One day,
There was a Zen master walking through the monastery,
And he was asking all of the novices what time it was.
So we'd go up to one novice monk and ask him what time it was.
And the monk would look at his watch or look at the clock,
And he'd tell the master the time.
And the master would just shake his head and continue walking.
And this just carried on.
He kept asking everyone the time.
They kept telling him the time.
And he kept shaking his head.
So he walks outside of the building and goes across the field down towards a creek.
And he looks over at the creek.
And sitting under a tree,
He sees this young novice nun,
Sambara.
And she's looking so peaceful and so happy and content.
And he goes over and he asks her,
Sambara,
What time is it?
Sambara looks up at him and she says,
The time is now.
And with that,
He smiles.
And he walks away realizing at least someone is getting this in the monastery.
So I want to talk a little bit about our relationship to time and the present moment and being here and now.
Because the moment we think about time,
If someone asks us what the time is,
We happen to glance at our watch or the clock or our phones.
The moment we see time,
We start to imagine ourselves.
There's a sense of me in time.
Where do I need to be?
What do I need to be doing?
How much time do I have left?
And while time is helpful for us,
Keeps the world moving,
We've all agreed to a particular time to be here on this call today.
And it works.
It keeps society functioning.
But we also have to be very careful.
Because attached to time is a sense of me,
The ego,
The separate self,
The little me.
And this is where that urgency comes from around time.
And I think a good example that we can all relate to,
And it's the weekend,
So probably some of you have already been out doing your errands,
It's the errand day,
The to-do list day.
And we can already feel that sense of urgency as we're before we've even left the house.
You're grabbing your handbag,
Your to-do list,
The shopping bags,
Anything that needs to be returned.
You're checking everything,
Grabbing a bottle of water,
Making sure you have everything.
And then the moment we walk out the front door,
It's as though there is someone standing there with one of these checkered flags in the background.
And the moment we walk through that door is the moment that that flag goes down and the clock begins.
We're racing.
We feel the pressure of time.
We feel the weight of time.
We feel a sense of me in a future time.
And who is that?
It's the separate self.
It's the ego.
That's who's at the other end of this.
That's who's at the end of the errands day,
The to-do list day that's going to be happy.
The ego,
Me,
Happy in a future time.
Or if we're imagining getting some success in the future,
Getting some recognition,
Or just getting something,
There's an imagining in our minds of me in a future time being happy.
And who is that?
The ego,
The separate self,
The little me in time.
And we are so believing in the story of me being happy in the future,
Me being happy when I get the errands done,
Me being happy if I get the success,
If I get the object.
We are so believing in the story that we are spinning about a future happy me.
We don't even see how unhappy it's making us now.
Because in all of that chasing,
The future me,
The future self that's going to be happy,
There's this tightening,
And this clenching,
And this anxiety,
And stress,
And fear,
And worries that's happening now.
And when we eventually get to that moment that is now,
And we finish the errands,
Or we finish,
We get the success,
We get the praise,
Whatever it is,
We get the object,
What we do notice is that we felt really good.
Because of course,
The thought of me happy in the future is now gone.
And in the absence of that thought,
Is all that tightening,
And clenching,
And grasping,
And chasing,
And fear,
And worry.
We're here and now.
We're present.
And we feel that spaciousness.
And it feels good.
And we are doing this our entire lives.
We imagine that I can chase success in my career.
I can chase just getting the errands done.
I can chase one little aspect of my life over here,
That there's a future me that's going to be happy over here.
But if you're doing it in one area of your life,
You are doing it in every area of your life.
You can't invite the ego into the guest room and not expect that it's going to wander through the whole house.
It will.
And it will take over.
And this is what's happened.
We live our whole lives in this 24-7 race.
That happiness is always just a little bit ahead of me.
I got to get over there.
And we've transferred it to everything that we do.
Brushing our teeth.
It's a race.
Got to get to what's on the other side of brushing our teeth.
Doing the dishes.
Got to get to what's on the other side of doing the dishes.
Dropping your kids off at school.
Got to get to the other side of that.
Just walking from one room in your house to another room in your house is a race.
That happiness is always somewhere else other than where we are right now.
Because how you do anything is how you do everything.
And it's a cycle.
It's a pattern.
It's a habit that we repeat continuously day after day after day.
The thought of me being happy in the future,
Forgetting something,
And then all that tightening and clenching and grasping and stress and worry and fear,
Only to get to that moment,
Which is now,
And have it release for a few moments.
Excuse me.
For a few moments,
We're happy.
For a few moments,
We feel good.
And then it starts right back up again.
We spend so much more time chasing happiness than actually being happy and not looking at what's really going on,
Seeing that,
Oh my god,
Most of the time,
And this little ball of tension that just gets released when I get there,
Only to have it start up again.
So if I'm spending just 70%,
80% of my time chasing for a little bit,
20% or 30% of happiness,
Wow.
What's really causing my happiness here?
Or what's really causing my unhappiness here?
The thought that I'm going to be happy in the future is what's causing our unhappiness.
As though if I didn't have that thought,
I wouldn't get it all done.
Because this is what we tell ourselves.
Well,
I need that.
I kind of need to have this imaginary gun to my head to get the stuff done,
To be motivated.
I'm better.
I'm more efficient when I'm like this.
We're not better.
We're not more efficient like this.
In fact,
Because we're so tense and we've got all this nervous energy and all these fears and these worries and we forget things and we're looking for shortcuts,
We're not better when we believe our happiness is in the future.
It doesn't motivate us to go and get something.
It just makes us unhappy now.
And we know we all have those moments when we're fully engaged in a project.
We're fully absorbed in it.
And just everything's flowing and clicking.
Might be a creative project.
Might be an athletic.
You're doing something athletic.
And everything's just clicking.
Everything's just coming together.
And at the end of it,
Maybe you look up and you notice the time or someone interrupts you.
Hey,
It's time for dinner.
And you go,
Wow,
Where did the time go?
Where did the me go?
Because the time and the sense of a separate me are hooked together.
And yet,
We were having our most happiest times.
And we were at our best.
Do you think the best basketball player in the world,
When he's shooting the hoops in the game,
He's imagining how happy he's going to be when he wins the game?
No,
He wouldn't make the shot.
And the best tennis player is there playing the game.
If not,
If they're thinking about a future me happy,
They're not their best.
We are not our best when we imagine ourselves getting something in the future,
When we imagine we have to get somewhere other than where we are now.
We do,
In fact,
A really just inadequate job of whatever it is that we're doing right now.
And we're not happy.
We're not present.
We're not living our lives.
Because we spent so much time just chasing for this little momentary glimpse of release,
Of relief,
That was here the whole time.
But we set up this arbitrary game in our head.
No,
If I just get over there,
Then I'll be happy.
And all it's doing is making us unhappy now.
We're not our best.
We're not more efficient.
We're just simply not present for our lives.
And so we've got to stop believing this lie,
This lie that we tell ourselves,
That I will be happier in some future moment.
There is no future moment.
You will get there.
It will be now.
And we've got to stop believing the lies,
That I can just do it over here,
And it's not going to affect anything over here.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
So we have to see this for ourselves.
We have to really look to see this chasing mind,
This chasing mentality.
40% to 60% of the time in your ego,
You are chasing happiness in the future.
The other 40% to 60%,
You're resisting what's happening.
And we're going to talk about resisting next week.
I want to just keep it on chasing for this week,
Just to help break it down a little bit more for us,
To make it a little bit more easier for you to identify just that one movement this week.
Next week,
We'll look at resisting.
And the thing is,
The thoughts are so very,
Very subtle,
So subtle,
So insidious.
They are in there doing their damage.
We don't even recognize it.
But the feelings,
And they come with a sledgehammer,
Right?
