Only This Moment Is Life--Insight Timer Live: June 18, 2023

In this talk, we emphasize the freedom that arises from being present here and now--how the present moment is the doorway to the deepest freedom. We experience suffering when we cling to the past or the future and we open to peace and true happiness by saying 'yes' to our experience here and now. We explore teachings on the power of 'presence, particularly Eckhart Tolle's book, 'The Power of Now.'
Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

The theme of our session today is really focused on the present moment.

In recent sessions and in recent months,

I've been exploring themes I explored for quite a while.

The path of finding greater freedom through practices of wellness,

Therapeutic practices,

Secular mindfulness practice,

And other practices.

I put side-by-side teachings of wellness,

Living a healthy,

Balanced life,

And the teachings of awakening.

I particularly have been focusing on the teachings of the Buddha to help us wake up and find freedom from suffering.

I wasn't putting those out there as a kind of a hierarchy,

This is good and this is less good,

But how they can be really mutually supportive and how we need the practices of wellness very often,

Even to be able to access teachings of awakening,

Really finding complete freedom from suffering.

I shared the almost tongue-in-cheek quote from Ram Dass,

Who said,

You've got to be somebody to become nobody.

You have to develop some sense of who you are before you can let go of any attachment to self.

You can't do that from a place of just not having even a sense of who you are and who you are in the world and relationships and all of that.

And then in more recent weeks,

I've been exploring the Buddha's teachings of awakening,

And particularly I've been looking at five steps to free the heart and mind,

Or five steps to untangle the tangle of our lives.

I just mentioned those again.

The first one was to turn inward,

To stop looking to solve the problems of life outside.

Sometimes,

Yeah,

We need to work on things outside,

But the deepest work really is inside,

To look at how we're living,

How we're engaging,

How we're meeting this moment.

So turning towards our experience,

Then opening wholeheartedly to what's present right here,

Saying yes to what's here,

Welcoming the guests,

To use some of those metaphors,

Welcoming the guests.

And then to look at where are we suffering,

To investigate and recognize where we're experiencing some sense of wanting things to be different,

Not liking,

Finding things unpleasant,

Finding things unsatisfactory,

To recognize the suffering.

That's the third step.

And that kind of merges,

Meshes with the Buddha's teachings of the Four Noble Truths.

That's the first noble truth,

To recognize and understand our suffering.

And the next step,

The fourth step,

Is to see our own role in creating our suffering,

See our own role in creating and perpetuating our suffering.

What am I doing that is causing this suffering,

Which is unskillful?

The Buddha taught that there's always some unskillful relationship we're having with our experience if we're suffering,

Not as a blaming ourselves thing,

But as something that we're missing.

We're wanting this person to be different,

And we're clinging to it like they have to be different,

Or this situation,

Or the world needs to be different in some way.

We're not happy unless that's the case.

We're not in the present moment.

We're clinging to wanting things in the future to be different,

Or wanting the past to be different,

Having a painful relationship with the past.

This is the fourth step,

And it's the second of the Four Noble Truths,

That the cause of suffering is clinging.

So working with that,

The fifth step is to let go of clinging,

And this is freedom.

This is what the Buddha talked about as nirvana,

Letting go of clinging and experiencing freedom.

Ajahn Chah put it in this language that,

Let go a little and you'll have a little peace.

Let go a lot and you'll experience a lot of peace.

Let go completely and you'll experience complete peace.

Your struggles with the world will be at an end.

So I've talked about those five.

That's the Third Noble Truth as well,

And it's the fifth step in this scheme that I'm speaking about.

So I spoke about these five steps to free the heart,

And where I want to go today,

What I want to focus on today,

Is the importance,

The crucial aspect or the crucial thing about the present moment,

The power of being in the present,

That freedom has to happen in the present moment and can only happen in the present moment.

So you could call this theme,

Only this moment is life,

Only this moment is life.

Our freedom,

Our happiness on one hand,

Or our suffering depend on how we meet this moment.

So as I'm saying this,

I'm not talking about this moment as a concept separated from experience,

But I'm inviting you to just check in with your own experience in this moment.

What are you noticing right now?

Is there peace,

A sense of well-being?

Are you really here right now?

