This Moment in Time - Jorie Graham

What I tell my students, when they feel singularly unfortunate to
be born in this moment, is this is your moment, the moment your
soul showed up incarnate.  In this world.  It is an astonishing moment
to be alive.  You could have been born into a lull - instead you were
born into a tipping point. It's your one life and you've entered it at
a flexion point - a point when everything you do matters.  How
often in history does a soul get to live in such an era?  Don't waste it.
Show up for it.  With everything you've got.  Some will invent,
some will organize, some will witness, some will grieve, some
will console.  Live this life now.  Even if in fury and grief, live it.

You don't want to die not having lived.  It's incredibly easy to find
a way around experience rather than through it.  But you will have
cheated yourself out of ..... your life.  You are
here now.  Now is the time to live fully, not hide, not escape.

Jorie Graham

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Choosing What Is - Ivan Granger Commentary

I vow to choose what is...

You would think the unavoidable nature of "what is" makes a
statement like this meaningless, but the human mind is not
entirely sane.  It often chooses fantasy and imaginings,
shoulds and coulds, possibilities and even impossibilities over
what is.  Very few of us truly dwell in reality.  Rarely do we
fully experience the moments of our lives.

What is it that we are straining for as we constantly lean away
from "what is"?  What do we think is missing that we need?  We
don't need someone else's life.  We don't need a perfect marriage,
better finances, or a better place in society.  We don't even need
to be a saint living in the mountains.  What's missing is ourselves.
What we really need is to stand in our own shoes, to be utterly
ourselves.  We need that missing ingredient - being present.
We need to live, with honesty and an open heart, the life that
already moves through us.

[.....]

The power of a practice like Zen is that it defines the human 
journey, not as escape, but as coming home, of settling into
ourselves and being present with the present.  It challenges us
to actually live the moment that continuously arrives and
passes and renews itself.

By making this journey to "what is," we finally meet ourselves
and learn what this amazing thing is that we call life, with all
its rich, joyful, painful, and transitory beauty.

Excerpt from a commentary by Ivan Granger
on a poem of vows by Hogen Bays
you can read the full poem and commentary here

~

Personal Note:  As some of you know, I'm being challenged to
 accept and be present to "what is"in my daily life experiences.
My ability to accept what is fluctuates from day to day.

~

Swirls with Craypas Oils
done with fingers
Mystic Meandering
2011

 

The Elusive Present Moment - St. Augustine & Ostaseski

"Now" is neither in time nor out of time.
The elusive present moment is measured by the tick-tock time
of a clock, which we humans have invented, nor is it separate
from past or future.  There is no time line, at least not as we
conventionally think about it.

St. Augustine (paraphrased)
from - The Five Invitations

~

Hope....is not a wish to be fulfilled, or a plan to be formulated
and executed, but in how we meet the ever-changing moment.

The present moment could best be described as the flow of life.
We are continually being shaped by it and we are shaping it
through the way we meet and respond to it...

Frank Ostaseski
The Five Invitations

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The "Now" is a Portal to Eternity - Rupert Spira

Behind the "picture" [manifest reality] there is a mystery...

Whatever we think, has just passed...

the experience is unnamed...
[neither past, present or future]

The "Now" is not a moment in time...
How long does it last?  How long is the present moment?

There is no "present moment" - it is Eternity - ever-present;
not moving in time...

There is only one [continuous] "Now".

The "Now" is an access to the portal of Eternity.

Rupert Spira
Excerpts from a YouTubevideo: the Picture and the Mystery

~

When we speak of "Life" it must be understood we are not
referring to life as we know it from the surface of fact, but
to that fragile, fluctuating, centre which forms never reach.

Antonin Artuad

~

Photo - from Death Deconstructed,
as well as the Artaud quote.

 

The Troll in the Mind - Mark Nepo

We spend so much time
anticipating what will happen next that we miss
the whisper of Heaven that unfolds wherever we are.

Though I have known and survived
many forms of pain,
fear is the troll in the mind
that anticipates more.

And just as a loud noise prevents us
from finding the peace in the center of silence,
fear prevents us from finding
the inch of Heaven in the center
of whatever moment we are in.

Yet, no matter how much I've been through
and how much I've learned,
I can't stop the wave of anticipation.
No one can.

It is part of being human.

