Just Now Mind – The Zen Practice You Can’t Mess Up

Are You Here?

Where is your mind right now?

Are you thinking about something from the past, maybe regretting something you did, wondering what you could have done better, or how a certain event affected you in a certain way? Or are you thinking about the future—what you are going to do today, what you want to become, what you will say to a certain person if you meet them, or something else?

When you look at your mind, where is it being pulled?

Because most often, we are anywhere else with our minds but not here, now, in the present moment.

We Miss Out on the Present Moment

We live in the past or the future, but never in the present. I mean, there are so many regrets to think about and feel bad about, right? Our shortcomings, our failures, something we did to somebody, something we felt embarrassed about, something we should have done but didn’t, and so on. And we have to think them through, we have to repeat them in our minds.

This is funny because thinking about a past action doesn’t change it. Never will, never can. And the same is true for the future. We are always anxious about what’s going to happen. But no matter how much we worry about the future, one thing is clear: we won’t survive it.

Everything that comes into being will sooner or later vanish. This is a fact and we can’t change it, no matter how hard we try. We also can’t really prepare for what’s going to happen. I mean, we can try to to some degree, but we can never have full certainty about what’s going to happen.

I don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t plan things or take actions regarding events we project into the future, but how much of our energy is spent worrying instead? As if our worry could somehow positively impact what’s going to happen; as if we’d be better prepared for the future if we just worried enough.

So we spend a lot of time worrying about the past and the future, and what gets completely ignored in the process?

It’s the present moment. It’s what’s happening right now.

We miss out completely on what’s happening right in front of our eyes since we are conditioned to constantly think about the past or the future. Even in spirituality, we’d rather think about how bad we are as humans and how to resolve all the karma we carry around, or we think about a moment in the future when we will finally become enlightened and everything will be good.

There is this constant seeking, grasping, for something better than what’s happening right now, or we try to run away from what has already happened in order to avoid facing it.

And then we wonder why we are in so much conflict.

Instead of being present with what is, we think about something else; we come up with an alternate reality because past and future are only ideas in our minds, and we end up being stuck. Then, we try to feel unstuck again. And how do we do it?

We think about the past and how it could have been prevented, or we think about the future and what we are going to do about it. We completely miss out on what’s happening right now. We don’t see what’s in front of us at this moment. Instead, we live in a fantasy. And now, take 8 billion people, everyone living in their own fantasy, completely anxious about everything. No wonder that the world is how it is today.

Just Now Mind

In Zen, there is the idea of a "just now mind." Just now mind means just now mind.

What are you doing now? What are you thinking now? What are you feeling now? Who is witnessing all of this now?

It’s not about a big insight or anything of that sort. It means being aware of what is just now. This can be any thought, any action, any feeling—even thinking about the past or the future. And the only thing one has to do is to become aware of that. It’s very simple, and you can’t get it wrong. Even if we become aware that we have been in delusion, it just means waking up to us having been in delusion.

And we are not trying to resolve it, we are not trying to push it away or anything like that—we are just becoming aware of this particular movement in our awareness. And becoming aware of it already means accepting it.

Sometimes we think that once we become clear and enlightened, all the bad things will turn into good things—as if our delusion would suddenly melt into a golden stream of bliss and make us feel wonderful.

This is only an idea. This is our ego wanting a result for a certain action. This is wanting and seeking. Just now mind means to just become aware of it.

So if you become aware of yourself being in delusion, it means just that. Paradoxically, if you don’t resist it or try to change it in any way but truly accept it, it will dissolve, it will free the energy it was holding, and your whole system will be nourished by it. But this only happens if we have completely surrendered to it, which means accepting it totally, not wanting to change it or make it dissolve.

Now, I said that just now mind means having no expectations about any given object we become aware of, but on the other side, if we accept it fully, it will benefit us. That’s the typical situation spiritual seekers find themselves in. They hear about enlightenment, and their first impulse is to chase it, to attain it. But then they learn that this very seeking prevents them from “experiencing” it.

Now, we might secretly chase it. We don’t chase it because we know that seeking it would prevent it, but we secretly hope that something will happen if we behave well enough in our spiritual search.

How can we deal with this situation? The answer is: Just now mind.

Surrender to Just Now

When you become aware that you are seeking enlightenment, you become aware that you are seeking enlightenment. No need to change it, or to make it into something different. Just being very honest with ourselves. That’s the thing I’m doing.

The same goes for our typical day-to-day situations. If we become aware that we were deluded, maybe even unconscious, for a given period of time, we just wake up and become aware of all of it. “Ok, I was in delusion for the past two hours.” If you can’t help yourself and you feel bad about it, what do you do? You wake up to exactly that. “Okay, I was in delusion for the past two hours. Now I feel bad about it because I wanted to be in enlightened awareness 24/7.” That’s it. That’s what’s happening just now.

Maybe, if you do that, a thought will come along that says, “Wow, you did a great job—you accepted not only your delusion but also that you felt bad about it.” Then, this is simply what’s happening right now.

It’s as if you reset the calculator to zero in order to start a new calculation. You set your mind calculator to just now, and you look from that just now. Because the just now is already unconditioned, it’s already pure awareness, it’s already the mind of the Buddha. But before we get too excited about it, we also become aware of that—just now. Because if you practice it seriously, it will be as if individual mind objects—such as thoughts, feelings, and perceptions—merge into a stream of consciousness flowing through you.

They will have less power to pull your awareness toward a particular mind object so that you focus only on that and forget everything else, making your awareness very narrow. Instead, your awareness will open and become wider, allowing these mind objects to rise and fade naturally into the constant stream of consciousness.

And this can come with a wonderful feeling. You stay as the witness, as the watcher, and let everything rise and fall in your awareness, naturally. If this happens and you become aware of it, you let that go as well—even if it’s a really wonderful feeling.

You just become aware of it. Then, you might become aware of yourself trying to hold onto it, maybe even anxiety creeping in—afraid that you’ll lose it again and fall back into deluded thinking.

No problem. Just now mind practice.

Not attaching to the bad or the good. Only returning to just now.

"Just now" mind is very ordinary, very boring, very sobering.

It’s not about a special state or anything of that sort. Now, you might ask yourself, “Okay, but what’s in it for me then?!”

"Just now" mind is not for you—it’s not for the little ego or the small self.

It’s surrendering your ego, your small self, to the totality of Being. 

Your small self might be disappointed or even opposed to the idea of practicing this "just now" mind, claiming, "This is just too ordinary, it’s very boring. I already see what’s just now, and I haven’t found anything awesome in there. Let’s do a meditation instead that gets us to enlightenment."

You’d be amazed at what’s in front of your eyes RIGHT NOW if you were to take off your conditioned lenses and just look at it, just as it is. You’d be like, “That’s the best thing ever! Why haven’t I seen this?”

But forget what I’ve just said already. That would only create expectations. "Just now mind” is very ordinary, nothing special.

I hope this was helpful and inspired your spiritual practice.

See you next time. 

All the best—your friend of the way. Bye!