Amor i am glad you brought up this subject again. i really do not think it is a 'trick question' as you described it. i do not think that one is always thinking of the past either. Have you ever felt excruciating pain? i have and most people have. You are totally in the now and feeling that agony and you would do anything to get out of the now. i am trying to make a point here. The point is that awareness is important at times. Although at other times like when we are in the trenches; all we can do is practice the presence or think of having divine help or pray outloud. Sometimes when we are practicing the presence all the time we often have to also be aware of what we are doing as well. Therefore it seems to me that practicing the presence and mindfulness are both an integral part of my spiritual life. There is no hard and fast rule for every occasion.
Finally we are never going to get out of this perdictiment called life where we have to feel these alternating waves of sorrow and joy, happiness and sadness, pain and pleasure etc. unless we practice meditation to eventually arrise above these doaulities.
Steve Hydonus
Hiya Steve,
I wasn't ignoring your reply. I was infact soul searching for an appropriate answer to share with you. One I spoke of trick question I was referring to the concept of "suffering."
Anyways, I will speak on what you said of being in excruciating pain. Let's use going to the dentist as an example. Getting those needles in the mouth, or having a tooth ache. You say that being in the now in those circumstances are not an appropriate time to be in the now. Let's say you are in the dentist chair, or leading up to the dentist, and are in pain. You then focus on not being in pain, or focus on the the day after the dentists trip. Focus on that time you went on vacation and had the greatest time of your life. Etc..
What you are doing is shifting your focus from the pain you are in to something else. In other words you are not concentrating on the pain. You have focused somewhere else. Some will say that pain really only happens if you think about it, or focus on it. In a way it is true. It's not that it doesn't happen it's that you have shifted your focus to somewhere else.
So being in the now is not about the pain. Unless being in the now for you would be focusing on the pain that you are in. What about the chair you are sitting on, and the light that is shining down upon you. The air that is blowing on your face.. Etc..