Mark Nepo
(a cancer survivor)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
 A dried rose petal with one eye
at the top and a big schnozz.
Looks like a troll to me :)

Uncertainty Is Hard on the Brain - Markham Heid

...what decades pf psychological research has borne out - is
that the human brain is uniquely vulnerable to uncertainty.
There's evidence that an inability to tolerate uncertainty is a
central feature of most anxiety disorders, and that uncertainty
stokes the sorts of "catastrophic interpretations" that fuel panic
attacks.  Some researchers have even argued that fear of the
unknown is the bedrock fear that human beings experience -
the one that gives rise to all other fears - and that a person's
ability to weather periods of uncertainty is a fundamental
characteristic of a healthy, resilient mind.

As the world grapples with.....the nightmare of Covid-19,
the rhythms and rituals [routines] of American life are
indefinitely disrupted...

...uncertainty disrupts many of the habitual and automatic
mental processes that govern routine action.  This disruption
creates a conflict in the brain, and this conflict can lead to a
state of both hyper-vigilance and outsized emotional reactivity
to negative experiences or information.  In other words,
uncertainty acts like rocket fuel for worry; it causes people to
see threats everywhere they look, and at the same time it makes
them more likely to react emotionally in response to those threats.

Uncertainty lays the groundwork for anxiety because anxiety is
always future-oriented...  The human brain has the capacity to
imagine all the worst things that could happen.  And the more
uncertainty there is - the more likely the brain is to conjure up
and fixate on the worst-case scenarios.

Even minor periods of unpredictability can cause significant
negative effects. ...the lack of control sends stress and anger
levels through the roof.  ...removing the element of uncertainty
makes one feel better.

The more people engage in worrying, the less they feel
confident in their ability to solve a problem and the worse
their solutions to that problem tend to be.  If you're going to
be spending six or seven hours a day worrying about the
coronavirus, you're going to be building up and strengthening
the neural connections that support this activity.  Worrying
breeds more worry.

So what can people do to combat the effects of uncertainty?
...focusing on the present can help dispel uncertainty and the
anxiety it foments.  Do things you enjoy.  Get out a book you've
been wanting to read, or watch a movie, or talk with a friend.
Occupy your brain with work, chores, entertainment, [creativity],
or other activities related to the source of uncertainty; something
that gets your brain into the present moment.

This may also be the perfect time to finally give mindfulness a try.
...embracing [what you are doing in] the moment can distract us
from worry and what may or may not happen. ..."letting go" of
things one has no control over may be the best way to shrink
worry down to a manageable size.

Markham Heid
From an article in Medium.com

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Journey Out of Time - Ram Dass, Rupert Spira, Elias Amidon

Time is a box formed by thoughts of the past and future.
When you're not dwelling in the past or anticipating the future,
but are just here - you're outside of time.
Dwelling in the moment is dwelling in Eternal Presence.
  From within here... you are not being in time. 
You [just] Be, and time goes by, as if you were
standing on a bridge, watching it all go by.

Ours is a journey toward simplicity, toward quietness, toward a
kind of joy that is not in time.  In this journey out of time, we
are leaving behind every model we have had of who we thought
we were.  This journey involves a transformation of our being.
It's a journey that takes us from primary identification with our
psyche to identification with our souls, then to identification
with God, and ultimately beyond any identification at all.

Life is an incredible curriculum in which we live richly and
passionately as a way of awakening to the deepest truths of
our being.  As soul, I live in the moment, in each rich and
precious moment, and I am filled with contentment.

Ram Dass
from Polishing the Mirror:
How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart

~

The Eternal Now,
when seen through the mind,
appears as time.

The Now is our Self.
We are not present in the Now.
We are the Now.

The Now is not a container that contains our Self
along with everything else.
It is our Self, Eternal Presence...

Rupert Spira

~

Let your heart be like the sky,
that transparent, that close.
Touch everything.  Be so quiet
against each leaf, each face.
Where lovers move, be there.
Where bullets strike, be there.
Around each voice, be that air.
Now you know how God feels.

Pir Elias Amidon

An Infinite Number of New Beginnings - Jeff Foster

In your attempt to be an 'adult',
you lose touch with your inner child.
In your rush to b the 'expert',
you disconnect from the amateur you,
the inner lover, innocent and wild.

In your quest for security,
your run from insecurity,
bury your anxiety, crush your doubts,
until one day they explode all over the place,
and make a mess of your nice, 'ordered' life.

Don't confuse the role you play
with who you truly are.
Don't confuse the adaptation with the actor,
the changing weather with the vastness of sky.

Your true identity lies in Presence...
And wonder.
And creativity.
And an infinite number of new beginnings.

Each moment.
Each canvas.
Each Now.

Jeff Foster

~

Jupiter, Venus, Moon - June 2015

Arguing With Life - Jeff Foster

What is the point of arguing with life as it is?

