The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment

[fabric]

I came home to find this article on the coffee table. I found it pretty interesting and was able to find it online and share. What's interesting is that it seems to describe something similar to Gurdjieff's exercises on Self-remembering, in this case, termed as "mindfulness". It also touches on negative introject, identification and observation to a degree as well. I think it's a good introduction to esoteric concepts and work on oneself. Although, the twist at the end seems to be that mindfulness is something that just "is" - I think it involves a little more work than just sitting there breathing.

_http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=20081027-000001&page=1

The Art of Now: Six Steps to Living in the Moment

We live in the age of distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that your brightest future hinges on your ability to pay attention to the present.

By: Jay Dixit

A friend was walking in the desert when he found the telephone to God. The setting was Burning Man, an electronic arts and music festival for which 50,000 people descend on Black Rock City, Nevada, for eight days of "radical self-expression"—dancing, socializing, meditating, and debauchery.

A phone booth in the middle of the desert with a sign that said "Talk to God" was a surreal sight even at Burning Man. The idea was that you picked up the phone, and God—or someone claiming to be God—would be at the other end to ease your pain.

So when God came on the line asking how he could help, my friend was ready. "How can I live more in the moment?" he asked. Too often, he felt, the beautiful moments of his life were drowned out by a cacophony of self-consciousness and anxiety. What could he do to hush the buzzing of his mind?

"Breathe," replied a soothing male voice.

My friend flinched at the tired new-age mantra, then reminded himself to keep an open mind. When God talks, you listen.

"Whenever you feel anxious about your future or your past, just breathe," continued God. "Try it with me a few times right now. Breathe in… breathe out." And despite himself, my friend began to relax.

You Are Not Your Thoughts

Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what's past. "We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, decoherence," says Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. We're always doing something, and we allow little time to practice stillness and calm.

When we're at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don't appreciate the living present because our "monkey minds," as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.

Most of us don't undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. "Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall," writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biomedical scientist who introduced meditation into mainstream medicine. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and, as Kabat-Zinn puts it, to "rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just being."

We need to live more in the moment. Living in the moment—also called mindfulness—is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. When you become mindful, you realize that you are not your thoughts; you become an observer of your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting your life go by without living it, you awaken to experience.

Cultivating a nonjudgmental awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with cancer. By alleviating stress, spending a few minutes a day actively focusing on living in the moment reduces the risk of heart disease. Mindfulness may even slow the progression of HIV.

Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.

Mindfulness is at the root of Buddhism, Taoism, and many Native-American traditions, not to mention yoga. It's why Thoreau went to Walden Pond; it's what Emerson and Whitman wrote about in their essays and poems.

"Everyone agrees it's important to live in the moment, but the problem is how," says Ellen Langer, a psychologist at Harvard and author of Mindlessness. "When people are not in the moment, they're not there to know that they're not there." Overriding the distraction reflex and awakening to the present takes intentionality and practice.

Living in the moment involves a profound paradox: You can't pursue it for its benefits. That's because the expectation of reward launches a future-oriented mindset, which subverts the entire process. Instead, you just have to trust that the rewards will come. There are many paths to mindfulness—and at the core of each is a paradox. Ironically, letting go of what you want is the only way to get it. Here are a few tricks to help you along.


1: To improve your performance, stop thinking about it (unselfconsciousness).

I've never felt comfortable on a dance floor. My movements feel awkward. I feel like people are judging me. I never know what to do with my arms. I want to let go, but I can't, because I know I look ridiculous.

"Loosen up, no one's watching you," people always say. "Everyone's too busy worrying about themselves." So how come they always make fun of my dancing the next day?

The dance world has a term for people like me: "absolute beginner." Which is why my dance teacher, Jessica Hayden, the owner of Shockra Studio in Manhattan, started at the beginning, sitting me down on a bench and having me tap my feet to the beat as Jay-Z thumped away in the background. We spent the rest of the class doing "isolations"—moving just our shoulders, ribs, or hips—to build "body awareness."

But even more important than body awareness, Hayden said, was present-moment awareness. "Be right here right now!" she'd say. "Just let go and let yourself be in the moment."

That's the first paradox of living in the moment: Thinking too hard about what you're doing actually makes you do worse. If you're in a situation that makes you anxious—giving a speech, introducing yourself to a stranger, dancing—focusing on your anxiety tends to heighten it. "When I say, 'be here with me now,' I mean don't zone out or get too in-your-head—instead, follow my energy, my movements," says Hayden. "Focus less on what's going on in your mind and more on what's going on in the room, less on your mental chatter and more on yourself as part of something." To be most myself, I needed to focus on things outside myself, like the music or the people around me.

