Be here now?

Be here now? What does that mean? It’s said and it seems to make sense. Simply be in the moment and do whatever you are doing fully.

But the question is, what does that really mean?

If you take a look at yourself and what is going on in the present moment, you'll only find elements that are constantly changing. The body is alive, which means that it's never frozen in any way. There is no doubt that the body is in constant motion. I’m not just talking about actual movement that you can see, such as moving your arms, walking, eating, talking, brushing your teeth and so on. But the actual body itself is comprised of elements that are always in motion. If you took a look through a microscope at any part of the body, you would find it in constant motion. If you take a closer look, the same could also be found in all the objects that surround us, such as a stone. Granted, a stone isn't alive as we are, with a personality and a heartbeat, but nonetheless, it’s never in a frozen, inactive state. And looking even further into what’s around us, you'll see that everything derives from nature; wood, different metals, oil (plastic), rubber, cotton, synthetics (which on closer look is all formed from nature by mixing this element with that element). Take, for example, your smart phone. What is it made of? It's made of materials from nature and was put together in a very specific order to make the phone, but at no point is anything from nature not in movement. 

In the larger picture of nature, we look to see the constant motion of the universe: the earth, the sun, the stars, the light, the wind, the seas and oceans and so on. Everything is merely one big collection of elements in motion. 

The other major part of what is going on in the now are thoughts and emotions. The nature of both of these things is change. Take a look for yourself at your thoughts and notice how they come in and then go. Just the fact that they come in means that they are transitory. There has never been a thought that just comes in, remains the same and never leaves nor changes. Examine those thoughts that seem to be persistent and see if they don’t follow suit. The same can be said about emotions. You may feel happy for a time, but later you may feel sad. This means that at some point, your happiness changed and was replaced with sadness. I say replaced because when you feel really sad, the happiness appears to have disappeared and visa versa. You will have to take a look within yourself to see if anything I am saying is true or not. Even if it what I am saying makes sense to you, who knows if it's really the absolute truth. 

And now back to the beginning: Be here now, what that means, and why it's beneficial. To begin with, picture yourself as just a space in which nothing remains that same, everything just comes and goes. It may seem like there is something sort of permanent about you, but there is no evidence of that, only a thought that says that is so. Begin to take notice of what I am talking about here and see this for yourself. You can take notice of the body changing: Birth, aging, sickness, health, fat, thin, wounds, scars, hungry, thirsty, talking, blinking, swallowing, typing, looking, feeling and so on. And you can take notice of the mind changing: Thoughts, worries, happy, sad, considering, wanting, satiated, good feelings, bad feelings, positive, negative or neutral thoughts and on and on. For example, last week you were feeling very bad about a colleague of yours, but this week something has changed. They quit and you know no longer work in close quarters with them. Those negative feelings will slowly dissipate because the cause is gone. And, without a cause, a thought or emotion can’t continue, life moves on and new thoughts arise. And then they're the new focus and seemingly the most important.

Why is being here beneficial? It's because you can fully experience everything that happens without getting lost in any of it. So, at no point is there any weight on your shoulders since the heaviness of life just isn't there. This isn't to say that you don't care about anything, but rather that you know the truth that everything that comes also goes. And in addition, you will know that trying to hold onto something, anything, just stops the natural flow of things, and that will inevitably cause some level of discomfort or pain.

AwareMeditateListen

Brian Eric Cohen

www.cohenbrian.wix.com/awaremeditatlisten

Edited by: Jeff Kirschner, and check out his site:
www.reallyawfulmovies.com

feel bad + do something to feel good = even?

Does the good really make up for the bad? 

Your life isn't going so well. You're not having a great run. Things aren't great at work. Your foot hurts, etc. You then naturally want to make up for it, make yourself feel good. So you plan on doing something that feels good: perhaps getting drunk; eating too much of something; doing drugs; binge watching a show, and so on.  

What do you like to do when you feel bad?  

The point is does the trying to feel good make up for the feeling bad. For example,  you had a boring week + getting drunk = even; you're  bored + binge watching = even; you're sad + eating junk = even. There are endless examples but the formula remains the same: something bad happens + something that's good = evening it out.  

Everything that I'm saying isn't to get you to try and stop this pattern but to become aware of it. Aware that it keeps repeating, is out of your control and constantly changing. You don't need to try and fix it or yourself because that's just more of the same pattern, trying to change bad to good. We didn't invent this pattern. It's human thought and was around before you got here, long before.  

The key aspect is that sometimes life isn't good but then it changes. Life doesn't remain frozen and discontinues changing. It's in constant motion. Becoming truly aware of this is the real definition of peace. For example, say something bad happens. Let it move on versus trying to rectify that something bad with something else that usually causes your body, your mind, or even worse, someone else’s body or mind, some sort of pain. The realization that everything that happens also passes is true wisdom. It's very simple but difficult to realize because just letting something be bad without trying to change it is very difficult for us indeed! 

Aware Meditate Listen

Brian Eric Cohen

www.cohenbrian.wix.com/awaremeditatelisten

Death, who gave it a bad name?

The fear of death is common, understandably. We often try not to talk about it or even mention it, thinking that if we do it will come quicker or something. And, we will also suffer greatly in many ways in order to avoid death. This is because death appears to be a whole lot of nothingness, and we don't want that. Death is something unknown. We can't really understand it in any real way, we can't stop it and simply put, it's the seemingly end of you. So being afraid of it just makes sense.

But, death itself isn't scary. It's what you, or society, make of it that's scary. It's all the ideas and beliefs that surround death that can be very real and deeply ingrained.

Ask yourself, what do I think about death? And, in your answer, will be where all the fear lies. In actuality death remains unknown.

Unknown doesn't imply good or bad. It only implies that it's something that is not known. The truth lies in this fact: there are no people alive who are dead, so that leaves nobody really able to explain it. Yes, there may be some who may have had near death experiences, but they are still not dead.

Death does not necessarily mean bad.

All of this is to say that the fear of death comes down to thought, which doesn't make it less scary. But, gives you the ability to learn the truth and to see for yourself that thought is not really true. The way to see this is by noticing how thought works. It's nature. You can see this by taking notice of how it's always in motion, never freezing; how it's out of your control; and how it's not satisfying, unreliable. Once you see how it works, it's ability to fool you will slowly end and only the truth will remain.

In addition:
Here is the truth about death: It is something that was always in the deal; the life deal. Death is not the opposite of life if you think of life as being alive because even in death the left over remnants of you is still stuff the is changing. It's still earth stuff. There is no such thing as a frozen unchanging state, like how we imagine death to be.What actual will die is your personality. For example, if your name is John, then the John character, his traits, his stories will die. John’s body, absent of john’s personality, will slowly go back into the earth. John's soul, essence or whatever you call it moves on.

Brian Eric Cohen
www.cohenbrian.wix.com/awaremeditatelisten