Firstly, "pain" is an actual physical sensation. What they feel may seem physical, but it is the mind (thoughts, actually) that causes present suffering about a past or future event. There is only the present moment. Past and future are conceptual thoughts. Thoughts can have great power over us until we really see…

Is this meant as useful advice? What does it really mean to "get real?" What are these demons, and how do you chase them out of the corners of what, exactly? How can one apply this tremendously useful advice?

I'm not saying that you need to have any contact with your mother, but don't keep torturing yourself long after the experience is gone. If you can't let it go, who can? If not now, when? How does it serve you to keep holding onto it? How does it make your present experience more rich by holding on to it? How does…

No. "Cold" is a label that you mentally attach to some temperature. It has nothing to do with energy.

I've taken my own advice. (It wasn't "my" advice at the time, however.) I fully understand how hard it is to start - and how easy it is when you realize it. When people are set off by "implication," it is their own thought that is attaching this label to something that is said, and them setting themselves off over…

I didn't intent to offend by the remark to "live in the present." That remark is only offensive if you are attaching something else to it, though. You might have had some visual thought about someone being flip while making this remark.

I fully understand what you are saying. You just have the same view of time that most other people do. Most people have not really looked at time and thoughts, and how they distort our present reality, however. Most people blindly accept these concepts as reality, but they are not.

I'm not trying to batter anyone into submission. I'm just responding to comments.

If it isn't controllable by their thought, what can they do to overcome it? What's the point of therapy, then? Are they just totally fucked? Where is YOUR compassion? I'm pointing to a way out of suffering that has been used for thousands of years. You're reinforcing the suffering.

These past things with which you are interacting... are you touching them NOW or at some other time? Can you do anything that isn't now? Show me.

How DOES the past exist in the present moment? Thoughts about the past exist, but "the past" is only a concept about a present moment that is no longer here. There is only one present moment - the ever-unfolding now. Every other "time" is NOTHING but thought. It's not semantics to say that - it's 100% true. It's…

What did I assume?

Cute! I love the condescending tone in your message! How friendly. Sort of.

No. The past is a collection of thoughts about a previous present moment. You are not that.

I'm not trying to gauge anyone's level of happiness. She is suffering at some points in the present, though.

Cute trick!

Yes! She CAN "flip some sort of switch." In fact, ONLY SHE can flip that switch, and it can be done NOW. It only takes focusing awareness in one place rather than another. That's it. Nothing more. It's a shift in awareness that takes the energy out of thoughts about past pain that causes present suffering. And…

How do you know about anyone's level of - or lack of - compassion? Your thoughts are projecting that label. (...and they're not even your thoughts.) I'm just pointing to the truth - nothing more. It wasn't done in a mean way - only factual.

Who you are is much more (and much less) than a collection of thoughts about the past, despite whatever popcorn quotes there are about said past.

Gee. Thanks for your recommendation!