, mindfulness blurs the line between self and other, explains Michael Kernis, a psychologist at the University of Georgia. "When people are mindful, they're more likely to experience themselves as part of humanity, as part of a greater universe." That's why highly mindful people such as Buddhist monks talk about being "one with everything."

By reducing self-consciousness, mindfulness allows you to witness the passing drama of feelings, social pressures, even of being esteemed or disparaged by others without taking their evaluations personally, explain Richard Ryan and K. W. Brown of the University of Rochester. When you focus on your immediate experience without attaching it to your self-esteem, unpleasant events like social rejection—or your so-called friends making fun of your dancing—seem less threatening.

Focusing on the present moment also forces you to stop overthinking. "Being present-minded takes away some of that self-evaluation and getting lost in your mind—and in the mind is where we make the evaluations that beat us up," says Stephen Schueller, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead of getting stuck in your head and worrying, you can let yourself go.


2: To avoid worrying about the future, focus on the present (savoring).

In her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend who, whenever she sees a beautiful place, exclaims in a near panic, "It's so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!" "It takes all my persuasive powers," writes Gilbert, "to try to convince her that she is already here."

Often, we're so trapped in thoughts of the future or the past that we forget to experience, let alone enjoy, what's happening right now. We sip coffee and think, "This is not as good as what I had last week." We eat a cookie and think, "I hope I don't run out of cookies."

Instead, relish or luxuriate in whatever you're doing at the present moment—what psychologists call savoring. "This could be while you're eating a pastry, taking a shower, or basking in the sun. You could be savoring a success or savoring music," explains Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California at Riverside and author of The How of Happiness. "Usually it involves your senses."

When subjects in a study took a few minutes each day to actively savor something they usually hurried through—eating a meal, drinking a cup of tea, walking to the bus—they began experiencing more joy, happiness, and other positive emotions, and fewer depressive symptoms, Schueller found.

Why does living in the moment make people happier—not just at the moment they're tasting molten chocolate pooling on their tongue, but lastingly? Because most negative thoughts concern the past or the future. As Mark Twain said, "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened." The hallmark of depression and anxiety is catastrophizing—worrying about something that hasn't happened yet and might not happen at all. Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the future—and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying melts away.

The flip side of worrying is ruminating, thinking bleakly about events in the past. And again, if you press your focus into the now, rumination ceases. Savoring forces you into the present, so you can't worry about things that aren't there.


3: If you want a future with your significant other, inhabit the present (breathe).

Living consciously with alert interest has a powerful effect on interpersonal life. Mindfulness actually inoculates people against aggressive impulses, say Whitney Heppner and Michael Kernis of the University of Georgia. In a study they conducted, each subject was told that other subjects were forming a group—and taking a vote on whether she could join. Five minutes later, the experimenter announced the results—either the subject had gotten the least number of votes and been rejected or she'd been accepted. Beforehand, half the subjects had undergone a mindfulness exercise in which each slowly ate a raisin, savoring its taste and texture and focusing on each sensation.

Later, in what they thought was a separate experiment, subjects had the opportunity to deliver a painful blast of noise to another person. Among subjects who hadn't eaten the raisin, those who were told they'd been rejected by the group became aggressive, inflicting long and painful sonic blasts without provocation. Stung by social rejection, they took it out on other people.

But among those who'd eaten the raisin first, it didn't matter whether they'd been ostracized or embraced. Either way, they were serene and unwilling to inflict pain on others—exactly like those who were given word of social acceptance.

How does being in the moment make you less aggressive? "Mindfulness decreases ego involvement," explains Kernis. "So people are less likely to link their self-esteem to events and more likely to take things at face value." Mindfulness also makes people feel more connected to other people—that empathic feeling of being "at one with the universe."

Mindfulness boosts your awareness of how you interpret and react to what's happening in your mind. It increases the gap between emotional impulse and action, allowing you to do what Buddhists call recognizing the spark before the flame. Focusing on the present reboots your mind so you can respond thoughtfully rather than automatically. Instead of lashing out in anger, backing down in fear, or mindlessly indulging a passing craving, you get the opportunity to say to yourself, "This is the emotion I'm feeling. How should I respond?"

