The Power of Now
 

a Book by Echart Tolle

I'm reading this, and I can tell already that as soon as I finish, I'll be rereading it. I've hit several parts that I want to spend more time contemplating.

The concept of a Pain Body was very interesting....

there are other very salient points in the book, and although it's a little weird... I think it's changing the way I see myself a little bit.

Oh man... that is a wonderful book!! I've bought 5 copies and am always giving them away and findmyself buying another. That is awesome LJ!

You might also want to check out The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.

meant to tell you... my mom happened to have a copy of Loving What is. So that's on my list too. I'm finding out that there is a whole lot of shit I wasn't paying attention to, and a whole lot more stuff available to learn about.

A wise man knows how little he knows ;-). I hope the book is as helpful for you as it was for me.

I just started reading a book called Women, Food and God by Greenen Roth and despite Women being in the title I can see how it would be valuable for anyone. It isn't a Christian self help book... the term "God" is used in a much broader sense. It talks about how what we put on our plates is key to our view on spirituality, ourselves... etc and key to identifying and healing whatever it is that causes us to eat (you could translate that into any distructive behavior as she points out) when we aren't hungry. It is facinating. I'm only about a 1/3 of the way through, but I have to recomend it as well... if you can get past the title.

RE: pain body
 

I've noticed before that when I feel sad or depressed, or jealous, or grief that I somehow want to continue. I don't want to be cheered up. I don't want to be mollified.

I always thought that maybe I had some defect that made me want to punish myself for something. Or some invisible compulsion that caused me to create situations that caused me to be in trouble.

Giving it a 'body' as Tolle does makes it possible to see it as separate from myself, and thus changeable. If it's not actually a part of me, then it's not me. It's just something I do. I can fix that when I notice myself doing it. Tolle promotes constant presence to watch for it. I'm not even close to that at this point... but I have been able, lately, to recognize when I'm allowing my current situation to spin my emotions up into knots. It's not easy, but if I concentrate, and breathe deeply for a few moments, I can bring myself out of the spiral of remorse for the past, and dread of the future... and dig my claws into the present moment. It's getting me through the day, at least.

I've spoken about something like it regarding anger to my son. When he gets mad, it takes over. The anger has control, and he gets lost in it. I can see it when it happens. I've told him to be aware of it... You never know if it's sticking, with a kid, but I hope it does, because this feels true to me.

Here's something to watch, instead of read. Take it with a grain of salt, it brings up interesting things to contemplate:
"What The Bleep Do We Know?"

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the movie's message.

Here's a clip about addiction:

What do you mean by pain, LJ?

We need an operational definition.

In his book, Tolle defines it as any kind of negative emotion, or situation. Say....addiction...or jealousy.....

If you enjoy pain, then it isn't negative.

If it isn't negative, then it isn't pain.

If it isn't pain, then you can't enjoy it.

It's very circular.

the point he makes is that the pain takes on it's own awareness, and controls you. the pain enjoys the pain. you don't.

Yeah, that's essentially the point of that clip, except they throw a physiological spin on it: You become addicted to the neuro-chemicals produced by whatever mind state you are habitually in.

The more of the chemicals you produce, the more receptor sites are created...

what sn said

Check out Russ Harris who does mindfulness stuff-works well for separating stuff out.

I don't know a lot about it, but mindfulness seems to be based on Vipassana meditation. I've read some stuff ("Monsoon Rains and Icicle Drops" + "Thirty Something and Over it") about 10 day workshops in Europe and Australia. From what I can work out, on the very limited research I've done, the mindfulness stuff seems like the 'lite' version of Vipassana, but if the thought of 10 straight days of meditation seems impossible, then mindfulness might be the way to build up the skill before going for the 10 day sink or swim workshop.

