chapter 25 - Present moment now

The past and the future do not exist in reality.

The past is a bunch of happy and unhappy memories and the future is a bunch of either hopeful or fearful imaginations.

The only existence is the present moment, from moment to moment continuously.

If we can keep our awareness concentrate at the present moment now, we will find that there is no fear and worries at all. And thus we are at peace at this very moment.

Once our concentration is not here anymore, our mind will either runaway to past memories (either something desirable or undesirable, happiness or sadness) thinking about the past events, or it will run to the future imagination and anticipation about what we are going to do next or what could happened that doesn't exist in now?

This will remind us about the past events that either had hurt us in the past and continuously to be hurting us now, even though it is already the past, it doesn't exist anymore, and there's nothing that we can change about it, or it will remind us about something that had made us feel happy, but it's gone and left us with missing and longing towards those moments of happiness which is not here now.

The imaginations that are projecting into the future will only generate lots of uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety, fear and worries towards something that doesn't exist at all or might not happen, or we will be having high expectation towards the future. And when thing doesn't come out as what we expected it to be, we will be so disappointed and unhappy.

How often that when we are being at home, we are worrying about things at work or somewhere else? And while we are being at work or out of the home, we are worrying about things at home.

Very often that our mind is not concentrating at the things that we are doing now, such as driving or eating or exercising. Accidents or injuries happen when we do not pay attention onto what we are doing.

The untrained mind is always somewhere else, doesn't like to stay at the present moment of we are, right now.

What we can do is, once we are aware of our attention or the mind has gone somewhere else, without any frustration, we bring it back to the present moment, and continuously doing this until our attention or the mind can stay in the present moment for a long time.

Forget what we like and dislike, forget what we want and don't want.

Forget our status in the world, forget the condition of our body.

From moment to moment, observing the impermanent changes in our mind and the ever-changing surrounding environment without attaching onto them, without judgments, without spontaneous reactions, while performing necessary actions.

Accept ourselves as we are at the moment, how we feel at the moment, what we can do or cannot do at the moment, where we are now at the moment.

Accept the world as it is now at the moment. And all are impermanent.

We will find peace at this instant moment.

Forget the past, forget the future, constantly being at the present moment will lead us towards the realization of Yoga, or timelessness.