We are in the garbage-creation business. The products and
results are our own creation, and the consequences are observ-
able 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 real-
ity, 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 neces-
sary 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 con-
cerned. 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 knowl-
edge. It’s very logical and nice; it’s also very real and accept-
able 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 dif-
ferent kinds of feelings, emotions, and sensations in us. The
mind projects usually either good or bad outcomes. The previ-
ous 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 hap-
pen. 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 pro-
jected 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 fabri-
cated 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 sce-
nario it provided us with and now we are living like if these
illusions are as sure things as our past memories. The compro-
mised 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 justifica-
tions 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 fabri-
cates 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!
This is the original text, and an edited version can be found in the Fragments of Reality -book.