Mindfulness increases self-control; since you're not getting thrown by threats to your self-esteem, you're better able to regulate your behavior. That's the other irony: Inhabiting your own mind more fully has a powerful effect on your interactions with others.

Of course, during a flare-up with your significant other it's rarely practical to duck out and savor a raisin. But there's a simple exercise you can do anywhere, anytime to induce mindfulness: Breathe. As it turns out, the advice my friend got in the desert was spot-on. There's no better way to bring yourself into the present moment than to focus on your breathing. Because you're placing your awareness on what's happening right now, you propel yourself powerfully into the present moment. For many, focusing on the breath is the preferred method of orienting themselves to the now—not because the breath has some magical property, but because it's always there with you.


4: To make the most of time, lose track of it (flow).

Perhaps the most complete way of living in the moment is the state of total absorption psychologists call flow. Flow occurs when you're so engrossed in a task that you lose track of everything else around you. Flow embodies an apparent paradox: How can you be living in the moment if you're not even aware of the moment? The depth of engagement absorbs you powerfully, keeping attention so focused that distractions cannot penetrate. You focus so intensely on what you're doing that you're unaware of the passage of time. Hours can pass without you noticing.

Flow is an elusive state. As with romance or sleep, you can't just will yourself into it—all you can do is set the stage, creating the optimal conditions for it to occur.

The first requirement for flow is to set a goal that's challenging but not unattainable—something you have to marshal your resources and stretch yourself to achieve. The task should be matched to your ability level—not so difficult that you'll feel stressed, but not so easy that you'll get bored. In flow, you're firing on all cylinders to rise to a challenge.

To set the stage for flow, goals need to be clearly defined so that you always know your next step. "It could be playing the next bar in a scroll of music, or finding the next foothold if you're a rock climber, or turning the page if you're reading a good novel," says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who first defined the concept of flow. "At the same time, you're kind of anticipating."

You also need to set up the task in such a way that you receive direct and immediate feedback; with your successes and failures apparent, you can seamlessly adjust your behavior. A climber on the mountain knows immediately if his foothold is secure; a pianist knows instantly when she's played the wrong note.

As your attentional focus narrows, self-consciousness evaporates. You feel as if your awareness merges with the action you're performing. You feel a sense of personal mastery over the situation, and the activity is so intrinsically rewarding that although the task is difficult, action feels effortless.


5: If something is bothering you, move toward it rather than away from it (acceptance).

We all have pain in our lives, whether it's the ex we still long for, the jackhammer snarling across the street, or the sudden wave of anxiety when we get up to give a speech. If we let them, such irritants can distract us from the enjoyment of life. Paradoxically, the obvious response—focusing on the problem in order to combat and overcome it—often makes it worse, argues Stephen Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada.

The mind's natural tendency when faced with pain is to attempt to avoid it—by trying to resist unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and sensations. When we lose a love, for instance, we fight our feelings of heartbreak. As we get older, we work feverishly to recapture our youth. When we're sitting in the dentist's chair waiting for a painful root canal, we wish we were anywhere but there. But in many cases, negative feelings and situations can't be avoided—and resisting them only magnifies the pain.

The problem is we have not just primary emotions but also secondary ones—emotions about other emotions. We get stressed out and then think, "I wish I weren't so stressed out." The primary emotion is stress over your workload. The secondary emotion is feeling, "I hate being stressed."

It doesn't have to be this way. The solution is acceptance—letting the emotion be there. That is, being open to the way things are in each moment without trying to manipulate or change the experience—without judging it, clinging to it, or pushing it away. The present moment can only be as it is. Trying to change it only frustrates and exhausts you. Acceptance relieves you of this needless extra suffering.

Suppose you've just broken up with your girlfriend or boyfriend; you're heartbroken, overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and longing. You could try to fight these feelings, essentially saying, "I hate feeling this way; I need to make this feeling go away." But by focusing on the pain—being sad about being sad—you only prolong the sadness. You do yourself a favor by accepting your feelings, saying instead, "I've just had a breakup. Feelings of loss are normal and natural. It's OK for me to feel this way."

Acceptance of an unpleasant state doesn't mean you don't have goals for the future. It just means you accept that certain things are beyond your control. The sadness, stress, pain, or anger is there whether you like it or not. Better to embrace the feeling as it is.