The ego replies, "Yeah, but if I stop resisting the way things are,
change will never happen, things will stay the same, 

or get worse..."

You see, the ego does not  understand the ancient mysteries of
change and healing. It truly believes - in relationships, in career,
in life decisions, in global matters - that peace can only come
through war, that real change can only happen through hating
where we are and desperately wanting to be somewhere else.

Here is the paradox of change.  When we tire of the internal
violence, when we are no longer at war with the way things are,
when we no longer argue with the present scene in the movie
of our lives, we come to rest.  And then, from a place of rest,
new vistas open up, hitherto unexplored possibilities reveal
themselves.  New connections are made, new solutions emerge.
From a place of equanimity and acceptance, things that
seemed certain are now not so certain, blocks are no longer
blocks, old futures begin to collapse and new futures become
possible.  Energies that seemed intolerable a moment ago are
now allowed in, allowed to move, to express and release their
creativity and healing power.  Because our eyes are open, new
details are apparent in the present scene, details that we had
become blind to, in our rush to "a better future."

From a place of peace, we can more easily take the next step.
And sometimes the nest step means taking no step at all,
but falling deeply in love with where we are.  This is NOT

the same as giving up.  This is not passivity or toleration of the
'negative.'  This is not the same as abandoning all hope of a
better future.  There is no abandonment here.  This is not
stagnation.  This is not weakness.  This is true courage.  The
willingness to slow down, be present, drink in all the richness -
the joy and the sorrow, the doubt and the creativity - of the
present scene.

The movie has not been written yet; it writes itself as we go
along.  And in resisting the present scene, you are actually
resisting the entire movie.  Resistance can only breed
resistance.

Sometimes the point of arguing with life, is to get you to
a point where you are tired of arguing with life.  And then
you sink deeply into the present moment, resting in its
embrace, trusting the way of things, accepting your own
imperfections.  And then everything seems possible, and
everything feels alive as you feel alive, and fearless, and
real change can come.

Perhaps slowly, perhaps in a great tidal wave.  But you no
longer push for it.  You are letting it happen. You are
aligned at last, no longer part of the problem, but already
an expression of the solution.

Sometimes you need to stop trying to change the moment,
for the moment to change...  all by itself.

Everything you think is wrong with you, is actually right.
Spiritual enlightenment is already here, shining through
the simplicity of this moment, exactly as it is.

The divine perfection you've been seeking is actually contained
in the midst of your tender vulnerability and imperfections.
There is precious alchemical medicine hidden inside your pain,
and your deepest longings, aches, doubts, grief and heartache
are portals to joy and healing.

Jeff Foster

The Art of Suffering - Etty Hillesum

Most of us in the West don't understand the art of suffering
and experience a thousand fears instead.  Man suffers most
through the idea of suffering, and through his fear of suffering.
We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred and
despair.  Don't we live an entire life each one of our days,
and does it really matter if we live a few days more or less?
There is room for everything in a single life.

When I say I have come to terms with life, I don't mean I
have lost hope.  It is a question of living life from minute to
minute and taking suffering into the bargain.  But does it
matter if it is the Inquisition that causes people to suffer in
one century, and war and pogroms in another?

Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in
what form it comes?  All that matters is how we bear it
and how we fit it into our lives.

I can sit for hours and know everything and bear everything
and grow stronger in the bearing of it.  And at the same time
feel sure life is beautiful and meaningful.  Despite everything.
But that does not mean that I am always filled with joy and
exaltation [about life and its circumstances].  I am often dog-
tired after standing in queues, but I know that this too is part
of life, and I know something inside me will never desert me...

We carry everything within us. God and Heaven and Hell and
Earth and Life and Death and all of history.  The externals are
simply so many props; everything we need is within us.  And
we have to take everything that comes; the bad with the good,
which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the
bad.  But we must know what motives inspire our struggle
[against] and we must begin with ourselves.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and
the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable
horrors - it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty
whole and begin to grasp it better, if only for myself, without
being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together.

If you destroy the ideas behind [suffering] which life lies
imprisoned within, you liberate your true life - and then you
will have the strength to bear real suffering...

Etty Hillesum
Jewish Mystic of the Holocaust
from: An Interrupted Life

~

Wishing the Jewish community
a peaceful and light filled Hanukkah
as it comes to an end...

The Elastic Now - Ira Progoff

Now is not limited to the immediate instant. It is not just
'here and now', not just the spot on which we stand, nor
this moment when we speak.  Our Now moment is elastic...

The Now of our life thus becomes more than a moment.
It is as long or short as the situation of each life requires,
and it includes the most recent part of the past that is a
meaningful factor *in* the present.  This forms the period
that [we call] Now, our most recent relevant past as it
moves in the present.

