ALL TIME IN THE PRESENT

[David Filippone]

Image: ‘Dawn’ by jonathansautter – Pixabay
https://tinyurl.com/y8am5bbo

Rinpoche writes…

“[One’s] entire personal history is present within each moment of time. By opening to the space, time, and knowledge available within the moment you can… instantly transform all of the ‘past’ moments preserved ‘there’. The psychotherapeutic approach can take a very long time, sifting through all this past experience, trying to neutralize its negative influence. It also seems likely that the job would remain at least partially incomplete: there would always be some unresolved tensions and conflicts, some residue. This is especially likely, because the psychotherapeutic approach deals with ‘memories’.

But we can draw closer to our target than that. By using the instantaneous unfolding of time, space, and knowledge, everything—all these moments—can be directly contacted within the ‘present’ and purified of any negative influence…

Ordinarily… we seek techniques, tools, methods, skills, and information. There is another way, fully contained within what may first appear as the ‘present moment.’ The perceiver, the thing perceived, the action which presents the object to the perceiver—all are completely contained in the moment, inseparable facets of one presence. Sometimes we speak about CARING for ourselves and for each other. If we know how to look, the caring and support is immediately available within each of the moments which combine to constitute our lives. The humble moment, when seen as time, space, and knowledge is a target worth aiming at. It’s the vital center of the universe; if we hit it, we explode everything that prevents fulfillment, attaining everything that fulfills.”

[Once you get a taste of recognition of the ‘humble moment’] “it will automatically begin to develop further on its own special energy.”

….’Dimensions of Thought’, by Tarthang Tulku, p. xlii – xlix [Emphasis added]

One such moment described by Ken McKeon… one of countless… Dawn dances in the mind; a perception of an instant that can lift our entire embodiment, buoyed by a blink of the eye. Everything graceful and delicious flows through the senses:  ‘Ah…’’ the humble moment:

Ah…
by Ken McKeon

Walked the field of stars,
Walked through the mind,
And the hold of time,
Released me like a cloud-
A cloud seen high in the ranging hills-
Releases itself, opens itself to
Form, vapor, space alone,

What note would sound
To bring it back again,

High or low,
Soft, loud?

I doubt if I could voice it,

But someone else might,

Someone young, and stretching,
Lifting her touching hands
Over her head,
One foot touching the earth,
The other, the inner thigh,
Her eyes open,
Her balance,
Sure, easy, smiling,
Laughter lifts her lips,

The day is born,
As her hands arc
Gently to her sides,

And she conceives to say,
Just as I think to say,

Ah,

And one vast cloud forms
To shower down
The open radiance of the dawn.

 

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