Page 23 Text

But I’m so young!

I have so many things to do yet!

Well! That’ll sure keep you from being here & now

Life is passing me by!

Hmmmmmm

But if I live just in the here and now, won’t there be chaos? What happens if the telephone rings?

Well: The here & now is the fact that the telephone is ringing! Pick it up!

Well, What if somebody wants to make an appointment 3 weeks from now?

Right!

Write it down. That’s here & now

Well: What happens 3 weeks from now?

3 weeks from now there’s that appointment then, that is here & now

When your child comes down the stairs this is the first moment all over again 

This is Buddha meeting Buddha

Over toast & coffee

Over milk & porridge

Over mu tea & brown rice

We never had breakfast before!

This is it!!

This is all there is right now!

If it’s not good enuf, man, its not good enuf

Commentary

This page is the punctuation of the book’s opening argument: being present in every moment is the final state solution.

The philosophical Taoist argument is that you don’t need this book, teachings, or religion. You just have to be present in the moment. If you can be present in the moment, even while life is going on, even while planning for the future, even while consumed with a chaotic early morning breakfast with your kids, you have done everything you need to do. 

However, doing this is hard. For me, it generated questions:

• What is presence?

• How do you know you are really “here”?
• How do you define “now”?
• What do you talk about with friends and family that are actually here & now?
• What should you do when you find yourself or others not here & now?

Being present in every moment is easier said than done. That is why there are books, teachings, and religions, but the simplified suggestion to be “here & now” sets the ambition. Exactly how you do it depends on how you want to do it. 

Step 1 for me was recognizing that being here & now is a choice. I can choose to release myself from the past or stop myself from setting expectations, or not.

When I look across the table at my child eating breakfast in the morning, I can enjoy and accept who they are and what they are doing, or I can look at them and remember that they were very poorly behaved the day before, see the peanut butter all over the table, and bring anger into today.

I can agree to take a meeting next week and then move on to the next moment, or I can accept the meeting and then ruminate on my fears of all the required prep or how that meeting might go. 

Through practice, I got better at seeing and making choices. Eventually, the questions and discomfort that being here & now causes melt away, allowing me to let go of the past and forego setting expectations for the future, most of the time 🙃.