Can We Live in the Present Moment?

A view currently popular in Buddhist circles says that one should live in the present moment and grasp the present moment. But can we truly come into contact with the present moment? The forms we see, the sounds we hear, the smells we smell, the taste-objects we taste, the touch-objects we feel, and the mental objects (dharmas) we cognize—none of them is a direct perception of the present moment; they are all shadows of what has already passed. It is like watching television: what we see is a series of dynamic images produced by rapidly playing frame after frame of film. These images arise and cease moment by moment, and each individual frame is itself static. Because they are played in such rapid succession, the images appear continuous, and the people, events, and things within them seem to be continuously moving. On the surface, everything seems real, but in fact they are all shadows—and shadows of shadows at that.

What our six faculties confront and what our six consciousnesses perceive are all shadows of the past; there is no present moment, let alone anything real. Although it is said that the five consciousnesses discern direct-perception objects, what the five consciousnesses discern is by no means a true direct-perception object; it too is a shadow of what has already arisen and ceased, something illusory—neither real nor present. The same is true of what the five sense faculties come into contact with; it is by no means a true direct-perception object. By the time the five kinds of information—form, sound, smell, taste, and touch—reach the five faculties, they are already particles of the four great elements that have arisen and ceased countless times; they are not at all the original appearance of those particles, not the originally occurring and appearing form, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These particles are still not the most real things.

For example, a sound travels from its point of origin through the medium of transmission, its energy gradually diminishing. By the time it reaches the ear faculty, its amplitude and energy have already weakened. The farther the distance it travels, the fainter the energy by the time it arrives at the ear faculty. Then, after being transmitted through the auditory nerves to the supreme faculty (indriya) at the back of the brain, the particles of the four great elements may have changed again, so the sound formed is no longer the original sound, nor is it the present moment of the sound. The same applies to the other faculties.

Therefore, the present moment we wish to grasp is always a present moment of the past tense; as far as the present is concerned, it has already happened and finished. Moreover, the very moment we speak of "the present moment," it has already passed. Each present moment, each thought, never lingers—like flowing water, once gone, it never returns. What we do in each present moment can only influence the direction of the future; it cannot influence the present or the past. What is called "the real," what is called "the present moment," is contacted only by the eighth consciousness, but the eighth consciousness does not discriminate and cannot describe it, so we can never know it. Since this is so, how should we correctly treat the form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas of the present moment? We should no longer regard all these dharmas as real, nor should we give rise to strong attachment. Of course, it would be even better if we could achieve complete and thorough non-attachment, for then the mind would be liberated.