The mind spends most of the time lost in fantasies and illusions, reliving pleasant or unpleasant experiences and anticipating the future with eagerness or fear. While lost in such cravings or aversions, we are unaware of what is happening now, what we are doing now.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how our thoughts often distract us from the present moment.
S. N. Goenka's quote warns against the tendency of the mind to wander into fantasies, memories, and future anxieties, leading us to miss out on our current experiences. It emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and being present, as our cravings and aversions can overshadow reality, causing us to overlook the significance of the 'now'.
In practice
During a meditation session, one can reflect on the nature of thoughts as described in this quote.
Every sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it.
One learns the art of dying by learning the art of living: how to become master of the present moment.
Rather than converting people from one organised religion to another organised religion, we should try to convert people from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation and from cruelty to compassion.
For my part, it is not the mystery of the incarnation which I discover in religion, but the mystery of social order, which associates with heaven that idea of equality which prevents the rich from destroying the poor
The object of the Bible is not to tell how good men are, but how bad men can become good.
We have three approaches at our disposal: the observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation serves to assemble the data, reflection to synthesise them and experimentation to test the results of the synthesis. The observation of nature must be assiduous, just as reflection must be profound, and experimentation accurate. These three approaches are rarely found together, which explains why creative geniuses are so rare.
Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.
Holiness is a disposition of the heart that makes us humble and little in the arms of God, aware of our weakness, and confident - in the most audacious way - in His Fatherly goodness.
If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.
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