To Truly Be Present
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Be here now...
Be present...
I've thought about these phrases a lot since the moment I heard them. I was sure I knew what they meant generally speaking. I thought it was something you achieved, like crossing a finish line after a long race. It seems now that this is far off. To be present, to truly "be here now" is something that is practiced and earned daily.
Due to the nature of our experience of time and space, it can be hard to place where exactly is "now". This is because "now" isn't just a brief moment that passes with each second; it's an eternity. The absence of being in "now" is remaining in the past, or moving ahead into the future. I understand how this might sound confusing... if "now" is an eternity, why aren't the past and the future included in it? Well, in a way, the past and the future are imaginary. They don't exist. Perhaps the grandest illusion we experience as time is that it exists beyond our mind and our perception. It is more accurate to see time as a measuring stick, like a ruler, to measure the way things change throughout their existence. It creates references for contrast and comparison so that we may understand these changes and process the reasons for cause and effect. The only real moment is "now" and it extends into eternity in all directions and dimensions. What has happened, and what will happen, is all happening simultaneously.
To further distinguish this thought, it's not that all actions and mechanisms are working all at once like a firing line, but your entire awareness and perception observes everything all in the moment. All things are emergent, as they are all only happening now. Nothing happens in the past, because the past is the experience of things which have occurred, and the nothing happens in the future, because the future is the experience of which has not occurred. This is why we can only remember the past as it was and imagine the future as it may be. "Now" is where we can experience things as they are happening and is the moment in which all things occur, and in this moment all things are continuously and infinitely emerging into perception.
Okay, that's a lot to process. Not exactly something you typically think about on a Friday afternoon and not really something most people consider unless it's a deep interest. Don't feel bad if it doesn't make sense right away, I didn't get it on the first go either.
So, now to explain "here". Here is anywhere but there. Here doesn't exist in the past, because the past is where you have already been. Here doesn't exist in the future because it is a place you have never been. In a literal sense, you cannot BE in the past or the future. You can only be here, where you are now. This may sound a bit more simple and accessible, but you will be surprised how often you find yourself chasing down moments in the past and longing for the future as if you can actually be there.
As plainly as it can be said, NOW is untouched by time and HERE is untouched by space. Because it is all emerging all at once, the here and now are what has never been experienced and where we have never been, actually occurring and being perceived actively.
Being here and now is like going to see a movie in the theatre for the first time, but in our case, life is the movie and space is the theatre. Being here is being in this space and being in now is watching it happen as it unfolds.
If you're still with me, the way to be "here and now" is to reconcile with the past and do not be disturbed of what the future may hold.
Past reconciliation is to absolve and remove what binds you to a specific moment.
To be undisturbed by the future is to be accepting that we cannot stall the effects of all past causes, but we can choose how we face them.
You have to practice this everyday. Just as the body constantly renews itself through regeneration, you must constantly renew the mind through this practice.
Be present. Be here now.