Can We Access the Present Moment?

Nowadays a popular view circulates in Buddhist circles that says we 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 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 resulting images appear continuous, and the people, things, and events within them seem to be moving continuously. 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 the 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—illusory, neither real nor present.

It is the same with what the five faculties come into contact with: by no means is it a true object of direct perception. When 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 initially arising forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches, and these particles are still not the most real. For example, a sound travels from its point of origin through a medium of transmission, its energy diminishing step by step. By the time it reaches the ear faculty, its amplitude and energy have already weakened. The greater the distance traveled, the fainter the energy by the time it arrives at the ear faculty. Then, after being conducted through the auditory nerves to the supreme faculty at the rear of the brain, the particles of the four great elements may have changed again; the sound that forms is no longer the original sound, nor the present moment of the sound. The same holds true for the other faculties.

Therefore, the present moment we wish to grasp is always a present moment of the past tense; relative to the now, it has already occurred and passed. Moreover, even as we speak of the present moment, it has already passed. Each present moment, each thought, 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. As for so-called reality and the so-called present moment, these are what the tathāgatagarbha comes into contact with, but since the tathāgatagarbha does not discriminate, it cannot be described, and so we cannot know it. 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 should we give rise to strong attachment. Of course, it would be best if one could be completely and thoroughly without attachment, for then the mind would be entirely liberated.