LJ if you want to watch What the Bleep do We Know... I think I still have a copy somewhere... I'd be happy to send it... it is a bit hokey at times, but makes some useful points. Let me know and I'll pop it in the mail to you.

just listen. don't stare at the screen.

this is part 2, but the first 3/4 of part 1 is a some old lady with a guitar, and a brief intro. He begins this clip talking about HOW to be present at the venue he is speaking in.
hang in there, it takes him a while to get going...

I found the text version ofThe Power of Now on pfd

Personal Flotation Device?

LJ, you amaze me, sometimes. in a good way.

He has a wonderful way with free association, doesn't he.

Edit: Oops, I thought you meant HLJ.

I've got the monopoly on that. I call it linking.:D

Lol...I call it surfing.

He hurts my pain body.

Just kidding.

I browsed his online book once. He makes some good points. I am glad he is helping you.

He really has a good synthesis of a lot of spiritual thought. I liked this especially:
The reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, car racing, and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now -- that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.
This really resonates with me. I've often felt compelled to escape into this sort of activity. When you find the flow there is such quietude. I sometimes wondered if I was somehow self-destructive but this is a better interpretation. Downhill skiing, mountain biking, and fencing have all provided unmeasured time of absolute stillness. It can also be found putting a chisel to wood or sitting, but that is much much harder. This is the peace we find without a church growing our "pain body". He may be a kook but he is a kook for the good.

END THE DELUSION OF TIME
It seems almost impossible to disidentify from the mind. We are all immersed in it. How do you teach a fish to fly?
Here is the key. End the delusion of time. Time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops - unless you choose to use it.
To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.
But without a sense of time, how would we function in this world? There would be no goals to strive toward anymore. I wouldn't even know who I am, because my past makes me who I am today. I think time is something very precious, and we need to learn to use it wisely rather than waste it.

Time isn't precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time - past and future - the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.

Why is it the most precious thing? Firstly, because it is the only thing. It's all there is. The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be. Secondly, the Now is the only point that can take you beyond the limited confines of the mind. It is your only point of access into the timeless and formless realm of Being.
§
NOTHING EXISTS OUTSIDE THE NOW
'Aren't past and future just as real, sometimes even more real, than the present? After all, the past determines who we are, as well as how we perceive and behave in the present. And our future goals determine which actions we take in the present.'

You haven't yet grasped the essence of what I am saying because you are trying to understand it mentally. The mind cannot understand this. Only you can. Please just listen.
Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not?
Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now. What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace - and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is "borrowed" from the Now.
The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being.

The now is perfectly fine for the hermit, but being aware of time is necessary to mesh with others, with society. Who hasn't said I was so intrigued/entertained/engrossed I lost track of time. Fun for you but annoying to people relying on you, or to yourself if there's other things you want to accomplish.

OK, all that was the train of though responding to the word Time.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The word Now, as live in the now, do it now, is plastic, always in context.

Don't wait until you're 60 to start saving for retirement, do it now.
If we don't leave now, we'll be late for the curtain.
Rather than trimming those bushes in the fall, I should do it now.

Those are three distinctly different nows, and that muddies the issue.

They are not different. All 3 examples you gave could be stated substituting the word, immediately.

Of course you will leave now. All action takes place now. You may be misaligned with clock time, and be early or late to a meeting that was planned for a particular time, but when you arrive, it will be now.

Which speaks to the first section of your reply. Clock time is a useful thing. It's different than psychological time. I have to leave here at 10 am today to be on time. But if I sat here imagining what it will be like to get ready and go the whole time, then I would be missing.... Not be present... In all that now between.

Feel me?

You can call the present, now, but you're severely limiting your ability to communicate accurately in English. In the three examples I gave the word now represents three different spans of the future to any normal(or slightly warped) person. I believe I understand the concept, but trying to communicate it using now is like George Washington coming in a time machine and telling everyone he's gay.

How could the word now represent a span of time in the future? In all 3 examples, the now was the beginning of the task. It's just 3 different lengths of time from that point forward.

Maybe re read what I posted from the book where he talks about nothing ever happening in the future.

