Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

what does coming back to the present moment mean? we come back to whatever were doing or we come back to experiencing the 5 sense contacts?

befriend wrote:what does coming back to the present moment mean? we come back to whatever were doing or we come back to experiencing the 5 sense contacts?

As I understand it, it means attending to the very presence of nama-rupa as they arise, presist or pass away. I would add that, perhaps instead of focusing on the moment (time-aspect), the focus should be merely on what is/are present (the presence of the aggregates).

In my experience the present moment is not a specific object, rather it is the absence of something, namely the tendency of the mind going to the future or the past. The future and past both being everything from a millisecond to years with respect to the now. When teachers say returning to the present moment, they refer to this state of calmness that arises when the mind is absent of thoughts connected with past or future.

When the focus is on the presence-aspect of the aggregates, it is necessarily focused in this "moment" and not in the past or the future. Therefore, there's no need to try to be at this moment; instead the trying should be to see the presence itself.

The present moment is the only moment there is.....otherwise you would be time traveling. I think that the idea of returning to the present moment means to know that all experience happens in the present moment even if you have the delusion that you have escaped the present moment by thinking about the "past" or "future".

I think what I said above is a starting point only.
chownah