Realizations - The Present Moment Doesn't Exist And Movement Is Impossible

[Emerald]

I just picked up an old contemplation that I used to think about as a little kid as young as 6 or 7. I was always trying to grasp what "now" is. So, I would pace around in my room, watching my feet, trying to wrap my mind around the present moment. I was never able to find it. It was always just out of reach. 

Back then, I also imagined that time would stop for a million years every other split second but that we'd never notice it because time had stopped and consciousness with it. So, my thought was that time went on as a series of still frames, like a movie. But I assumed this assumption was wrong and that time was real on some level that I didn't understand. This assumption was wrong, and this realization helped me make traction on a 20 year old contemplation. Woo hoo!

Here are the realizations

1. Time doesn't exist- There is only the present moment. It is only our memory that gives the illusion of a past behind us. It is only our imagination that gives us the illusion of a future in front of us.

2. Movement doesn't exist- The illusion of movement is only created by an ongoing series of present moments in our visual and tactual field. 

3. The present moment doesn't exist- The present moment is always a non-point. As you hone in on it you will notice that you can't really experience it. There's always a projection from a past memory or future fantasy. The present moment is infinitely small. It can never be found because you're always infinitely close to experiencing it but also infinitely far away from experiencing it. Just like trying to count to infinity, you can't actually experience the present moment.

Conclusion: Existence doesn't exist. It's all a projection.  

[Dash Us Pain]

basically everything that UPANISHADS (dash us pain) for those that are slow on the uptake has posted. only its more existence is a mirror of soul.

[cetus]

@Emerald Wilkins Time is duration. Plank times. It's all stills or frames. Like a flip book. You flip the pages and it gives the impression of movement or passing of time.  How many times have you heard people say in a direr circumstance that their "whole life passed before there eyes"? It's all stills. It's all a snapshot. Time passing is a total illusion.

[cetus]

@Emerald Wilkins Think about this. Where does everything exist but does not include time?

[Rodrigo]

46 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

I just picked up an old contemplation that I used to think about as a little kid as young as 6 or 7. I was always trying to grasp what "now" is. So, I would pace around in my room, watching my feet, trying to wrap my mind around the present moment. I was never able to find it. It was always just out of reach. 

Back then, I also imagined that time would stop for a million years every other split second but that we'd never notice it because time had stopped and consciousness with it. So, my thought was that time went on as a series of still frames, like a movie. But I assumed this assumption was wrong and that time was real on some level that I didn't understand. This assumption was wrong, and this realization helped me make traction on a 20 year old contemplation. Woo hoo!

Here are the realizations

1. Time doesn't exist- There is only the present moment. It is only our memory that gives the illusion of a past behind us. It is only our imagination that gives us the illusion of a future in front of us.

2. Movement doesn't exist- The illusion of movement is only created by an ongoing series of present moments in our visual and tactual field. 

3. The present moment doesn't exist- The present moment is always a non-point. As you hone in on it you will notice that you can't really experience it. There's always a projection from a past memory or future fantasy. The present moment is infinitely small. It can never be found because you're always infinitely close to experiencing it but also infinitely far away from experiencing it. Just like trying to count to infinity, you can't actually experience the present moment.

Conclusion: Existence doesn't exist. It's all a projection.  

The projection you talk about is needed for us to keep the body alive.The body does exist.

[Emerald]

4 minutes ago, Rodrigo said:

The projection you talk about is needed for us to keep the body alive.The body does exist.

Where is the body?

[Emerald]

8 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@Emerald Wilkins Think about this. Where does everything exist but does not include time?

The awareness happening now? I will contemplate on this. Thanks.

[Rodrigo]

@Emerald Wilkins Location is irrelevant for the body. The thought of it being somewhere is just thought.

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Dummy said:

"This magic chair, this nighttime planet, this music, these hands; they're not mine. I can't keep them, but I have them now. Right now they are with me, they are mine, but only for a moment, and the lesson of the moment is that moments cannot be seized. There is no now, there is only the intersection of past and future, both of which possess the curious charm of not existing." -- Jed McKenna, Spiritual Warfare

He pre-stole my insight.  Haha!

[Emerald]

1 minute ago, Rodrigo said:

@Emerald Wilkins Location is irrelevant for the body. The thought of it being somewhere is just thought.

What is the body? 

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Dummy said:

Note also that if movement is impossible, then change is impossible.

Impermanence is impossible. Which makes it the mark of illusion.