It's not a thing to judge ourselves for,

But just to be aware.

Where am I right now?

You could be listening to this talk,

And you could be like in your head,

You could be like,

Yeah,

But I don't want to be talking about that.

I want to hear about something else.

Or he's said that before,

You know,

We could be kind of in a fight with what's going on.

And so the theme really I want to point to today is freedom,

Our freedom and our happiness,

You know,

Rest on this razor edge of our relationship with the present moment,

With this moment,

With our experience right here,

Right now.

So as I'm speaking,

I invite you to just stay connected with your experience,

You know,

What you're aware of right now with your body.

If you're sitting down,

Sitting on a chair or cushion with your breathing,

With how you're feeling,

Your emotions,

Your mind states right now,

Whatever you're noticing,

Stay connected with that.

And you can also be connected,

Obviously,

To the words as they're landing for you.

So this moment,

Coming into our experience here and now,

I think I mentioned maybe at the end of the last session,

I was talking about Pema Chodron and some of her teachings.

And she was speaking in her book,

Taking the Leap,

Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears,

Was speaking about her teacher,

Chogyam Trungpa.

And one of a theme of his,

He spoke about coming back to square one.

It's a nice kind of metaphor,

Come back to square one.

You know,

We go off into the future,

We get caught up in worrying about the future or thinking about the past or being caught up in anger or some difficult emotion.

And he said,

You know,

Come back to square one,

Come back to what's present right now.

Pema Chodron,

He says,

Just keep coming back to square one.

And if square one feels edgy and restless and filled with shempa,

Remember shempa,

S-H-E-N-P-A,

Is when we're hooked,

When we're really attached,

When we're clinging.

So come back,

Even if this moment is filled with this kind of feeling hooked,

Still you just come back there.

The shempa,

This feeling of being hooked itself is not the problem.

The ignorance that doesn't acknowledge that you're hooked,

The joke just goes unconscious and allows you to act it out.

That's the problem.

To counteract it,

We try to bring our full compassionate attention to being hooked and what follows,

The familiar chain reaction.

We train in letting the storyline go,

Letting the fuel of shempa,

Of clinging,

Of being hooked go.

So coming back to square one,

And we come back to square one,

But just being aware,

What am I aware of right now?

Maybe we are caught up in anger.

We're thinking about someone we're angry about in our family or somebody at work or somebody in public life.

Oh,

They're doing this again and they're terrible.

And we kind of really attach to that,

To our views and our emotions around this.

And we can just come back,

Come back,

Notice,

Okay,

Step out of the storyline and back to noticing the tension in my body,

Noticing the story,

But not following it wherever it goes.

So just being present with our experience.

Pema Chodron also speaks about,

She says,

Learn to stay.

I just got a short quote from her here.

She says,

Learn to stay,

Learn to stay with uneasiness,

Learn to stay with the tightening,

Learn to stay with the itch and urge of shempa so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule our lives.

So noticing when we're caught up,

Noticing when we're hooked and coming back.

Another teacher,

Gil Fronsdale,

Who teaches out in many places,

But is based out in Palo Alto area in California,

Teaches at Spirit Rock,

Has a lovely book,

The Issue at Hand,

Essays on Buddhist mindfulness practice.

And he talks about this practice of coming into the present moment.

He speaks about it as being a naturalist.

He says,

In meditation,

A naturalist simply observes nature without interfering or imposing his or her views.

If a wolf eats a deer,

A naturalist watches without judgment.

If a plant produces a stunningly beautiful blossom,

A naturalist leaves it alone,

Not succumbing to the desire to take it home.

In meditation,

We observe ourselves much as a naturalist observes nature without repressing,

Denying,

Grasping,

Or defending anything.

So that's,

I think,

A really helpful image,

You know,

Just to kind of look at our experience.

And that's what we're doing.

That's what we're doing when we come into the present moment.

You know,

The power of now,

Which I'll be talking about,

Really involves the power of coming into the present moment.

When we bring awareness to our difficult emotions,

Something shifts.

We're no longer caught up in them in the same way.

We're now aware of them.

Think of it being angry,

But having the self-awareness or the presence of mind just to turn towards that and say,

Oh,

Noticing anger,

Noticing tension in my chest,

Heat in my face,

Angry thoughts in my mind,

Being aware of all of those.

