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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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The idea that the present moment is all that matters
    #26460521 - 01/30/20 04:00 PM (4 years, 17 days ago)

The whole “all that matters is now” ethos is not all it's cracked up to be. Having a memory and awareness of the past, plus some idea of what the future holds, or what you feel it should hold, are completely necessary. This is often overlooked with the now popular insistence upon the exclusive importance of the present moment. I get it, and it’s important to realize that we get caught up in our conceptualizations of time, which takes us out of having present awareness. I understand that the only moment we ever experience is the present moment. But I think something more balanced would be smarter. It’s not an either-or thing. An emphasis can be an overemphasis.

We need a focus on the present moment, along with the acknowledgment that we cannot, as human beings, possibly do without past and future – nor should we want to. It is also important to note that everything you experience is a flow that has a bandwidth, and has an origin that is, for you, in the past. So if time must come in, the present moment cannot be the whole story, anyway.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici


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InvisibleRahz
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26460662 - 01/30/20 05:20 PM (4 years, 17 days ago)

I think the obvious benefit regards not wishing things had happened differently and not counting eggs before they are hatched. But yea, it's more of a koan than a statement of fact... although in a way it is a fact. That's what makes it a koan.


--------------------
rahz

comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace


"You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi


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OfflineKickleM
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26460672 - 01/30/20 05:23 PM (4 years, 17 days ago)

I somewhat agree. I prefer the term presence and thinking of it more as a verb than a noun. 

One can be present with anything :thumbup:


--------------------
Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction?
Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: Kickle]
    #26460857 - 01/30/20 07:18 PM (4 years, 17 days ago)

I take refuge in the moment when I get lost, which is all the time.
the moment is not a solution to problems, but it is a handy reference to getting back on track in case you lose you way, which is inevitable.

I hope you don't think I am talking in circles but I am - actually I hope you do think I am. (what I actually am is working out a kink in my hiney from sitting.)


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:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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OfflineOnlyHuman
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: Rahz]
    #26460904 - 01/30/20 07:38 PM (4 years, 17 days ago)

I really don't think that anyone is arguing that one should not prepare for the future while valuing and learning from the past. Reflection is necessary, and so is preparation, but it is important not to continue to reflect once one has drained their wit, or else they will be living in the past, in the same way, it is important not to obsess over what the future will bring, but to plan for it to the best of one's ability. When you are not reflecting or preparing, you should be living in the moment.


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InvisibleRahz
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: OnlyHuman]
    #26461028 - 01/30/20 08:52 PM (4 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

OnlyHuman said:
I really don't think that anyone is arguing that one should not prepare for the future while valuing and learning from the past. Reflection is necessary, and so is preparation, but it is important not to continue to reflect once one has drained their wit, or else they will be living in the past, in the same way, it is important not to obsess over what the future will bring, but to plan for it to the best of one's ability. When you are not reflecting or preparing, you should be living in the moment.




In practice some people more than others may take less heed of the future and have less need of learning from the past. Minimizing the energy spent reflecting and preparing could be a reasonable proposition, but I agree and there could be too little just as too much of a thing. Going 100 percent no past no future is extreme, though it might also be called nirvana. An idea for contemplation rather than an immediate goal among the living.


--------------------
rahz

comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace


"You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi


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Invisiblesudly
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26461368 - 01/31/20 01:45 AM (4 years, 17 days ago)

In the present moment I responded to your thread but became of my own questions.

I don't really understand what people say, in general, when they suggest to 'be in the moment', like for me it's hard to distinguish day dreaming from 'being in the moment' and the line isn't very clear for me.

Sometimes I enjoy day dreaming about something that just happened or something I'd like to do etc.

But for me that is being in the moment as much as it is when I'm focused outside on doing a task like the mowing. Even then I'm listening to music and almost 'instinctively' doing it.

Well maybe I'd just like to ask what the difference is between instinct and being in the present moment?
Because it isn't necessarily clear to me at the moment, but could be soon.


--------------------
I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.



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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: sudly]
    #26461627 - 01/31/20 06:49 AM (4 years, 17 days ago)

@ sudly,
in the moment while day dreaming, you will be aware that you are day dreaming, and what your body position is, and what sensations are happening, and your breath, and you may certainly continue day dreaming.

the ongoing conscious continuum is composed of your active mental contents.

being in the moment means that your mental contents include awareness of your breath, body position, and sensations.

when you can chew gum and walk in the moment you are good to go!
it's about including awareness among mental contents that are waves in a larger ocean of which there is no control, obviously.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:


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InvisiblePinkerton
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26461639 - 01/31/20 06:58 AM (4 years, 17 days ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
in the moment while day dreaming



Walking completely peacefully anywhere at anytime on planet Earth. :heart:

We be jammin', mon!


