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This is to the original poster and the subject at hand. Sorry I didn't have time to read through the whole thread, but thought I'd add my 2 cents, although these points may have been made, so I apologize in advance. Not trying to sidetrack the thread :)
The past is the past and we can't change it (at least most of us believe we can't change it, let's just say) and the future hasn't happened yet, so we are always living in our Now.
You can't change the past from the past and you can't change the future from the future, so you only have the Now. From this "point of power" you can change the past and project what future outcome would be better to have, but you can only do those from the Now.
So the Now really is the only place that counts.
To me, when living in the Now and not thinking about a past event or a future event that might occur, I am noticing only myself and what's around me. And trying to stay present in the present and not dwell in the past or future is a muscle that can be learned, like anything else.
When you are present in your Now, you can notice things you might not notice when you are thinking about past/future.
It is a slippery slope to stay present, because are brains are just wired to make connections for us. If I am driving in my car and turn on the radio, this is when I notice it the most. It could just simply be a commercial, and that reminds me of something in my life and I starting thinking about that something, now not paying attention to the commercial, and I'm supposed to be driving, so I've split my attention and I'm focused more on thinking about that connection that my brain has nicely served up, than driving my car.
If I hadn't turned on the radio, I could be in Appreciation. Of the beautiful cars that are driving along side me, the amazing trees that I am passing, the pedestrians, the sky and what it's doing - the sunrise in the morning with the sun coming over the horizon, painting the sky a vivid color scheme.
So it's not that I am not in the Now, it's just harder to appreciate what I am doing in the Now if I am hijacked by the radio LOL. I can appreciate my car and how I love driving it.
The more I can appreciate and find joy in what i am doing each moment (for there is Joy in each moment if I look) I get more bang out of my day.
If you have kids, you understand this process. Kids are in the now all the time (young ones anyway). Be around a kid for an hour, and that is being in the Now.
So I find, what it means to me to be in the Now is to appreciate where I am in each moment, be childlike and find the wonder of the moment and what I could be doing with it, instead of letting my brain hijack my day with patterns of habits or patterns of thought.
Sometimes I do very well with it, and sometimes my brain hijacks me and I go down that path. The trick is to not allow that to happen, and if I was more conscious of what I am thinking and I can catch these hijack moments and stop them fast, and tell myself, that's not what I am doing here, and get back to appreciating what I am doing, the more I do this, the easier it becomes, but to catch yourself thinking takes a bit of doing and is something I have to practice.
So it's something to strive for. Because Joy is everywhere and abundant and my search is to try to find the joy in each moment and uncover it.
For me, it usually happens easily in the morning, when my day is bright and shiny and new. I'm trying to learn how to stay in the momentum of that. And when I can stay present, I find things I never would have found if I wasn't present, but sidetracked.
It's a nice thing to try, and why not give my brain a break from all those connections LOL?
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