What's So Great About Now?

This article by Cynthia Thatcher is probably my favorite of all time:

tricycle.com

A few quotes:

"The more mindfulness we have, the less compelling sense-objects seem, until at last we lose all desire for them."


"Our entire lives are nothing but a chain of moments in which we perceive one sight, taste, smell, touch, sound, feeling, or thought after another. Outside of this process, nothing else happens."


"We think sense-impressions desirable only because we can't see beyond the conventions to their real characteristics."


"Note the difference between saying 'The present moment is wonderful' and 'It's wonderful to stay in the present.' This is more than a semantic quibble. The first statement implies that the bare sensory data occurring in the present are themselves little bits of divinity. The second allows that, by staying in the now, one can be free from the distress that comes from clinging to those sensations."

No Meaninful Routine, No Meaningful Vision

Though the emphasis may alternate from phase to phase, ultimate success in the development of the path always hinges upon balancing vision with routine in such a way that each can make its optimal contribution. However, because our minds are keyed to fix upon the new and distinctive, in our practice we are prone to place a one-sided emphasis on vision at the expense of repetitive routine. Thus we are elated by expectations concerning the stages of the path far beyond our reach, while at the same time we tend to neglect the lower stages—dull and drab, but far more urgent and immediate—lying just beneath our feet.

To adopt this attitude, however, is to forget the crucial fact that vision always operates upon a groundwork of previously established routine and must in turn give rise to new patterns of routine adequate to the attainment of its intended aim. If we are to close the gap between ideal and actuality—between the envisaged aim of striving and the lived experience of our everyday lives—it is necessary for us to pay greater heed to the task of repetition.

Every wholesome thought, every pure intention, every effort to train the mind represents a potential for growth along the Noble Eightfold Path. But to be converted from a mere potential into an active power leading to the end of suffering, the fleeting, wholesome thought formations must be repeated, fostered, and cultivated, made into enduring qualities of our being.

Feeble in their individuality, when their forces are consolidated by repetition they acquire a strength that is invincible.

Bhikku Bodhi Vision and Routine

Costly ignorance

"An untaught worldling, O monks, does not know of any other escape from painful feelings except the enjoyment of sensual happiness. Then in him who enjoys sensual happiness, an underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feelings comes to underlie (his mind).

He does not know, according to facts, the arising and ending of these feelings, nor the gratification, the danger and the escape, connected with these feelings.

In him who lacks that knowledge, an underlying tendency to ignorance as to neutral feelings comes to underlie (his mind).

When he experiences a pleasant feeling, a painful feeling or a neutral feeling, he feels it as one fettered by it. Such a one, O monks, is called an untaught worldling who is fettered by birth, by old age, by death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is fettered by suffering, this I declare."

SN 36

Don't rush off for some other form of stimulation

"Mindfulness practice offers the restraint necessary to overcome the tug of desire upon the senses. As we notice the mind wandering off to explore a gratifying train of thought, or as we notice the body’s urging to nudge ourselves into a more comfortable position, we gently abandon the impulse and return attention to the primary object of awareness.

We do this again and again, until the mind becomes content with being fully present with what is manifesting here and now in the field of experience, rather than rushing off for some other form of stimulation.

As the mind settles down it becomes considerably more powerful, and thus more empowered."

- Andrew Olendski

Stuff

Everything in life comes and goes like apparitions in a dream.

Right now, take any object you “own”: a flower, a book, a jacket, or a car. Look at it and know that you will experience this object for only a limited time, for a few hours, days, months, or years. Either it or you will fade, crumble, or die.

When you forget this and take the object as something that is yours, you can’t enjoy it for what it is. When you remember that you don’t really own it, you are free to enjoy it while it is part of your life.

- Ken McLeod

Your greatest happiness

“I ask you all to examine happiness, to see exactly where was the point of greatest happiness in your life.

When you really look at it, you’ll see that it’s just that—nothing more than anything else you’ve ever experienced. Why wasn’t it more than that?

Because the world has nothing more than that. That’s all it has to offer—over and over again, nothing more than that at all. Just birth, aging, illness, and death, over and over again. There’s got to be a happiness more extraordinary than that, more excellent than that, safer than that.

This is why the noble ones sacrifice limited happiness in search of the happiness that comes from stilling the body, stilling the mind, stilling the defilements. That’s the happiness that’s safe, to which nothing else can compare.”


Phra Ajaan Dune Atulo "Gifts He Left Behind"

Watch the breath in the Cycle, not the Body

Usually the meditation teacher will say: 'No, do not follow the breath around, stay at that one place, the place where it most usually manifests.'. However, what happens when you do that is you don't notice any breath at all the breath has disappeared from there, and that is why this is a cause for the mind wandering off.

So to counter that problem I advise you to experiment with not being concerned where the breath is actually registered on the body. But just to know, just to have your perception concerned with, not where the breath is manifesting, but whether it's going in or going out, and what stage of going in or out it is.

So do not concern the perception with the place in the body, just be concerned with where in the cycle of breathing your breath is right now and you will solve that problem.

Just a practical test. Close your eyes and ask yourself: 'Am I breathing in or am I breathing out?'. The answer to that question will occur to you before you notice where the breath is positioned on the body. You don't need to ask the second question: 'Where is the breath on the body?'. You just need to answer the question: 'Where is the breath in its cycle?'.

- Ajahn Brahm