27
28

ELI5 - why living in the present? (self.Meditation)

sixtine が 投稿

Hi everyone,

I believe this is my first post in the sub. I've been lurking for awhile. I'm familiar with meditation (but far, far from being an accomplished practionner). I believe it helped me through a struggle against depression... and I'm counting on it to help me once again as this struggle is seemingly not over.

So I'm getting serious about it and read a lot of content, including many posts/links I find here.

I'm intrigued about mindfulness. I stumbled on a link here to this diagram.

What does it bring to someone to give more space to the present? What do you do, or feel differently then?

Thanks in advance for your input.

全 14 件のコメント
並べ替え:
ベスト
トップ新着論争中古い順Q&A

[–]Metal-Phoenix 20ポイント21ポイント  (0子コメント)

Imagine that you were abused as a child. The channel of abuse was your dad's belt. Very soon, you associate the jingling of the belt buckle with beating, blood, violence, pain.

Now, imagine that as an adult, you have one or more children. You know that the belt buckle jingle doesn't bring abuse anymore but you can't help but cringe every time your son takes off his belt. It puts you in a weird space, maybe even defensive or hostile. This is being caught in the past. In the present, you are with your children and the belt is not an avenue of abuse. Yet, your actions and reactions to your children will be colored or controlled by that tie in the past.

Being mindful and in the present allows you to choose to act instead of reacting.

[–]ledoron1420 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

The power of now by eckharz tolle is good book on tuis subject.

[–]AllanOcelot 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Being mindful in the moment does not mean getting rid of future plans or destroying old memories. It's an act of living in the now and experiencing the joy of every second. For me atleast, being mindful is all about being joyful with the now, because the past has been and the future is not set.

  • It's the act of washing dishes, but enjoying the feeling of the warm water on your hands.
  • Enjoying the morning commute to work, as you look at the lines of trees on the side of the road.
  • Watching people from a window as you drink your cup of coffee.

These are all pretty cliche examples, I know. For me, I used to be hectic in life, I would savour the past and recount memories whilst planning my next big adventure and looking forward to it. Monday-Friday were just days, they were not lived.

Now, I wake up and every day is truly enjoyable. With depression it was sometimes hard to even get out of bed, even on a weekend. Now, I savour the sound of the kettle in the morning. For I enjoy every sip of coffee as if it were the first time I've drunk it.

It will help with your battle with depression, I assure you of that, but just how it will help you is hard to say!

[–]DrDaring 9ポイント10ポイント  (3子コメント)

Lau Tzu had a good quote on this:

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.

If you are anxious you are living in the future.

If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

The only thing you can control is you, in the present. You can't control others, you can't change the past, you can't know the future. So, why spend any significant time on any of it?

Focus on the present, for that is where you actually live, experience life, and can initiate change.

[–]Chulda 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

Well, I can only speak from the depressed point of view, but this is utter nonsense. Many cases of depression don't stem from a bad past experience, and, as far as I know, not every case of anxiety stems from fear of the future.

[–]DrDaring 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

Depression (clinical) is not the same as being depressed. Diagnosed medical conditions are generally exempt from using meditation as the primary cure.

What kind of anxiety do you experience that has nothing to do with the future? (and its not the FEAR of the future that causes anxiety, its giving the future too much thought, for most of what you think most likely won't come true).

[–]Ostmeistro 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

For instance right now I'm anxious to see whether I ate breakfast yesterday.

Nah, but in all seriousness I agree

[–]AmbiguouslyYou 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

What does it give you? You're asking the wrong questions, my friend.

The present is the only thing that exists. There is no future. There is no past.

Right now is literally everything. Focusing on the future or the past is, well, it just isn't real. Looking to the past is being unrealistic; looking to the future is being dishonest.

As for why someone would live in the present. Well, the simple answer is that we all live in the present. It's impossible not to.

It seems pedantic, yes, but there's a point to be made.

Usually when people speak of giving space to the present they're talking about mindfulness, which is awareness free of thought or conception. It feels no different from what you usually do. The world looks the same because the world is the same.

Reality is what it is. Unfortunate that I can't find the worlds to fully express what I mean.

[–]poisonmilo 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Our mind is the tool that we can use to understand and solve all our problems, it is also the source of our woes and suffering too. If we consider our awareness and attention as being the lens through which all the input for that tool has to pass through, then clearer that lens is, the better job it can do.

The first step of using the mind to look at itself is to clean up the lens and the ability to look. The memories of the past and the visions of the future are like huge semi-transparent screens in front of our eyes stopping us from seeing reality as it is. It's only when we start turning down the brightness of those mental screens that we can start to see things as they truly are. And when you start to see clearly things in the present then that is the first step in solving our problems.

