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The Principle of Now
Wayne Dyer

The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

My Contribution
tom walsh

The Eight Verses on Transforming the Mind
the Dalai Lama

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You've heard it many times, so often in fact that it has become a cliché:  Live in the present.  The now is all there is.  Forget about the past; it's over.  Don't worry about the future; there is only today.  While these are familiar refrains, the truth is that living in the now is an elusive activity for virtually everyone.  It may be easy to say, but it's very tricky to do day in and day out.  And yet, Alan Watts is absolutely correct in the above quotation when he states that it "already is the case."  This is why living in the present moment is so baffling.

Think about the past and you're not living in the now. . . but the now is the only time available for thinking about the past!  Live in anticipation of the future and you're admonished for not being here now. . . but now is all you have for engaging in that delicious "futurizing."  Thus, as Alan Watts reminds you, you strive for what already is.  To be in the now is really your only option.  But the real question isn't how to live in the now, it's how to use the now by being present--rather than wasting it on reflections of the past or concerns about the future. . . .

Ego, Excuse Making, and the Elusive Now

After spending several days preparing to write this chapter, I was trying to focus on its significance when I decided to go for a long swim in the ocean.  As I walked toward the water, I noted that I felt some tension in my solar-plexus region.  It wasn't anything serious--it was just the discomfort I often feel when I have many things to do or decisions to make.  

I indeed let everything go and stayed focused on the instant, the place, and the surroundings.  And something strange and wonderful happened.  My chest stopped hurting, I loosened up, all of my anxiety dissolved, and I felt totally energized.  For the next 60 minutes or so, I moved through the water staying 100 percent present.  The moment I decided to just be there completely, with all other thoughts pushed aside, the discomfort I was experiencing disappeared.  Moreover, I had the most peaceful swim I've ever had, and I emerged from the water fully refreshed.

My conclusion is that the present moment is an antidote for the pain and difficulties we experience, which we habitually try to soothe with rationales and explanations.  When we plunge ourselves 100 percent into the now, experiencing it and nothing else, we're on an Excuses Begone! journey, with no need for all of those old habituated thinking patterns.

In fact, excuses are simply what you've developed to explain now moments that are tangled into the past or future.  If you're truly in that blissful presence of the now, there's no desire to alter what is.  When your sentences express that "It's going to be difficult . . . it will take a long time . . . I'm not smart enough . . . I'm too old," you're wasting a present moment with excuses from a not-now moment!  And when are you having these thoughts?  You guessed it--the only time you have a thought is in the now.  So if your present moment is being used up replaying why present-moment thinking is incorrect (making excuses), is it available for you to do something constructive?  Obviously not!

All excuses are avoidance techniques to keep you from taking charge and changing your thinking habits.  If you weren't rehashing your excuses but were instead immersed in the now, you'd be experiencing your own form of the bliss and healing that took place for me during my magical swim.  You see, when I removed ego from the moment, I stopped thinking about myself and focused on being fully present--and then I was able to be truly here without ego's excuses.  I had plenty of explanations for the tension in my chest, but when I moved totally into the now with no other thoughts, the excuses disappeared along with the pain.

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting in your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit in pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade from it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tip of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you're telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God's presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.  I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.  I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

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The Eight Verses on Transforming the Mind (an excerpt)
the Dalai Lama

The Second Verse:

Whenever I interact with someone,
May I view myself as the lowest amongst all,
And, from the very depths of my heart,
Respectfully hold others as superior.

This verse suggests the kind of attitude that I have described with the first verse.  The idea of seeing oneself as lower than others should not be misconstrued as a way of neglecting ourselves, ignoring our needs, or feeling that we are a hopeless case.  Rather, as I explained earlier, it stems from a courageous state of mind where you are able to relate to others, fully aware of what ability you have to help.  So please do not misunderstand this point.  What is being suggested here is the need for genuine humility.

I would like to tell a story to illustrate this.  There was a great master about two or three generations ago called Dza Patrul Rinpoche.  Not only was he a great master but he had a large following, and he would often give teachings to thousands of students.  But he was also a meditator, so occasionally he would disappear to do a retreat somewhere, and his students would have to run around to search for him.  During one of these breaks he was on a pilgrimage, and he stayed for a couple of days with a family, like many Tibetan pilgrims did; they would seek shelter with a family on the road and do some chores in return for food.  So Dza Patrul Rinpoche did various chores for the family, including emptying the mother's potty, which he did on a regular basis.

Eventually some of his students arrived in that region, and heard that Dza Patrul Rinpoche was somewhere around, and a number of monks finally reached this household and approached the mother of the house.  "Do you know where Dza Patrul Rinpoche is?" they asked.  "I don't know of any Dza Patrul Rinpoche around here," she replied.  The monks then described him to her, and added, "We heard he was living in your house as a pilgrim."  "Oh!" she cried, "that is Dza Patrul Rinpoche!"  Apparently, just at that moment, Dza Patrul Rinpoche had gone to empty her potty.  The mother was so horrified that she ran away!

What this story tells us is that even in a great lama like Dza Patrul Rinpoche, who had a following of thousands, and who was used to giving teachings from a high throne, surrounded by many monks, and so on, there was genuine humility.  He had no hesitation when it came to doing a chore like emptying the potty of an elderly lady.

There are particular ways in which one can practice viewing oneself as lower than others.  To take a single example, we all know from experience that when we focus on a particular object or individual, according to the angle from which we view it, we will have a different perspective.  This is, in fact, the nature of thought.  Thoughts are capable of selecting only isolated characteristics of a given object at a particular time; human thought is not capable of comprehensively viewing something in its entirety.  The nature of thought is to be selective.  When you realize this, you can view yourself as lower than others from a certain point of view, even in comparison to a tiny insect.

Let's say that I compare myself to an insect.  I am a follower of the Buddha, and a human being equipped with the capacity to think and, supposedly, to be able to judge between right and wrong.  I am also supposed to have some knowledge of the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, and theoretically I am committed to these practices.  Yet when I find certain negative tendencies arising in me, or when I carry out negative actions on the basis of these impulses, then from that point of view there is certainly a case to be made that I am in some ways inferior to the insect.  After all, an insect is not able to judge between right and wrong in the way humans can; it has no capacity to think in a long-term way and is unable to understand the intricacies of spiritual teachings, so from the Buddhist point of view, whatever an insect does is the result of habituation and karma.  By comparison, human beings have the ability to determine what they do.  If, despite this, we act negatively then it could be argued that we are inferior to that innocent little insect!  So when you think along these lines, there are genuine grounds for seeing ourselves as inferior to all other sentient beings.