The Present Moment Is Meditation
The ‘power of now’ is about a state of mind, not about any specific place or time.
To live in the ‘here and now’ is looked upon as positive to meditation. Focusing on the ‘here and now’ helps towards not letting the mind go astray in the wherever, whenever – not letting the mind wander towards this thing someone somewhere said last week and that keeps nagging you, nor in that special celebration of next month.
‘Here and now’ is the steady flux of little things happening. When you’re in meditation, well, probably not so much is happening. So you can calm your mind.
And that’s great.
But in this ‘here and now’, it’s not any specific time and place that are important.
You could be thinking about yesterday, no problem. Then think about the ‘here and now’ of yesterday. The ‘here and now’ is about a way of thinking that is steady and inviting. You invite the things that happen, to just happen. You invite your own mind to not make a lot of convolutions. You invite your thoughts to go slow. The ‘here and now’ may help. But a specific time and place are not what it’s about. During meditation, you might even forget time and place. Or: time and place themselves may feel to become larger than usual. You might feel timeless and placeless. And that’s OK. Just let yourself go.
The ‘here and now’ are nice to let yourself go into.
At any moment in the ‘here and now’, something unexpected may happen. You cannot look into the future, therefore theoretically, anywhere and anytime, something unexpected may happen. Knowing this can hold you back from falling into lethargy. You can be steadily curious – without letting this curiosity diminish your meditation. It just goes on. Anything can happen… while probably nothing happens. Can you feel it now, where you are, being attentive to this? It’s like a little boat on a river under the moon, slowly drifting, going along with the stream towards the sea. Very peaceful. Someone is sitting in the boat. This someone is you. You can look at the moon. You’re very quiet and relaxed. You let go.
Meditation in the ‘here and now’ is not about the here and now. It’s about the meditation. It’s a state of being.
“Everything that happens, happens by itself, spontaneously.”
This is meditation.
This is Openness.
Related Posts
Letting Yourself Go
To many people, this is a tricky part of meditating or any meditative exercise. Nevertheless, it is crucial. Without letting go, there is only a staying put. Involved in properly ‘letting go’ are depth and rationality. Meditative stance Without the big endeavor to meditate oneself into nirvana, a meditative stance is an everyday life way-of-being Read the full article…
A Problem with ZEN
Nearing the end of WW-II, Zen was a substantial driving force behind the kamikaze: suicide pilots who in droves rammed into the US Army. (There is of course not one kind of ‘meditation’. There are many, which are very different from each other.) 7500 kamikaze pilots flying towards death and destruction Doesn’t sound very ‘Zen’? Read the full article…
Three Short Meditations: Focus
This is a short series of short meditations. You can take a few minutes to do any one of them. You could start with one minute. Then, gradually, more and more if you like. It’s best to put a time on it before you start, and let your mobile give you a signal at the Read the full article…