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.