Re: how does one live in the present

How do you ride a bicycle?

How do you float in water?

You might as well ask these questions, too.

You just do it.

If you find yourself not doing it, then just start doing it.

If you find yourself not doing it, then just start doing it.

If you find yourself not doing it, then just start doing it.

If you fall off the bike, you get back on the back and try again. Eventually, you master it.

If you find yourself not floating in the water -- and this one's really amusing -- you just relax and start floating again, don't you? You really have to work at it -- panic -- to drown.

You're naturally buoyant. You're naturally balanced. You are naturally in the present.

So just be in the present. And "Ta Da!", you're in the present.

We can make it a lot more complicated, of course. I'm rather expert at overcomplicating things, so I know whereof I speak. But the truth is that it's just about the most simple thing you can do -- be, here, now. The trick to it is to just do it. Not try to do it -- "Do, or do not. There is no try." -- Master Yoda. Not get mad at yourself for not doing it. Not decide you can't do it because you haven't so far. Just... be...

Do you want to dwell on the past? Do you want to worry about the future? Do either of these things help? This is like falling off the bike. If you find that you've fallen off the bike, get back on the bike. If you find yourself dwelling in the past or the future, put your attention back in the present. *POP* You're already here and now in the present. Well, that was easy.

You had to work at it to stick your attention in another time frame, but we've all (well, most of us) gotten so confused that we often think it's hard work to stick around in the present. Once we stop believing in that confusion, or once we convince ourselves that it's not true (for the stubborn among us, such as myself, who like to test the water about a trillion times before believing that it's really wet...), we stop being confused, and we lose our compulsions to stick our attention somewhen besides now.

Make sense?

Good luck!

=-John-=
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