Waiting for the Next Moment | Balance in Presence

It there are some patterns in the mind that everybody inherits that even for advanced presence, practitioners like yourselves can still reassert themselves because they are so normal. By the way, my definition of normal is insane, as you probably know. And you may be able to catch yourself many times during the day when this normal, one of these normal patterns reasserts itself. And of course, one of the most prevalent patterns is reducing the present moment to a means to an end. It could be a simple thing like you get up in the morning and you're getting ready to go to work. What is the quality of your doing during that time of getting ready to go out, or here you got up this morning, getting ready to go to breakfast and then come here. How do you experience that time? Are you able to be present in what you're doing? Or is the doing no more than a means to an end? And that's a huge difference whether you fold your pyjama and put it on your bed. Is that. Do you give it attention? Is it a pleasant thing to do? Do you acknowledge the being of this pyjama and feel the texture and give it some loving attention and then you put it away? Or is it, what's the next thing and the next and the next? Because I need to get. I need to. If you're not, you may. If you don't, this habit is always there. The present moment is the stepping stone. And not much more than a stepping stone to the next moment, which is always a mental projection because it never comes. The next moment never comes, does it? No, I don't think it does. Because when the next moment comes, it's the present moment. So the next moment doesn't come. It can never arrive. There's only this moment. But if your habit is to treat this moment most of the time as a means of getting to the next moment, so not being fully in it, but mentally being somewhere else, and then just need. So the basic attitude is I just need to get this moment out of the way, then I will get to a better one. And that is a very deep seated pattern that prevents you from being present. But it's only when I voice it like this that it becomes apparent to you, because otherwise you won't even see it. Because it's so normal to live in such a way that unconsciously it's not. You don't. You don't tell yourself in your mind that I just need to get this moment out of the way because the next one will be better. That is an unspoken and unconscious assumption. Behind what you do. And it's not only people also treat entire life periods in that way, then it's not only, of course, most fundamentally the present moment, but they also treat entire chunks of their life in that way. For example, you're waiting for the weekend, so it's only two more days of having to go to work and then there comes. Or you're waiting for something else, getting a better job, finding the person who is going to make me happy. In the meantime, I'm just taking over. It's just. I'm just waiting for. Well, what's the expression? I'm waiting for the big break or whatever. I'm waiting for the big thing to happen and finally I can start living. When that happens, whatever form that takes, when that happens, then my life will really start. And that's another way, another manifestation of the same dysfunction. Reducing an entire chunk of your life to. To a waiting room. And so for many people, they're almost their entire life with very brief episodes that are often connected to falling below thinking with brief episodes of little bit of relief. They. They live in a waiting room. And this somehow, I don't know if anybody remembers. It's probably not popular anymore. There used to be a genre in theatre that was called the theater of the absurd. Samuel Beckett and other authors and often the. They showed. There was a famous play called Waiting for Godot and there are two men waiting for this guy to arrive with a. Nobody knows who Godot is, but they spent the entire play. It's a theater play, the entire play. They're waiting. Godo, who knows? Some critics say, well, Godot, God, Godot, they're waiting for God, but it's not set. But the entire period is spent waiting. And I don't think Godot ever arrives. And they're similar. And this is just to show the absurdity of ultimately everyday life. So you have to be really vigilant to see whether either as concerning the present moment, reducing the present moment to a means to an end. And if you do that habitually, chances are that you also reduce huge chunks of your life to a means to an end or waiting a waiting room. And of course, sometimes life does get better. Of course it doesn't. If you are now living in unpleasant surroundings, perhaps it's noisy or it's cold, too cold or too warm or cramped or whatever it is, you might have a job that's repetitive. You're waiting to get out of that feel lonely. One relationship has come to an end, another one hasn't started yet. I'M just waiting. And so you're hoping that things will get better. And sometimes they do get better. But the habit pattern is deeply ingrained. And even if the situation gets better, then you'll be waiting for something else. Because no situation can ever completely satisfy you. No person, no condition, no situation. Waiting for retirement. Maybe take early retirement and then what? Play golf, Lie on the beach? And many people are very disappointed when they retire and don't know what to do with themselves. And they lose their sense of identity that they. It was always a false sense of identity because it is derived. Derived from their function. But at least they had a false sense of identity and now they don't have any. And then to happen they can't. They don't know the possibilities of human life. So be vigilant. If you feel that an improvement is highly desirable in your life situation, that's okay. But it's much more likely to happen if you give more attention to the present moment. Rather than trying to get away from the present moment or denying it always making it into a means to an end. If you give more your fullest attention to this moment, the so called future is much more likely to improve the so called future because there is no future when it comes, it's the present moment. A little strange paradox. Different.