Can We Live in the Present Moment?

A view currently popular in Buddhist circles says that we should live in the present moment and seize the present moment. But can we really 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 tactile objects we feel, and the mental objects we discern—none of them is a present-moment direct perception; all are shadows that have already passed. It is like watching television: what we see is a series of dynamic images produced by frames of film played back in rapid succession. 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 formed appear continuous, and the people, things, and events within them seem to be continuously active. 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, much less anything real. Although it is said that the five consciousnesses discern objects of direct perception, what the five consciousnesses discern is by no means a true object of direct perception; it too is a shadow of the past that has already arisen and ceased, an illusion—neither real nor the present moment. What the five physical faculties come into contact with is likewise so, by no means a true object of direct perception. 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 form, sound, smell, taste, or touch as originally generated and appearing. These particles are still not the most real things.

Take sound, for example: from its point of origin, through transmission along its channel of propagation, its energy gradually diminishes. By the time it reaches the ear faculty, its amplitude and energy have already weakened. The greater the distance it travels, the fainter the energy when it arrives at the ear faculty. Then, after being conducted through the auditory nerves to the supreme faculty 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 the sound of the present moment. The same applies to the other faculties.

Therefore, the present moment we wish to grasp is always a present moment of the past; relative to the now, it has already finished occurring. Moreover, while we are speaking of the present moment, it has already passed. Each present moment, each thought-moment, does not linger—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 moment or the past. What is called the real, what is called the present moment, are things contacted by the eighth consciousness, but the eighth consciousness does not discriminate and cannot describe them, so we cannot know them. Since this is so, how should we correctly treat the forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and dharmas of the present moment? We should no longer regard all these dharmas as real, nor give rise to strong attachment. Of course, it would be even better if one could be completely and thoroughly without attachment, for then the mind would be liberated.