When we fully experience the moment, without it being altered or compromised by past or future thoughts, there is a feeling of unpretentious delight.
Consider children frolicking in a wading pool, playing with stuffed animals, or enjoying an ice cream cone, experiencing what is as is, in the moment - an innocent yet precious moment. Do you remember that feeling of carefree simplicity untouched by a lifetime accumulation of memories, judgments, comparisons, and related thoughts? Do you remember how to just be with out a running commentary?
The poet Wordsworth expressed it this way:
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
Why is it that we can no longer experience that moment of delight once possible, that moment of “splendor in the grass? ”Why has age and the accumulation of knowledge burdened the moment and detached us from a natural, simple, and uncomplicated and innocent delight of being fully alive. Why are we subject to this great loss? As T.S. Eliot states we can no longer live “the intense moment isolated, with no before and after …”
From youth and beyond we accumulate knowledge that brings historical context to our experiences, but similarly enmeshes and envelopes the present moment in thoughts and emotions from times past. We learn to name things, describe them, evolve intricate understandings, ideas, beliefs, likes and dislikes, and so on. We bring to a once innocent and fresh mind a storehouse of factual and psychological knowledge that narrows and limits our experience. As the poet says, “The things which I have seen I now can see no more.”
When we see a tree do we experience the immediacy of this perception, or is the actual perception mingled with the idea of the tree, its biology, its possibilities, its practical use, comparisons, and so on? Can we see our friends or partners as new and fresh in each moment, or do we experience them in the context of a retained mental image formed long ago? Is it possible as adults to see what is as is without distorting it with memory, likes, dislikes, fear of loss, or attachment?
I am not here speaking against knowledge. There is much practical and factual knowledge that is essential to life. I am speaking here of retained psychological knowledge that contaminates how we see the world each moment. Knowing how to drive you car or perform your work does not impede direct pure experience. However, likes, dislikes, patterns of perception, memories, fears, and anxieties do take us from the beauty and actuality of the moment.
Each of us can remember moments of pure delight – a communion with nature, the immediacy of intimacy, beauty, art, and so on. We lose, for a moment, the burden of memory, past history, and future projections. What then is spontaneously revealed is our authentic self, which is the primary and natural aspect of consciousness that is simply and nakedly aware of what is as is, that experiences delight in the moment.
But we are thankful and satisfied with merely a glimpse of the glory of human life. Why, because we believe we cannot retrieve those moments of abandon and carefree joy and simultaneously function as “responsible adults.” This is true if you believe it is. But, in actuality it is only another false notion acquired from a diminished culture that has lost touch with the great wisdom traditions.
All great philosophical and religious traditions hold otherwise. The great sages, women and men, have demonstrated the folly of this belief with their lives, lived to the end in a state of joy and delight yet, not unaware of the difficulties and tragedies of human life to which they often applied their time and effort.
The unfortunate reality is that as modern people we have become deeply conditioned to believe in our limitations, the sobriety of adulthood, and the irresponsibility of carefree abandon. If we wish to regain the capacity to live with joy and delight, we have a bit of learning to do. And this learning is not an outside skill, but an inner understanding.
I don’t want to overemphasize the practice of meditation, particularly with its modern and limited goal of relaxation. Yes we do have to learn to calm our minds and allow for the stability of inner stillness and mental clarity. We must learn that we are neither our mental activity nor an isolated and separate personal identity.
One simple way to augment the usual meditation process is to simultaneously practice living in the “now.” I am not speaking of the now that is between past and future, but rather a timeless now in which we are just present without the reference point of time past, present, or future. The child in the sandbox is not in the “now,” but rather in the timeless isness of life, as it is happening. The mother who jumps in the water to rescue her drowning child is not in the ”now” but in the timeless isness of the moment as is.
I am suggesting you begin experiencing delight, once again, in the timeless now. For this we must undergo a sort of psychological death each moment. Each moment we must let go of our past and future thoughts, beliefs, likes, and dislikes. Each moment we must let go of who we think we are. We must enter the present moment empty of our over filled mind and allow our natural and untouched awareness to reveal itself as it is – fresh, innocent, simple, and untainted by prior experience.
How do we do this? Try for a few moments to empty your mind of past history and future projections until there is nothing left, nothing, except, a simple child-like awareness that experiences without commentary what is happening now. Try to experience without personhood, history, commentary, like or dislike. Let go of any sense of how this should be, any yearning, any expectation Just be here and surrender to the now. Experience the immediacy of what is as is, as it moves in awareness.
And if this does not work for you or if you are uncertain of how to proceed, then do nothing. Stop seeking delight and become silent, inner silence freed from all thought. If you dwell in this silence in the midst of life’s experience you will find delight, right there, right now –and just let it be. That is the supreme “practice” of delight, the direct and simple realization of the essence of each moment every moment.
When there is delight there is a sense of beauty that is simultaneously experienced. With that sense of beauty and delight there is a spontaneously joyful embrace of life. And, that is the most profound love, as it has no object.
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