Compromised Dumpster

We are in the garbage-creation business. The products and results are our own creation, and the consequences are observable around the world. Most of the garbage is all in our own mind. The dumpster in question is not a physical one in its original form—its derivations can be, however. This huge dumpster is called our mind. It's the creator and initiator of all the garbage. Simply, that is its pure existence and raison d’être. How does this polluter work?

We live only in the moment—now time. Nothing else is available to us. Nevertheless, we can do various things with this now time but still everything happens in the moment. For example, we can think back through our memories and reflect on everything that has happened. We can also project the future and wonder or worry about the next moments. Still, all of these actions are happening in the moment. Our sole decision is just how to use every moment. We can either concentrate on the moment or opt for escaping from the reality, either to our past or into the projected future our mind creates for us.

There would not be any dumpster if we always live in the moment. We would take life as it comes and make the necessary decision as is required. Very simple, no worries at all. Things just happen, and life would be only the issues that emerge to us, some good and some less desirable—all the same because we can only take them as they come.

The above is unfortunately not the way we live. We prefer to be in "control." Therefore, we have to know what happens next. Otherwise we could not have this control illusion. How much control do you have if you cannot predict the future outcomes? Well, this is exactly the paradox. In practice, we are not in control, but we believe we are. Our way of living is based on the trick our mind plays on us. And the results are the huge dumpster we are dragging behind us.

Our mind knows only what we know. It is limited to its own boundaries and it is not objective where we are concerned. It cannot exist without us. We produce the mind. Therefore, it is also the one who creates for us the future—the illusion of time in the moment. The mind works very simply: It fabricates the future from our personal experiences and knowledge. In other words, it extrapolates the past and the current moment to the future based on its previous knowledge. It's very logical and nice; it's also very real and acceptable to us—after all, it's a familiar future to us. We have created it and can understand it. It is easy to accept and fall in love with. How can we not like our own creation?

Our mind provides us with illusions of the future that we take for granted and as true to us. These snapshots create different kinds of feelings, emotions, and sensations in us. The mind projects usually either good or bad outcomes. The previous we dream about and the latter we are scared of or worried about. These outcomes cause new feelings, and the snapshots or pictures start to have existences of their own. They can also create new outcomes and sensations in us. Often, the outcome is that we cling to these illusions and feelings that arise in us. We forget the actual projected route to the future moment and see only the "prediction of the future. "Now it's true to us. We are sure it is going to happen, no doubt about it. It must happen. How horrible or how wonderful.

This is the moment when we produce the garbage. After seeing the beautiful outcome we cling to it. This is something we definitely need or want. Yes, no doubt about it. We are urged to direct our actions toward this outcome. At the moment we are not yet there but for us it is possible because it seems so real for us, thanks to our mind. Now we have two different points to compare: the current moment and the projected future outcome. An urge or desire has been aroused in us. Now we know what we want. This can happen in various of forms: greed, anger, frustration, jealousy, self-justification, and so on, depending on our projection and the gap between the now time and the imagined future. From this point onward, we live in the moment only in a manner that is directed and geared toward the outcome we illusioned. In other words, we have accepted the future our mind projected and are compromising in our principles and behavior in order to make sure that the future will happen the way we desired it to occur.

You still remember how all this started? Our mind fabricated a future for us based on the experiences and knowledge we have at the moment. It did not have any capabilities to provide us any directions or predictions of the actual reality that will emerge. Still, we believed the nice or horrible scenario it provided us with and now we are living like if these illusions are as sure things as our past memories. The compromised garbage is all the things we produced in our mind and now desire. These compromise and corrupt our behavior and actions in the now time. Our mind offered us this great future picture and catered the table with good reasons and justifications to make it happen.

We no longer observe the world as it emerges. We observe and see the world only through the lenses our mind produced for us. We expect our projections to happen. Disappointments and regret emerge from the realization that the future occurred some other way than we expected. We are not in control. We could have even given up and sacrificed some of our humble and noble principles in our quest to perceive and "force" the illusioned reality to happen.

The compromised dumpster accumulates and reminds us, thanks to our mind. It accumulates these memories and fabricates more future outcomes. More garbage coming in—until we catch the litter itself and get rid of it, just ignore it totally. We give up our very mind and start living with mindlessness in the moment. We take life as it emerges and base our actions on the reality as it comes. What a fresh and pure existence!