Living in the Moment

Gosh, I've been reading again and trying to understand this idea of being in the moment. Everytime I think I have it, it escapes me. Which, of course, is the point. It is not about catching something. My mind wants to catch this idea and in one or two brief seconds, I find that I am in it and then I am in my mind again and the suffering starts all over again.

Can it possibly be that there really isn't anything here? In any given second - nanosecond - there is something, but in the next nanosecond, there is something else, so there is nothing that stay stable and solid from one second to the next. This means that there really is nothing. The world is empty. But, how the hell can I make use of that in my daily life? That's the question.

It is abundantly clear how to do that. I read quite awhile ago that one of the practices of Gandhi was to see every person and every situation for the first time. He would greet people he knew very well as though he had just met them - because he knew that he was just meeting that person for the first time. We all are just meeting each other for the first time. - each and every time. So, the trick is that to be in the moment, we have to be here now and not in some previous moment with what happened 10 minutes ago. Some people would say that that would be a disaster but actually it's the only way a person can really "see" what it happening now - is to be present. How many times have we seen someone that we haven't seen in awhile and based on our previous experience with that person, listen to what they have to say, ignore what they have to say or believe what they have to say and run on in our mind about how they did whatever. In doing so, the present moment goes out the window. We are not hearing what they are saying now because our thoughts are crowding out what is happening. If they stole from us before, we might run away from them now. We are even taught to do this. But, this very moment means that perhaps we should run or perhaps we should not, but we'll never know if we just run away. Conditioning is so strong. We are creatures of conditioning and don't even know it most of the time. I certainly don't.

So, that's the goal. To be here now.

Oh, really?

There's someone in here who is totally freaked out by that idea. I think it's the same person who sat me up in bed one night and said, "don't get too clever - you need me."