Now is now. The eternal present.

Only considering now is like being glued to your phone. Then you get run over by a bus, or walk off a pier. It's abdicating any and all responsibility for what happens to you. Replacing "I should have seen that coming" with "Shit happens".

Him living in the Now could be advantagious for us, like:

What? You say today's your birthday! If you had been thinking ahead, I would've known sooner to get you a birthday present. But it's too late NOW! :p:

Of course you don't live ONLY in the moment. Just that your brain is a tool. It's not WHO you are.

You don't hold a hammer in your hand all day just in case you encounter a nail. So why is your brain always yapping away? Put it the fuck down when you don't need it.

You need to visualize the future in order to plan. You need to remember the past in order to learn. But you absolutely cannot live in either place. You're alive NOW. So when you've made your plan, set it gently aside and give your full attention to the task at hand. Repeat until the plan has come to fruition.


The point is to silence the narrative of thoughts that constantly run through your mind, taking your attention away from what you are doing.

That's what I'm trying to do. That helps me.

It's not easy. You have to catch yourself all day long. Even folding laundry, or mowing the lawn... Your mind races. Notice. Pay attention to what you're doing.

I always figured those mind numbing jobs like mowing the lawn were an opportunity to think about other things... like the babe in the house. ;)

They are just that. And I'm suggesting that when your attention is off (in the future) with the babe in the house, you're missing the moment you're in. Which one is real?

I'm mowing the yard when there's a babe in the house?!

:smack:

Making music forces you into the now

I enjoy doing pit bands for musicals. For two hours, every note is planned out, and so from the first note you play, your mind is sharply focused on that. The only thought permitted is, what note do I play next, and when exactly do I play it. (After 1/32nd of a beat, or do I get to wait longer?)

Is this part of the point of meditation? To put yourself into that state, without depending on giving your brain another task to accomplish

After 40 years of spending a half dozen hours every week mowing the lawn, I'd rather be anywhere else. Why suffer through it when I can make it more pleasurable in my head? If I'm enjoying what I'm doing, or at least getting some satisfaction from it, I have no trouble staying in the moment. I doubt you had any trouble paying attention building your bike.

Perhaps lawn mowing was not the best choice for illustration because I hate it with an irrational pasion. I can see where multi-tasking can make things more work than pleasure by having to concentrate on not putting the cookie sheet in the washer, laundry in the crib, or the baby in the oven.

This is insight. Thank you.

I don't really know if I'd call it meditation, ute. What you describe sounds like you're just busy.

Meditation... As I understand it, is to practice simply quieting the mind. To not think in words for a time. It's very difficult at first.

You're not spaced out thinking about how beautiful a flower is, you're actually very alert. When no thoughts are speaking in your head, your other senses deliver a lot more information.

Seeing a flower without trying to name it, or judge it's beauty relative to other flowers (substitute any object). Trying not to see your memory of what that object is, but to be aware of it and the space it takes in the space near you. Feel it, don't interpret it. Hard to put words about not using words together.

The focus on the present moment is just an entry point to that state. Like being a cat, watching a mouse hole. And it really doesn't inhibit your ability to be engaged in your activity. But practicing doing it helps to alert you to your mind or ego taking over in daily life.

Like, when you get mad at someone, and you start imagining what you're going to say to them to make them see their error. You start holding the conversation, playing both roles, in your head. You can get pretty far from the reality of the situation that way.

But if you've practiced being present, it's easier to catch yourself enjoying that inner argument, and recognizing that it's your egoic mind flexing it's muscles, not your being. That being is made of the same things as the opponent, and you can accept that they DID say that thing that angered you and not get twisted up wishing they hadn't or imagining what they'll say next. You can see why it angered you and that you are not the anger, so coming back to your calm demeanor is much easier. You don't give the opponent a wall to smash their anger against, so the confrontation ends immediately.

