THE PAST: THE WOMB OF THE PRESENT
By
Rev. Dr. Arthur Chang
Presently, “Be in the moment,” is a fashionable Buddhist
saying. Equally popular is the more poetic version, “The past is history, the
future is a mystery and the present is a gift; that is why it is called the
present.” For reducing anxiety and for better focus on an immediate task, these
sayings can be powerfully useful. Perhaps for those reasons, a good insight can
run amok when we reflexively generalize it to every occasion. For example, to
say, “Don’t live in the past,” or “Don’t be influenced by the past,” does not
mean the past is irrelevant. Our past is to us as the great library of
Alexandria was to ancient learned minds. “Knowledge is Power,” says Sir Francis
Bacon, and the past represents our storehouse of knowledge. The Buddha
underscores the relevance of the past by saying, “All that you are is the
result of all you have thought.” This is not limited to ideas, but includes our
perception of our actions. Furthermore, Aristotle says, “You are what you
habitually do.” Our habits are the skills and knowledge we use to develop our
talents into strengths, which make them available in the present moment. A
strength is the ability to provide consistent, near perfect performance in a
given activity. All we have in the present moment for determining our best
action are gifts from our past.
Yet, how easily we can diminish the crucial importance of
the past by associating it mostly with things undesirable or obstacles in our
way toward a better future. As an iceberg’s greater volume is beneath the
surface of the sea, so is our reality more past than present. According to
Process Thinkers, reality comes in droplets. This means it comes into being and
immediately perishes. This is based on the discoveries of quantum physics. Our
minds cannot detect this change or process any more than, in watching a moving
picture, we can detect the discrete fixed frames of unmoving pictures run at a
certain speed to give the illusion of movement. Thus is the illusion of the
present being continuous.
By not understanding that the present moment is like
an undetectable flash of time before it becomes the past, we may assume
everything we are doing today is the present and yesterday’s activities are the
past. If so, we may be living in a continuous illusion, not appreciating that
the past is the womb of the present.
Yet, as fleeting as the present is, it is our
awareness of our reality that can reset the past for more favorable support in
creating our future. Here, Mind is the actor. Mind interprets the present
moment and calls upon our past (our knowledge and experience) for relevant
insights for surviving and thriving.
Life is a holistic endeavor and, although there is
value in breaking down our perspective of time into past, present and future,
our reality includes this as a total system acting as one. By such means we
will find our most harmonious relationship to this web of existence we call
reality. Thus, although our lives are mostly our past, it does not make the
essential spark of awareness called the present less important. It makes it a
part of a whole--a system that is at its best when it works actively as past,
present and future.
