Is each moment new?

[alfa]

Almost all religions, especially taoism, declares that each moment is new and must be enjoyed. But I don't see how. Every moment seems to be the same moment repeating itself endlessly. Why else do we feel boredom, then? Boredom would be impossible if every moment were fresh and new.

 

It seems to me that permanence is the only reality, which is why we feel bored with everything. If things are always changing and new, we'd never be bored with anything. Every moment would be meditation!

 

Alfa

[11:33]

Almost all religions, especially taoism, declares that each moment is new and must be enjoyed. But I don't see how. Every moment seems to be the same moment repeating itself endlessly. Why else do we feel boredom, then? Boredom would be impossible if every moment were fresh and new.

 

It seems to me that permanence is the only reality, which is why we feel bored with everything. If things are always changing and new, we'd never be bored with anything. Every moment would be meditation!

 

Alfa

 

Boredom is just a bad mental habit. I for example, never get bored. Honestly.

 

How can you get bored with such a wonderful world all around you filled with so much fascinating stuff, like dirt, bugs, clouds, cheese, feet, cats, etc?

[Pranaman]

someone wiser then me on this very forum once said that boredom is withdrawel from too much fun, or TV, I forget... but probably both.

 

Change happens on a subtle level, this is what I listen for. The background to every sound is always new, because I am always different.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Pranaman

[11:33]

Maybe that's part of my equation? I almost never watch tv.

[alfa]

Boredom is just a bad mental habit. I for example, never get bored. Honestly.

 

How can you get bored with such a wonderful world all around you filled with so much fascinating stuff, like dirt, bugs, clouds, cheese, feet, cats, etc?

 

When you sit down and do nothing, are you bored? While watching this world, the trees, birds etc., one may not feel bored. But when yo do nothing, you feel bored. That's true of everyone.

[11:33]

When you sit down and do nothing, are you bored? While watching this world, the trees, birds etc., one may not feel bored. But when yo do nothing, you feel bored. That's true of everyone.

 

You actually think you know what is true of everyone? Come on dude, I just told I don't get bored. If that is hard for you to fathom, well hey what can I do about that.

 

I don't know how to help you not get bored. If I did I'd give you some suggestions, methods, techniques, etc... Maybe suggest you practice finding excitement in the smallest possible things. Practice over and over until you literally can't get bored because there is always some little thing that is exciting.

[Tabula Rasa]

With experiencing each moment as new, as in "being here now", "meditating", there is no boredom.

Consider two opposite functions to be possible in your brain; "thinking" and "no-thinking".

99.9% of thinking happens automatically and repetitively whenever a stimulus triggers it. All triggers are created from past conditioning.

The moment that a human being becomes aware of that thinking happening in their brain, the possibility is immediately available for choosing to "use" the other function of the brain, "no thinking", which I like to call being "mind-space".

Here we are at "The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao"... "No words describe it".

Meditation can been said to simply be increasing awareness of the activity in the brain.

When we humans are unaware of the conditioned thinking happening in the brain, we are living in the dream, the delusion, lost in thought, unconscious robots with our bodies controlled by a bio-computer that is running on old programs that are full of bugs.

As soon as we see the thinking happening, and exercise our natural ability to shift to mind-space (non-thinking function), we are simply "being now".

Humans have already figured out many types of practices to help us see and expand uses of the possibilities inherent in our brain functioning.

All roads lead to the same center. The source of all form is the formless.

Therein lies freedom. All else is bondage. (Wei Wu Wei's word choice).

Listen to the Silence.

It's really fun!

Edited June 10, 2009 by Tabula Rasa

[DaoChild]

When you sit down and do nothing, are you bored? While watching this world, the trees, birds etc., one may not feel bored. But when yo do nothing, you feel bored. That's true of everyone.

 

Do children often get bored?

 

If you ask me, children are some of the wisest sages in existence.

[doc benway]

Almost all religions, especially taoism, declares that each moment is new and must be enjoyed. But I don't see how. Every moment seems to be the same moment repeating itself endlessly. Why else do we feel boredom, then? Boredom would be impossible if every moment were fresh and new.

 

It seems to me that permanence is the only reality, which is why we feel bored with everything. If things are always changing and new, we'd never be bored with anything. Every moment would be meditation!

 

Alfa

No two moments are ever alike. Every moment is infinitely different than every other and yet every moment is this one right NOW>

Boredom occurs in the mind. The mind thinks it understands everything through its system of images and ideas. If you can let those images go and really look, listen, taste, touch, smell the world around you at every moment you will never get bored.

[Deepbluesea]

I am wondering if you are not colliding two different thoughts into one. You can never put your hand in the same river twice (sorry, I don't know the real quote) is one of my favorites. Things are in constant motion.

 

Since you are bored it sounds like you have come to the conclusion that you must be bored because either you or your world have become stagnant.

 

I don't think that I agree with your logic. Maybe you are bored despite the fact that everything around you is in constant flux.

 

I can't equate your problem with permanence to what I just wrote though. Maybe there really is no permanence. It sounds like you are saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Or "It feels like deja vu all over again."

 

I don't think there is a quick answer to your question. It is almost Koan like. It seems like you can not have both permanence and motion but we do.

 

I do think though, that the boredom part of your statement is a different altogether. One could be bored in a changing environment or a permanent environment. As others have said, that's more of a mind set.

 

This is something good to think about -- I'm certainly not bored, thanks!

 

Peace and love

[DalTheJigsaw123]

You actually think you know what is true of everyone? Come on dude, I just told I don't get bored. If that is hard for you to fathom, well hey what can I do about that.

 

I don't know how to help you not get bored. If I did I'd give you some suggestions, methods, techniques, etc... Maybe suggest you practice finding excitement in the smallest possible things. Practice over and over until you literally can't get bored because there is always some little thing that is exciting.

