Is the ‘NOW’ a lot of hype?

Christopher Titmuss has an insightful article on the NOW.

Excerpt:

This article is a critical examination of the beliefs and conclusions invested in the Now. Despite the inner benefits from contact with the here and now, I regard it as irresponsible to grasp onto the Now, as if the Now served as the answer to everything. There are spiritual teachers whose claims to enlightenment rests on the conviction that there is only the Now, and they intimate that they abide in it all the time.

I suspect the Buddha would be bemused at the new lightweight determination of enlightenment as being totally in the Now that is on offer in the West. We might have the impression that the Buddha used the phrase “here and now” hundreds of times in his teachings, but I can’t find a single reference to “here and now” in his 5000 discourses. When the term “here and now” does appear it is usually as a translation of two words that the Buddha used – dittha dhamma. However this is a very, very free translation since neither dittha nor dhamma means here or now respectively. The Buddha would not be so shortsighted as to fix the now as the only truth.

Our culture has put such a positive spin on living for the moment that, sadly, this standpoint has entered into exploration of the Dharma. Dittha dhamma literally means “a thing seen” or when in the locative case ditthe dhamme – “in the visible order of things; in this seen dharma”. The Dharma points to awakening amidst the view and presence of phenomena. It is not a teaching of being in the Now or identifying with it in any way.

(Hat-tip to Hokai!)