Wednesday August 13, 2008

On the surface, being in the present moment sounds like something easy to do, the difficulty lies in keeping the mind, that ever present chatterbox, silent. When the mind is silent, life seems peaceful, it flows, time disappears and troubles seem to disappear. Everyone has moments when this happens without any effort on their part. When working on a project, that project became all there was in the world, the parts flowed together and presto it was completed. This is not to say there were not struggles, or challenges, and frustrations, only that in the end you feel amazement at how quickly it went. Yet, when you look at a clock you suddenly wonder where the time went. It seemed like only a few moments, yet hours on the clock passed.

During this time, you were in the present moment. Only that moment existed in your consciousness yet the clock ticked off several hours. This is how being in the now feels. Everyone has heard the phrase, time flies when you’re having fun. This is yet another example of being in the present moment.

Before you begin thinking time is going to pass you by if you live your life in the now, think again. Time passes us by when we are focused on the past or spend our time focused on some future event. These times are non productive, when nothing gets accomplished. We often become busy with things we cannot change.

The past is … well, passed. The future is likewise out of reach. We cannot change either in the present moment. We can only change what we choose to do now, and only affect the world as it presents itself to us. Since we cannot change the past and we cannot affect the future if we spend our energies there, wishing things were different, worrying about the future, the present moment is lost to us along with the ability to change our life in a meaningful way/

By putting the mind on mute, shutting down the incessant babbling that comes from there, we begin to see there are other choices that we can make. We can see life from a new perspective.

So how does one mute the mind? How does one shut down the babbling that constantly pours forth from our life long companion? We do it in very small steps. Start by taking a moment in time and simply emptying the mind. Believe it or not, you do control your own mind by your choices. You may choose to let it run at full speed criticizing everything you do, judging those around you, rushing you to appointments, berating you for your past failures, and bombarding you with the possibilities of failure in the future, or you may choose to have it be quiet for a short time.

My suggestion is to set an alarm for 5 minutes. (For me a quiet alarm is best because a loud one would startle me when it went off) Sit with both feet on the floor, feet and legs are not crossed, hands on my legs with the palms facing upward. Focus your sight on a spot on the wall across from you and let your mind be empty. Keep your eyes open and keep looking at the spot, don’t think about it just look. This does not mean to continually say to yourself “empty mind”, or “empty” or “quiet” or anything else, the goal is to have nothing going through the mind, having it be completely empty. When the eyes become dry it is okay to blink, just maintain your eyesight on that spot. Any sound you hear will simply be sound and unless it signals an emergency, should be allowed to pass without thought, comment or action.

At first the thoughts may continue to enter your mind no matter what you do. This is perfectly normal. Realize that over however many years you have been alive your mind has been talking to you at a rate that is much faster than you could speak it. To quiet it will take effort and practice. When a thought occurs don’t fight it, don’t get frustrated simply let it go. Steer yourself back to an empty mind. The first few times you do this exercise, steering yourself back to an empty mind may be what most of the five minutes consists of.

As you practice you will become successful at shutting the mind down for short times. Longer times will become easier over time.

I invite your comments and will publish them here.
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Tuesday July 29, 2008

Most people stumble from moment to moment buffeted by the environment, other people’s attitudes, and a belief system that they are a victim of circumstances. Because of this stumbling they often find themselves falling into the same trap they fell into yesterday and the day before. How they got to this moment is the sum total of their previous choices, however, this does not mean they are powerless to affect their present moment. Each moment offers an opportunity for new choices. Waking up is a process of seeing each moment as the sum total of all there is. In this moment there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now.

Life is a reflection of how we see the world. Have you noticed that when you are late for an appointment, and you get behind the wheel of a car that every slow driver in town just happens to be going the same way you are, that most of the traffic lights turn red just before you get to them, or that this is the day the county finally decided to work on those pot holes? The truth is those slow drivers are with us every day, the lights are changing the same as they do every day and that the county is always working on the road somewhere. The difference is our attitude, our way of looking at things. When we are in a hurry, everything we normally take as part of life suddenly takes on the role of an obstacle. Those “things” have not changed, our attitude towards them has.

