(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)
“I just wish this were over.”
How often we have said this to ourselves when dealing with something we consider unpleasant.
Similarly, when we consider a situation pleasant, we say “I wish this would last.”
So we indulge in discursive thoughts and daydreams to get through the unpleasantness, or indulge in wishes that the pleasantness were permanent even though we know it isn’t.
We are caught in a time trap of our own making where things have a beginning and an end. But analysis demonstrates that time is just another concept made up of segments that run from macro ones such as “time zones” to micro segments called “nano seconds.” We’re taught that “every minute counts.” It’s a useful concept, to be sure. But like any other concept, “time” lacks any solid existence.
But there is an alternative to this see-saw on which we go up and down constantly, an alternative that is available to us every moment, one that helps us to step outside the concept of time.
What is this alternative?
Staying in the NOW, “the magic of the present moment.” In the NOW nothing starts and nothing ends. No duality. It just is as it is. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant.
Added benefit: There’s no accumulation of karma in the NOW….
A few quotations I find helpful in this regard:
Let go of what is past. Let go of what is not yet. Observe deeply what is happening in the present moment [what I am calling “the NOW”], but do not become attached to it. <source: Siddhartha Gotama, Theranamo Sutta>
and
…we put our heads in clouds of daydreams and speculation, always wanting there to be [anytime but the one we’re in] <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Aspiration of Shambhala chant, 2010>
and
When you reach the speed of light, time stops (Einstein)
and last
The nature of concepts is that they’re always relative to other concepts— tall has meaning relative to short…bad is relative to good and so on —like a house of cards leaning on each other. <source: Russell Rodgers at http://tinyurl.com/8844j6b>
(Russell Rodgers adds the following:) Think of two events happening in a sequence. We say that “time” elapsed between them. Then remove one of the events: time disappears. It has no independent existence. There are only events happening now. Then look at the notion of “sequence”. Again, remove one of the events. Sequence disappears. Perhaps you might say that time or sequence exists because you remember things in the past. But your memory is just a thought in the present. The same applies to thoughts of future. Likewise “past” and “future” depend on the present. “Past” and “future” are relational and relationships appear only to conceptual mind. Without “sequence”, causality falls apart: how can something cause something else if it didn’t precede it in sequence? Concepts are like a house of cards because they are dependent and can’t stand alone. All that being said, since we live in a world of thoughts and concepts most of our lives, time, sequence, past, future, and causality are tremendously useful even if they don’t exist. <source: e-mail dated February 17, 2012 to author of this webpost>
If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three, easy-to-follow instructions. Thank you.