 

I am with you on this. I do not get bored, either. I practice Zen and Tao. Especially Zen. Appreciating, studying and focusing on one single thing, no matter how big or small it is. IT could be as simple as standing still or drinking/eating food. Finding beauty in it is key. I try to do all of the above.

[DalTheJigsaw123]

Do children often get bored?

 

If you ask me, children are some of the wisest sages in existence.

 

I do agree with you. Children are never or hardly bored. They always find things to do. Quiting amazing watching them play and talk and such. You can learn a lot from them. I enjoy watching kids play together. Park is a great place to just see how kids connect and what they share with one another.

[Unconditioned]

When we're bored nothing appeals to us, nothing attracts us, nothing grabs our attention like it used to do. Personally I've gotten this way when I've overdone something, and usually that something is a form of escape (TV, video games, going out, sleeping, sex, etc.) I find myself searching for the next thing to entertain me, to make me feel good, but when I can't find anything I become bored. And if I can't find the same enjoyment that I had before it leads to depression.

 

For me boredom was a result of my clinging to pleasure and not being able to relive the past experiences.

 

Each moment FEELS like the last, it appears like the last but with less of a rush than the time before, like an endless cycle. It's like a drug, you need a bigger thrill the next time otherwise it's just the same ole shit, hence boredom.

 

Mostly it's a mind game, we draw a conclusion that this should be the same as it was before, and we expect it to feel as good as before. But we could be creating bigger expectations, a mental image of how amazing something was, we add our conditioning to the memory and reality is distorted by our conditioning.

 

But I'm not sure if any of this will get you out of boredom, you have to look at things yourself and figure out why you're bored. My experience is not the same as yours but serves as a possibility for a cause of boredom.. that's my disclaimer so that you don't superimpose my previous situation onto your own.

 

Good luck!

[Unconditioned]

Or maybe this has something to do with it:

CNN - Internet Fatigue

[Tabula Rasa]

From Wikipedia...

 

"A moment is a medieval unit of time equal to 1.5 minutes or 1/40 of an hour."

[living mountain]

- but back to the original question-

 

i agree somewhat with the initial proposition- in that perhaps there is no such thing as moments- that thos are just our brain hiccuping, replaying the occurence, for processing. rather, i feel that there is only one moment- a continual happening, that, if we had a larger perspective (i.e. timeline) that we would see that "moment"occur- that the Tao arose and faded. we have to use metaphors, likening a moment to a sun burning out, which seems to take a long time, but arent suns just splash drips from the latest big bang?

 

so in my impression, there isnt an "each moment" to consider if it is new... the occurence of the universe (sounds like a limiting word, i know) is THE single occurence. this to me is TAO. but don't let me call it that, because we know what "that which is called the Tao" isn't.....

[Unconditioned]

- but back to the original question-

 

i agree somewhat with the initial proposition- in that perhaps there is no such thing as moments- that thos are just our brain hiccuping, replaying the occurence, for processing. rather, i feel that there is only one moment- a continual happening, that, if we had a larger perspective (i.e. timeline) that we would see that "moment"occur- that the Tao arose and faded. we have to use metaphors, likening a moment to a sun burning out, which seems to take a long time, but arent suns just splash drips from the latest big bang?

 

so in my impression, there isnt an "each moment" to consider if it is new... the occurence of the universe (sounds like a limiting word, i know) is THE single occurence. this to me is TAO. but don't let me call it that, because we know what "that which is called the Tao" isn't.....

 

There is only now. This can be shown easily by looking at the past and the future.

 

The past is a memory, a thought form, it only exists as a though recollected right now.

 

The future is a projection, an 'imagining', a thought form, it only exists as such right now.

 

So there is only an idea of the past or the future that we think about in the now 'moment'.

 

Edit: So is each moment new? No. The now moment is not time-bound however, the forms change in this present moment continueously. So each form is 'born' and 'dies' continueously. Sort of like going to the movies, the screen doesn't change but the images projected onto it are continueously being 'born' and 'die'.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Unconditioned

[goldisheavy]

Almost all religions, especially taoism, declares that each moment is new and must be enjoyed. But I don't see how. Every moment seems to be the same moment repeating itself endlessly. Why else do we feel boredom, then? Boredom would be impossible if every moment were fresh and new.

 

It seems to me that permanence is the only reality, which is why we feel bored with everything. If things are always changing and new, we'd never be bored with anything. Every moment would be meditation!

 

Alfa

 

If you listen to the Buddhist contemplative Nagarjuna, our conception of time is pretty much nonsense. Moments, in particular, do not come one after another. That's an illusion, a feature of certain types of cognizance.

 

Further, since identities are not stable, whether or not these moments are seen as new or different depends on the observer. They are not inherently new, nor are they inherently different. When one sees something as new or the same, one engages in comparative judgment. Usually if we think the commonality outweighs the difference, we call it the same. If we think the difference outweighs the commonality we call it different. So, for example, it is obvious that a person changes in shape and in weight and in many other ways, like in smell and so on, as they age. And yet we have a way to identify the person as being the same one during the 70 years or even 140 years or more. Why is that? That's because in our judgment the commonalities outweigh the differences. But this is a personal judgment. Do they really outweigh or not? It's impossible to finalize this judgment. As you judge this, there are more and more things you could consider, and there is no way to finalize it because information is endlessly contextualized.

 

So nothing is extremely new and nothing is extremely old, which is to say, nothing is so new that it has absolutely no commonality to anything else, and nothing is so old that it undergoes no change whatsoever. This means that nothing abides in an extreme of any kind. Things are beyond extremes. The mind is also beyond extremes.

 

I hope this helps.