I don't know if you can relate to this but the present moment often feels cramped. It's constantly pestered by worries and regrets and hurts from the past. And even distracted or interupted by good memories too. And the present can be swamped by worries and hopes and plans for the future. The past and the future can just sandwhich the present to almost a sliver and I miss the beauty right in front of me. Or I'm not fully present for the conversation or fully available for those spoontaneous opportunities. The picture above is a depiction of this state.
But really, the Present is all that there really "is." The past and future don't actually "exist," as if they are some fixed entity or concrete reality. Reality is right now! And moment by moment. In this sense, the present moment, though infintesimally small, has an eternal quality to it. It has expanded so that that which is experienced is much bigger and broader, more detailed, richer and fuller. In this state, the future is actually very close and seems to come much quicker. Figure B depicts this, only I've included the concepts "Past" and "Future" to exagerate the effect of the deepened experience of the Present moment.
A friend of mine suggests that the past, rather than being seen as a vast, ambiguous smorgesbourg of memories (Fig. A), can be seen as a collection of individual "special moments." (Fig. C)
I like that and I think he's heading in the right direction. But I think we should take it one step further. Memories are only "experienced" in the present (see Fig.D). Basically, they cease to exist when they are not being recalled. Rather than being part of this fixed and permanent "past" that continues to exist after we move on, past memories are actually a part of the present moment as they are being recalled in that present moment. (One might argue that the physical or social or emotional "effects" caused by some action in the past carry forward, but even those "effects" are only ever experienced in the present moment). So does this mean that when someone accuses you of "living in the past," this is actually just a "form" of living in the present?!? = )
"Life is short" becomes so very true, because if we are truly living in the present, then we are living moment by moment and there is no "shorter" experience than a "moment." Time, distance, etc., only have meaning when past and future are given weight. Otherwise, a moment is eternal in quality, yet short in quantity.
A wise person has said that "the present moment is the perfect moment because it is the only moment." We are always tempted to complain or compare the present food, or weather, or person, or emotional state to some past experience, but then we are comparing a present reality to a past memory which no longer exists. There is always something worthwhile or even good in the present moment because of the fact that it is real. I think this is what Zen tries to point to. And when the Bible says that "Now is the day (or time) of salvation." But if we filter the present moment through memories of a better past or hopes for a better future experience than we usually distort any possibility of experience reality as it is right now. We lose the capacity to "be" or to experience "being." Any possibility of a salvation or enlightenment related to a "becoming" only has substance in our ability to embrace this moment in it's fullness. To be or not to be, that is the question. And the answer.
(I must give credit to Alan W. Watts "The Wisdom of Insecurity" and Eckart Tolle "The Power of Now" and "The New Earth" for their inspiration regarding living in the Now).
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