Handling the moment

The present moment
contains past and future.
The secret of transformation,
is in the way we handle this very moment.

— Thich Nhat Hanh – Understanding Our Mind

Perceiving beauty without accumulating memories

When you see a beautiful thing, there is immediate joy; you see a sunset and there is an immediate reaction of joy. That joy, a few moments later, becomes a memory. That memory of the joy, is it a living thing? Is the memory of the sunset a living thing? No, it is a dead thing. So, with that dead imprint of a sunset, through that, you want to find joy. Memory has no joy; it is only the remembrance of something which created the joy. Memory in itself has no joy. There is joy, the immediate reaction to the beauty of a tree; and then memory comes in and destroys that joy. So, if there is a constant perception of beauty without the accumulation of memories, then there is the possibility of joy everlasting.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – The Collected Works

Past, Present and Future

The past is long gone
From here
There is no way back
How could there be

The present is over too quickly
For feeble desires
To have any effect
Except to hide peace

The future races ahead forever
Out of reach
Of dreamy wishes
And useless plans

And yet when I rest in the endless now
Every need is satisfied
In ways never imagined

— Nirmala – Gifts With No Giver: A Love Affair With Truth

In the state of negation you discover what is true

For the complete mutation in consciousness to take place you must deny analysis and search, and no longer be under any influence, which is immensely difficult. The mind, seeing what is false, has put the false aside completely, not knowing what is true. If you already know what is true, then you are merely exchanging what you consider is false for what you imagine is true. There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in return. There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what is going to happen. That state of negation is completely necessary. Please follow this carefully, because if you have gone so far you will see that in that state of negation you discover what is true; because, negation is the emptying of consciousness of the known. After all, consciousness is based on knowledge, on experience, on racial inheritance, on memory, on the things one has experienced. Experiences are always of the past, operating on the present, being modified by the present and continuing into the future. All that is consciousness, the vast storehouse of centuries. It has its usefulness in mechanical living only. It would be absurd to deny all the scientific knowledge acquired through the long past. But to bring about a mutation in consciousness, a revolution in this whole structure, there must be complete emptiness. And that emptiness is possible only when there is the discovery, the actual seeing of what is false. Then you will see, if you have gone so far, that emptiness itself brings about a complete revolution in consciousness: it has taken place.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – The Book of Life

The now is the silence of yesterday.

Time WAS is past - thou canst it not recall. Time IS thou hast - employ thy portion small. Time FUTURE is not, and may never be. Time PRESENT is the only time for thee!

“Is there actually tomorrow? Of course there is if I have to catch a train; but inwardly, is there the tomorrow of pain and pleasure, or of achievement? Or is there only the now, which is not related to yesterday? Time has a stop only when thought has a stop. It is at the moment of stopping that the now is. This now is not an idea, it is an actual fact, but only when the whole mechanism of thought has come to an end. The feeling of now is entirely different from the word, which is of time. So do not let us be caught in the words yesterday, today and tomorrow. The realization of the now exists only in freedom, and freedom is not the cultivation of thought.
[…]
To see what is without yesterday, is the now. The now is the silence of yesterday.“

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – The Only Revolution – Part 1

Neither time…

Neither time nor space exists for the man who knows the eternal.

Space and time are real for the man who is yet imperfect and space is divided for him into dimensions, time into past, present and future. He looks behind him and sees his birth, his acquisitions, all that he has rejected. That past is being continually modified by the present which is ever being added to it. From the past man turns his eyes to the future where death, the unknown, the darkness, the mystery, await him.

Fascinated by these he can no longer detach himself from them. The mystery of the future holds for him the fulfillment of all his desires, which the past has denied to him, and in his dreams he flies to that brilliant horizon where happiness must exist, where he must seek it.

Fatal error!

No one will ever pierce the infinite mystery of the future -impenetrable in its evanescent illusion- neither magician, prophet nor God! But on the contrary it will be the mystery which will engulf man, which will not let him escape, which will break the mainspring of his life.

Life is not to be approached through the past, nor through the mirage of the future. Life cannot be approached through intermediaries, nor conquered for another.

That discovery can only be made in the immediate present -by the individual for himself and not for others- by the individual who has become the eternal “I”. That eternal “I” is created by the perfection of the self – perfection in which all things are contained, even human imperfections. Man, not yet having achieved that condition of life in the present, lives in the past which he regrets, lives in the future where he hopes, but never in the present which he ignores. This is the case with all men.

Balanced between the past and the future, the “I” is poised as a tiger ready to spring, as an eagle ready to fly, as the bow at the moment of releasing the arrow.

This moment of equilibrium, of high tension, is “creation.” It is the fullness of all life, it is immortality.

The wind of the desert sweeps away all trace of the traveller.

The sole imprint is the footstep of the present. The past, the future… sands blown by the wind.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – From Darkness to Light – page 5

The breath of all breath

O servant, where dost thou seek Me?

Lo ! I am beside thee.

I am neither in temple nor in mosque:
I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:

Neither am I in rites and ceremonies,
nor in Yoga and renunciation.

If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me:
thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.

— Kabir – Songs of Kabir (First Poem)

Look To this Day

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

— Kalidasa

There’s no time like the present.

“Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is,
in the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows
how to dwell in mindfulness night and day
‘one who knows the better way to live alone.'”
— Bhaddekaratta Sutta translated by Thich Nhat Hanh

The present moment is the only reality. Past and Future are but mere recollections and mirages. What a wonderful wishful thinking to imagine, one day, all sentient beings experience ‘now’ at the same moment and abide on it. Being mindfully present all together here and now at the same time and share the same moment totally aware. If you go deeper in it you will see the beauty of it.
I’d like to quote Einstein at Michele Besso’s funeral: “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”
— Personal comment