The Totality of Experience - Shinshu Roberts

 ...As soon as we return to the totality of this moment's complete
expression, responding to the whole of our situation, we are
not caught by anything.  Even though we are still subject to
the repercussions of our past actions, we are free to
respond skillfully in the present moment/situation.

If we have been rude to someone in the past and that person
is wary of us [or if they have been rude to us], our total
participation in this moment of meeting that person will not
necessarily take away the effects of our past meeting.  What
it will do is free us to respond skillfully in this situation.
Since we are not caught by "piled up" or overlapping
experiences, we are freed to enact the new paradigm of 
[seeing the whole of the situation] and being present for
the next opportunity...

Holding on to a past mistake will often hinder your ability
to respond skillfully in the present, although you still file
away your mistake and make adjustments.

Our understanding of self can become a fixed idea of
accumulated ["piled up"] traits and experiences.  The self
 is both independent and the totality of all being-time.  We are
no-self and a particular self at the same time, caught by
neither and more than both.  [This] realization is not
predicated upon a particular set of circumstances.
Realization is present in each moment.
Realization is each moment.

Shinshu Roberts
from an article on Dogen in Insight Journal
from Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering