Release from the Bondage of Time

Most folks don’t contemplate how  “past” and “future” are happening right now.   On some level when we are calm and contemplative, we do realize that all experiences are a series of unfolding present moments. 

There’s like this agreement we all have about time, mostly because it’s useful.  These concepts about time do serve a useful purpose,  but when we make them ‘too real’ and by not getting that they are just part of our mental projections and part of our own process of thoughts, we create a sort of bondage.  It’s a trap.

In this trap, we have companions called worry, regret, anxiety, and fear about the future.

Next time we find ourselves trapped with those companions, we can break out and shatter those boundaries of time.  How? by settling down into the body and into the experience of this moment.  When we settle down in this way, it is natural and quite easy to have the awareness that past and future are simply thoughts in the present.  And it’s all they ever were or will be.

Instant detachment.  It costs nothing; you need no equipment and you can do it anywhere.

What ‘is’: Hold it, Dispel it or Accept It?

Neither hold onto ‘what is’ nor try to get rid of ‘what is’ — Nature, Life, The Cosmos or whatever name you give the divine process will move it, change it, or dissolve it for you.

Yes, alright.  You read about The Secret and The Law of Attraction.  Fine.  Apply the techniques but in the meanwhile…. while you wait for the desired result, then what’s the approach?  That’s what I’m writing about here.

The snow photo above reminds me of states in life that we simply cannot do anything about.  That’s the first snow of the season that came last week in the mountains… which by now (a week later) is melted by a warming trend.   Trend is a good word I think.  Stock markets are associated with this word and so is the weather and in our own life there are energy trends as well which may (or may not) be personal karma or group karma or simply life itself.  Things come and go like thoughts during meditation and like snow that comes and then melts away.

It’s tough not to hold on to thoughts and not to dispel them which is what we are told to do in meditation and thus in life.  Thoughts are trendy–they come and go like the fashion trends do, and like stock market trends and like trends in the weather.

I’m thinking a lot about how when it would snow in the mountains and me living all alone up there and in the midst of a large snow that was coming down fast.  I’d start to feel that bit of panic– What if this keeps up?  Will I be snowed in?  When will it stop? If it keeps snowing at this rate….

I can get caught in that kind of thinking when I’m on the treadmill at the gym.  My goal is to hold a particular pace without stopping for a total of 30 minutes.  If I have one nano-second wherein a thought comes wherein I hold one like, What if I can’t hold this pace for 7 more minutes? This is getting tough!  Inevitably,  I cave-in and have to slow down to recover my breath.

If we could do more of just neither holding onto what arises nor trying to dispel it…. right?  I mean this is our whole practice in life, isn’t it?  We hear it called  ‘accepting what-is’.

It isn’t easy.  But like the snow melting, everything is impermanent and eventually dissolves, goes away, or changes form.  The nature of life itself is that nothing last forever–not the good, the bad or the ugly.

It isn’t easy in the meanwhile to meet whatever arises in our self and in our life spectrum and simply be open to it.  To have the courage and detachment to be open to it to discover what is beyond it or behind it without manipulation or opinion or any thought of anything whatsoever.

And then what happens?  We do it again in the next moment and the one right after that one.  We can have faith that the snow will stop and eventually melt, the 7 minutes will pass on the treadmill without heart failure and whatever trend, whatever contemptuous situation of disdain you are facing right now will eventually change and so will the bubbly blissful business as well.  One thing we can know is that everything changes and nothing stays the same for very long.

And that’s why we should neither try to hold or try to dispel anything that arises.  Just observe and be and above all else, maintain the sense of humor!

Do you recognize yourself in the outer world? 7 of Cups

 

Earlier this morning… a thought.

What I am attracted to in the outer world… this is me seeing myself.

What I actually do attract (like it or not)… this is me seeing myself.

Do I recognize myself in the outer world?

I am attracted to water.  I love to swim (laps at the local Y).  This water is me.  I am the water.  This is one way to see myself in the outer world, to recognize myself.

I am NOT attracted to smirk-y, snark-y judgmental types and like a smart cat or kitten, choose not to surround myself with that energy.  But I’m loosing the point, or am I?

What is attracted to me (like it or not) or what I energize with my attention, this is me seeing myself.  That, too, is ‘me’.

Hmmmm…. this must be showing along the path somewhere as something common in the archtype of life.

If this thought was a sign, I might think PISCES.

If this thought was a tarot card, it would be 7 of Cups.

What comes to me and what I’m attracted to in the outer world both represent me, who I am.

I am going to contemplate this for the rest of the day.  Consciousness!  Relationship to the world!  Today I will recognize myself in the outer world.