' Stories of future fulfillment '...

Thought tells unconscious stories about future fulfillment. The stories may be: “If I meditate, I will become enlightened in the future and will experience great liberation, love, and peace just like my teacher;” “If I can just get my wife to change, I will be fulfilled in this relationship;” or “If I work really hard, I will be successful at my job and find happiness.”

Do you see what thought is doing? It is trying desperately to move away from this moment into something else, something better. This is the cause of unnecessary searching and suffering.

In waking up from the dream that paradise exists in the future, you realize you are living in paradise right now. This moment is it! Thought may say, “But it does not feel like paradise!” The reason it does not feel like paradise is because thought is still operating on an unconscious assumption that only the future will bring fulfillment. Dig into that assumption. Is it true? Where is future? Is it hiding behind the trashcan? Is it in your backyard? Is it on the moon? Have you ever touched anything called “future?”

Have you ever really left the presence in which these words are being read? As you sit here right now, is future anything more than a presently arising thought? If not, then you know that your notions of future fulfillment are nothing more than mental storytelling. That seeing is awakening.



-Kiloby, Scott. Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment