The active mind

Zen buddhist philosophy preaches we should always stay in the present moment. The mind wants to wander on about way too many thoughts, and it’s imperative for you to recognize it and then detach yourself from the constantly thinking mind. Take a deep breath and feel the presence in the now. Focus the sensation onto the extremities of the body: the fingers typing on a laptop, your feet touching the cold embrace of the floor. The mind will want to fight you on this, but anytime you see it go off once again onto yet another thought string, let it go and return focus to your breathing.

This practice is particularly useful during stressful situations, or when things aren’t especially going your way. Negative thoughts of fear, anxiety, or sadness will flood the brain channels during these times, and it can be quite overwhelming if you are unable to keep attention to the present moment. The mind will draw from your pass memories, or create future scenarios in order to torture you; I think we can all attest the mind is very good at doing both when we most need it to be calm.

Being in the present is also surprisingly useful when things are going well. Surely you’ve experienced this: the night before a huge trip or big life event, it’s rather difficult to get a good night’s sleep. The mind is preoccupied with great anticipation for the positive things that’s about to happen, and it cannot wait for you to get this proper sleep first - it wants to time travel. So there you are, lying in bed wide awake, the mind full of sweet scenarios of what’s to come. Or perhaps you’re like me: anxious about those future event turning out badly.

Sometimes the mind wanderings are so strong that you just have to let it be. Resign to that fact it’s going to be active for awhile, and simply observe the thoughts as they come and go. It’s useless to waste additional energy to fight it - just observe. The mind will quiet down eventually, and you can then go to sleep.

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The much neglected.

What I'm working on

It is Monday, August 31st, the final day before September, of the year 2020, pandemic edition. These days with each turn of the calendar I am both surprised and dismayed that yet another month have gone past already, and still we are mired in this lockdown predicament that we’ve been in since March. When will it end? Who the heck knows, but the world keeps marching on, and so should you to the best possible.

Despite it all, I have to say my mental health have actually improved during this quarantine, something pleasantly unexpected. Coming out of a funky 2019, I was expecting a slow road back to equilibrium as another year arrives, but it seems COVID have accelerated those steps: I had to adapt quickly or risk having my anxiety issues turn for the worst. For better or worst, it seems having the space and time to focus on my thoughts - thanks, lockdown - and to think things through is a good form of psychotherapy for me.

My anxiety problem was largely resolved in Spring, and during the summer months I had a reconciliation with accepting situations as they come and going with the flow of life. Surely in part due to the quarantine, early June I was really rebelling against my current situation and being miserable that I can’t do anything about it. Eventually I come to remember that it’s rather useless to lament things that are out of my control, and life happens no matter my mood, so might as well be pleasant about things no matter if they are good or bad. Surrender to the flow and trust that it will eventually turn out okay.

As corny and magic-dust as it may sound, soon as I acquiesced to the flow, my life sort of fell into place perfectly like puzzle pieces, one after another. Things I’d normally stress over or worry about seems to fix itself, or solutions pop up just as I need it. It’s rather amazing.

Lately I’ve been working on the continuing struggle of staying present in the moment, which is a never-ending quest. Right now what I’m marinating on is that thinking about the future - near or far - robs me of the present moment. Don’t be so eager for the next thing on the list, even if that thing is better and more fun than what I am doing right now. Focus on the right now, and stop constantly anticipating; because eventually you’ll run out of the things to anticipate (read: death) and you’ll regret not having dedicated proper attention to your experiences as they happen.

That’s what I’m working on; I hope the final four months of this crazy 2020 will be at least in parts fruitful.

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Daybreak.

Stop projecting into the future

Staying in “the present” can sometimes be very difficult.

The mind is a wonderful yet often uncontrollable thing, and when it wants to it’ll wander off on its own, down paths that you aren’t necessarily ready yet to confront. The more you try to control it, the more it slips away, as if it’s mocking you for your foolish attempts. Being able to focus on the moment and the direct task in front of you is a learned practice, because the mind puts up continual distractions, either from your pass, or the future.

I had such an episode yesterday morning: I was going about my usual morning routine when I received an email from my coworker that she will be out sick for the day. Obviously, the first mistake was checking work email during off-work hours; nevertheless, the message from my coworker took me completely away from what I was doing at that moment, and right into a rather negative chain of thought.

It’s quite selfish, too: my mind immediately went to creating scenarios where the my coworker’s absence meant an increased burden on me. Perhaps work will get super busy, and the lack of personnel meant I’ll be running around like a madman, not getting a moment to breathe. What if today was the particular kind of day that everything at work goes to hell, and I’d be the one stuck plugging the hole on the damaged dam? I’d better get mentally prepared for such scenarios.

Mind you, this was at 9 AM in the morning, and I didn’t start work until 2:30 PM. What a monumental waste it is to worry about something that isn’t yet to occur, to negatively project outwards into the future what might happen. What if things turn out to be okay? None of it is in my control until I get to work, so it’s rather futile and stupid to ponder on the possibilities and be stressed over them. There’s really no utility to it, but the mind is going to do what it is wont to do.

It takes practice to be able to snap out of such thought processes, to detach and evaluate from a macro level. Does this matter right now? If the answer is no, then I know to stop worrying and return to what I was doing. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong; I’ve a bad tendency to create worst case future scenarios for myself, and it’s a constant struggle to calm myself down, to not be so attached to outcomes that most of the time won’t even materialize.

As always, it’s a work in progress.

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I guess anything can be a canvas; even other people’s property!

Skydiving and staying present in the moment

Various schools of philosophy preaches the importance of being in the present, to have supreme concentration on the right here and right now.

Those of us who study and practice philosophy know that is far easier read than executed. The mind so easily wanders to either the future or the past; before you’re even done eating dinner, you’re already thinking about what to cook for breakfast tomorrow. The modern world full of distractions certainly compounds the distraction situation, with the smartphone ever attached to us, like an IV drip of a hospital patient.

Having mind and focus on the present is incredibly tough.

I recently heard of an example demonstrating precisely the mental state of being in the present. It has to do with skydiving, and the exact moment a skydiver is about to jump off the airplane. At that time, the area of focus shrinks down to the very point that only concerns with making the jump. The skydiver isn’t thinking about his mortgage payments or that argument he had with a coworker the previous day: his sole concentration is with accomplishing the mission of landing back on the ground, safe and alive.

That’s the exact feeling and mindset of being in the present that we can harness. To be so completely involved in what we’re currently doing that other thoughts can’t possibly enter the brain. Obviously, we shouldn’t need a pretend life-and-death scenario to draw that out of us. Skydiving can be just like any other thing we do on a daily basis, and therefore it’s absolutely possible to give that same amount of focus towards anything.

It takes practice, of course. A lifetime’s worth.

I’m just running in the 90’s.