To change our life, to take charge of our lives we must change our belief system. Regardless of what we do, regardless of where we find ourselves in the present moment, we still have choices. One of those choices invariably is “Do I look at this moment (consciously) with love in my heart, with anger, with charity, with frustration, or do I (unconsciously) let the feelings arise of their own accord as this moment plays out.”

Did you even realize you have this choice? When facing a boss/coworker/spouse, very few people have the ability to see they have a choice of how to feel, let alone be able to act on that choice. Nevertheless, the choice exists, and not exercising that choice, or any choice, is in reality making a choice. By exercising no conscious choice, we by default unconsciously choose to be buffeted by the events around us, to allow those events to control how we feel, and allow ourselves to fall into the same old traps that we seem to continually find ourselves stuck in.

The question becomes how does one gain the ability to choose in those moments when life is screaming in your face with its fullest strongest intensity?

The answer is we have to live in the now. We have to let go of all the baggage we carry from before, we have to forget that appointment we have two hours from now, we have to fully and completely embrace the present moment. Only when there are no past / future obstacles in the way can we access the wisdom of our earlier lessons and see the choices that face us now. When we can see the choices that face us, we have the ability to choose a different path. At that moment we have the ability to change our destiny.

That said, embracing the now is not a once in a while thing to do. Embracing and living in the now is a daily, moment to moment way of life. Living in the now will not make everything in your world suddenly come up roses. What it will do is allow you to have choices concerning the direction your life goes, to choose the path your life takes.

Clint Perry

I invite your comments and will publish them here.
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Each moment we are faced with choices. Most of these choices we do not see because we are so accustom to living on autopilot. Driving offers a prime example of this. Have you ever been driving somewhere only to arrive and have little or no memory of the drive over? Where was your mind? It was off, thinking about the upcoming meeting with that special someone, or of the fight you just had with your boss, or thinking about that vacation spot down in the Caribbean. You were on autopilot. The trip went safely, or did it?

On that drive, how many traffic lights did you pass? How many other drivers did you meet or pass you? How many pedestrians were walking near the roadway? Normally, this unconscious driving occurs on our most routine drives, the ones we have done dozens of times before. At the end of the drive all we know for sure is that we arrived in one piece, or were we involved in a collision with a car that “came out of nowhere,” or did we get a ticket for running a light we just didn’t see, or was there some far worse consequences.

The danger of running on autopilot is that we are giving over the control of our life to random events that just happen along the way. Suddenly, we are faced with consequences that come as a shock because we were not prepared for them, we never saw them coming. Then we ask the inevitable ‘why me?” We were not prepared for them because we chose to allow our attention (and intention) to wander to times, things, places, people, or events, that had nothing to do with our present moment. Had we been present in that moment, we could have chosen a different course of action. Because we were not present, the course of action was chosen for us. If we arrived in one piece, be forewarned, it may not be so the next time it happens.

Over time we feel tossed from problem to problem and unfortunate circumstance to unfortunate circumstance. We believe fate has it in for us. We look for why life is treating us so poorly and finally decide: “Life is unfair!” Overall we begin to feel miserable. The sad point of all this is we are here and now as a direct result of our previous choices. There is no one to blame for our circumstances but ourselves. We chose our course of action, even though we may not have realized we were making any choices.

The beauty of life is that regaining control over our lives is possible. Life is neither fair nor unfair. Life just is. Life is what we make of it. We can consciously choose our course of action at anytime. We may have consequences to pay for previous choices, yet, this does not prevent us from making new choices starting right now. When we consciously choose our direction, we will find more of our consequences coming in the form of rewards rather than regrets. We can choose not to change, but in so doing we need to recognize that we are choosing to accept whatever comes. Pretending we have no choice or if we fail to choose does not change the fact that every choice (or lack of choice) brings consequences.

Clint Perry

I invite your comments and will publish them here.
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