The remembered present
27/June/2009 07:35 AM Filed in: mindfulness
Some more reflections on mindfulness as memory, and
time. Specifically, the question: What do we mean as
“the present?” As a meditation teacher, I speak about
“the present” a great deal. Hardly surprising, as
all of the work of meditation takes place
there. Or here, I should say. So in my professional
capacity I speak a great deal about the present. A
while ago I noticed that it is very difficult to do
so without adding the word, “moment.” “The present”
is “the present moment.” But is it?
This question arose for me when I realised that I
have never found a reference to the Buddha speaking
of “the present moment.” He speaks about the present;
but he does not seem to regard it as a moment (in
Pali, khana). Is this significant?
I think so. Let’s consider our concept of the present moment, or the present as a moment. I find that when I am dashing about, lost in concept and obsessively chasing after this or that activity, the present is very brief. The past is quite large, and real. It’s what I’m dashing away from. The future is very large, and real. It’s what I’m dashing towards. The present, in contrast, is something I have to get out of as quickly as possible so that something significant can happen. Right now, I’m typing this blog. But what feels most significant to me, now, is not typing this, but having a completed blog entry. The first after a long absence. At last, back on track. The present, for me, is certainly a moment, one that feels incomplete, that looks toward the future for its completion, and justification.
But when I am being mindful, the present takes on a very different feel. It expands. Past and future recede. There is no sense of rushing though this to get to something else. There is very little sense of something else to get to, as any concept I have of this “something else” is comfortably contained within the present. Altogether a much more satisfactory way to live.
Mindfulness, in other words, is intimately linked to a sense of an extended present. A present that includes what I used to regard as past. An immediate past, which has now become a remembered present. I notice this when I am making the effort to practise mindfulness of ordinary activities. This, of course, is the complication - mindfulness does require effort. The effort, as we have discussed, to remember. Reminding myself to be aware; that I am already aware. Mindfulness is found in the tracking (anupassana) of experience as it unfolds over time. This widens the present, and in turn allows the present to have meaning, context, provided by a sense of a continuity from past to future. The present becomes the remembered present.
This is very clear to me when driving a car. Awareness slips from driving - the alertness to what is immediately happening on the road around me, along with the decisions I take in adjusting to these changing conditions - to daydreaming, and back again. This is natural. This is what awareness does. But when I am mindful, I am tracking, and so remembering, this movement. I can recognise - just then, I spaced out. I slipped into this particular dream. And then, I returned. I’m driving again. So being mindful, I find myself living in a remembered present, and it’s the mindfulness that provides the “remembered” to the “present.”
So the practice of mindfulness includes questions such as, “What did I just do?,” “What just happened?“ For a long time I neglected this aspect of the practice, being so anxious to “return” to the present. As if the present is something I could abandon, even if I wanted to. And the anxiety seems inherent in this relationship to time. When the present is a moment, if I blink, I’ll miss it. But that’s absurd. I can’t miss the present, when I’m missing in the present. The extended present, which is a remembered present. When, in contrast, I am living within this extended present - when I am living mindfully - nothing is, or can be, missing. I am simply present to awareness coming and going. And within this space there is nothing to be anxious about. Which makes meditation a lot more relaxed, and pleasant.
I think so. Let’s consider our concept of the present moment, or the present as a moment. I find that when I am dashing about, lost in concept and obsessively chasing after this or that activity, the present is very brief. The past is quite large, and real. It’s what I’m dashing away from. The future is very large, and real. It’s what I’m dashing towards. The present, in contrast, is something I have to get out of as quickly as possible so that something significant can happen. Right now, I’m typing this blog. But what feels most significant to me, now, is not typing this, but having a completed blog entry. The first after a long absence. At last, back on track. The present, for me, is certainly a moment, one that feels incomplete, that looks toward the future for its completion, and justification.
But when I am being mindful, the present takes on a very different feel. It expands. Past and future recede. There is no sense of rushing though this to get to something else. There is very little sense of something else to get to, as any concept I have of this “something else” is comfortably contained within the present. Altogether a much more satisfactory way to live.
Mindfulness, in other words, is intimately linked to a sense of an extended present. A present that includes what I used to regard as past. An immediate past, which has now become a remembered present. I notice this when I am making the effort to practise mindfulness of ordinary activities. This, of course, is the complication - mindfulness does require effort. The effort, as we have discussed, to remember. Reminding myself to be aware; that I am already aware. Mindfulness is found in the tracking (anupassana) of experience as it unfolds over time. This widens the present, and in turn allows the present to have meaning, context, provided by a sense of a continuity from past to future. The present becomes the remembered present.
This is very clear to me when driving a car. Awareness slips from driving - the alertness to what is immediately happening on the road around me, along with the decisions I take in adjusting to these changing conditions - to daydreaming, and back again. This is natural. This is what awareness does. But when I am mindful, I am tracking, and so remembering, this movement. I can recognise - just then, I spaced out. I slipped into this particular dream. And then, I returned. I’m driving again. So being mindful, I find myself living in a remembered present, and it’s the mindfulness that provides the “remembered” to the “present.”
So the practice of mindfulness includes questions such as, “What did I just do?,” “What just happened?“ For a long time I neglected this aspect of the practice, being so anxious to “return” to the present. As if the present is something I could abandon, even if I wanted to. And the anxiety seems inherent in this relationship to time. When the present is a moment, if I blink, I’ll miss it. But that’s absurd. I can’t miss the present, when I’m missing in the present. The extended present, which is a remembered present. When, in contrast, I am living within this extended present - when I am living mindfully - nothing is, or can be, missing. I am simply present to awareness coming and going. And within this space there is nothing to be anxious about. Which makes meditation a lot more relaxed, and pleasant.
|