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word are already in the past. The presence of the word “conversation,” therefore, if it can be found anywhere, is in my memory; in other words, it is in my past. Unfortunately, however, the relationship between attention and the present is even more complex than this. As Bergson points out, “when I pronounce the word ‘conversation,’ there is present in my mind not only the beginning, the middle, and the end of the word, but also the words which preceded it and all the beginning of the sentence; otherwise I would have lost the thread of my speech” (ME 69). Therefore, it appears that the present is not confined to the length of time it takes to pronounce a word like “conversation,” but rather can be expanded to include the “amount” of duration (and the quality of attention, and the cohesiveness of memory) that is associated with pronouncing an entire sentence. However, the complexity does not end here. As Bergson recognizes, sentences vary in their length. Therefore, in reality, the particular span of time that makes up the present varies according to the length of the sentence (and/or the power of a person’s attention). As such, in order to extend the present further into the past, all that a person would have to do in essence is simply to change the punctuation in order to lengthen the sentence. The implication is clear: The distinction we make between our present and past is . . . if not arbitrary, at least relative to the extent of the field which our attention to life can embrace. The “present” occupies exactly as much space [so to speak] as this effort. As soon as this particular attention drops any part of what it held beneath its gaze, immediately that portion of the present thus dropped becomes ipso facto a part of the past. In a word, our present falls back into the past when we cease to attribute to it an immediate interest. (CM 179) Pushing this argument to its limit, Bergson suggests that if he were not concerned with what was coming in the future but instead could remain fully immersed in speaking, giving that activity his full attention, then conceivably there would be no limit as to how long that sentence could become (the ultimate “run-on” sentence!), and consequently, there would be no limit as to how much of the past he could hold together in his consciousness. Bergson argues that if we could somehow manage to give our full attention to the flow of life (an attention that would also have to be, as pointed out before, utterly uncontaminated with concerns about the future), if we could allow ourselves to become fully immersed in what we were doing and/or saying, then with this ability (an ability that, I suggest, is identical to the goal sought by those who practice mindfulness meditation) we could at least theoretically extend our present to include our “entire past history”—a present that would not be a frozen 176 LIVING CONSCIOUSNESS “instantaneity,” made up of a “cluster of simultaneous parts,” but rather an “undivided” and “continually moving” present (CM 180). An individual with this quality/level of attention (or mindfulness) would, according to Bergson, experience her or his present as an indivisible flowing melody, as “a perpetual present, although this perpetuity [would have] nothing in common with immutability . . . [but rather, would be] a present which endures” (CM 180).1 Mini-Rumination: Living in the Now This ability to live fully and completely in an expanded, fluid present is also a goal that is frequently described in the texts of many mystical traditions. Unfortunately , however, it often seems that when some naïve practitioners are, for instance, encouraged to “live in the now,” they mistakenly interpret this to mean that they should limit their attention to the smallest possible “instant” of the present. However, a closer inspection of what mystics mean by “the now” shows (for the most part) that they do not advocate that we should reduce consciousness to the tiniest possible instant of the present; they do not propose that we should literally forget everything that happened in the past and have no sense of the future at all. Instead, what most mystical teachings emphasize is the need to free one’s attention from an obsessive fretting over the past and an equally obsessive anxiety about the future in order to develop a quality of sustained, focused, centered attention that holds within itself (in...

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