This concept always sounded odd to me. Maybe it works for a Monk that had no cares or obligations but could it somehow help me in my quest for transformation?

I read a book a couple of months ago called “Stumbling on Happiness” by Harvard Psychology professor Daniel Gilbert. In that book he explains how our happiness depends in large part on our ability to accurately remember our past and accurately imagine our future. Unhappy people are ones that let memories and/or projected anxiety run their lives. At the heart of that notion is the idea that events, past or present, rarely cause much pain when they happen, but when we let our minds dwell on future things like schedules, obligations, promises, debts, and expected confrontations, then we end up creating weeks or months of stress for something that may only be 1 day of difficulty. The hype is usually much worse than the reality.

A similar phenomenon occurs when we set unrealistic expectations about positive things which we are looking forward to. How many times have you ruined a decent movie because you set such high expectations for it and when it turned out to be “good” instead of “great”, you ended up letting that failure to meet expectations feel like a complete bust rather than appreciating the good movie. We have to realize that we don’t have the ability to correctly imagine the future. Our skills of imagination are often better at dreaming up the impossible rather than correctly projecting an accurate picture of future events. How many people are lured into making decisions like getting a new job, car or house because they have over estimated and incorrectly projected the value it will create in their life. Eventually they feel regret when what the really got was more debt and none of the old problems disappear. I think this phenomenon is the very heart of many problems in our culture of consumerism. Madison Avenue has become very skilled at preying on this flaw in our mental capacity.

It seems that we also have an unrealistic memory of past events and the farther removed we are from the events the more unrealistic our memory becomes. Ever heard your grandfather describe the “good ole days”? Do you think they were really that good? Have you ever eaten what you thought was the “best meal of your life” only to return 2 weeks later to the same restaurant to realize that your memory of the meal was much better than the actual food?

We need to learn how to imagine more accurately but we also need to dwell in the present and feel more content with the blessings that are right in front of us. Meditation is a real key to solving this flaw in our mind. The most basic Buddhist mantra used for meditation goes something like this:

Breathing in – “I am calm”
Breathing out – “I smile”
Breathing in – “I dwell in the present moment”
Breathing out – “It is a good moment”

That seems very simple, but I’m finding that even a few minutes of mediation like this during my busy day can completely change my outlook on life. Being in touch with the present is important in the life of a follower of Jesus. For too long Christianity has been fixated on what may or may not happen in the next life or in "the end times" and forgotten to participate in the kingdom of God which Jesus tells us is "at hand".