Nor does acceptance mean you have to like what's happening. "Acceptance of the present moment has nothing to do with resignation," writes Kabat-Zinn. "Acceptance doesn't tell you what to do. What happens next, what you choose to do; that has to come out of your understanding of this moment."

If you feel anxiety, for instance, you can accept the feeling, label it as anxiety—then direct your attention to something else instead. You watch your thoughts, perceptions, and emotions flit through your mind without getting involved. Thoughts are just thoughts. You don't have to believe them and you don't have to do what they say.


6: Know that you don't know (engagement).

You've probably had the experience of driving along a highway only to suddenly realize you have no memory or awareness of the previous 15 minutes. Maybe you even missed your exit. You just zoned out; you were somewhere else, and it's as if you've suddenly woken up at the wheel. Or maybe it happens when you're reading a book: "I know I just read that page, but I have no idea what it said."

These autopilot moments are what Harvard's Ellen Langer calls mindlessness—times when you're so lost in your thoughts that you aren't aware of your present experience. As a result, life passes you by without registering on you. The best way to avoid such blackouts, Langer says, is to develop the habit of always noticing new things in whatever situation you're in. That process creates engagement with the present moment and releases a cascade of other benefits. Noticing new things puts you emphatically in the here and now.

We become mindless, Langer explains, because once we think we know something, we stop paying attention to it. We go about our morning commute in a haze because we've trod the same route a hundred times before. But if we see the world with fresh eyes, we realize almost everything is different each time—the pattern of light on the buildings, the faces of the people, even the sensations and feelings we experience along the way. Noticing imbues each moment with a new, fresh quality. Some people have termed this "beginner's mind."

By acquiring the habit of noticing new things, says Langer, we recognize that the world is actually changing constantly. We really don't know how the espresso is going to taste or how the commute will be—or at least, we're not sure.

Orchestra musicians who are instructed to make their performance new in subtle ways not only enjoy themselves more but audiences actually prefer those performances. "When we're there at the moment, making it new, it leaves an imprint in the music we play, the things we write, the art we create, in everything we do," says Langer. "Once you recognize that you don't know the things you've always taken for granted, you set out of the house quite differently. It becomes an adventure in noticing—and the more you notice, the more you see." And the more excitement you feel.


Don't Just Do Something, Sit There

Living a consistently mindful life takes effort. But mindfulness itself is easy. "People set the goal of being mindful for the next 20 minutes or the next two weeks, then they think mindfulness is difficult because they have the wrong yardstick," says Jay Winner, a California-based family physician and author of Take the Stress out of Your Life. "The correct yardstick is just for this moment."

Mindfulness is the only intentional, systematic activity that is not about trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, explains Kabat-Zinn. It is simply a matter of realizing where you already are. A cartoon from The New Yorker sums it up: Two monks are sitting side by side, meditating. The younger one is giving the older one a quizzical look, to which the older one responds, "Nothing happens next. This is it."

You can become mindful at any moment just by paying attention to your immediate experience. You can do it right now. What's happening this instant? Think of yourself as an eternal witness, and just observe the moment. What do you see, hear, smell? It doesn't matter how it feels—pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad—you roll with it because it's what's present; you're not judging it. And if you notice your mind wandering, bring yourself back. Just say to yourself, "Now. Now. Now."

Here's the most fundamental paradox of all: Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're already there.

 

[Al Today]

Thank you for the article Gunslinger. Enjoying and interesting indeed. So you found the article on your coffee table, eh? Then, I guess there may be someone at ‘home’ you can discuss these ‘things’ with. Being 3D STS gives rise to negative emotions and embarrassingly, I’m a little jealous you can/may have face to face discussions. Those ar to me much more elightening and rewarding than this virtual world of communication. But anyway, thanks again for more perspectives… Please, always feel free to share information.!.!.!

The below quote, for example, Methinks goes right to a very important concept...

Here's the most fundamental paradox of all: Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're already there.

 

[Renaissance]

The below quote, for example, Methinks goes right to a very important concept...

Here's the most fundamental paradox of all: Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're already there.

Seems a bit hypnotic to me. eyes distinguish black squiggles...you feel gravity...breath...focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath...you're getting sleepy...

 

[Miss Isness]

The below quote, for example, Methinks goes right to a very important concept...

