Present Moment

It has been very cold of late, but expecting a friend to visit yesterday I did some work on the garage and put in place some nice new systems for comfort. Carpet is laid, things repositioned for easy access and a tarpaulin rigged in place to capture heat. My friend couldn't make it because of the icy roads so I enjoyed it all to myself last night. At -2oC outside I was roasting in +13oC, with all this heat created in just 1 hour by just 3 vegetable oil flames: completely carbon neutral and very satisfying. With 4 flames you can reheat 1Kg of food in the same time, or slow cook for much longer. Its the simplest possible system.

As I lay there watching the flames enjoying this little oasis of forgiveness against the harsh weather that lay only feet away it was one of those rare periods of great satisfaction and peace. I had a similar experience on a mountain years ago with nothing of comfort but a plastic survival bag and freezing cold soaked sleeping bag. But even here at rock bottom, exausted on the side of a freezing mountain in driving rain and sleet and shivering on and off, I pulled the plastic bag over my head to keep the rain out and found complete satisfaction in the small pocket of warm air I exhailed into that space. So miniscule the roots of satisfaction. Yet we struggle to overload and overstimulation in this society like kids looking for 11 on their power amps: when it is already ear splitting you have only deafness and poverty ahead.

So in that peace watching the flames I could see a few things more clearly. I confirmed something realised in meduitation a few weeks ago, that I hate myself. If I was truely to meet myself I would not want to face myself and look myself in the eye for I am ashamed at how I have failed to be what I know I can be. I have given into temptations of laziness, greed, anger, lust, foul mouthedness, unhelpfulness, obstinancy, negativeness, obstructiveness, selfishness, jealousy, envy, revenge, hurtfulness etc etc the list goes on. Not all the time, but I have given in when deep down I know I should not have. So I have myself. And as argued in the last blog when you hate yourself you don't want to be with yourself and you hide in dreams of tomorrow or memories of yesterday. Or if you don't like where you are, you are disgusted by the people around you: you find them ugly, or the cities ugly, or the words that people say ugly, or the life you are expected to live ugly: then you don't want to be here and you dream of tomorrow and you remember yesterday. A whole country springs to mind here! But actually that ugliness you see is a projection of the hatred you feel for yourself.

I found "my muse" beautiful in many, many ways and for a short while I wanted to be here, today. I loved the world for those few years. Each day was the only day in my life, and there was no tomorrow and no yesterday. I imagine that the satisfaction I felt came more than a bit because she was something that I could be positive about, and someone who was positive about myself.

Ironically I have had to be negative about her of late because she "failed" in the most fundamental way. A very natural way, but not the idea of perfection that I had loved. And that leads directly into the 2nd Buddhist Lakshana that i will write about soon - that the enlightened see all "things" as undesirable and imperfect precisely because they will fail like this.

Regardless what happened since, I found that peace with her as I found it again in the candles and warmth of my hide away last night. This is the value then of the "present moment" that they talk about in Buddhism. Yet there are two immediate problems. Firstly is attachment and greed for this "present moment" and the peace. We like it and want it again and this creates a craving and inauthenticity. I felt envy today as I saw people camping down by the lake because I thought they must be having more peace than me!!! This is exactly how we lose the present moment: yet here it is destroying itself! Such are the ironies of the hall of mirrors we call our minds.

The second problem is related which is "looking for it" when we don't have it. If we ever "look for" the present moment then we will not find it because we are looking "in" the present moment. We find things "in" the present moment: it is the stage on which things get found. On what stage would we find the stage itself?

The way to "present moment" is through deep relaxation. Letting go of things, of worries and disturbances, and seeking deep satisfaction within ourselves and with ourselves. This is why we must be "good" to achieve progress. Our deep self knows well what is good and when we are bad we turn away from ourselves and become a non-person. Non-people turn from goodness deliberately and do bad things to hide from themselves. They are therefore always on the run, can never settle, can never be at peace, can never know satisfaction.

This is a difficult process. I am doing it. But to get here I have done some major things. Ending my pointless and negative employment. Disregarded my citizenship of negative Britain. Tried to be positive to the people around me, and removed as much attachment and confusion from my life. Maybe I'll find this was too much: but it is worth anything to find oneself, to be at peace with oneself in the mirror of the present moment.

Got my tutoring now must dash...