Fundamentally, I think that the reason it is difficult to consistently pay attention to the present is that doing so means accepting things as they are, and generally that is very difficult for humans to do, since we are often attached to certain comfortable beliefs about the world, and we are willing to ignore what is actually happening in order to maintain these comfortable beliefs. Of course this doesn’t serve us in the long term, but as you point out, we still do it.
So in terms of the means to consistently pay attention to the present, I would put “drop attachments” at the top of the list.
Thanks for this lovely post Jason.
Fundamentally, I think that the reason it is difficult to consistently pay attention to the present is that doing so means accepting things as they are, and generally that is very difficult for humans to do, since we are often attached to certain comfortable beliefs about the world, and we are willing to ignore what is actually happening in order to maintain these comfortable beliefs. Of course this doesn’t serve us in the long term, but as you point out, we still do it.
So in terms of the means to consistently pay attention to the present, I would put “drop attachments” at the top of the list.