The Now as a spiritual escapism.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Many times, I've been told when thoughts that makes me feel sad or have a an emotion that is not desirable and such that i should be in the now and not dwell on the past or what is going to happen.

 

People who say this are peddling a thin version of mindfulness which definitely is escapism. One of the key things they're missing is that thoughts which refer to the past or future occur in the present.

 

Think about something from ten years ago. That thought won't happen ten years ago - it will happen now. 

 

And so does anything you do to process those thoughts, whether you try to escape them or engage with them or just watch them pass through. It is impossible to be anywhere except the present. The question is not 'am I in the present?', but 'am I fully engaged with what's going on and what I'm doing, in a mindful manner?' 

 

By ignoring these thoughts, they are in fact ignoring an important part of present-moment experience. It is impossible to be anywhere except the present - but it is possible to close your eyes to a section of it, and cling tight to another section of it. This is a habit mindfulness is meant to unravel.

 

It is true that not thinking or just thinking about what is in the now.. makes me feel better and relax and such... but i see it as a kind of escapism of the thoughts that makes me feel sad...it is like not dealing with them and with what they are trying to point to.. and running into the now where they don't exist.

 

No matter how a person stays in the now and train his mind to be in the present moment, there are triggers that is going to appear in the now that will awaken back the thoughts he tried to escape from by altering his focusing in the now. these thoughts will always stay there waiting for you to get triggered or lose your focus back into them to.

 

these thoughts are there for a reason, and demand your attention to be healed and transformed. they are the result of the past and exist in the now, but need to be triggered and if not healed, they will be in your future.

 

Yes, absolutely! This is the other key thing these people are missing.

[EmeraldHead]

I skim-read this threat but I see the same point of view from everyone so far. 

 

In my opinion, mindfullness from a spiritual angle refers to cultivating thought control - the real way, not through meditation, but through concentration. As you increase your concentration (and thus your brain power) your view of the world, everything changes. And one point you have to realise that the same crap that was happening 2,000 years ago is still happening today. You also have all kinds of thought from when you were a kid or were paying a lot of attention. Frater Veos (a bardonian, as bardon also kind of trains this, in IIH) calls them micro-thoughts. Things like cartoons you watched a long time ago. They are deep down. And all kinds of more recent thoughts. Thats why you figure out the solution to something when its too late, the thoughts are still going on down there. 

 

SO...its a reminder, don't get caught in anything of this, no matter how wonderful.....and by wonderful I mean that as achieve some nice concentration and your brain power increase you become quite smart so you will notice lots of things. Check out T. Lavon. for more info:

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjyflCcLz2eXlgjSeaHsQw

 

My 2 cents.

[Karl]

I half agree, but it isn't a disobedient mind-like some pet that does what it likes- it is our minds and our minds that are are doing this at our bidding. It isn't a badly trained pet, but a wilfully trained reality. We can choose what we think and how we think it, let's no apportion blame to some mythical 'other mind'. We are our minds as we are our bodies. If we fail to get our bodies fit it is not the fault of our bodies to the extent we can change behaviours.

[Shad282]

Introspection is the beginning of the application of reason, until we get under the hood we can't begin to do anything to fix the problem. The things we endured in the past are memories, but these 'hurts' are the result of our philosophical understanding at the time we developed the emotion.

 

I must return to the three questions to illustrate: where am I ? How do I know it ? What should I do ?

 

These questions explain each position along the road our life takes. When our philosophy is immature at an early age we don't understand some of the things that we experience. A child told that his Father has died in an accident has a propensity to try and find some internal blame for the tragedy. You see here that it is our philosophy that needs to be straight, or we will find ourselves taking on board, or reacting to events in ways that impart suffering and then this suffering becomes part of the philosophy.

 

Our philosophy is an interactive program, it is not like a locked computer program. As we take decisions and react to things we are adding to the philosophy in real time. We are being shaped by our actions and reactions like a pebble in a stream. It is not only the pebble that is worn away, it also changes the flow of the river itself.

