Time To Lose
A Short and Precious Life
We all have time to lose, in this short span of a life a sequence of 2 billion ungraspable seconds drift into and out of the present moment. And how many of those are we present with? Not a lot. But it doesn’t need to be this way.
The present moment is often presented as the holy grail of spiritual practice. But being present isn’t the goal of Buddhism, and possibly not of any spiritual tradition. It is a means to an end.
Dhammapada v. 348.
Let go of the past,
Let go of the future,
Let go of the present,
And cross over to the farther shore of existence.
With mind wholly liberated,
You shall come no more to birth and death.
Don’t Get Lost Yet (I’ve Just Started)
Right now, if you were physically lost the best advice you could receive would be how to get to somewhere you know of. That is the advice of “Be Here Now”, find yourself in the only place you could possibly be. Right in the present moment. From that place the exploration of what it actually means to be lost and found can really occur, and from that place the deeper journey begins. And that deeper end of the journey is going to unravel most everything we take to be real and substantial, and reveal a subtler freer nature to life than the intellect can easily hold to.
“Whatever is considered as ‘This is true’ by the world, with its deities, Māras, and Brahmās, with its contemplatives and priests, its royalty and common people, is properly seen by the Noble Ones with right wisdom as it actually is, as ‘This is false’…
“Whatever is considered as ‘This is false’ by the world… and common people is properly seen by the Noble Ones with right wisdom as it actually is, as ‘This is true’.”
Sn 3:12 translated by Rob Burbea and excerpted from his excellent book: “Seeing That Frees”.
We’re All Going On a Summit Holy Day
So starting right here and now. What do we need to sustain this journey. We’re going to need wisdom, clarity, and equanimity (ease in body and mind).
This is a recipe I use to cultivate this sustenance.
Time to Loosen
Time is well spent if we’re grooving with the body in the current space and time. A few mindful minutes of movement change how we feel, and when ‘how we feel’ changes, experience changes, because perception also changes, so how we feel about ourselves changes. Pretty radical stuff to come from a few curls and twirls.
I love to do the 7 minutes exercise program; you’ll need to apply your own mindfulness to these routines, but that isn’t too hard. Just make sure that you are associated with a sense of the unfolding consciousness of being in the body that is moving.
An easier and possibly more effective meditation in movement is to follow along to SanghaSeva’s retreat exercise program. Even if you just do the Pawanmuktasana series at the start, in 5 minutes you’ll have opened all the energy channels (or if you’re a skeptic about those existing — you’ll feel loosened up) and be much more awake.
Finally, I just downloaded the No Meat Athlete’s 15-Minute Strength Workout. You need to give them your email to have it sent to you. It’s aimed at people on a plant-based diet. But I can’t see why it wouldn’t be good for any blood thirsty omnivores too. It contains a healthy series of 4 whole-body exercises explained in an easy to follow way.
Time to Lasso
Yes, I’m just being a wordsmith, or trying at least. But in a broad, and temporary, sense one of the faculties of cultivation (AKA meditation) is to lasso the mind to the moment it is in. Why temporary?
Dhammapada v. 348.
(Again; these translations are as unique as two poets trying to express the same moment.)
Gone to the beyond of becoming,
You let go of in front,
Let go of behind,
Let go of between.
With a heart everywhere let-go,
You don’t come again to birth & ageing.
Your body is here and now, always, that’s why it’s good to start there (see above), your mind (on the other hand) is one of the most incredible space explorers and time travellers you could imagine. It is more often in the future (albeit without a glitzy sparkly all-in-one suit, and a quirky AI (artificial intelligence, not artificial inseminated, nor working for Amnesty International) sidekick) fantasying new worlds into existence, or reliving an inaccurate past with all the drama and flair of an HBO filler, than being right here and now with all that is unfolding in this perceived present.
But good news, a slow and gradual transitioning is possible: We can take some easy to pull off radical leaps in consciousness, and by loving the hell out of them make them our new habitual traits. It all starts by simply paying attention to our mind’s incredible journeys, and pulling it back to something seemingly mundane, but truly even more incredible, like the breath.
What is it really like to sit still and breath? If you don’t know the answer you haven’t begun the fruitful journey of cultivating presence and clarity. Get to it.
If you want some help along the way there are loads of my guided meditations on SanghaSeva.org And being a bit of a talkative chap you’re probably overwhelmed by choice so this would be a good one for getting started: Introducing a Full and Easy Breath
Time too Loose
Our path of exploration and cultivation is hopefully awakening us to a radical series of understandings about how life unfolds; how perception is malleable; how that changes experience; and how the self that feels like it’s sitting somewhere behind your face is completely unfindable. Gradually and slowly the radical experiences available simply through listening, and discerning possible development (two of the core grounding practices of cultivation), are changing who we now feel our being to be.
Here we are getting to a few aspects of the journey’s goal (albeit rooted in another exasperating wordy-smithereen). It is time that now has become loosened. Time is in the grip of movement, as J Krishnamurti said in his conversation with Prof. David Bohm, transcribed in The Ending of Time. It is not an independent aspect of the universe: Time needs objects to change for it to exist, just as much as objects and change need time.
One of the key objects we both view in time, and take the view of time from is our subjectivity (if that isn’t a complex contradiction). But it isn’t actually in time: our self-identity view, which as we noted above, is an unfindable, and thereby rather immovable, object; is both outside of the duality of existence and non-existence, and, here it comes, time. This isn’t something you just say, “OK, I guess.” It’s something to consider deeply. So I try to, yet you don’t have to, still, it can be life changing to (really let) sink in.
How Soon Is Now
When is now exactly? It is that moment just before the future and just after the past. It exists relatively. Could it exist in another way? Hard to say really, it seems to but then we can’t really refer to it. Maybe time, like the self, both does and does not exist.
If we have to rely on (seemingly) existing in a present that can only be defined as being a moment that isn’t the past nor the future, what does that mean? Looking at it this way means a number of things: We said before the misconstrued holy grail of cultivation practices is to get into the present moment. This offers a stepping stone into emptiness. We might have heard something like: “the past no longer exists, and the future has not yet come into being, so let them be (or let go of them) and come into the eternal now.” Sounds true. Yet that means we have a definition of now that is dependent on two other aspects of time which we have become convinced don’t actually exist.
Think Yourself Free
Is this word play or is this an overlooked detail of what time actually means? It’s both. Many of Albert Einstein’s greatest discoveries came about through thought experiments. We too can utilise these in our explorations beyond our expectations. We need to get out of the box of habitual thinking, and new thinking can help with that. We can blow our way out of our own minds. As Alan Watts once sang:
“When one speaks of awakening, it means de-hypnotisation; coming to your senses, but of course to do that you have to go out of your mind. (laughs)”
The End
When our concepts of time, and, more primary, our self-centredness, are seen into and beyond that brings us into some profound changes in our experience. It is well worth seeking these out. Going beyond time starts with conscious movement, a morning swizzle; develops through seeking to listen to the present and looking deeply at our unfolding experience; is aided by a discernment rooted in actually tasting life’s full range of flavour, and choosing the sweeter way. We become gathered in a skilful and open manor (sic — using this as slang for neighbourhood AKA the Brahma Viharas) we have transcended our sick habit of thinking this is all about me, and will then live like life is a shared and meaningful dance, done for the wellbeing of all beings; known and unknown. Or so we hope.
Originally published at natha.ngly.de on February 17, 2018.
