Imaginary thoughts are just as real as thoughts that are true. They are equal in the sense that they both exist in real life, in your room, right now. One is not better than the other.

Versplinterd

Als je aandacht van de hak op de tak gaat en je nul focus hebt op je ademhaling, leef je net zo goed in het hier en nu als wanneer je heel goed kunt mediteren.

Mediteren is een vrij arbitraire grens. Je kunt meer in het hier en nu leven dan welke boeddhist ooit heeft gedaan. Als je van een afstandje kijkt en je ziet iemand geforceerd focussen op het hier en nu via de ademhaling, en aan de andere kant zie je iemand die ontspannen aan het tuinieren is, dan is die laatste echt in het moment aan het leven. Reflectie daarop komt altijd achteraf.

Een andere fout die constant wordt gemaakt, is dat impulsiviteit als iets negatiefs wordt gezien. Hoe meer je in het hier en nu leeft, hoe impulsiever je wordt—want het hier en nu verandert elke seconde volledig. Dus het is logisch dat jij daarin meebeweegt.

When it happens, it happens at the same time

It happens first, thoughts come afterwards.

Or: you think about something beforehand.

But the moment itself happens fully in the moment.

I don’t like Buddhism, but the state of pure consciousness, where there are no thoughts, exists.

This doesn’t mean that when we look at something, we look at the past. This is a common mistake physicists make. The act of looking also exists in every dimension possible.

I like the paradise metaphor more. We live in a paradise, like when you are doing something fully engaged, and afterwards it’s a time of reflection. You think about the things that already happened or are going to happen.

If you say, “when we look at the stars, we are looking back in time,” it suggests that there is also a present moment.

But that statement immediately undermines itself, because any statement you make can only be about the past—if that is the only thing we register.

We only see the past → this suggests there is a here and now → but you cannot make any statements about it, because we only register the past.

So this cannot be true.

When we look at the stars—and everything that happens in between—it all occurs in one moment, in one time.

Awareness

I think the Bible explains growing up the best. When you are a baby, you have self-awareness, but it is limited. If a baby rolls by a full terrace, it doesn’t care. But when you are 16, you think, “How do I look?”

In this analogy, you get bitten by the snake. You become aware of your nakedness. This progresses until you are fully self-aware.

For whatever reason, Buddhists have turned this natural and beautiful process of growing up into something completely idiotic with concepts like the “ego.” There is no point in sitting under a tree: you grow older anyway. What you do in between actually matters.