If you read this before, see Update halfway down.
Some of the resistance people tend to have, myself included, to the idea that thoughts are not real and that nothing is real, is that if nothing is real, why would I do anything? Why eat, go to work, clean, shower etc.? If striving for something in the future is what causes suffering because there is no future except in our imagination, then goals are not possible, right? We wouldn’t set a goal for a future because their is no future. There is only now.
I am beginning to wrap my mind around these ideas. In truth, the harder I work to wrap my mind around the ideas and concepts, the farther away from them I become. As soon as I start trying to “get it”, I lose it. There is nothing to get, nothing to strive for, nothing to do. Then I am back to, so why do I get up in the morning, shower, eat, go to work?
Eckhart Tolle wrote the Power of Now. He and Byron Katie, whom I have mentioned before, have very similar takes on this subject. There is only now. While Katie does not suggest having goals or using your thoughts, only questioning every thought that you have fully, Tolle talks about using your thoughts, rather than letting them use you. In most of our lives we are controlled by our thoughts. Our thoughts of past and future are what drives us, rather than the now being what drives us. The past and future are not real except in our mind.
I recently had an experience with some co-workers that drove that home to me. Three woman, A, B, and C were in a training together. There were three other people in the training and two instructors in the room. There was a conflict and person A left the room crying and would not return. Mind you, these are adults. B and C are fairly young adults, but all are of age to be working their own job. I spoke to A, B, and C. I also spoke to the instructors. Not one of them told the same story of what happened. None of them. Even the two, B and C that I spoke to at the same time did not see it the same way, and they were friends. Later someone asked one of the other students a question about what happened as an observer. They also did not see it the same as any of the others.
As I listened to all of them, I found myself believing their stories. They were all so sure they were right and saw the truth. I felt their conviction. Yet, as I asked a few questions, their stories all broke down and they realized, they did not really know what happened. None of us do. It is in the past, and as soon as something happens we start to add our story to it, and then it becomes a part of our story, not what really happened. It is no longer real. It is an imagined past. Person A actually told us that the other women called her a Bitch. When the uninterested person who was just observing was asked about that. He stated that he heard them talking, then when B and C walked away, person A mumbled under her breath something like, “Why are they being such bitches?” He had no investment in the situation at all. He just wanted to eat his lunch, so he might have had the closest truth, but still with his own perceptions added. It looked like she called them bitches, assumed they thought she was also a bitch, and so heard them call her one, when, they probably didn’t. While when they were outside they may have done that amongst themselves, it isn’t likely the other person heard them. She might have assumed that though.
Sound a little like high school? It does to me too. It also sounds a lot like shows like Real House Wives. The key to me here was that the past was 5 minutes ago, and no one knew what was real within it. Choosing a current action, or inaction, based on the past is at best a guess, at worst an assumption.
Tolle does suggest we learn from the past, but how can we do that if we do not know what happened in the past. I suggest, that is exactly what there is to learn, that we do not know what happened in the past. We cannot learn in the past, Tolle says that. We can only learn in the now. Using our perception of the past as a way to learn something now is possible. The challenge is, how to not believe what you think the past is to be true, while using your perception of the past to learn something right now. This seem tricky to me, and I am not entirely sure what it means right now.
The future has a similar issue. The three woman, who because of their conflict, missed several parts of day two of a two day training. The training was on how to work with people, that is to get along, have teamwork, and many other skills they did not use in their conflictual situation. I gave them the opportunity to repeat the day two of the class. B and C thanked me for not firing them and the opportunity, and promised to do better. Person A wanted to know why she had to repeat the class when she wasn’t the one who did anything wrong. She also said later that it might be better to try again without the other two in the class. I let her know that they would also be there, as they too were going to repeat the day. She did not appear to like that piece of information. Each of them looked into the future and saw different things. Two saw opportunity to try again, be successful, prove themselves worthy of the job. The other saw it as a punishment. The same future was there for all of them, and still, they did not see anything more than what was in their own minds. The future does not exist anywhere but in your mind.
Update: Originally the day two had not happened, so now that it has, I am updating the post. The ladies all arrived for class. I asked person A if they had their book from their day 1. She did not. She said she was not informed until yesterday that she had to be here. I reminded her that was not true. That we discussed it two weeks ago that she would be here today. If she forgot that, it was on her, not on other people to remind her. She took a deep breath, and said that yes, she forgot her book, and that was why she didn’t have it. I gave her another book.
I asked the ladies to chat with me before class. I set the expectation that each would be responsible for themselves and how they conducted themselves in the class, and that I would be looking for this. Within the first 10 minutes, person A started answering questions for persons B and C because she thought she knew what they wanted to say. The instructor was directly asking B and C questions, and A was answering for them. It was if she did not hear that everyone is responsible for themselves. I was not currently teaching so said loud enough for her to hear, but not too many others, “Please let people answer for themselves.” She did not do it again, but really. She was overly, way overly, complimentary to the other two. Like she was going out of her way to prove to me that she was nice. It felt put on and fake. It might have been sincere, but I do not think that any of us were buying what she was selling. I did not mention it to her.
