PRESENT MOMENT

The present moment is likened to a ship at sea, and we are passengers on board.

Trailing the ship is its wake, representing the past.  The past is what used to be the present moment, now only a memory.  Since we remember what is pleasant and forget what is painful, memory is selective, hence unreliable.

Ahead of the ship is the future.  It is what will become the present moment eventually.  We experience the future as anticipation, expectation, planning, even worry, and in this way it too is selective and unreliable.  How, after all, can we possibly know what will happen to us or know what our situation will be, weeks, months, even years ahead.  We could fall ill ten minutes from now and die, all the anticipation, expectation, planning, even worry, for naught.

All there is, therefore, is the ship of the present moment.  Life is happening in this moment, in the "now."   The title of Ram Dass' book, Remember, Be Here Now, says it all.  Be here now because it's where you actually are.