I would say that the largest goal of my life is to fully experience it for however long it lasts.
This seems like the simplest thing to say, but I am amazed at how often I catch myself worrying about some future that does not yet exist. A typical scenario could go like this: I am walking to the bus in the morning, the sun is out, the air is fresh, and the day is young.
The stream of consciousness: "I have SO many things to do this week! I'll never have time to get x, y and z done. What am I going to eat for dinner? I must remember to get change for the washing machine, or I won't have any clean socks left for tomorrow. I can't believe I broke a glass today, I hope I didn't miss any little pieces... bla, bla, bla"...
Equally as often, I catch myself doing the same thing about the past: "I should have planned my morning better, now I don't have time to call back so-and-so until late this evening, and I can't really remember locking the door when I left the house. Did I leave my towel and pyjamas on the bathroom floor? I hope I get home before my roommate so I can be sure to pick them up... bla, bla, bla...."....
I get on the bus, sit through my first two classes and by the time they are done, I have started the process anew, this time lamenting the fact that I would love to just take a 5 minute breather outside and smell the air. Well what was I doing when I had the little walk this morning? I frittered away that time thinking about things that either have already happened and I can't do anything about (and therefore do not really exist), or things that have not yet happened (and therefore do not exist). I missed my lovely moments of outdoor freshness for that? Pretty silly I would say to myself.
In fact, there have been entire days or even weeks where I have been out doing neat things, but hardly even remember them because my mind was somewhere else at the time. Does this sound familiar to you?
The big point here, and I think one that is HUGELY overlooked in our mile-a-minute, information overloaded, be available by phone, email, text message, snail mail and carrier pigeon 24/7 is that our lives take place in the moment. Miss the moment, miss your life. It's as simple as that. John Daido Loori, a former chemist turned Zen monk who has written a ton of great books describes the concept of "coming home to the moment" because that's where we really are. Nothing else really exists for us but our moment to moment experience. If we spend too much time worrying about the past and future, we miss the moment-to-moment experience and, ultimately, our lives.
I am trying to minimize the amount of time (that I will NEVER get back!) that I spend locked inside my own stream of thought and not experiencing the lovely life that is going on right. this. second. now. I am able to do it more and more often these days, and I practice it by taking the time to meditate. When I am able to leave all of the millions of ultimately pointless thoughts that stream through my mind all day, things seem to come alive that I never even noticed before, like the trees along the property at the Legislature. They're leafless now, looking like the inside-out lungs of the planet, being exactly who they are. I have noticed that each individual tree has a completely different look to it, a different character. I feel happy to see them when I walk by, sort of like seeing a nice acquaintance. They have been there every day that I have walked past (and for a long time before that), going through their seasonal cycle, hiding nothing about what and who they are, I just didn't see it because I was too "busy". Now my 5 minute morning walk seems like a nice visit with the day.
I still catch myself (often) thinking of things that don't really matter, and I am making a conscious effort to walk away from that. I have a challenge for you: give it a try for a day. Try to consciously turn your attention away from all the internal chatter and just experience the day. Get all the things done that you need to do, just make an effort to experience a few moments without the endless stream of thoughts, value judgments, and preconceived notions. Please write back and let me know if it feels different from the usual.
7 comments:
you should check out this book called My Stroke of Insight, it's about this neuroscientist who has a stroke and experiences it from the inside, as an actor and an observer at the same time. As a side-effect of her stroke she observes how the internal chatter in her mind gets turned off with the blood flooding her brain. this forced meditation apparently feels something like nirvana.
love the blog idea, you are on my reader list.
Masha
I will definitely read that book, it sounds fascinating!
Wow. This is so great! I'm actually taking a 'music and brain development' seminar right now, and have chosen meditation and focus as my portfolio topic. I am just getting into understanding different concepts and kind of.. making experiments for myself about my personal focus(in order to build a starting point..) ..This blog is amazing! It all makes so much sense... and brings me to realize that I AM constantly distracted by Everything but the present. ...not exactly productive! I'm definitely going to try and live in the moment and enjoy it. thanks man :) ...looking foward to more :)
BTW, if you click on the image at the top of this post, it will enlarge and you can get a good look at the trees...
Hi! Every morning I walk to work, and at a point I have an awesome view over the sea hills and city lights. Sometimes I find I didn't even notice what it looked like today (as it is completely different every morning - colours, light, weather, etc). So I made myself a goal to at least notice this scenery to day! I find it a good start when I actually notice this - to keep the presence of mind throughout the day. Interesting post! :-)
Miss Attica
I know I keep commenting on each entry, but they're all really interesting and they make me think.....so....how does one balance being in the the moment and not worrying about a future that doesn't yet (YET!) exist and doing extremely practical things like planning for that future. Sometimes I feel like I have to be thinking ahead so that things like the mortgage get paid and I don't blow money for paying bills on other stuff because the future doesn't exist. I love the idea of letting go, but then why practice for the big concert, etc? I find it a bit of a balancing act that I'm not very good at yet.
What I want more than anything else are comments, so PLEASE post away!
I think that an there is an important distinction between proper preparation to keep your life in order versus constantly worrying about things that you cannot change. My little example about leaving my pyjamas on the bathroom floor, or returning a phone call much later that day are the sorts of things that I can do nothing about until much later in the day, so what am I getting done by talking to myself about it while out walking? Not a whole lot. Best to decide that I'm going to return that call and pick up that stuff the first chance I get, and then focus on other things until that time comes. I can write it down if I think I'll forget to do it, but other than that, what else can I do?
Spending appropriate time practicing for a big concert, on the other hand, is a physical and mental preparation that must be done in order to do that job and play that concert. You would be shooting yourself in the foot if you chose not to put in that work and I think it would be a rare individual who could really enjoy a performance if they were way under prepared for it. It would be too stressful (at least for me). When that moment of performance came, you would have robbed yourself of it already by having not done the work to prepare for it. But I would think that spending tons of time outside of practicing over analyzing or beating yourself up over missed notes would not be all that helpful either.
The balance part is really at the heart of this whole thing, and I think that it is different depending on who you are. Of course we must plan, we would be foolish to just say "Come what may!" all the time, but it would be equally foolish to spend as much time as some do thinking constantly about the future. It really hasn't arrived yet, but we do have right now.
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