This presupposition doesn´t seem to be most powerful to me, but it is a very popular presupposition which I have always had some problems with:
On one hand the ´achievement and self-orientation`, which is involved, is somehow opposite to opening and appreciating – it is hinting to a goal, which is not yet there by itself. We try to know this goal – is this possible?
On the other hand in moments of relaxation and awareness, when ´togetherness` is alive – there is a feeling of ´Being here now`. It can not be achieved, but only be allowed by deep appreciation.
As long as I try to get it, a closed focal setting is in operation. Nothing new is possible – no open space! When I become aware of the process at work, me as one part of it and the knowing, that ´here` could be much more or even complete different – is this a way of ´being here now`?
Karin
As with Shantideva’s statement that to be concerned with our own happiness is a source of misery, and to be concerned with the happiness of others is the way to happiness, perhaps with anything to do with the self, we get into trouble when we try to fix our experience (including the effort ot “be here now”). Like David says, it may help us to relax and clear away distraction, but to keep focusing on our individual selves in any way, is what we always do. Peering out at a vaster realm of being, more spacious, more dynamic and alive, more brimming with knowability, seems a promicing object of attention . . .
Dear David,
your reflections are helpful. You describe both sides of the entreaty and how a more open focus can be awakened. I appreciate very much your eloquent comment. Karin
Hi Karen,
I agree with you. I think of the entreaty, ‘be here now’ as a call to a first step toward a narrow focused point, a step away from scattered ‘minding’ and endless ‘worlding’, the myopic concerns that hum away our existence. That sort of shutting out of distractions points to an attitude that there is a ‘point’ of HERE and NOW. But then, in that calming phase where there is a little more space and less distraction it dawns on me there really is no HERE or NOW! I can’t freeze it, stop or grasp it, they are conceptual constructs we commonly use to mark time and space for the self to conduct endless measuring. This realization leads to a more open focus.
This more open focus is allowing, fragments of thought loose there rigidity, feeling swells into space, constructions of the mind, rigid as steel and cement, transform, they seem transparent as glass, less solid and fixed. The continuum of my experience at that moment can be pristine. And sometimes that carries right into that very mental construct of the self, that I am HERE and NOW, but this time I am aware there is no HERE and NOW… at the same time.