This is why going to any music practice is a restorative action for me. All other thoughts and feelings are put away for the duration of the practice.
I disagree with LJ that it is another form of busyness because UT here is having to put the immersion into the now that is a music practice (or performance) into words, just like LJ is trying to describe meditation.

Sent by magick

It's not exactly like being busy! There is something about the timing aspect of it, and the fact that you're working with other people. Every BEAT forces you into the current time.

I'm singing now, and singing and playing bass is an amazing challenge. I feel like my brain is entirely taken up by it; and I have to reach some sort of spiritual other world, where I can access both things at once.

Try meditating in the morning. You may find that it enhances that ability. Like exercising your being. Music is guttural. You feel it more than think it. Dancing is the same. If you think, you slip.

Sounds right. I was thinking he said that his mind was so active concentrating in each note, it was simply occupied. His second explanation clarified a bit more.

Trying to force you mind to idle, if not stop, is an unnatural experience, that only happens normally when you die. Even sleeping, or in a coma, your brain is cooking, often full tilt boogie.

Yes, this.
Kudos, man!

I believe you guys are describing the flow state. I've entered it when mountain biking, long ago building the timber frame, and very rarely when I used to fence. I can only dream of this kind of immersion in music, it must be transcendent. It's especially interesting in music because the minds perception of time passing is altered but timing is perfected.

It's not unnatural, just unfamiliar. The vast majority of people never stop thinking and imagining. That's normal. It's also insane.

To be constantly talked to from inside your own head. If you were to vocalize all of your thoughts... Or if everyone could hear the voice in your head, you'd get locked up for your own protection. To have the ability to put the voice on pause and give yourself a moment's peace is a skill that you have to practice. But first you have to want to. Your ego... The person you present to the world and yourself resists it. Comes up with a lot of reasons why it's a bad idea to not think. Once you get a real taste, I promise you'll want another. And it gets easier to do the more you try.

You are challenging these things I say in this thread. I expect that it's because it doesn't ring true for you. Or you're doing me the favor of playing the straight man because you're a really really good guy and your thoughts run deep. I prefer to believe the latter. And thank you, keep arguing.

I'm not identified with this idea to the point where if I'm proven wrong, I will feel defeated or diminished. This is about personal experience, so all we can really do is share our own biased perceptions with each other and try to convey the feeling using limiting words and mental imagery.

Musical buddy says that's the hardest thing he does as a musician. He's usually rhythm and lead singer. He says bass and singing lead is much harder for him.

Now add to that, calculating the low harmony on the fly!

It's amazing. And the guys ask me to do harmonies on early Beatles, but no way. I can't play something like "Day Tripper" and sing harmony at the same time. The rhythm of bass makes it really wildly hard to do, depending on the song. Paul is a stone-cold goddamn genius.

I now sing lead on "Black Water" and it is okay because the bass part is simple. And at times it doesn't even happen, on the intro and the a capella section.

WTG UT!

Sent by magick

I always marveled at Jimi Hendrix. He played intricate leads and sang at the same time. Probably akin to your experience with the bass line.

You must need two minds to do that. One to remember the words, and one to communicate the music through the instrument.

I posit that the thinking mind, or ego, handles the singing, while the being self generates the music.

Both minds are useful. The thinking mind is just much more dominant in most people. You may have found your entry point into inner peace.

I'm sharing all this here, risking ridicule (because I know you're all good folks and my friends... So not much of a risk) in the hope that this idea will spread into your lives and give you the sense of calm I have these recent days. And for myself to refer back to when it slips away from me again. I started this thread 9 years ago. In my last crisis.

Good to know it's there when I need it, and the overreaching message has stayed with me in my approach to life and it's challenges.... But I've been lax in exercising. Both in mind and body.

Shit happens. I forgive me. I have it in focus now. I'm down about 35 lbs and that's a start.

Next thing is to quit smoking.

Something something:mock:

Something somehting:nadkick:


:p::p::p:

this is good stuff

Real good