The new year is almost here. While there will be the traditional wishes and shouts of “Happy new year!”, many people today are anxious or depressed considering what they believe lies ahead. The recent post of a progressive Christian Facebook page had a candle burning against a dark background and the words, “I mourn for the future we should have had.” It received thousands of “Likes”, with all the comments I read assuming it referred to the presumed consequences of the last election.

While I understand the feelings and the sentiment the post represents, I think they are mistaken. None of us “has” a future the way this post implies because the future doesn’t actually exist. The future is an idea in our head, our thoughts and imaginings about things that might happen. The only reality is here and now.

The same is true, of course, of the past. It, too, exists only in our mind. When we choose to dwell in the past or the future, we are exiting the present—which is often the point. Our ego, our imagined self, thrives in our imagination but it often finds itself with little to do in the present moment.

Like the entertainment industry, print and electronic media thrive by drawing us into imaginary worlds they create. They become ever more masterful at engaging our emotions and entrapping us in their worldviews. That there is little difference between the virtual worlds of video games and that of the media is evident when we realize that we have almost no direct experience of the people and places either depict.

Are there “dark days ahead?” Very possibly, yet that would likely be true regardless of the election results. But if we cancelled all our subscriptions and turned off all our screens, what would we actually experience or even know of them? Can we anticipate with any confidence what will actually happen to us, good or bad, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year?

Jesus tells a wonderfully ironic parable (Luke 12) about a rich farmer who is faced with an overflowing harvest. His barns are too small, so he makes grand plans to tear them down and build new larger ones. “I’m set for life now!” he says. Unfortunately, he falls dead of a stroke. “And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” God asks him. So much for “the future he should have had.”

The only reality we genuinely know is what we are experiencing here and now. According to the British spiritual teacher, Rupert Spira, this is where we need to live.

Regret takes us into the past, expectation into the future. In the absence of these two, we find ourselves naturally, effortlessly, in the Now. The place of refuge. The place of peace.

How do we live in the Now? Of course, that’s the only place we can live. The problem is that we are endlessly distracted from it by our mind’s ruminations: thoughts, plans, doubts, worries, frustrations, disappointments, hurts, anger, etc. Most of these grow out of our obsession with the past and the future. The challenge is to overcome these distractions and turn our attention to what we are experiencing at this moment.

All spiritual traditions teach that the key to this is meditation, both as a regular practice and as a way of being in the world. As a practice, it’s best to keep it simple. A common guidance is to sit in silence for 20 minutes, twice a day. Of course, almost immediately frustration sets in because our mind won’t cooperate. “Silence? Ha! Good luck with that.”

But the mind’s “racket” is the point. It’s no different than the mental chatter we experience all day long. In meditation, however, we have the opportunity to recognize an astonishing truth: we are not our thoughts. Our true self is the witness of our thoughts. You can experience this anytime. When a thought gets your attention, ask: Where did it come from? Then ask: Who is aware of this thought? Freedom comes when we realize that we are not the thinker of our thoughts but the aware presence in which they occur.

The modern master of the practice of living in the Now is probably the late Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022). His central teaching is that meditation is not an escape from life but the path to being fully present with it. He calls this practice “mindfulness.” In his book, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, he says:

In mindfulness one is not only restful and happy, but alert and awake. Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality.

By learning to look past our mental chatter and our wanderings in the past and future, we can experience the world and the people around us as they really are.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

…

The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.

…

The past no longer is, the future is not yet here; there is only one moment in which life is available, and that is the present moment.

One prediction I will confidently make about 2025 is that we will all experience countless attempts to draw us away from our present experience and into our culture’s fantasies and fears. Worse, most people around us will get on that bus and urge us to do the same. And if we resist, oh the things they will say: “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you care? How can you be so self-centered?” Unspoken will be the question, “Shouldn’t you be as anxious and agitated as the rest of us?”

If you are looking for a New Year’s resolution, consider a commitment to living in the present moment. Most likely, you will find some regular meditative centering practice necessary to accomplish that. There are lots of guides for that and Thich Nhat Hanh’s book (linked above) is one good option. Just watch out for anything that equates meditation with “self-improvement”, e.g. lower blood pressure, more efficient at work, better sex life, higher grades, etc. Our culture can co-opt anything for its own use.

The present moment has its challenges, but they are the ones we can actually do something about. As Jesus says,

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Living in the present, however, we can meet those “troubles” out of an essential calm and security. As Rupert Spira says above, the Now is “the place of refuge. The place of peace.” And as Thich Nhat Hanh says, it is the place where we encounter the daily miracles of life. I wish you all a new year filled with peaceful presence and joy.

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