Here's the most fundamental paradox of all: Mindfulness isn't a goal, because goals are about the future, but you do have to set the intention of paying attention to what's happening at the present moment. As you read the words printed on this page, as your eyes distinguish the black squiggles on white paper, as you feel gravity anchoring you to the planet, wake up. Become aware of being alive. And breathe. As you draw your next breath, focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath, the stream of heat through your nostrils on the out-breath. If you're aware of that feeling right now, as you're reading this, you're living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it. You're already there.

Seems a bit hypnotic to me. eyes distinguish black squiggles...you feel gravity...breath...focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath...you're getting sleepy...

Who's getting sleepy? Maybe your body is trying to tell you something?

 

[Ellipse]

Is "Living in the Moment" the best move ?

 

[anart]

Is "Living in the Moment" the best move ?

Seems a bit hypnotic to me. eyes distinguish black squiggles...you feel gravity...breath...focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath...you're getting sleepy...

Yeah, the way it's written, it does seem a bit dissociative.

 

[kenlee]

It also touches on negative introject, identification and observation to a degree as well. I think it's a good introduction to esoteric concepts and work on oneself. Although, the twist at the end seems to be that mindfulness is something that just "is" - I think it involves a little more work than just sitting there breathing.

Yes, I would agree that mindfulness is seen here as some kind of end in and of itself. You stop at the 'isness', then you bliss out there, and then you get devoured by lions.

The article in my view is real tricky. It talks about psychological stuff that makes sense and you get sucked in by all the stuff that makes sense, but then your attention wavers and then it gets hooked onto that all powerful subtle twist that appeals to the deeper unconscious levels of the selfhood where our hidden motives reside such as, for example, the animal passions that love comfort.

After reading the whole thing I was left with this impression which for me overshadowed everything else in the article. Basically it was this from the article:

It is simply a matter of realizing where you already are. A cartoon from The New Yorker sums it up: Two monks are sitting side by side, meditating. The younger one is giving the older one a quizzical look, to which the older one responds, "Nothing happens next. This is it."

As if the reality of life and the reality of our experience are on the same level and identical with an archetype.

So what is it? What is the present moment? The article does not even say. I get the impression from the article that the present moment is some blissful point of nonexistence, but it’s all fancied up with psychological talk to undermine its basic intent which is to appeal to our lazy nature so that we will become ‘bliss ninny naval gazers.’ In my view if you took the whole article and threw it into a pot and distilled it town to its very essence you’d get ‘don’t worry be happy’ and THAT, in my opinion, is what the force of the subconscious is going to pick up on. The rest will be forgotten.

I see the present moment as much more then “paying attention to your immediate experience “although that is included within it. For me the present moment is a ‘field' or 'field of experience' that expands outwardly into the past and future and can expand into and become part of greater present moments.

For example things that have happened in my childhood are happening right now even though I can be unconscious of it. So my present moment can extend throughout my entire life. It expands simultaneously above into a higher cosmos as well as below into a lower cosmos.

My entire life can be a ‘now', a present moment. And my life moment is part of an even larger moment that my present moment can expand into, and so on. But what keeps me from being aware of the present moment are the limitations of my Being which limits me to Being Able to be present to the reality of my experience which not only includes what is coming in thru my senses at this moment but also includes the greater ‘moment’ of my life. What inhibits my ‘being able’ are my programs, my buffers, beliefs about myself, my dissociation from my feelings, the muscle tensions in my body that contain stored memories and information, and so on. Being Able is thinking with a hammer and breaking down my belief systems into their constituent elements and then rewiring the circuits.

So, in my view, being in the present moment is not about “living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it you’re already there” (as the article says) but it’s about ‘being able to be aware’ so that one is able to be present to one’s field of experience that expands outwardly. To be "already there" means you have to BE there first. How can you "be there’” if there is no BE to be there?

 

[Miss Isness]

Orchestra musicians who are instructed to make their performance new in subtle ways not only enjoy themselves more but audiences actually prefer those performances. "When we're there at the moment, making it new, it leaves an imprint in the music we play, the things we write, the art we create, in everything we do," says Langer. "Once you recognize that you don't know the things you've always taken for granted, you set out of the house quite differently. It becomes an adventure in noticing—and the more you notice, the more you see." And the more excitement you feel.

I think that part of what is being said is that living in the moment can bring freedom from the limits of the past, because you can see things differently. It also brings freedom from worry about the future, because if you can fully accept and experience the present as it is, and not how you've been conditioned to see it, or how you'd like to see it, then you will know what to do next.