 

Which also, as everything does, points back to finiteness (spatial and temporal). Which points to relativity and mutual dependence and co-arising (as in the buddhist emptiness philosophy, and the yin/yang symbol), i.e. emergent phenomena. Which points to foundationlessness. Which points to the absurdity of duality, and the inevitability of nonduality (absolute, infinite, changeless, timeless, dimensionless, attributeless, undifferentiated, etc... ).

 

"The unreal has no being, the real never ceases to be." —Bhagavad Gita

This is why death isn't scary. It's not real. I will think on this more. By the way, is this Rasmus? Or Pinocchio? 

[Rodrigo]

@Emerald Wilkins  To define your body you use thought, to locate it you use thought. There is no need for the body to know where it is or what it is.

[Emerald]

11 minutes ago, Rodrigo said:

@Emerald Wilkins  To define your body you use thought, to locate it you use thought. There is no need for the body to know where it is or what it is.

I'm not asking you to define the body with thought. I'm asking you to experience what the body is. I'm trying to allude to the fact that the body doesn't actually exists because it exists within the present moment projection, which doesn't exist.

So, the idea that you posted earlier that the projection is needed for the body to stay alive is an assumption and not an empirical reality about the body. It could be equally true that the projection (including the projection of the body) comes from nowhere and that everything in that projection including the body is false. So, assuming that experience is projected by the physical body is an assumption and can't be verified in reality. 

Edited April 14, 2016 by Emerald Wilkins

[Primeval]

Yet here we are flowing through an a ever changing moment.

[Emerald]

Just now, Lha Bho said:

Yet here we are flowing through an a ever changing moment.

Very paradoxical.

[Primeval]

Time is the Transformation of Matter through the Field of Spacetime.

It happened, it happens and will continue to happen.

All happening right now!

[Rodrigo]

@Emerald Wilkins It is impossible to define things without thought. My experience of the body depends on thoughts. The present moment projection you talk about is a thought. Without the illusion of the present moment nothing would really change except thought. Without thoughts creatures (bodies) will transform and become other creatures (bodies) with less thoughts.

[Emerald]

Just now, Lha Bho said:

Time is the Transformation of Matter through the Field of Spacetime.

It happened, it happens and will continue to happen.

All happening right now!

What is Spacetime or any other place? What is transformation? What is matter? What is past? What is future? Find the now.  

There are a lot of assumptions in this post. I will debunk them... because I'm arrogant (J/K) but also want to see where it takes me.

Transformation- Change- Can there be change? Change denotes movement.

Can there be movement? No only the illusion of movement through time.

Does time exist? No, only an appearance of time based upon the passing of many present moments.

Where is the present moment? I can't find the present moment. There is only a projection of past and a projection of future that are infinitely close together. The present moment exists nowhere.

Does the past exist? No, it's only a memory.

Does the future exist? No. It's only a fantasy.

Where is Spacetime? Is it in the present moment. No, it is only a thought projection about what reality consists of. 

Where is any place? Place seems to appear within my reality. My reality consists of sights, sounds, sensations, tastes, smells, and thoughts. Place occurs as perceptions that I interpret in this way, only in the present moment. Because the present moment doesn't exist. Place doesn't exist. The current reality exists as a non-point. 

So, the statement you said could be true. But there is nothing in my present experience that suggests that it is anything else but a projection of the mind. 

 

[Primeval]

It could be a projection.

[Emerald]

8 minutes ago, Rodrigo said:

@Emerald Wilkins It is impossible to define things without thought. My experience of the body depends on thoughts. The present moment projection you talk about is a thought. Without the illusion of the present moment nothing would really change except thought. Without thoughts creatures (bodies) will transform and become other creatures (bodies) with less thoughts.

I'll go through this sentence by sentence.

-It's true that you can't define something without thought but you can sense/experience something without thinking about it.

-My experience of the body happens without my having to think about it... if that's what you mean. Maybe this is true in the sense of making sense out of the illusion and seeing the body as a body.

-I think the next sentence is true. It's only thoughts that would change with the experience of the not-present moment. I would no longer have the illusion of something there, so my understanding of that experience would change and nothing more because there was never anything there in the first place.

-I'm not sure if the next sentence is true or untrue. I've never experienced this in my reality. It sounds more like a rationalization of what becomes possible when the illusion of reality is fully realized. But it is none-the-less an assumption. 

Is there anything that I'm not understanding?