So shifting from being caught up to being aware,

That's fundamental.

Really fundamental on the path of letting go of suffering,

Of finding freedom from suffering,

Is to turn towards our experience,

Open to it,

Bring awareness to it.

You know,

I often tell the story of the horse galloping along at top speed,

You know,

Really,

Really fast.

Somebody shouts out to the rider on the horse,

Where are you going?

And the rider shouts back,

Don't ask me,

Ask the horse.

So I love that.

I love that image,

That story of don't ask me,

Ask the horse.

Because for me,

It speaks so much to our experience when we get caught up in our emotions,

Caught up in our stories and our minds where we're like,

This person,

This thing,

This situation,

I don't like this,

I want this,

I need this.

We're caught up in it.

And it's like the horse,

The mind has,

You know,

I sometimes say the mind has a mind of its own,

You know,

The mind has kind of taken us off.

Or we could say,

The unconscious mind,

You know,

The mind that's not aware has taken us away and is leading us into,

You know,

Being caught up,

Being stuck,

Being,

You know,

Clinging.

And this is what really the Buddha was talking about when he spoke about clinging.

So what we want to do is we want to be able to use the mind and to use thoughts,

But not be controlled by them.

So to be aware of our thoughts and say,

Okay,

Noticing,

Noticing I've got a lot of angry thoughts right now,

Or notice there's a lot of stressful thoughts about all of the things I have to do.

And I'm getting really tense in my body because I don't think I'm going to be able to do them all.

So I'm getting kind of bent out of shape.

I'm getting stressed.

I'm worried.

I'm anxious.

And to find a way out of this,

We don't find a way out of it through thinking,

You know,

Yes,

We might make some adjustments and that's helpful.

Those can be helpful.

But we really make that change through being present,

Seeing how we're suffering,

What's causing the suffering,

What we're doing that's unskillful,

You know,

Actually being attached to our thoughts in this case,

That's leading to suffering.

And then to be able to let go of the stories and to just stay with the feelings,

Stay with the feelings,

Learn to stay as Pema Chodron says.

So I want to kind of deepen this discussion and kind of bring in some other aspects of it.

And I just want to mention something,

You know,

A little bit of my own personal journey on this,

You know,

In this path.

I started teaching meditation about in 2000.

So 23 years ago,

Years ago,

You know,

I've been practicing for maybe more than 30 years now.

And one of the books that I read,

I can't remember exactly the year that I read it,

Came out in 1997 in Canada,

1999 in the US.

And it's called Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.

And I must have read it around soon after it came out around 2000,

Maybe 2001.

And I was like many,

Many people profoundly affected by that book.

I found it extraordinarily powerful.

And interestingly,

You know,

As I've been teaching over the last couple of decades,

You know,

I've often been asked,

You know,

If I'm working with somebody one on one,

Or more generally,

You know,

What are some books that I might really dig into that could help me on my path,

You know,

For people at the beginning of their practice,

Or sometimes people who've been practicing for a while,

May not have read my,

You know,

Different books and read very much or know very much about what's out there.

And probably one book that I almost always include in that recommendations,

You know,

Three or four recommendations,

Or if they're more,

Is Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now.

And what I did as I was thinking about the talk today and the talk,

You know,

Upcoming talks,

Was I kind of had the thought,

Oh,

I come to come back and read it again,

Because I actually haven't gone back to read it,

Come back to read it in,

You know,

In close to 20 years,

I've kind of read little segments and quoted from it,

Etc.

But I haven't gone back and read it all again.

And I did this last week.

And I what I want to share is I found it more profound this time around,

Because I'm,

You know,

I've learned much in the meantime,

And it continues to be it's like a diamond.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

So if you're not familiar with it,

Many of you will be familiar with it.

But I strongly recommend Eckhart Tolle's book,

The Power of Now.

He's written other books.

I haven't quite,

You know,

They kind of tend to,

For me,

Build on that book.

That book is just such an amazing book.

And I'm just going to,

For today,

Because of time,

I'm just going to begin to get into it.

