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Saturday, January 14, 2006

NOW HERE THIS
How much of what we perceive from moment to moment is actually in the moment?........ 10%? (very rare). 0.1%? --- almost universally. Except for a Boo!, an orgasm or a sneeze, we're not home.
So what happens to the here-and-now while we're not there? Nothing: it is always present, waiting for us to return from our wanderings around the dead past and the imagined future. The pity of it is, we rarely notice that we're not present and available where we are, we have gotten so used to flying on defaultpilot while we're off with the fairies and demons.
Leo and Enza Vita use a very good example of how far from the what-is we get. Have you ever stepped onto an escalator or moving footway that is not moving? Isn't it eerie? No matter how much you tell yourself "It's not moving", the eerie sensation of a moving escalator still imposes itself on your experience, and you walk like you're strapped into calipers. This is a small indication of how powerfully our memory and anticipation of "what ought to be" affects what actually IS. And we spend most of our lives off with the "oughts".
When "what-is" becomes more important than "what-ain't", suffering ceases. (Thanks Colin Hayes for that one)! Could it possibly be simpler than that?
HOW I GET BACK INTO THE NOW.....
I notice something. Anything -- it doesn't matter. The feel of the surface I'm walking on under my bare feet, the breeze on my face, the actual sounds going on around me, the noise in my head........ In that moment of noticing, I'm not thinking about it (thinking about something is ALWAYS in the dead past).
"What's wrong with right now, unless you think about it"
Sailor Bob Adamson
My favourite is to notice what's going on in that great Cineramic expanse of my peripheral vision -- that vastness I never see while I'm focussed in on something. The habit of noticing the peripheral without neccessarily turning to look at it broadens my outlook, prevents accidents, awakens intuition and opens up a whole world of possibilities, waiting in the wings for me to notice them.
Here-now is not lost. It's where you left it, waiting for you to return to the only place where everything you want is possible.

1 comment:

Barrie Barkla said...

I wish I'd read this 40 years ago!