I have had the experience of 'being in the flow' intermittently for short and long periods throughout my life, and with it comes heightened creativity, heightened awareness of what's happening inside and outside of me, and a feeling of being connected with everything. I still haven't figured out how to make it happen, though it does start with seeing something through 'new eyes' that are able to see beyond previously imposed limits, which brings on an ecstatic emotional state.

 

[Renaissance]

Seems a bit hypnotic to me. eyes distinguish black squiggles...you feel gravity...breath...focus on the rise of your abdomen on the in-breath...you're getting sleepy...

Who's getting sleepy? Maybe your body is trying to tell you something?

I was relating how the excerpt that Al quoted includes techniques used to induce hypnosis. i.e. highly descriptive statements, body sensations, focus on breathing, etc. The phrase 'you're getting sleepy' is commonly attached to descriptions of hypnosis in the US, and must certainly be said in a long drawn out way with emphasis on up and down inflections. ;D

The phrase also fit cause I kinda think the article is geared towards sleep.

In Without Conscience, Hare wrote of how a psychopath is particularly good at living 'in the present'. In Varieties of Religious Experience, James wrote of the 'Religion of Healthy Mindedness', which is exemplified in the article. James includes an excerpt from R.M. Bucke about Walt Whitman:

"His favorite occupation," writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke, seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people. Until I knew the man," continues Dr. Bucke, "it had not occurred to me that any one could derive so much absolute happiness from these things as be did. He was very fond of flowers, either wild or cultivated; liked all sorts. I think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses. Perhaps, indeed, no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt Whitman. All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him. All sights and sounds seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I believe he did like) all the men, women, and children he saw (though I never knew him to say that he liked any one), but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked others also. I never knew him to argue or dispute, and he never spoke about money. He always justified, sometimes playfully, sometimes quite seriously, those who spoke harshly of himself or his writings, and I often thought he even took pleasure in the opposition of enemies. When I first knew [him], I used to think that he watched himself, and would not allow his tongue to give expression to fretfulness, antipathy, complaint, and remonstrance. It did not occur to me as possible that these mental states could be absent in him. After long observation, however, I satisfied myself that such absence or unconsciousness was entirely real. He never spoke deprecatingly of any nationality or class of men, or time in the world's history, or against any trades or occupations- not even against any animals, insects, or inanimate things, nor any of the laws of nature, nor any of the results of those laws, such as illness, deformity, and death. He never complained or grumbled either at the weather, pain, illness, or anything else. He never swore. He could not very well, since he never spoke in anger and apparently never was angry. He never exhibited fear, and I do not believe he ever felt it."

After reading this passage, I wondered if this could be a description of someone who is 'healthy' but also perhaps not having or seeking development, i.e. a proper functioning at the level of an organic portal. In the OP thread, James' 'Healthy-Mindedness' is brought up as perhaps an experience of organic portals.

If development is being sought might this version of 'being in the present' be self calming?

 

[Al Today]

I was relating how the excerpt … includes techniques used to induce hypnosis. i.e. highly descriptive statements, body sensations, focus on breathing, etc. The phrase 'you're getting sleepy' is commonly attached to descriptions of hypnosis in the US, and must certainly be said in a long drawn out way with emphasis on up and down inflections. ;D

Yep, Those techniques are there. I didn’t even notice that. I was “caught up in the moment” where a post came out that reflected my thoughts that day. The article made me “feel good”. I need to think on this…

(Living in the Moment), may be a state/portion of non-anticipation. Holding no bias nor preconceived notions. Like working on a puzzle or a complicated/intricate task. One may direct full concentration on the moment. Analyzing the situation. Coming to understand what is being seen. Attempting to find truth, or the answer to the puzzle. Not thinking of the past nor the future. One’s full attention of being aware of the moment being critically objective. Does this happen without us noticing? Seems this “state” can be a fleeting moment. Quite hard to maintain, to me… Is BEing aware of it’s existence needed before one can even notice it? And therefore practice is needed to observe (?feel?) that moment. The word “feel” bothers me because of the mechanical nature of life. When can “feelings” ever be fully trusted, if at all

 

[Miss Isness]

When can “feelings” ever be fully trusted, if at all

Feelings can always be trusted to reveal useful information if one looks deeply enough osit.

 

[fabric]

So, in my view, being in the present moment is not about “living in the moment. Nothing happens next. It's not a destination. This is it you’re already there” (as the article says) but it’s about ‘being able to be aware’ so that one is able to be present to one’s field of experience that expands outwardly. To be "already there" means you have to BE there first. How can you "be there’” if there is no BE to be there?