For each person, the elastic Now has a different content,
and a different duration.  Whatever [the experience] is
[in our lives] it is the Now for us...  It is the particular
present moment in which we find ourselves.  The present
moment of our lives may cover a short period or a longer
period.  Whatever its duration, whatever its content, whether
it is pleasant or painful..... it is unique to all of us. 
The period of Now varies with each individual.
 It is a movement of life...

Let yourself feel the inward *movement* of your life as it
has been taking shape in this present period.  Hold yourself
in a condition of openness in which no particular thoughts
are dominating your mind.  Be silent. 

Sit in the stillness - feeling the movement of life.
Sit in the quietness - an inward awareness comes.
There is an inward sensing of the tone of our life in this
present movement of our lives...

Ira Progoff

~

By "Here" I don't mean the present space.
Time is in the mind.
"Here" is somewhere within where the mind cannot reach.
Presence is always here and you are always That.
This "here" is not the opposite of "there."
"There" is nowhere, it is your Heart.

When the mind is still all comes back
to the Heart.

All the cosmos is but a speck
in your Heart.

Papaji

Simply Living...

I've been basking in a "new", and not so new, "revelation" that
life is a story being lived by Life ItSelf'; that *I* am being lived:
that we *are* the living story of Life.

Life lives the story of "me" that I've identified with all these years,
and believed, for a while at least, that "I" needed to be
"enlightened" - and have once again returned to the sense that
"I" am "simply living."

In this "revelation" there is an internal "letting go" - or
"giving up" - or some would say "surrender"...
And as a wise friend recently explained:
"In that, an ancient tension and stress is released.  And in the
deepest instance of 'giving up', even the somatic aspect of
our being feels a tremendous relief, and a Serene Emptiness
where that contraction had formerly been felt; as much in
our physical body as in our subtle energetic nature.
Struggle ceases, no longer driven by the engine of
dissatisfaction with 'what is', with 'how we are.'  No longer
driven by the engine of self-judgment and self-qualification,
by the desire to be better or worthy, or finally 'understanding'
or 'apperceiving' by the desire for 'enlightenment.'"

This articulates my current experience perfectly...

~

And I wrote this back in 2011

There is only the immediacy of the current moment -
just living that experience, whatever that experience is,
however it unfolds, without the sense of a separate "self"
striving for something "better", or to *do* anything to
improve it, or become "enlightened."

"We", the "Beingness" that we are, just experiences
whatever is occurring without a framework or reference
point, or concept...
It's just Life being life!

It is Existence experiencing ItSelf as "me", or "you" -
as an occurrence within ItSelf...
Simply Living...

We, as waves on the Ocean of Existence, are continually
occurring - unfolding fluidly, seamlessly,  Yet, a
"construct" of "self" can emerge *if/when* there is a belief
in a "self" that can hold onto the present moment - trying
to grasp what cannot be grasped.  But the current experience
cannot be grasped, for as soon as we try to capture it we
re-enter the struggle of "self"...

The present moment is unending, constantly reverberating
through the *concept* of time, and is what the wrinkle of
time happens *in* -
the Timeless Ocean of Existence.

And so the realization seems to be that we simply recognize
Life living ItSelf  as us - seeing the Luminous in everything -
recognizing that we ARE that
Luminosity of Life...

...simply living.

Namaste

_/\_

photo - from a greeting card

In Our Consciousness of Time - Wendell Berry

In our consciousness of time
we are doomed to the past.
The future we may dream of
but can know it only after
it has come and gone.
The present too we know
only as the past.  When
we say, "This now is
present, the heat, the breeze,
the rippling water," it is past.
Before we knew it, before
we said, "now," it was gone.

If the only time we live
is the present, and if the present
is immeasurably short (or
long), then by the measure
of measurers we don't
exist at all, which seems
improbable, or we are
immortals, living always
in eternity, as from time to time
we hear, but rarely know.

You see the rainbow and the new-leafed
woods bright beneath, you see
the otters playing in the river
or the swallows flying, you see
a beloved face, mortal
and alive, causing the heart
to sway in the rifts between beats
where we live without counting,
where we have forgotten time
and have forgotten ourselves,
where eternity has seized us
as its own.  This breaks
open the little circles
of the humanly known and believed,
of the world no longer existing,
letting us live where we are,
as in the deepest sleep also
we are entirely present,
entirely trusting, eternal.

Is it concentration of the mind
our unresting counting
that leaves us standing
blind in our dust?
In time we are present only
by forgetting time.