Just being present will not be a quick fix for depression, in fact it might make you feel sadder at first. But if you allow the mind to shift naturally through that state and eventually into another state of mind it becomes easier to let go of the patterns that led to the depression in the first place. Easier said than done, our habits of mind are enormously powerful and ingrained.

Life is also imbued with suffering and sadness too, so I believe part of practicing mindfulness and meditation is to come to terms with that reality through understanding and make peace with it rather than to fight it.

[–]Bluest_waters 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

The past and the present do not exist. They are both constructs of your mind. Completely malleable.

The present exists. In this moment you can actually interact with your environment and change your life. You cannot change the past you cannot change the future. But you can change right here right now

Focusing on the past or the future disempowers you. Focusing on the present empowers you.

[–]brian242 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

What does it bring to someone me to give more space to the present? What do I do, or feel differently then?

Why don't you meditate, be present, and find out yourself? Your answer by experience is better than any intellectual answer I or someone else gives.

[–]TotesMessenger 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / Contact)

[–]irisel21 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The past is a memory, the future is a fantasy, the present is reality.

[–]CStYle002 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Living mindfully has helped me deal with depression and anxiety that I've been struggling with for year. For most of the time I wasn't even aware of the fact that there was something wrong with how I felt about things, about life, about my place in it.

My quality of life has improved drastically since I've discovered mindfulness and turned my daily meditation practice into a genuine habit that I do at the start of each day.

Just sitting there for a short while, focusing on my breathing, enjoying the overall silence with occasional thoughts that pop into my head. Training myself to simply observe these thoughts as a by-product of my existence rather than letting those thoughts envelop my whole being, which most of the time gives me depression or anxiety.

Let's say you are into someone, romantically. If you tend to let your thinking run loose, you may often catch yourself over-analysing past interactions, like "damn, I really should have done this instead of that", "I wish I didn't chicken out when I had a chance to talk to them", etc.

Conversely, you may be worrying quite a bit about future interactions: "Next time I see them I'm going to make a move, for real this time! What's the best way to do it? I could do x at y place at z time, when we both happen to be at this place-- actually, hold on, is that too much? Am I being to keen? Maybe instead I should just..."

Of course, it doesn't have to be a romantic thing, it can be applied to purely functional situations, like worrying about an upcoming work project, or ruminating over your bad performance at a job interview.

I know I tend to very easily get sucked into this kind of over-thinking - analysis paralysis. It's the paradox of choice; thinking too much about something to the extent that you don't even know what's right and what's wrong anymore, if there even is a right or a wrong (often there isn't).

So how do you deal with things mindfully? Being mindful doesn't mean you just ignore the past or the future. It's about not dedicating a large chunk of your attention to things that, ultimately, don't matter in the present moment.

Like worrying about a past failure. Can you do something about it? No, it's already in the past. Don't worry about it! Nothing good comes out of superfluous worrying.

Sure, it's important to learn from your mistakes. By all means, do a bit of introspection once in a while, take note of mistakes you made, consider how to avoid making them in the future - and move on.

"What about worrying about the future? Isn't that one big fundamental aspect of being human? Thinking about our future?"

When it comes to the future outlook there is still a big difference between superfluous (i.e. unnecessary) worry, and actual honest worry that exists to nudge you in the right direction.

Worried about an upcoming project? Why are you worried? Often the first thing you will realise is that you don't have a plan of action, and that is worrying indeed. So what do you do? You make a plan, and let go of your worry.

Unnecessary worry happens when you put too much attention towards things outside of your control. Like, "are they going to like my project? What if my project team hates me? What if..."

As just one example, reactions of other people to your work for example, are often outside of your control. You can produce the best damn report in your field, and there will always be someone who doesn't like it. You can't please everyone - so why worry about?

The most you can do at any give moment is to do your work justice. Apply yourself fully to whatever it is that you demands your attention at the present moment.

TL;DR. Excessively worrying about the past is pointless, as you can't change the past. Mindfulness teaches you to let go of those unnecessary worries.

Excessive worrying about the future is also unnecessary. Worried about a project? Make a plan, figure out how to tackle it - and then act on it. Worried about something outside of your control? Let it go.

Ultimately, every single thing you will ever do in your life will be done in the present moment. Because you can't travel to the past, and the only way to travel in the future is one second at a time. Mindfulness, to me, is about staying tuned to the present moment, handling life one second at a time.