"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present." (Buddhism, Majjhima Nikaya 131)
True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.
My thoughts:
Focus on the present seems to be the most common thread in Buddhist practice, because the end of Buddhism is liberation from suffering and its means is achieving nirvāṇa -- a state without desire or sense of self. There's no room in that state for either regret or ambition, so the meditation, etc. used to reach toward the state emphasizes "mindfulness" of nothing but the present.
It's not limited to Buddhism, of course. David Hume (among others) held that we can only know the past and future through inference and that our reality actually consists entirely of the present, because it's our only directly perceivable environment (my first really powerful philosophical influence, Ayn Rand, spent a good deal of time attacking that notion, which happens to have been the subject of my first college philosophy paper).
It seems pretty obvious to me that the idea doesn't lend itself to getting much done in a practical sense, achieving new things, advancing the human condition in areas other than "enlightenment" itself. How would one incorporate feedback from past failures into plans for future successes? Anecdotally, it seems to me that Buddhists who are well-known for anything other than being Buddhists either don't commit to that, or commit to it after they've already made their mark on the world.
Not that I have anything against focusing on the present. That can be very useful when distractions impede movement into one's desired future. But to me it seems like a failure to engage with reality when adopted as a general commitment.
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