 

So, Buddah had a philosophy, just as we all do. His philosophy led him to actions, those actions fed into the philosophy. We must conclude that no one makes us, we entirely make ourselves. Of course this is not the case with a damaged mind either physically, or through severe mental/physical trauma which results in irreparable damage to the cognition.

 

If Buddah said he saw and experienced certain things, then it is true for him that he did, it is additionally true that we accept that this is what he believes he experienced. However, whatever he experienced has no bearing on our own lives. We are not Buddah, we should not seek to emulate him.

 

If we have introspection we can rewire our internal philosophy (which is our program of living ). It's not a matter of erasing hurts and emotional pain, but to put these experiences into the correct context. The child who's father died in the accident can then see that no blame can be taken- that he would be dishonestly gaining a negative value of guilt by shouldering that belief. As soon as that context is restored then the effect is not just on that one area of history, but across the entire history and now, as a result our actions in the present and future reflect that altered philosophy and the areas of misappropriated sadness, guilt, hurt no longer weigh upon us either in the past or future. We can feel sad and melancholy, we can remember the experiences, but they no longer form part of our future in the sense they once did.

 

Isn't it true we just want to feel happy, to have confidence in ourselves and pride in our actions ? Isn't that inner strength and light exactly what we need to create, to love and to feel love without any sense of guilt ? That we don't need to be hedonistic and search for pleasure- which should be the result of gaining honest value and not an end in itself. When we feel good about ourselves we can be open and loving, creative and productive, we no longer fear our shadow and act with direct knowledge. That is the full flowering of the ego,that a man becomes his birth right. That's the best we can be and then we can accept failure, we stop carrying baggage and the light of our inner self confidence and wisdom carries us forward.

 

Yes, I do understand that, our past, the environment we live in from people, society, media they all affect how we see the world, it sets a filter through which see the world and experience it and dictate our perspective of life. 

 

But mainly what i said, is focused on determining whether the spirit/soul exist and is not the mind... even tho the buddha experienced such things i spoke about earlier, also other experienced the same thing in different culture and didn't know about the buddha and what he experienced, they weren't influenced by him to have similar experience. 

In other words, there are a place or something that introspection reveals it, after practicing and training your mind.

[Karl]

Yes, I do understand that, our past, the environment we live in from people, society, media they all affect how we see the world, it sets a filter through which see the world and experience it and dictate our perspective of life. 

 

But mainly what i said, is focused on determining whether the spirit/soul exist and is not the mind... even tho the buddha experienced such things i spoke about earlier, also other experienced the same thing in different culture and didn't know about the buddha and what he experienced, they weren't influenced by him to have similar experience. 

In other words, there are a place or something that introspection reveals it, after practicing and training your mind.

What things occur without mind ? None, so don't go looking for things that cannot be. Introspection reveals nothing more than the mind. Even Buddah was reduced to describing perception with the mind.

[Shad282]

What things occur without mind ? None, so don't go looking for things that cannot be. Introspection reveals nothing more than the mind. Even Buddah was reduced to describing perception with the mind.

what about people who can connect over distance, or those who can heal ? ...etc ?

[3bob]

Seeker of wisdom had some good points in post 51.... the way I'd put it is that all energy is now but thoughts and or the traces that they are may or may not be enlivened in the now depending on whether or not energy is flowing through them,  thus if the relative past is resolved then the thought or memory that it is in the mind realm does not have energy flowing through it reliving all that it involves.  Memory is important but it is a retracing or re-enlivening by energy flow through a memory pattern that should be under our control and not have mind of its own, (so to speak) that compels us or gets us stuck as energy repeating through a trace.  

 

In that way "being in the now" means all thoughts are resolved and at peace,  with the energy that we are being free and not  driven by or attached to various thoughts that loop and bounce around willy-nilly. 

Edited September 8, 2016 by 3bob

[Karl]

what about people who can connect over distance, or those who can heal ? ...etc ?

What about them ? either they can or they cannot, but I find the telephone or internet functions more reliably and the spread of medical knowledge is more effective from the point of view of healing.