Person B had not received her paycheck yet, from the previous Friday. She called on break to payroll, and apparently did not like their answer because I asked if everything was okay, and she said, “No”, while shaking her head and frowning. For the next 10 minutes, she did not make eye contact, participate in the discussion, or write in her book. She got a phone call, which she answered during class, but when she returned, she was happy again, apparently. She re-engaged in eye contact, writing in her book and participating in discussion. Her perceptions of what happened caused her to miss parts of the training again, but not much, so I didn’t call her on it. I just noted it to myself in that she might have some things to practice yet. People are very interesting.
Goals is the topic of this blog though. Goals are often based on a future we want to have. I want to make money, be famous, have love, have children, be important, be safe, comfortable etc. Those sort of goals are most likely only going to bring on suffering. They are goals of striving. When we strive to be something else, we are saying that who we are now is not good enough. That underlying tension of dissatisfaction with the now causes suffering, either on a small scale of tension and unease, or a large scale of being depressed and possibly suicidal or homicidal. But if I do not strive to be better, how will I improve? That is the question. If I do not plan for the future, how will I survive? That is another question. You only have now though. Planning for a maybe, might be, or could be, wish it was so future will almost always lead to disappointment and suffering.
Say you plan to make a million dollars, and then you think you will feel safe. What happens when you have that million dollars? Yep, you become anxious not because you have it, but because you are afraid to lose it. You felt poor, lacking, unsafe because of your perceptions that money would make you safe. You now fear that the thing that is supposed to keep you safe might leave you, and you will again experience unsafety. Safety is only now. Are you safe now, if not, do something now for now, not for a future potentiality that may not happen. People spend a lot of time preparing for something that might not even happen out of fear. Fear is suffering. I choose not to suffer.
That does not mean I don’t do anything at all now. I just started to think about how to set my goals related to how I want to be now, to focus on being what I want to be now. If I want to be safe, my goal is to focus on how I am already safe right now, and if not safe right now, do something. If I want to have money to do the things I like to do, then I do something now to do what I like, to make money. I also realize that those things I like to do are not what makes me happy because they are not now. They are future as yet unrealized. It is unlikely that any of the things I own make me happy. Shoes might be an exception. 🙂
If I want to be a better person in the future, and I set goals to be someone different later on after I learn things, I will not likely get there, as the future cannot be predicted. If I want to be a better person, I can set goals to do now. I don’t set an intention for the next time. I can only set an intention for now. I can say, in my now, I will be present, fully present. I will be love, be light, be generous. I do not do this to achieve anything, become anything, as a means to an end. This is my goal because that is what I want to be, and I choose to be it now. I do not need rules, boundaries, guidelines to know how to be. I just need to be present and make my decisions on who I want to be right now. If I want to be love, what does that look like? If I want to be safe, what does that look like? If you do not know, do not use your thoughts to project what you think it will look like if you do this or do that. Instead, just wait, be present with everything that is, and listen to what is next. You know what to do. The answers are in you. Stop trying to find them, and let them come, let them be. Get out of your own way. Who do you want to be right now? Be that. Just be that.
The next thing is to accept that whoever you are. It is who you want to be, because that is who you are, and you chose that, whether you believe it or not. It also means that you are exactly who you are supposed to be at every moment. You could not be something else. You can only be who you are, and that is a moment to moment decision. When we are caught up in being someone different from who we are right now, we are suffering. We are projecting who we thought we were before. We are longing to be someone else, and we forget that we can be anything right now. Do you want to be happy? Be happy. End suffering by living right now, not living in the past, or striving for a future, be here. Be now.
There are many paths to the now. Byron Katie’s The Work is one path to the now. It involves questioning our stressful thoughts with a specific process. The Buddhist way is through meditation and the 8 fold path. Christians use prayer and the Bible. The Works questions can become something to attain, if I question my thoughts, I will be happy. I have to question my thoughts. Medication can also become about striving, to do it “right”. Be enlightened, become a Buddha. Often prayers also become striving to be different, which leads to more suffering. The Bible is inconsistent at best with more stories than actual advice, so open to interpretation. Just ask anyone to tell you what something in the Bible means, then ask someone else. You will see what I mean. I suggest caution on anything you think will bring you joy. It will not. Eckhart Tolle talks about just focusing on being. How do you feel, the taste of the air, the feel of your feet or your clothes. Separate those sensations from your judgments about them and just experience what is. There are probably a thousand paths to the now and being here in the present moment with yourself and the world around you. They all have the same idea though, just be present. The Work’s questions are about being present with your thoughts to question their realness. It is not about changing anything, just being present with them and questioning them. Jesus and tho That is a goal for me. Be present to what is. Choose what’s next in the moment based on what is now.
Namaste (the light in me, honors the light in you)