allow the present moment

Let the present moment be an end unto itself

Our busy thinking minds are endlessly involved in chains of causation, looking back at the past to see what has led to the present moment, what has caused some event that is happening now. Or we are looking to the future trying to predict what our immediate actions might lead to in the future. And it is not only our own life that we look at in this way. We are forever judging others. We judge their actions based on whether we think they will have a good effect or a bad one.

And so in our mind we are living in the past and the future because of these mental chains of causation. But this is not the way to really be alive. If we want to really appreciate this moment right now, we must break this way of thinking in time. Why worry about what has led to this present moment? In truth, everything is interconnected, and the whole of the past has played a part in this present moment arising. And the future too is here in the present moment, but not some small part of the future – all of it. Everything is influenced by everything else in an intricate, unanalysable web of interconnectedness, and we do not need to understand it all. Indeed, in trying to understand it all, we miss. We might think we have understood, but we have not. And whilst we are preoccupied with our insignificant little understandings, we are missing the present moment.

So I say unto you, allow this present moment to be itself, to stand alone without regard for the past and the future. Immerse yourself totally in this moment. Feel its uniqueness. Sense its beauty. Indulge yourself in the vast emptiness of this present moment. Here in this moment is everything, everything you could wish for and more. But you can only feel this if you allow the present moment to be, and allow yourself to be with it. It is an end in itself.

Do not allow your mind to take you away into the past or the future. Be here with the delight of this moment in and of itself. It is complete. It needs no reference to what has gone before, nor to what may come tomorrow. Be this present moment, and you will find that you are whole, lacking nothing, needing no alteration: yourself and the rest of existence perfect in this moment.