Wendell Berry

From: Leavings
2007

via: Being Silently Drawn

The Timeless Moment - Bodhipaksa & Hesse

Time was no longer a path with the past behind me
and the future before me, as we commonly conceive of it.
Instead there was a sense of an eternally unfolding present moment.

Rather than time being a journey along a linear path, change
 appeared to be mandala-like.  It seemed to be like a flower
 seen from above, endlessly unfolding from within,
 or like a kaleidoscope's image forever rearranging itself.

It struck me as highly misleading to think in terms of there being a
 past behind us and a future ahead of us.  Instead there was only
 this one present moment, eternally unfolding, according to its
 nature. I found myself in an eternal, timeless present...

Bodhipaksa - Living As A River

via: Markings

"I would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise
of its own unfolding"
John O'Donohue

~

Have you learned that secret from the river;
that there is no such thing as time?
That the river is everywhere at the same time,
at the source, at the current, in the ocean, and
in the mountains,

 everywhere...

And that the present only exists for it,
not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future.

Herman Hesse
Siddartha

via: Love Is A Place

~

Top Photo: Mandala art digitally altered
2nd Photo: An Aurora Borealis in Yellow Knife, Canada
 - a "river" in the sky :)
Sent to us by a friend

In Delightful Wonderment - Bob O'Hearn

This magical realm we call “the world”

is a wild wonder beyond human reckoning!

The mere appearance of anything at all

is a perpetual mystery of pure awe

and relentless astonishment!

These ever-shifting props that provide

the sense of time and change are nothing

but children’s toys the Great One

juggles like batons in the air!

How thrilling to suddenly realize

we ourselves are This!

The synchronous majesty

of our infinitely expansive being

is the perfect body of the Beautiful One,

the One who is living us now, dreaming

us now as the very miracle we Are.

Any rain-splashed leaf is nothing

but another moistened kiss of Infinity.

Every wandering breeze rustling trees —

the amorous breath of our own Divinity.

Every sigh, every breath, every beat of heart

is an orchestrated choir of regal rapture.

Every molecule of light amazes itself

at its own inexplicable appearance.

Even as we sleep and dream

our sensitive thoughts conduct

a symphony of rippling pleasure.

This body standing here

is a delightful play of Love.

This mind —

an echo of a mystery

fashioned out of speechless Love.

We are Love, and Love must love,

for therein shines our perfect purpose.

Every blink and wink of our eyes

is the grace-bestowing sacred regard

of the original Lover, through Whose Glance

all are blessed, healed, given and taken —

all truly redeemed beyond any need

for make-believe redemption.

The chains that seem to bind us here

are merely our reluctance to forgive

and let go of a non-existent past.

No sad regret,

no hopeful anticipation,

everything just as it is –

this moment!

Each miniscule particle of light

swirling in the wake of our casual passing

ignites the ecstatic birth of galaxies —

we are made of This!

There is one Presence, one Power,

alive in all the universe, being lived

through Its uncountable expressions.

We are all unique projections

of that changeless Divine Energy

in which the myriad sentient personalities

flash and frolic as dreamy thought forms

dancing in the Heart/Mind of Source.

Drawn deeper into this stunning recognition,

all universal nature herself becomes transparent

as the manifestation of the Living Womb

of vast emptiness, delivering everyone

and everything into pure light

and more light still.

Every motion, every breath,

every thought and cessation of thought

is none other than the intense enjoyment,

the utter delight, the supreme pleasure

of the Indescribable Supreme!

This understanding can yield a great relief

of sufficiency and equanimity, regardless

of how things may seem to play out

in the drama’s consciousness’

ceaseless unfolding.

There is nothing that can be done,

no weeping or prayer, no exotic method

or any sort of strategy that can be manipulated

to attain this plain and simple realization;

no heroic gate-storming or self-generated effort

will yield true satisfaction, no practice nor

tweaking of attention can transcend itself.

Doing or not-doing are equally futile.

All achievement is transitory.

Even the most feeling submission

to the Living Source must be seen at last

as arising from a subtle, deluded sense

of division within the body/mind.

The clear light radiance of awake awareness

has no before or after, nor parts

that somehow come together

or randomly divide.

There is only This!

Such recognition is not an acquisition

of the mind, but rather a letting go

and awakening at the Heart —

our destiny and present condition —

when all that would obstruct clear seeing

is sacrificed at the altar of the Unconditional,

for the selfless sake of Love alone.

May all beings awaken to the bliss

of their own true nature –

their own primordial

brilliance!

Only This!

Bob O'Hearn
Feeling To Infinity

 ~

Photo: Glass Menagerie
Mystic Meandering