Act in the moment: the core of Buddhist teaching (part 2) From the book: "Meeting with the True Dragon", released in late November 2008 in the DONA-Verlag)
Q & A:
know why we time not in the way as it is on your statement in reality?
I think, lies in your question itself is a problem. The problem, which is actually really "experience". We have the inclination, thought, evaluation and interpretation of experience with direct experience of the real confused. Our usual view of time is such an interpretation and thus a rational explanation and evaluation. We can not really experience the past and the future as we can learn little. We can both think, but this is an activity of mind and not the real experience. In contrast, the present moment we can not really think, but really learn. We can isolate a moment and not in the usual sense observe and study. We can only live it and directly experienced. If we really fully live in the moment, there is no reality in this "time" because it is the only time in our thinking. The moment exists in reality. The moment can we experienced as reality, as we the past and future can only think.
I find it helpful to the relationship between our ordinary conception of time and Gautama Buddha's teachings to understand the fact that we remember the definition of a line in geometry. According to this definition is the line a number of points. Each point is, separately and independently, but the connection of points, one beside the other, gives the line. The points themselves are not a line, but if you look from a distance, they appear as a continuous line. In the same sense, the present moment, a point and if we see many moments with the mind, gives the impression of a line: the long and seemingly continuous line of our usual conception of time from the past into the future.
When we think of the time, this is in fact a process of thinking. If we live the time but directly and learn, then we act and not think. Unfortunately, we tend to use more of our time for thoughts and ideas than in the simple and direct action. We are too preoccupied with thoughts and are very active with the mind, as we see what is really going on. There will be no quiet areas in our lives. All gaps are filled in with our mental "chatter". I think this is the reason that the usual rational Interpretation of the time seems so real. We have lost our ability to distinguish between the imaginary and the real world distinction. We have determined to learn this skill again.
We need space in our lives so that we can win back the importance of direct experience. We must return to the real world, the world of the moment: the here and now, that's the reality.
It's still hard to understand for me that the time consists of separate moments. We move and act, our actions seem fluent and coherent. The Buddhist teaching is in my view, in contrast to this simple observation of life.
When we watch a movie, a video or a DVD move, the characters are very natural and flowing on the screen or on screen. It never seems like we really saw a sequence of individual images, but just as it is. A film is a long strip which is divided into many separate images. Each image is a complete and independent image and has no direct connection to the previous or subsequent picture. But when the movie plays through the projector, the gaps between the images disappear and we see the scenes look at the movements natural and fluent. This is because our eyes, the individual images can not see separately.
why is the Buddhist doctrine of the time not really at odds with our sense impressions of the world. We must remember that the moments of our lives are very short and quickly over. If they light up and pass away, our life is progressing smoothly and fluently, moment after moment after moment.
In relation to the rapidity of the moments to come and go, we seem relatively sluggish and slow human beings to be. It is difficult to see how we can act freely within a single moment.
I think the scientists, the brain and nervous system To study could discuss your exact description. It is certain, that the nerve impulses are transmitted through the body with a certain finite speed. In any case, we should realize that what we normally perceive as a continuous process, a complicated series of many individual actions is. Each of these individual actions occurring in a specific moment in time and in many cases there is examining the possibility of decision and choice: A decision to do something or something is not done, like right now.
These decisions do not usually get into the consciousness. They are unconscious, spontaneous and direct. Just as the spontaneous Decisions such as a baseball player who can verify his movement because of the shortness of the time barely conscious and controlled. Similarly, the intuitive decision of a photographer, at a given moment to make a snapshot. We make countless such decisions every day and these simple and direct decisions relevant to the conduct of our lives.
course, an act usually follows a different story if we act according to the usual patterns. In this sense, we are bound to the past and this corresponds to the running sequence of cause and effect. For this reason, it often seems as if we had no choice, no control over our lives, but we have to choose, in fact, this possibility. Every moment of our existence gives us the opportunity to choose our path. We can control our destiny and our aim in the present moment. This is our freedom and we should use.
sometimes I see our freedom in the actions of the moment with a pearl that is balanced on the edge of a razor blade. It is perhaps a strange picture, but imagine Just imagine the edge of a razor blade. Now put a bead on the edge and hold it with your hands in the balance. How the pearl will drop if you remove your finger? We can not predict is not it? The result can be determined by the smallest breeze or a different impact, for example, by the slightest touch of your fingers. I believe that life is like the people at the present moment this pearl on the razor blade. Everything is very variable. The direction can be changed at any moment by a small effort of will. This is the power of choice and freedom in the present moment. In such moments we are truly free: free to choose to act freely available free at our own path in a complicated world. This freedom to decide right now, we need to use.
According to Buddhist doctrine the present is the only real time, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
Therefore, the future is only an idea and an illusion?
Yes.
And the past is just as only a memory?
Yes, in a certain way that's right.
Then the law of cause and effect is also not really, right?
Well, we can express this may be so, but let us be clear about what we mean by "not" really mean. From a Buddhist point of view, cause and effect is not something that actually exists physically as Matter or energy. We see it more as a theory or explanation. We appreciate this theory as a very useful tool to better understand many things in our lives and we accept the theories of scientists and others who base their findings on the basis of cause and effect.
But at the same time we should remind ourselves that cause and effect is in itself a theory. We can not confirm the existence of cause and effect in our real lives directly and verify, because our real life consists of moments of presence. At this moment we do not have time to pay attention to cause and effect, no time for detailed analysis. Our real life is action, we act here and now.
Therefore your question brings us back to the problem we have dealt with before: the different possible views of the world. If we look at life as an idealist, the universe is something eternal and unlimited. Then the foundation would be the spirit of reality and the reality of the spirit can with the law of cause and effect coincide or not. We might then be at any time and always free: the moment in the future and even in the past. Materialists analyze objectively, on the other side all the facts and perhaps scientifically. For them, everything is finite and bound to cause and effect.
the science and rational thought see as their allies, as their major source of the confirmation of their faith and belief and they refuse often unscientific to treat issues such as the moral choice and human freedom in general.
For Buddhists the views of the idealists and the materialists are taken separately, are both wrong, or better said incomplete and unilateral. Buddhists are not seduced by the unsolvable mystery of eternity, yet they are discouraged by the harsh and negative facts on this earth. The questions and ideas to the attention of their idealistic and materialistic Contemporaries claim to direct them not on their real life. This content is the real life as it appears in the present moment. At the present moment they can act, they can do something.
here and now to do something is, in fact, the only thing that is really possible, but that's a lot. This is our life. This is our reality. Therefore, we act. We choose and decide to do or not to do something and while we make such decisions, we find true freedom and joy in our lives. Buddhists do not hear of course, to wonder and to have ideas. They make their Plans for the future and remember the past as everyone else. But unlike their idealistic and materialistic contemporaries are not captured by the views that separate those from each other.
you see the idealism and materialism as important tools with which one can interpret certain aspects of life and universe, but they refuse to get caught up in the dogmatic and contradictory views on. They have a clear view that sees things from a perspective of balance and recognize what is really important in every life situation. Therefore, Buddhists reject cause and effect does not have nor the fatalistic view that everything in life is inevitable and already sets. Just try to do their best moment by moment and know that they are both free and bound, and thus they can meet live and act.
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