If light travels at 186,000 miles per second then that seems an incredible enough speed for me to try and make a point about “the present moment”. Lets say that time travels at 186,000 units, of whatever, a second; then the absolute present moment moves so quickly that it can’t be seen to exist; i.e. Practically, there is no such thing.

So, it may be much more useful to think of a wider (or longer) swath of time that we can designate as Discernible Present Time (DPT). I will posit that this time frame be the period between the last thought, action, or feeling that passed through you completely, in other words, that you were aware of, and involved in, to the exclusion of all else and then the next thought, action, or feeling that you are completely aware of in noticing, doing, precipitating, or participating in.

That opens up the DPT to seconds, minutes, hours, days, ad infinitum; depending on the conditions that present.

When we are paying attention and aware of the conditions around us, and the conditions within, we can see the flow of time, which is very good and helpful and sometimes amazing, but we will never see the real present because it is part of the flow. 

Seeing a drop of water in a huge waterfall is not experiencing the waterfall. 

Same with trying to see a discrete moment in time while missing the activity of time. There may be lots of application for seeing the one drop or the tiny moment but we’ll likely miss the awe of its All Someness.

I sense within myself that when I have spent a lot of time trying to be “in the now”, I was somehow instinctively afraid of being overwhelmed by the torrent.

I needn’t have worried, that sense of separation and falling and being alone, only lasts for a moment and the drop rejoins the flow of the Fall into the River and on to the Ocean.

Everything is fine just the way it is. When I am aware of the loneliness of the drop or the despair of the moment or the exultation of the Fall or the depth of the Moment, it all passes rather rapidly and I usually can’t remember 99% of it as I flow into the ever Present emptiness of all that there is and has ever been.

I‘m never really sure if I’ve

Wasted time and sometimes it

Surely feels that way but who

Am I to say;

Quickly gone

Another day.

I sit in a tiny cottage about ten miles west of the Blue Mountains on the Eastern border of Oregon and Washington and live a very quiet and quite simple life, and have sufficient time to reflect and think about the ways and means by which I got into this position. Old, comfortable, relatively healthy and relatively sane with a religious and spiritual practice that informs and confounds me and holds me up. It doesn’t hold me way up. It holds me like the YMCA pool water held me up when I didn’t struggle as I learned to swim. A balance of understanding had to be arrived at which included fear, doubt, worry, trust, faith and courage or willingness. And, some effort at something I had never done before, but knew from the evidence of my eyes was possible.

Similarly, a baby partakes of all these elements when it takes that first step. It doesn’t take the first step in order to walk, it takes it because it wants to get from where it is, to there. It keeps falling down, and one day it moves a foot forward in order to not fall down, rather quickly, often that same day, it learns to not fall and the byproduct of that is walking. Immediately the baby’s Universe, as it knew it just moments before, is forever altered.

Some part of the inborn nature of the baby bade it to decide/choose an action and it became a toddler.

As I write, all of me is the sum-total of choices/decisions that I made throughout my life and that “me” was set into motion, initially, by other choices made by beings connected too me. Most of my life I had no way of seeing that I was making choices and decisions because I was busy looking for outcome, results, eventuation, gratification; or avoidance. I was living life as it presented itself and made lots of very hasty decisions, some even in panic, and the outcomes were mixed in terms of my approving or disapproving, and always they engendered another decision or choice. That’s how I spent, dispensed or squandered many years of my life. There was joy and fear doubt and loads of worry and everything glazed over with optimism and hope.

At about half-way through this life (so far), I encountered the Buddhist teachings and started to become aware that nothing is permanent or stays in a fixed state; so if I carved a statue out of marble I could change it by using the same tools with which I carved it. Will, effort, persistence, repetition and stepping away from the work often to see if I’m doing the right thing. It turns out the stepping away from the work is the most important part. It gives me perspective. Some days I work hard at it, other days hardly at all.

I step away and see what is possible.

Seeing is the important part. Open eyes. Allow.

The string on a bow is the only purpose of a bow.

Then I decide or choose or not.