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.
There is no use in deceiving ourselves. American public opinion rejects the market economy, the capitalistic free enterprise system that provided the nation with the highest standard of living ever attained. Full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties.
In a certain sense all men are historians.
God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.
Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.
He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
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