That was the main problem I had with the article as well. For them to 'introduce' all these techniques, and then twist it into a great method for self-calming or even a buffer, was kind of a let down. First impression was,"wow, here's a mainstream article that seems to scratch the surface".... As I was reading it I all these connections to work related items kept popping out at me. And at the end of it all, I was saying to myself "No, no, no! That can't be it! "It" is just the beginning....." and "What's with the breathing / gazing at your navel thing? Sounds like a love n light recipe!"

When can “feelings” ever be fully trusted, if at all

Feelings can always be trusted to reveal useful information if one looks deeply enough osit.

I'd venture to say that depends on what kind of information you are looking for. Thing is at this point in my development (not sure about everyone else's), my 'feelings' are usually pretty subjective and not the most reliable thing for me to base decisions on. However, on the rare occasion I am able to see myself, I do think it can reveal some interesting things about my internal state, what the machine likes/doesn't like, etc. - so long as 'feeling' doesn't run off with the carriage ;)

 

[Miss Isness]

When can “feelings” ever be fully trusted, if at all

Feelings can always be trusted to reveal useful information if one looks deeply enough osit.

I'd venture to say that depends on what kind of information you are looking for. Thing is at this point in my development (not sure about everyone else's), my 'feelings' are usually pretty subjective and not the most reliable thing for me to base decisions on. However, on the rare occasion I am able to see myself, I do think it can reveal some interesting things about my internal state, what the machine likes/doesn't like, etc. - so long as 'feeling' doesn't run off with the carriage ;)

Well this thread is in 'the Work' section, so I mean useful information for work on oneself.

"Man is a complex organization," he said, "consisting of four parts which may be connected or unconnected, or badly connected. The carriage is connected with the horse by shafts, the horse is connected with the driver by reins, and the driver is connected with the master by the master's voice. But the driver must hear and understand the master's voice. He must know how to drive and the horse must be trained to obey the reins. As to the relation between the horse and the carriage, the horse must be properly harnessed. Thus there are three connections between the four sections of this complex organization. If something is lacking in one of the connections, the organization cannot act as a single whole. The connections are therefore no less important than the actual 'bodies' Working on himself man works simultaneously on the 'bodies' and the 'connections.' But it is different work.

"Work on oneself must begin with the driver. The driver is the mind. In order to be able to hear the master's voice, the driver, first of all, must not be asleep, that is, he must wake up. Then it may prove that the master speaks a language that the driver does not understand. The driver must learn this language. When he has learned it, he will understand the master. But concurrently with this he must learn to drive the horse, to harness it to the carriage, to feed and groom it, and to keep the carriage in order-because what would be the use of his understanding the master if he is not in a position to do anything? The master tells him to go yonder. But he is unable to move, because the horse has not been fed, it is not harnessed, and he does not know where the reins are. The horse is our emotions. The carriage is the body. The mind must learn to control the emotions. The emotions always pull the body after them. This is the order in which work on oneself must proceed. But observe again that work on the 'bodies,' that is, on the driver, the horse, and the carriage, is one thing. And work on the 'connections'-that is, on the 'driver's understanding,'which unites him to the master, on the 'reins,'which connect him with the horse, and on the 'shafts' and the 'harness,' which connect the horse with the carriage-is quite another thing.

Notice that the driver must learn to drive the horse. Observing the horse will allow one to assess one's driving ability.

Notice also that the horse must be fed and groomed by the driver, and it must be harnessed. This means that there's a balance between control and nourishment. In order to properly nourish another being, it's necessary to understand it's nature and its needs, and to harness it one must understand its weaknesses.

There's also the consideration that if the 'driver' doesn't hear the master, he may bring harm to the 'horse' by neglecting to care for it, or drive it through maladapted territory. For all these reasons, the 'horse's' desires and behavior contain valuable information that can help the 'driver' understand how to become a good 'driver'.

What I've discovered in my case, is that my 'driver' neglected and ignored my poor horse, while simultaneously making unreasonable demands for so long that the 'horse' nearly destroyed the carriage.

Once I started listening more to my feelings, I was able to understand when I needed to slow down and reflect, to rest, and to nurture myself, before continuing the journey.

 

[Renaissance]

I think it might be a good idea to distinguish between trust in emotion and trust in effort to understand our machine. They seem like two different things.