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26461905 - 01/31/20 10:36 AM (4 years, 16 days ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
The whole “all that matters is now” ethos is not all it's cracked up to be. Having a memory and awareness of the past, plus some idea of what the future holds, or what you feel it should hold, are completely necessary. This is often overlooked with the now popular insistence upon the exclusive importance of the present moment. I get it, and it’s important to realize that we get caught up in our conceptualizations of time, which takes us out of having present awareness. I understand that the only moment we ever experience is the present moment. But I think something more balanced would be smarter. It’s not an either-or thing. An emphasis can be an overemphasis.

We need a focus on the present moment, along with the acknowledgment that we cannot, as human beings, possibly do without past and future – nor should we want to. It is also important to note that everything you experience is a flow that has a bandwidth, and has an origin that is, for you, in the past. So if time must come in, the present moment cannot be the whole story, anyway.




.    Many good replies

.  A few more thoughts

.    What is always in the present moment is the body.
If the heart or breathing stops, in the present, there will be no more you,
to fantasize about the future or the past where no one has ever gone.

.  It is only the mind that takes big trips into the past and future.
Indeed this is partly what makes humans different from other animals,
- for better or worse.

.  Even in terms of the mind, meditation is grounded in present awareness.
And in terms of the self, emotions, being mediated by the body, also occur in the present.
So therapy that works with processing feelings, is also grounded in the present, even if their cause was related to 'the past'.

.    Most likely the human love of sports, is based on their taking us largely 'out of our minds' and bringing us back into the present, the only "place" we ever feel truly alive.

.    As regards, sex like sports, it is a present moment deal. If fantasizing about future, or remembering past, sex or sports, were as good as the real thing, no one would bother with the real thing, as they all involve a lot of bother when occurring in the physical world.

.    Loosely speaking, one might say, nature in her wisdom, caused us to forget, our dreams upon awakening, and have less vivid imaginations while awake, lest we become dream junkies, and shortly thereafter go extinct.
.    Simply put survival involves constant work in the present. Of course learning from the past, and imagining future consequences, hopefully guides, these present time efforts.
.    In brief as most of us misuse this imaginative capacity, with the result of enormous self caused suffering, spiritual teachers have emphasized: 'being here now'.


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InvisibleFerdinando
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: laughingdog]
    #26461980 - 01/31/20 11:38 AM (4 years, 16 days ago)

bravo on quitting all those substances

that was one of the biggest things in my year last year

like you quit poppy seeds etc.

that is one of the most interesting things I have heard

don't do more than a bit of each substance you do


--------------------
with our love with our love we could save the world


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: Ferdinando]
    #26462048 - 01/31/20 12:20 PM (4 years, 16 days ago)

?????????????????

nobody in the entire thread said anything about "quitting all those substances".

You seem confused....


Edited by laughingdog (01/31/20 12:31 PM)


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26462279 - 01/31/20 02:47 PM (4 years, 16 days ago)

These are all good replies, with which I agree. Looking at it from another perspective, what is the nature of the present moment more fundamentally? It is often said that time is an illusion, and has no fundamental objective basis, but is rather a derivative consequence of deeper forces. This I agree with. So what that means is that the present moment is literally the only moment. But I don't think this is the whole story.

It was mentioned that the body is always in the present, and our attention is always in the present. But when you consider it carefully, time must be brought in in both cases. The heart beats, the brain processes, the blood flows, the organs function -- all in a temporal dimension. They are not precisely at the nexus of past and future, but have some extension in time. Indeed, as I pointed out originally, the mind exists as part of a flow with a certain bandwidth in the brain-mind-awareness loop, so everything we experience actually took place a few milliseconds in the past.

Also, physicists feel strongly that time, whatever its illusory properties, exists as a dimension, through which it would in principle be possible to travel with sufficient technology, throughout the whole timeline in our universe.

So it seems to me that, even though time may not be a fundamental property of the deeper existence, we nevertheless must be subject to it even at the deepest levels of our being -- or if not, certainly in our bodies and minds. And if that is the case, what is the meaning, in the most literal sense, of the present moment that is timeless? Perhaps we can attain it with advanced meditation, psychedelics, what have you, but inevitably we return to time. So in the end, I suppose, we must take both time and the timeless into consideration together, at least as humans.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26462534 - 01/31/20 05:26 PM (4 years, 16 days ago)

Yes it is paradoxical, which the mind may find frustrating.
On the one hand we have impermanence, and aging, yet the feeling of being alive always happens in the present.
It is in the flow state, that we escape.
supposedly Bob Dylan said: "the purpose of art is to stop time"
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/552645
I would clarify that: The purpose of creating art is to stop time.
Hence the folks that alway ask: "How long did it take you to paint (or whatever) that?" totally miss the true secret, of real creators. (Along with those who always want to be told what things mean with words. Or what the meaning or purpose of life is.)