And I'd like to continue in the next session,

Talking,

Digging more into these teachings,

Particularly through that lens,

And also how his teachings,

Even though they're not within any particular spiritual tradition,

Really express the wisdom that is in many,

Many traditions.

And there's nothing in what he's sharing that isn't,

I think,

100% compatible with the Buddha's teachings.

You know,

At least to me,

It just feels completely,

As they say in the law,

On all fours,

You know,

Just kind of completely.

So that's just a little bit of an aside.

But because it's going to be what I'm going to spend a lot of energy and time on,

I'm going to share a few reflections from Eckhart Tolle.

You know,

He speaks about now,

This moment,

And again,

Invite you back to this moment.

You know,

Whatever you're experiencing right now,

Just turn inward towards it,

Towards what you're experiencing,

What you're noticing in your body.

He says,

Realize deeply that this moment,

This present moment,

Is all you ever have.

He says,

Make the now the primary focus of your life.

Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the now,

Have your dwelling place in the now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with a practical aspects of your life situation.

Always say yes to the present moment.

Always say yes to the present moment.

What could be more futile,

More insane than to create inner resistance to something that already is?

What could be more insane than to oppose life itself,

Which is now and always now?

Surrender to what is.

Say yes to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

I find that kind of encapsulation extraordinarily wise and really,

Really illuminating.

Say yes to what is.

Surrender to life.

Say yes to life.

Say yes to the present moment.

You can say,

Really,

All our suffering comes from not saying yes to our experience.

This is really exactly what the Buddha is saying too.

Our suffering comes from clinging,

And our clinging is not saying yes to what is.

It's resisting.

It's resisting life as it's unfolding.

Saying yes to the present moment,

Another way of saying that is what in Buddhism we speak about as taking refuge in the Dharma.

It's taking refuge in the truth.

It's taking refuge in reality,

How things are.

It's taking refuge in nature,

Taking refuge in the Dharma.

That's really what taking refuge in the Dharma is.

It's saying,

This moment is like this for me,

In my body,

My heart,

My mind.

This moment in the world is like this.

We can't change anything,

If it isn't genuinely change anything,

Unless it comes from a place of acceptance.

As Toll says,

Accept,

Then act.

Bring a wholehearted acceptance to the truth of your experience,

And from there,

Act.

If you act from resistance to the truth,

Then what's going to happen is there's going to be more suffering created.

I can't remember who asked the question,

But somebody asked,

How does acceptance relate to action in the world?

Because we do need to act.

We do need to act around climate change in many,

Many other areas in the world,

In terms of justice,

In terms of fairness,

In terms of equity.

But it has to come from a place of deep internal acceptance of the truth of our experience,

An acknowledgement,

Acceptance that this is how things are right now.

When we bring that energy,

Or this energy,

Into the world and into our life,

Then there's a potential for true beneficial change.

If we bring anger,

Hatred,

And judgment into the world,

Into our life,

Into our activism,

Then we're just bringing more and more suffering.

We're creating more and more suffering,

And it's going to have really painful consequences.

How do you balance present moment with the need for goal setting,

When those goals could improve your life?

What you do is you do some level,

As Eckhart speaks about,

Some level of planning or some level of reflecting on what was happening before.

Some level of planning to say,

Yes,

This is my intention.

You put that intention out,

But you don't hold onto that.

You don't grasp onto it.

Are we here yet,

Like a kid in the back of the car?

Are we here yet,

Mommy,

Daddy,

Leaning into the future?

Don't lean into the future,

But just put it out there as an intention.

Check back on it,

But hold it lightly,

Because there isn't the future.

There is only the present moment.

Every moment is always a present moment.

But let's pause it here and just kind of reflect on this theme of the power of coming back to the present moment,

Coming into,

As Eckhart Tolle says,

Coming into the now,

This moment as it is.

Reviews

Ahhhhh! I listened to this floating in the pool on the raft and a dragonfly landed on my toe and sat there as I relaxed and practiced being in the total now! I have had that book for years as well …the power of now .. and I’m rereading it . My daughter who has two young boys started reading it while she was here for a visit. She’s a busy mom and dentist . She’s going to get her own copy and I’m going to share this meditation with her ! Thank you Hugh! 💫💫💫💫💫💛💫💫💫💫💫

I love your teaching, Mr. Byrne!