From the Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth" thread:

A couple of weeks ago when Mark Givert (the infrared sauna guy) was here, we had a few discussions about this approach. He critiqued us for being "too negative" and all the usual stuff that goes along with that. I then pointed out to him that we are doing the SAME THING he is doing only on a different scale and in a different venue.

You see, he's all about detoxifying the body, telling people about the things they do and eat that are not healthy, and what to do to clean up their system, eat good food, what qualifies as good food and good detoxing practices, etc. And, of course, in order to do this he has to point out what bad food and bad habits and a toxic environment does to the body.

So I asked him if he thought what he was about would work if he didn't talk about candida, parasites, toxic overload, and so on.

He agreed that, no, what he was trying to communicate to others would NOT work if people didn't know what they needed to deal with, if they didn't know what was harmful and what needed to be avoided or eliminated from the diet and lifestyle. Further, if you don't know what is causing the problem, you have no idea what to do to correct things.

I then pointed out that pathological people in our society are like candida and heavy metals that poison the body. If you are not aware of them and how they act in the "body social," you will have no way of knowing what needs to be done to correct the social ills we are facing.

Blaming all our problems on "ego" or the predator's mind or the false personality is like blaming the sick person for the heavy metals and candidiasis in their bodies instead of pointing out that heavy metals are there because of greedy psychopaths in charge of creating our consumption/consumer society, the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical profession that promote all these problems.

So, indeed, this approach will never, ever work unless and until the causes of the disease are identified and dealt with.

I think it was in one of the candida threads that a couple of people mentioned how their cravings for a variety of foods had stopped. It was explained how toxins in the body will cause confusion in the body so it doesn't have a functioning capacity to know what it needs - after the detox there seems a healthy system in place to know what the body needs. It seems the same with the mind and emotions. In a toxic environment, our emotions seem to be parallel to those food cravings. Perhaps some may still be functioning well and have a signal, but until a detox program is being worked on, it's hard to know what's what.

 

[Miss Isness]

I thought these quotes were relevant to the question of trusting emotions to reveal useful information, so here they are :)

In order to find a way of discriminating we must understand that every normal psychic function is a means or an instrument of knowledge. With the help of the mind we see one aspect of things and events, with the help of emotions another aspect, with the help of sensations a third aspect. The most complete knowledge of a subject possible for us can only be obtained if we examine it simultaneously with our mind, feelings, and sensations. Every man who is striving after right knowledge must aim at the possibility of attaining such perception.

Having discovered pleasure centres all over the brain, researchers are now asking, what are they for? And the answers they are finding suggest that pleasure exerts its influence on all kinds of basic brain processes. Far from being a heady, purely human pursuit, pleasure may be a very simple and evolutionarily ancient invention.

Pleasure probably emerged for one simple purpose - to guide actions. At any one time an animal has all kinds of conflicting requirements: eat, drink, stay safe, mate, get warm. And each is producing a motivation to do something about it. "There must exist in the brain a common currency that allows motivations to talk to one another," says Michel Cabanac from the department of physiology at Laval University in Montreal, Canada. "If there was not such a currency it would be impossible to rank priorities."

Cabanac carried out a series of experiments trying to find out whether pleasure is what allows us to prioritise our actions and carry them out in the most efficient way. He compared all kinds of motivations: money, pain, comfort, palatability and so on. "In all cases pleasure was indeed the common currency that allowed the motivations to talk to one another," he says.

In one experiment, Cabanac asked people to perform a climbing task on a treadmill. The subjects had control of its speed or slope, and so could decide how to complete the task - climb fast and finish quickly, or climb more slowly for longer. The way they made the decision was based on pleasure, Cabanac says. They weighed up the discomfort in their limbs and chest with the pleasure they would gain by completing the task. The same happens when we choose what food to buy. People strike a balance between the displeasure of spending money and the pleasure of eating palatable foods. "If you combine the price with palatability you realise at each instant [people] make decisions out of the algebraic sum of hating to spend money, with loving to get good foods."

The rest of the article can be read here: _http://wireheading.com/pleasure.html

The mind cannot understand shades of feeling. We shall see this clearly if we imagine on man reasoning about the feelings of another. He is not feeling anything himself so the feelings of another do not exist for him. A full man does not understand a hungry one. But for the other they have a very definite existence. And the decisions of the first, that is of the mind, can never satisfy him.