The “Now” moment or the “Now” idea is easy to explain. If you look at this picture, it is beautiful. At least I think it is beautiful. Imagine yourself living in an apartment where you passes by this place every morning to go to work. Would you look at this fountain and think that it is beautiful everyday or even once a week? The answer is no.
The mind chatters too much for people to even think this place is beautiful. “I have to get to work”, “I am late”, “I need to make money”, “I need to get to my job as soon as possible”. You wouldn’t even see the fountain. Most people would be thinking, “I will be happy when I have a lot of money” or “I will have more time to appreciate beautiful things if I have more money”. “I will have this money in the future so right now does not matter, I need to get to the future where I am rich so I can be happy and fill my life with beautiful things”. So “I need to get to my job asap and this fountain is not worth even glancing at”.
You may pass this fountain after work and you are going back to your apartment. “I need to go back to my apartment to sleep so I can work tomorrow”, “I need to get a rest”. It may not be a fountain, but you would have passed by so many beautiful things. You wouldn’t recognize them as the mind chatters too much.
I am not looking down on work, and I am not saying do not work. I am just making the point that the mind talks too much that you will not see beautiful things and you will not feel beautiful things most of your life because your mind is always running away from right now. Humanity has been conditioned to believe that the next moment is far important than right now. We will sacrifice right now for the future that does not exist because we believe that the future is where our happiness is.
But this statement is false since no one can predict the future. There is only one moment which is right now. Even when you arrive at the future, you will find yourself having ups and downs. Having problems and difficulties as such you will sacrifice right now for the future over and over.
Try Walking Without Thoughts
I went to this supermarket. I was walking around, trying to get the things I want to buy. It then occurred to me, why not walk without any thoughts. Just observe. Everything became 4k or high definition. The cans were sparkling, the sun light coming from the windows was beautiful, the light bulbs were beautiful as well, even the picture of foods on the labels looked beautiful and delicious. Even the water bottles were sparkling and beautiful. Everything became high definition and beautiful without any thoughts.
It is the same for eating foods. Eat foods without any thoughts and they become more delicious. You will end up savoring the foods that you are eating in your mouth.
Roller Coasters, Jumping Off A Plane To Parachute
When you go to an amusement park, and when you ride a roller coaster, you would feel so alive. You would be screaming, your heart racing and so on. But as you keep riding them through out the day, the thrill disappears. The aliveness disappears. It is because in the first few roller coasters, the mind is silent. It was too busy enjoying the moment. But the more you ride, the more the body gets used to it and as such, the mind loses the silence. You lose the clarity, the aliveness and so on. They all disappear, and what replaces them are thoughts. Thoughts of worry, thoughts of what you are going to do tomorrow, miscellaneous thoughts like taking a shower, watching tv, mistakes in the past and so on. You no longer feel good, you no longer feel alive because the mind lose the silence that it once had. However, if you can keep the silence, you will always feel good.
If you can silence your mind at will, you will always find yourself feeling good. It is because in the silence, there is peace. You can always feel that peace or that love whenever the mind becomes silent.