A response to meir-0n's questions about Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's
quote on spirituality and nowness:
When I transcribed this quote, I tried to stay true to the words he spoke, as he spoke them, rather than focusing on what I thought he was trying to say, so the grammar and structure of the quote may be a bit out. His accent is also quite thick for my Canadian ears, so I may have messed up on a couple of words and phrases.
That being said, all I can offer is speculation; my interpretation of what I believe he meant.
How we define 'realty' and our conscious perception of that reality are usually two completely different things.
In the same way, 'time' may tick along at constant linear rate, but our perception of that time is not even close to being constant or linear. ..."Time flies when you're having fun", or "every thing was in slow motion before the crash". Our perception of time and its rate of passage has more to do with our focus on it, or lack there of, than it does with the 'actual' rate of its passage.
Our conscious perception of Now, This Particular Moment (whichever one you choose to define that way), happens in nowhere near real time. Now happens, and then it takes time for the information to reach your senses, time for your senses to relay it to your brain, for your brain to process this new info, and compare it to all of the other stuff in your mind at the time, and for your brain to hand it over to your consciousness before you're even consciously aware of that moment even happening. And then you have to think about it for a bit before you can somewhat, partially 'understand' the moment that happened moments ago.
In a way, we really do live in the past. Which Now is the 'real' one? The perception of 'real' is all we have. And it's all we can ever have. From one's perspective, it's only their perception of 'reality' that ever truly exists to them. First we 'look' at Reality, and then we think about it to 'see' it, then we look, and then we see. It's like a spinning cycle, spinning away like a gerbil in its wheel.
What we call 'real' and how we define it in This Very Moment are constructions of the mind, made up of all the lessons we've learned, experiences that we've had, and our thoughts about them, and whatnot, with a definite bias towards our prediction of the future. Most people will be surprised by how much of the reality around them that they are unaware of, and how misunderstand it is.
Before we can become aware of the actual Now, its imprint has to be defined by the mind. The mind must assess the 'reality' of the situation, and compare it to the reality that it predicted. And it must relate this info to our definition of reality, to our sense of common sense, our basic assumptions about the world. This takes time. Lots of it. And the less attention you focus on Now, the longer it takes and more energy required to understand it, and the more likely that the imprint of Now will become distorted by our lack of attention, and our focus on other things. It will lose its relevance.
God (if you believe in such things) exists in the Moment. The Real Moment. But all we have is the drawing, our perception of the moment, a few moments later. The more you 'know' the farther away from God and the infinite wisdom of the Universe's collective consciousness you become. The more stuff in your mind, the longer the delay between the Moment and the perception of it. The more irrelevant information in your mind at the time, the more irrelevant information that the imprint of the Moment has to filter through and relate to, and the less clear, and more manufactured, it becomes. And the less time you have to respond to the next moment, and the endless parade of other moments.
The shorter the delay between the Moment and the conscious understanding, the more time is afforded to choose a response to the events of Now with any one of an infinite number of creations derived from an infinite number of choices. Any action someone makes (conscious, or not) or any thought someone has is a choice that they have made, and is an act of will in response to their perceived reality of Now. Any act of will is an act of creation that stores a reflection of the energy used to create it in it. Any thought someone has is an act of willful creation that stores an image of the energy used in its creation and goes toward creating his or her perception of realty. Which, in turn, affects their surroundings and ripples throughout the rest of Reality. I think we are here to create.
When someone is "in the moment", or "in the zone" there is a shorter delay between the actual moment, and the conscious perception of that moment. Their focus is on what they are doing right there and then. Only. Not what is going on tonight. Not what happened to them that morning. Not the fear of something going wrong. What is important is: here and now. Do what you are doing.
The vast majority of us go through our day spending the vast majority of our moments wishing we were somewhere other than where we are. Wishing we were doing something other than what we are doing. We wish we did this or that differently, or that something didn't happen to us. Or we're afraid something bad will happen to us, or because of us, or to someone else. Wishing our reality was somehow different than it is, experiencing something else.
When we do experience something, we attach our prejudice and judgments to it. Attach our fears to it. We attach our failures to it. Attach our expectations to it. We attach other people's opinions to it. We attach just about everything we know to it, except the simplicity of what it actually is. It can't just be.
We go through life taking the moments for granted, as nothing special. We regard most of our experiences in life as a hassle, and that they aren't taking us where we want to go. Powerlessly waiting for the inevitable. Death. Our fear of death is so overwhelming, so powerful, that it poisons most of the thoughts we have. Most of our fears have their root in our fear of death.
But what likely is our biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. We don't seem to like things that don't fit into our sphere of knowledge. In fact we tend to run from them screaming like little schoolgirls. Without even seeing what it is that we are running from. Or if it's even chasing us. Foreign situations, situations outside of the context of our every day life tend to cause panic in most people. We do not like being faced with the infinite. But we don't like not knowing the infinite either. So we run from that as well.
Because of this, change scares the shit out of us. The only time most people will ever change is when it's too painful to stay the same. Our inability to look outside of our familiar thought structure shows itself in all its glory in the mindless repetition of our everyday lives. We don't like new things, or familiar things experienced in different ways.
Fear leads to hate. It's pretty safe to say that fear is what leads us to pretty much all of our negative emotions. Nothing will cloud your perception of the reality around you like fear. Nothing will destroy your connection to the Moment like unchecked fear. But on the other side of that coin, NOTHING will pull you 'down the rabbit hole' like fear. Nothing will put you 'in the moment' like fear IF (and it's a big if) you aren't blinded by the intensity of the situation, if you can't stay 'in the moment'.
