Fresh Or Frozen?

Every chef knows that fresh food is juicy and nourishing. They also know that frozen food is dry and, when reheated, becomes even drier and lacks substance. There are those who think, however, that ‘fresh-frozen” is still fresh 😀

Is our knowledge fresh or frozen?
Is it here and now,
or is it a frozen package, bought in from outside?

Reconstituted from frozen isn’t fresh – any chef or practitioner knows this. It is the same with knowledge. Is our knowledge a result of direct experience, or is it borrowed from a book? Is it here and now, or is it something in the past or a projection into the future? When we bring the frozen (from outside) into the fresh (here and now), we may believe that it’s still fresh, but we would be deluded.

Mindfulness is here and now. It’s a fresh, direct experience.
Mindlessness is doing things without thinking them through in a careful way. It contaminates the present moment, and is based on sentimentality.

Sentimentality: exaggerated and self-indulgent tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.

Once someone is fixated about whatever is going on in other places, they can never be right here, right now. This is living through obsessions, rather than being mindful. There are many people consumed by the state of the world, and we may see that they have a point – but not when it clouds whatever is happening right here, right now.

Mindfulness is being practical, dealing with the present moment.

Constantly referring to memories obscures whatever is actually taking place. When someone is always talking about things going on elsewhere, trying to bring them back to a here-and-now reality is like talking to a brick wall.

It is the monkey mind that wanders all over the place.
Only consciousness is in the here and now.

All that we think we know comes from acquisitions embedded in the mind.
The essence of mind is consciousness, pure and simple.
That is right here, right now.