That nervous energy,
That tension,
That gripping,
The feeling of being unhappy.
We can notice that.
And so I would invite you to be more mindful of this mind movement,
To expect it.
It's happening for everyone.
If you have an ego,
It's either chasing happiness,
Me happy in the future,
Or it's resisting.
Those are the mind movements.
All the little ways underneath,
Judging,
Comparing,
Narrating,
All the little things,
Of course,
They fall under these two mind movements.
Expect it.
It's going to start up.
And make little sticky notes.
Write them around your house.
Leave little notes.
Chasing mind,
Chasing mind.
Look for the chasing mind.
Because one of the translations of the Pali word sati,
Which is most often translated as mindfulness,
Another translation for that word is remember.
Remember,
This is the problem.
We forget.
We forget.
So leave little notes around for yourself.
Leave little notes.
And then when you notice it happening,
I'm going to be happy when I have this meal.
I'm going to be,
Or when I get to that meal,
I'm going to be happy.
When I get to the end of the day,
I'm going to be happy when I get on the other side of whatever it is that I'm doing now.
And breathe into it.
This is where our mindfulness practice is,
Like breathing into it,
Feeling all of the tension that is happening now.
Not because you're not in some other moment,
Because you cannot be in any other moment than now.
But because of the thought,
You are believing a thought that your happiness is over there.
That's what is causing the suffering,
The belief in that thought.
So we have to come into the body and feel that sense of openness again.
Breaking ourselves out of the story,
Because you can't come in and feel your body and feel the breath and tell yourself the story at the same time.
So we're breaking that connection to the story of me,
Happy in the future,
And coming in and feeling what's actually happening.
Noticing,
Oh my god,
I really didn't feel good because of the thought.
Not because you needed to get somewhere.
You didn't feel good because of the thought,
And you believed the thought to be true.
So feeling it,
And really breathing,
And being there with it until you notice your energy bouncing back out again.
And you feel that spaciousness.
And again,
More evidence.
Oh,
I feel good now.
This is the only place we can live is the now.
And if I'm fully present here,
Not chasing,
Not resisting,
I'm fully here,
I feel good.
It's all that energy of wanting to get to the next moment that's making us feel so badly.
So we need to really break this down and see for ourselves so we stop believing these lies of what the ego is telling us.
We're not going to be happier over there.
We're going to be unhappy now.
And we're just going to keep repeating it to every little minute detail in our lives.
We are going to keep repeating that pattern.
And I would also ask you to ask yourself,
Where is the little me that's going to be happy in the future?
You can breathe and feel your body first,
Or you can ask the question first.
Where is this little me in here?
This little sense of a me that's going to be happy over there,
Where is it?
Look for it.
Look in the body.
Where can you find it?
Because there is such a strong sense of me because of the stress,
Because of the gripping,
Because of the idea,
The image of me.
But now with all of that going away,
Look for it.
Where is it?
Oh,
There was never going to be a little me that was happy over there because that little me doesn't exist.
It's just the ego.
It's an illusion.
It's not real.
And yet we've been letting this illusion dictate our whole lives,
Chasing happiness,
Finding it for a moment only because it was the absence of the ego for a moment,
Only to start it back up again.
So we have to really look at this and see what is going on to be more mindful,
To question the little me that's going to be happy in the future,
To see for ourselves this ruse that we keep falling for.
And this doesn't mean that we can't plan,
That we can't think,
That we can't be on time for something.
It's just the absence of a little me that's going to be happy when it gets somewhere.
You can think to yourself,
Okay,
I'm going to get on Insight Timer at nine o'clock.
I'm giving a class,
But there's no me that's going to be happy once I get there.
We can be happy doing whatever it was you were doing before you came on the class.
Being present,
Being here,
Being in the here and now.
There is no other time.
And we have to see this.
Most of our lives,
We are just chasing,
Chasing,
Chasing happiness.