Our bodies are actually pretty amazing. They are quite a bit smarter than most people give them credit for. We tend to take them for granted, not even realizing what we are taking for granted. When we become consciously aware of the Moment, our bodies present our consciousness with only the information that we have told it that we want. We tell it what we want to experience, and how, and then it serves it up. Our experiences don't 'just happen'. They are chosen. Every single one of them is chosen. We alone choose what and how to experience or not experience, and how to feel about it or not feel about it, and what to do about it, or not do about it. We are FORCED to choose whether we like it or not. Accept it or not. With only the limited information from our five senses to guide us.
But is that really it? Is that all we really have to guide us? My answer to this question is no. Our bodies are so much smarter than that. They ARE ALWAYS aware of so much more than that which our conscious minds illuminate. They sense so much more. They actually experience fantastic precision. Always. But they only give us the information that we tell them that we want. Which usually isn't much. It picks up on so many subtleties that it's impossible for us to process it all in any usable length of time. So we choose not to while our inattention to the events and materials of the Moment pulls us even farther from the 'reality' of that experience.
In every moment of our existence we are presented with an infinite number of experiences to choose for our next experience. Every ounce of information that we have about the subject and the rest of reality at the time is attached to the image, which actually is, truly, an awful lot of information. More information than our 'self' (ego) is capable of handling. Our ego's would overload and meltdown if they tried to handle even a small fraction of this information. Our perception of ourselves, and the reality that surrounds us, cannot handle being faced with the full on picture of the infinite all at once. In the way similar to sticking your finger in an electrical socket, our bodies can't handle that much energy (information, energy, and matter are all pretty much the same thing in different forms). So we tend to back away from it. In such a way that we don't even realize that we are doing it.
Our sense of self cannot handle the full intensity of the moment so we run from it screaming like little schoolgirls. But that doesn't mean that we can't experience the Moment in all its fullness and glory. The trick is to deflate the 'sense of self' so that it doesn't act like a great big sail in the middle of hurricane. To, essentially, put the ego back in your pocket.
But what does that mean? In essence it is about taking the "Leap Of Faith". The same Leap of Faith that is talked about in religion. The relationship between our minds and our bodies is remarkably similar to the president of a large corporation and that corporation. Left to its own devices, the rest of the corporation can operate fine without the president. All of the information about the operation of the company and its place in the reality of its surroundings is contained in the company itself, and little of it in the president. The president is usually quite insulated from the true reality of the company, and has limited information about the true operations of it. Large corporations are far too big to know every detail. All the president really has is the information that is sent up the corporate chain to him. What he does with it is his choice. How accurate it is depends on many factors.
What the president does provide is direction and focus. If you've spent any time in the business world, you've probably noticed that a meddling boss causes many issues, and tends to throw many people off their game. The employees wont trust that boss, and are less likely to communicate with them. What happens when the boss has a good relationship with the employees is well trusted by them, and them by their leader? When the boss trusts that the employees know how to do their job, and lets them do it, and gives them the resources to do it to the best of their ability, and communicates with them effectively? All the boss really has to say is 'I want to go here, take me there', and it happens. The boss doesn't know all of the details about how to get there, or the status of every little detail. Nor do they need to know. They need to know how and where to drive the car, but not all of the mechanical details. But how good would their driving be if they didn't trust the car, and needed to investigate and run all of the mechanics in real time, while driving.
When we focus on something we are by definition putting something else out of focus. And our focus is what creates our perception of reality. When we focus on our fears that is what our perception of reality becomes. When we focus on one face in the crowd, the rest of the crowd becomes a blur. When that face in the crowd becomes one's own face, then that is all they will see. When fear is added to that equation, things become devastating. We go blind to the outside Reality, and color all of the details that our body gives us about ourselves with that fear. We lose our grip on the moment, and float off into oblivion.
When, on the other hand, our focus is purely on the task at hand and only the materials that exist in the Moment, then this is what our perceived reality becomes. When we trust ourselves in that moment, and the moment itself, and let our bodies do on their own what they already know how to do, and let go of all of our fears, prejudices, judgments, expectations, and failures, then and only then, can we wholly own the infinite wisdom of The Moment. This is the easiest thing in the Universe to do. It's so simple that our complex minds have problems with it. All we need to learn is how to let go. When we can do this, the speed or frequency of our spinning cycle increases dramatically, providing us with a much higher resolution image of the Real time, and the entire infinite amount of information in it. More of the choices become apparent and available. More of what we actually want will actually be choosable.
Our perception of the Reality around us is 100% our own creation. Absolutely none of it comes to us with any label saying that this regarded as bad, or this is regarded as good, per se. EVERYTHING just simply IS. It is what it is and that's all that there is. There IS truth in EVERYTHING. Any label attached to it is a label that we, our selves have attached to it as a result of our fears, prejudices, judgments, and failures. What we WANT to experience based on the direction (or lack there of) of our focus, and the intensity of it.
The direction of our attention, our focus, (along with all of its pollution) is what tells our bodies (and therefore the Universe) what we want. It doesn't matter if that's what you actually want or not. That is what the Universe is going to think you want. And that is what you'll get. If you focus on what you are afraid of, then your perception will serve you up a nice piece of what you are afraid of. If you focus on what you don't want to experience the next moment, your perception WILL drag you (kicking and screaming) toward what you don't want (but 'truly' do want to experience). If you focus on Now, and the materials contained there (and only there) that inspire you at the time, then, and only then will you open yourself up to the infinite wisdom that is contained within the Moment.
The Universe is like a mirror. If you sit and frown at it, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you do will keep it from frowning at you. But, if you have the courage to smile at it first, it has no choice but to smile back at you. You ARE the master. YOU have the power. Whether you like it or not.
