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 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

The Dancing Matrix of Life - Tarchin Hearn

Life is a boundless matrix of dynamic relationship.
Ultimately, every action reverberates throughout the universe.
I responding to you.
You responding to me.
This responding to that.
That responding to this.

Responsiveness is the living heart of being...
Atoms, molecules, organs and organisms, families and societies;
entire ecosystems, biospheres, planes and galaxies;
all shifting, responding, constantly changing.
Each birthing of this is a dying of that.
Each dying of that is a birthing of this.
Responsive change is the very nature and fabric of what is.
Permanence is a mental abstraction; a hope, a need,
a convenient but potentially deadening freezing
of the actual creative dynamic of all our lives in action.

Suffering arises through trying to fix or make permanent
what is essentially a seamless fluid process.

May we cease grasping at permanence and
with heartful confidence, love, enthusiasm and wide awake
sensitivity, enter fully the great birthing/dying matrix of
responsive relating;
this ineffable, un-pin-down-able, present blessing of now.

Tarchin Hearn

~

Photo - Indra's Net of Jewels Mandala

2013

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 Flow of Life - Matt Licata

We are always in the flow of life.

It is the idea that there is some "us" on one side
and something called "flow" in some other place,
that is a great trance that seems to be unique
to the human experience...

Usually when we talk of being
"in the flow,"
we mean that we like the feelings,
sensations, and experiences
which are arising in our experience.
If there are more
vulnerable, intense, groundless, unresolvible,
or unideal feelings,
then we this as clear evidence that we are
"out of the flow."

And so the war begins.
The dream of abandoning the non-flow
to return to the flow as quickly as possible.

Perhaps it is only in the willingness to fully participate
in our immediate experience, exactly as it is,
that the nature of the flow will be revealed.

It is not something you will get to one day,
as some sort of acquisition,"
when you line up all of the right experiences,
when you successfully abandon and replace
what is here for something else.

The flow is right here,
utterly inseparable from what you are,
and is revealed in your unconditional commitment
to the truth of your immediate experience.

When you are willing to bring your embodied curiosity,
openness, acceptance and presence
to whatever is arising in the immediacy of now,
the question of how to feel more flow ceases to arise.

In this embodied openness the path is everywhere,
even in those places we least expect.
What you are left with is what you are,
which is love itself.

Allow love to astonish you...
Allow it to craft you
as a vessel of aliveness,
in which it can pour out
into this world.
There is no flow separate from that.

Matt Licata

(Matt's words, my format)

Twilight Moon...

Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you
are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here…

…The forest breathes.
Listen.
It answers…

I have made this place around you.
If you leave it,
you may come back again,
saying Here…

Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you…


David Wagoner
Excerpt From: “Lost”
To read the complete poem click here

I walk the maze of moments,
and everywhere I turn to
begins a new beginning
and never finds a finish.

I walk to the horizon,
and there I find another.
It all seems so surprising,
and then I find I know –

Anywhere Is…

Enya
Lyrics from: Anywhere Is

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone…

…To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy
of your surroundings.

Surely…you have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence…crowding out your solo voice…

Put down the weight of your aloneness…
The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink,
the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness
and seen the good in you at last.
All birds and creatures of the world
are unutterably themselves.

Everything is waiting for you…


David Whyte
Excerpt From: Everything Is Waiting For You…
To read the complete poem click here

“At some point there has to be a direct apprehension.
It’s about a visceral taste of this living event…

This is what “being in the Now” is all about.
When the focus on thought stories subsides,
the living happening reveals itself.
There’s just a happening happening -
shifting modulations of a great event.

Clear seeing…..simply reveals what is always
already the case.
It soon dawns that whatever is occurring
in whatever state
is nothing other than a modulation of Life’s creative play.”


Radical Tao

Simply Now-ing...

I’ve been basking in this “new” (and not so new) revelation that life is a story being lived by Life/Beingness ItSelf; that we *are* the living story of Life. And I’ve come down from my manic moment of joy at the revelation that Life lives this story of “me” that I’ve identified with all these years – and believed, for a while at least, needed to be “enlightened” – and have returned to a sense of simply living…

It occurred to me, during this “revelation”, that there is no “present moment” to be *in.* There is only the “Now-ing” of simply living life (not to sound too Tolle-ish :). That is – there is only the immediacy of our current experience, whatever that experience/story happens to be – just living that experience, however it unfolds; which may take several “moments”: hours, days, weeks, months, years. In Pure Awareness/Beingness, there is no awareness of past, present or future moments. There is only and ever Now-ing unfolding itself. You cannot *bring* your *self* into the “present moment.” “Present Moment” is a concept, a conceptual reality, a framework and structure of time – as is the individual sense of a separate self needing to be present, or *do* anything to improve itself, or become “enlightened.”