In a future time,
Time is linked to the ego.
In the present moment,
There is no ego.
It's linked to it in a future time.
And we do have to break out of this cycle to see it for ourselves.
This is where your practice comes in.
It's not enough to hear me say it.
To look for yourself,
To see how you're feeling because of that thought.
To look for that little me,
See if it really exists or not.
The only way you will know for sure is if you look and see if it's there.
It's like looking in a room that you expect to see filled with furniture and you open the door and you go,
Where is everything?
I was so convinced it was in there.
And then instead what we find is the spaciousness of the present moment,
The joy of the present moment,
The only place we can live.
The present moment where we really experience the world directly using our senses,
Hearing what's going on,
Hearing sounds without commenting or labeling them,
Seeing all the forms and the shapes and the colors,
The beauty.
We don't even see or hear because we're so,
You know,
We're so tuned up to this station of happiness,
Me happy in the future.
We don't even see the beauty that's happening all around us.
We don't hear what's happening around us.
We don't taste our meals because if you were excited getting to your meal,
Telling yourself,
I'm going to be so happy when I get to my meal,
You sit down,
It takes about 10-15 seconds before the ego says,
Well,
What's next?
What's the next meal going to be?
What's for dessert?
It just starts it up again.
So we don't really taste anymore.
We don't feel anymore.
We don't feel our bodies anymore.
This is why we can walk around in this bundled up state of energy,
Of nervous energy because we're so disembodied.
We don't feel it.
So it's coming back into the present moment,
The only place you can be happy.
The only time is now.
This is the only time.
Everything else is just imagination.
And most often the ego in the imagination.
Imagining me being happy in the future.
There is no future you to be happy.
You can only be happy now.
You can only experience your life now.
Otherwise,
It's just a dream.
And this is what we're trying to wake up from.
Because we're all here.
Because the dream isn't that pleasant.
We don't like the dream.
And so to wake up from the dream,
You have to look for yourself to see what's happening.
Feel what's happening.
Don't get lost in the thoughts.
Don't believe the thoughts.
You've been believing them.
They're lies.
They're at best slight exaggerations.
They are at worst outright lies.
You're not bringing you happiness.
You're just bringing more suffering.
Trust the present moment.
We don't trust it.
This is part of the problem.
We do not trust the present moment.
We trust that story more than we trust the present moment.
And we've got to learn to start trusting it more.
By really focusing our attention,
Making this what I would ask or I would invite you to do,
Is to really this week say,
I'm going to really focus on that chasing mind.
I'm going to look for it.
I'm going to expect it.
It's already come up in this conversation.
It's already come up.
No doubt.
It will come up definitely after our time together.
So expect it.
Know how believable it is.
You have been believing it your whole life because it is so convincing.
So know this ahead of time.
It's very convincing.
It's very believable.
But I'm going to do the practice that Meredith suggested and I'm going to see for myself.
I'm going to notice my mind racing to the next thing,
That me happy at the end of that.
And I'm going to feel it and breathe into my body.
So I feel the breath in the body.
Opening the body up.
Feeling that tension and recognizing,
Wow,
That tension is attached to the thought.
And the more that I stay here,
The more spaciousness I feel.
And where is that little me anyway that was going to be happy over there?
Because surely I should be able to find it if it exists.
Why can I not find it?
So look for it.
You can do either of those practices on their own,
Together,
In whichever order you want to do them.
But look for yourself.
Look for yourself to see how much the ego has been lying to you about where your happiness is.
The only time is now.
The only place you can be at peace,
You can be happy.
The only place you can truly live your life is now.
Everything else is just a dream.
It's just a dream.
And we want to wake up from the dream.
So this is what I would suggest for your practice this week.
To focus on that chasing mind of a me happy in the future.
And next week we will look at the resisting mind because that's the other side of the ego is the pushing back.
But just to focus just on this,
Just on the chasing mind,
Just on me happier over there.
And see for yourself what's going on.
