy though, because after living for so many years, most of the time lost in thoughts, you just slumber into the dream world involuntarily. The mental factor responsible for overseeing the behavior of the mind – the Observation - is underdeveloped. The mechanism to develop Observation is to practice meditation. As described in my first article, the meditation based on the Eightfold Path provides the best technique for this practice. This exercise allows you to increase the power of Observation of your mind. The Observation oversees what your mind is doing and guides you to keep it in the Present Moment during meditation. When you progress in meditation the Observation helps to bring the mind that is lost in fantasies and illusions back into the present so that you can live in the Present Moment. This prevents defilements from getting into the mind thus making it purified. Now it is understood that meditation is the means to train your mind to live in the Present Moment. Therefore, it is essential to practice meditation to enter the world of the Present Moment to live a happy and content life.
In the country of the blind one eyed man is king
Life in the Present Moment is simple and easy going because the mind is not burdened with defilements. The people living in the Present Moment are relaxed, happy and pleasant always with a smiling face. They see enjoyment in trivial matters like wide eyed small children who are just beginning to learn the world around them to which normally the adults pay no heed. Children are happy as if they’ve nothing to care in this world since they live in the Present Moment. Likewise people in the world of the Present Moment are happy because they have all the time in the world to be happy, as no time is wasted worrying over the past or the future. Whatever commitments and responsibilities there are, these fortunate individuals face them with ease yet with good understanding which fact makes them efficient.
The world of the Present Moment is a reality. Anybody can enter it. Anybody is welcome. It is up to you to go there. Nobody can take you there. You and you alone can make it. For this you must have the will and must make a determined effort. This world is full of life, joy, relaxation and peace. It is remarkable. There are no regrets, worries, sorrow, anger, jealousy, ill will, hatred or sloth and stupor in this world. The absence of these makes the mind pure. This is because you live in the present and not in the past or the future. This is when the wisdom dawns which we all need to achieve Eternal Peace – the Nirvana. Don’t you like such a world? Isn’t it amazing? Just having the knowledge that the Present Moment is the only thing that matters in this life is not sufficient. You must see it through insight and get enlightened on it. Then only you will realize what it really means: that this existence is of the Present Moment only and of nothing else. This is when the life becomes so simple and you realize how much time and energy you have wasted (the time in which you could have enjoyed your life and be happy) on futile matters –things of the past and the future- so far in your life. So, train your mind through meditation and embark on the world of the Present Moment. Enjoy its fruits. You will live happily amongst all those who are not enlightened on what life really is. How amazing is this world of the Present Moment?
No comments:
Post a Comment