Therefore, NOW does not refer to time and space, but timeless Awareness, timeless Beingness – and the experience that is occurring *in* that timeless space *as* life. Beingness has no concept of “moment” or “presence” or “time” – or “self.”

“You”/Beingness just experiences, awares, lives whatever is happening without the framework or reference point of calling it “present moment,” or past, or future. (Did I already say that?:) It’s just Life being life. It is Beingness experiencing ItSelf as a “me” or “you” – as an experience within ItSelf... Simply Now-ing.

Time/thought/”self”/life is a “wrinkle” in the spaciousness of timelessness – like ripples on a pond… This is not new information – although I am seeing it as “new.”

“Now” is continually occurring, unfolding fluidly and seamlessly. Yet, still a ripple, a construct, *if* held onto too tightly by a belief in a “self” that can hold onto Now. This Now is not now, as in time or place. “Now” is eternally unending, constantly reverberating through the *concept* of past, present, future… Now is what the “wrinkles of time” happen *in* - Timelessness; no “present moment” – just whatever is occurring is the experience of “Now.”

And so the “awakening” seems to be that we simply recognize Life living life – seeing the Luminous in everything – recognizing and *knowing* that we ARE that Luminosity of Life living ItSelf –simply living; allowing the experience of living to take us “Home” – to the Heart of Being – which is Now. :)

“If you have no idea of self…
you are free from the idea of
past, present and future.”

Shunryu Suzuki

~

“By ‘Here’ I don’t mean this present space.
Here is within.
Presence is always here,
and you are always That.
This here is not the opposite of “there.”
This here, it is your Heart.
All the cosmos is but a speck in your Heart.

Enlightenment is always here.”

Papji
The Truth Is

~

"How can divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms,
breathtaking wonders,
awe-inspiring miracles?

The Tao is not obliged to present
itself in this way.

If you are willing to be lived by it,
you will see it everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things."

Lao Tzu

~

"Now is not a moment in time,
but is truly timelessness – eternal."

Rupert Spira


~

Photo: The first rose of summer – gone now.

Noticing Thoughts Window

Every night at the Window is a different noticing it seems. Lately I’ve been noticing the movement of thoughts.

Initially when I sit I usually notice a tangible sense of Calm and Peace, as was the case a couple of nights ago. Then I noticed that “I” was being distracted by thought, accompanied by a subtle visceral sense of contraction in different places in the body – fear thoughts here, anger thoughts there. When I became aware of this, I would bring my awareness back to the space of Calm and Peace and then once again notice that over a matter of a few minutes thought had somehow pulled my awareness away again. This happened several times in a slow rhythm of awareness from one to the other. This was even noticed in the movement of the eyes as I sat with eyes closed. When I was *resting* in Calm and Peace the gaze was inward. Sometimes it was towards the window to my left, as if listening to the Calm at the window – “out there” – external. When I became aware of thought, it was noticed that my eyes were directed upward and to the right – as if thinking was “up there” somewhere.

A thought became a chain of thoughts, which then became a “swarm” of thoughts (this word borrowed from a friend, but is also what I experienced.) And it was noticed that I had no control over these thoughts. I could not stop thinking, as some teachings suggest. This is what the mind does. It thinks. All I could do was bring my awareness back to the Space of inner Peace and Calm.

It was experienced that there is a pull of Consciousness, the *Space* of Calm and Peace, and a pull of thought in a subtle rhythmic movement as awareness seemingly shifts between the two. Attention gets focused on thought, then, with awareness of that, there is a shift in awareness to Calm and Peace. But I had to consciously keep bringing the focus to the space of Calm – and not get entangled with thought.

In this *natural* movement it was realized once again that thought cannot be stopped, or controlled. I had to consciously choose not to follow thoughts out into infinity, to not indulge in speculation about the future, or resentment and regret about the past. I had to continually bring awareness to the inner space of Calm – the only Now there is. Some nights were more successful than others.

The “trick”, if there is one, seems to be to learn to rest the awareness in the internal Space of Calm (or however you want to call it). Just be there - *aware* of the movement of thoughts and feelings; aware of what is awareing this; allowing - not trying to wrestle oneself from the mind, but gently bringing awareness to this aware space of Eternal Rest again and again - entraining with this Still Space that is only Now…

~*~

“By ‘Here’ I don’t mean this present space.
Here is somewhere within where mind cannot reach.
Presence is always here and you are always That.
Here is not the opposite of there.
This here is nowhere.
It is your Heart.
…it all comes back to the Heart.”
Papaji