)
November 28, 2011
The
present moment properly understood is not a mathematical or
infinitesimal moment. There are some who like to point out that
inhabiting the present moment is impossible since, before we can
truly be aware of it, that particular moment has already passed.
Technically speaking, this is true. Pierre Hadot explains that
when we speak of living in the present what we refer to is not
the mathematical moment but the duration in which an action
takes place. This can be the duration of a sentence one utters,
the movement that one executes, or the melody one hears. (P.
Hadot, The Present Alone is Our Happiness, 163) The
claim here is that it is the quality of our involvement in an
activity that constitutes our presence to it. We are living in
the moment when we are fully engaged with a person, thing or
event. “Live fully today,”
we are told by Saints Gregory and Therese: liberated from
past and future, strive to be-with whatever your current
activity is.
Living
in the moment requires full concentration. Our awareness of the
infinite value of the present moment is at once an attitude of
seriousness about every moment of life and a relaxed state of
appreciation for the gift of these moments as they come to us
one after another. Above all, living in the moment requires a
transformation of our ordinary modes of presence. What
facilitates/hinders my capacity to be present? How does my
presence contribute to an experience of the present moment as
sacramental? Three aspects of presence are involved in our
potential for living fully in the moment. They are: presence to
oneself (self-presence), our relationship to time, and presence
to the Other/others.
Presence to Oneself
First
of all, we must be with ourselves. The present moment
cannot be experienced as sacramental if we are not aware of and
in-touch with ourselves. Self-alienation is an option for
humans, that is, we are capable of affective isolation from
ourselves. We continue to function even if we are not aware of
disturbing feelings, thoughts and motivations. This
“schizoid”
state can prevail in the spiritual dimension as well as in the
mundane circumstances of my life. Because I am religious or am
involved in a religious enterprise does not guarantee that I am
living a spiritual life. Self-presence is an indispensable
condition for being available to the movement of the Spirit in
my life.
In
The Wise Heart, Jack Kornfield discusses the importance of
presence to our feelings. He distinguishes between primary and
secondary feelings. The first and essential quality of primary
feeling refers to the fact that
every moment of our sense experience has a feeling
tone. . . . Each sight, sound, taste, touch, or thought will have
either a pleasant, painful, or neutral quality.... Everything that
registers in the brain is assigned some negative or positive valence.
The primary feeling tone comes first. Then,
Kornfield tells us:
Born of this simple feeling tone, there arises a
whole array of secondary feelings, all of the emotions we are
familiar with, from joy and anger to fear and delight.
The significant point being made here is
that awareness of primary feelings is a direct route to
enlightenment. (pp. 125-126) The stream of primary feelings is
always with us, but we are not always present to this level of
experience. As a result we often get caught in the secondary
emotions that are generated by the positive or negative value we
consciously or unconsciously assign to primary feelings. If,
for example, we are suddenly made afraid, the negative feeling
may move us to anger or some other reaction before we have had
time to identify and work with the feeling. Our lack of
self-presence on this primary level accounts for much of the
conflict and unhappiness we experience in life.
Being
aware of our feelings does not mean that we will always be
happy, but it does mean that we might learn to have more
equanimity even in the midst of daily life. Being present to
ourselves enables us to be more present to others and to the
situation in which we find ourselves. And this, in fact,
increases our happiness potential, since the present is the only
place we can be happy. As Goethe wrote:
“The present alone is our happiness.”
The more we are in the present, the more we will experience
happiness and the other primary emotions. In our next
reflection we shall consider how our relationship to time and
our presence to others influence our living in the present
moment.