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OfflineRJ Tubs 202
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26462837 - 01/31/20 09:30 PM (4 years, 16 days ago)

I tend to agree the present moment is all that exists and that the past and future are story narratives rooted in imagination and fantasy. I used to spend a lot of time planning for the future. Growing mushrooms was a great distraction for many years, as I treated my grow projects as if I was working on a PhD and always wanted "something to think about" - which was always future plans for new experiments. I would use planning for the future any time I wanted to occupy (distract?) myself from what was happening. Weather it was a 2 hour road trip home or sitting in a daylong seminar for work, I would expend significant effort planning. I have many notebooks of plans. Don't get me wrong - planning is not bad. But even oxygen has it's lethal levels. 

I notice when I'm in stressing mode I often dig up old resentments. If I hop on that train of thought I can quickly find my heart pounding and hands sweating as I seethe with anger. 99.99% of my chronic anger has always been about the past and not about anything occurring in the present. 

I enjoy life much more when I place a priority on being aware of what is actually happening in front of me.


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OfflineGrapefruit
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26463224 - 02/01/20 08:33 AM (4 years, 16 days ago)

I think the present is all that matters ultimately. The trouble comes in the fact that we are born and live within abstractions, and therefore there is a usefulness (neccessity?) for abstractions in dealing with the space in which our cognitive lives take shape, thereby bringing us back to moment to moment living. Platitudes about living in the present are not enough alone, and may even be damaging.


--------------------
Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. 

"Chat your fraff
Chat your fraff
Just chat your fraff
Chat your fraff"


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: Grapefruit]
    #26463543 - 02/01/20 12:05 PM (4 years, 15 days ago)

On another note we tend to believe, we can just be here now when ever we choose. However after reading this description on the experience of advanced meditators, I doubt this is the case. It seems it takes great effort to develop this degree of concentration and present moment awareness. And of course such awareness can be trained only by a continual effort in the eternal present - hence the emphasis on staying in the now by many teachers:

“You will be unable to keep up with objects by trying to label or name each of them when they arise so quickly. A meditator should simply be aware of them from moment to moment, without naming them, so that he or she can follow them. If a meditator wants to name them, he or she does not try to name them all. When one object is labeled, he or she may become aware of four, five, or ten other objects. This isn’t a problem. You may tire if you attempt to name all the objects that occur. What matters most is being precisely and accurately aware of each object. In this case, note any objects that come in through the six sense doors, without following the normal procedure. Of course if noting in this way does not go smoothly, you can always revert to the normal procedure.
Mental and physical phenomena arise and pass away much faster than the twinkling of an eye or a flash of lightning. But when your insight knowledge matures, you will be able to clearly perceive each fleeting phenomena without missing a single one by simply being aware of them from moment to moment. Your mindfulness will become so strong it will seem as if it rushes into the object that arises; it will seem as if objects fall into the noting mind. The knowing mind, too, will clearly and distinctly know each and every single object that arises. You might even think: “Phenomena are arising and passing away instantaneously; their appearance and disap- pearance are very fast, like a machine running at full speed. Yet I am able to perceive them all from moment to moment. I don’t think I am missing anything or that there’s anything else that I should be aware of.”
this is the personally experienced insight knowledge that we cannot even dream of. “

from "The Manual of insight
by Venerable Mahāsi Sayādaw
1904 – 1982:


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: laughingdog] * 1
    #26463611 - 02/01/20 12:42 PM (4 years, 15 days ago)

when practicing relaxed awareness, by Perceiving objects, and by labelling even more so, one triggers memory recollections, (AKA thoughts,) so yes the mind rushes towards what is in the moment rather than filling with related thoughts.

when not doing this practice one can be very much in the moment and aware also of one's reactions and ideas, and one can regularly return to the moment during conversations and other activities. This improves the quality of those activities.

It helps to have a good sense of humor because a lot of funny stuff goes on.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26463657 - 02/01/20 01:08 PM (4 years, 15 days ago)

:smile:


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OfflineLoaded Shaman
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Re: The idea that the present moment is all that matters [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26464482 - 02/01/20 11:49 PM (4 years, 15 days ago)

Where the hell else are you "temporally" anchored BUT present moment awareness?

Where else are decisions made that impact the completely illusory "future", which is just another "present"; both of which are complete abstractions dependent upon a conscious, self-aware observer deciding those labels mean anything in the first place?

What is outside your consciousness, and how can you prove it's there...minus your consciousness?


--------------------



"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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