This moment

[Karmoh]

This moment, the experience you are having right now. This is it, this is life. It’s real. You can fill this moment with thoughts, actions, and emotions, in fact you can fill it with whatever you want, but it still is only this moment. If you have money or you are broke, if you are talented or down right untalented, regardless it still only this moment. You can dress it up, or strip it naked but you still only have this moment.

Can you experience being in the moment?
Can you notice this moment?

Your butt against the seat, eyes following these words, all sensations of being alive through the mind and body, at just this moment!

This is it. Experience it, pure and simple.

We all and I mean all have the same access to experience this moment. What we do as work, play or think makes not one iota of difference, we all experience this moment, we’re born with it and we die with it. As you read, everybody is experiencing the same moment, it’s an equal opening, we all get the same.

If you are alive, experience this moment, for its all you have.



Just having some fun with words

Peace

[olmate]

Hi Karmoh,

Do you think that there are "depths" to the moment? Some teachings implore intensity of focus and at the same time complete release of intention.

So do you experience depth to NOW?

Olmate

[Karmoh]

Originally Posted by olmate

Hi Karmoh,

Do you think that there are "depths" to the moment? Some teachings implore intensity of focus and at the same time complete release of intention.

So do you experience depth to NOW?

Olmate

Hi Olmate,

The mind is always trying to put things in order. But once the mind thinks it’s got it done, you are so far past the moment. This moment can only be experienced with pure honesty without grasping on to any notions of what that might be. Because what is here is only here now and then it is gone. If we try a give it depth, then that’s thought.

Surrender to what is here completely. Give up being Olmate or Don and simply fall apart in this moment and experience what is left.



Peace

[Michael David]

Hi Karmoh and Olmate,

Again, this is another very intriguing question to gnaw at and difficult to put into descriptive words. An image came to me this morning that gives me a sense of a feeling in addition to the words.

Imagine watching from a helicopter a moving train with twelve cars going over a stream. The entire train is moving but only one part or car of the train is passing over the stream at any moment. Allow the point where the train passes over the stream to represent the moment of “now”. As each car of the train passes over the stream it passes through now.

If the train had stopped directly over the stream the cars that had already passed over would be in the past and the ones that had not yet passed over the stream or the point of now would be in the future.

As if you were outside looking in, not part of the time space continuum move your attention and view of the twelve cars sitting over the stream up and back from past to future and then back from future to past. Relate this during the day to what you just did and what you are about to do. Each car of the train represents one thought or image of the immediate past and future.

Although the moment or instant of now is infinitely small our sense of it in physical reality seems to be a little longer. For a second or two or a breath in or out we can “hold” attention and call that amount of time now. Once we have thought about it, it is too late; the now has already come and gone and we are remembering the past (although we do that in the now) (it is tricky). So it may help to think about the train cars.

Once you have a sense or feeling of the past-future and time flow of the train with the twelve cars (or twelve thought/images) shorten the train to eight cars (and flow up and back between the images/train cars of past and future). This allows your sense of now as a moment of past-future to become smaller. Shorten the train to four cars and the feeling of a moment of now becomes even smaller. Then to two cars and then to the center of the stream, to this moment right now as it flows along with the movement of the entire train.

Like catching a wave and flowing along with it at the beach you can match a wave of now.

Michael

[olmate]

Karmoh and Michael,

@ Karmoh
Hmmm words... anyways... I get the release and experience moments in each day. There are moments where quiet decends, time evaporates and Love envelops.

I guess this post bought front of mind something that has been banging around like a bowling ball in the back seat of the car on a rally track. The chosen path is a christian contemplatitive path. This path implores "straight and narrow" and "waste no time" and "be fully occupied". All totally inadequate in converying the depth of meaning but i am sure you get a sense.

So... the release in the moment... do you see that as an absolute? That, you are in the moment or not - no shades of presence?

@ Michael
What a wonderful description. I live by the sea so resonate with the wave, the energy of the now on that wave. But to further explore the wave example, the wave is not there in isolation. It exists in the ocean. So to use that example, is there depth to that moment? Be it riding the wave of now or swimming in the depths of now? Clumsy description, but I hope you see what I am pointing to.

Olmate

[Karmoh]

Originally Posted by olmate

Karmoh and Michael,

@ Karmoh
Hmmm words... anyways... I get the release and experience moments in each day. There are moments where quiet decends, time evaporates and Love envelops.

I guess this post bought front of mind something that has been banging around like a bowling ball in the back seat of the car on a rally track. The chosen path is a christian contemplatitive path. This path implores "straight and narrow" and "waste no time" and "be fully occupied". All totally inadequate in converying the depth of meaning but i am sure you get a sense.

So... the release in the moment... do you see that as an absolute? That, you are in the moment or not - no shades of presence?
Olmate

Hi Olmate,

I see what you mean by hmmm words...anyways... I not sure if this helps or answers your query.
Being in the moment is not a state to strive for, the release is in the realisation that this is all there is. We embrace what turns up for what it is, life happening now.

The paradox!
Although words, or our chosen path can be helpful in pointing, as can be resting in non-conceptual moments can be helpful in seeing through the belief in separation, but no one really remains there. Sooner or later, thought begins to subtly interpret this moment. We want to acknowledge our experiences. We need to see once thought arises to understand experiences, it can take an extreme view such as “There is only the Absolute.” These are still conceptual views, often arising so subtly that we forget that they are conceptual. We may believe that these views somehow come from beyond the thought process. But regardless, all thoughts are thoughts, no matter how spiritual or insightful they sound.
Peace

While typing, something came up.
As Humans we have this capacity to fully conceptualise experiences.
Is this progression?
or regression?
I find this impossible to answer

[olmate]

Hi Karmoh,

I think I see to what you are pointing. Does this little poem capture the truth to which you point?

Our life in this world -
to what shall I compare it?
Its like an echo
resounding through the mountains
and off into the empty sky.

Monk Ryokan


Olmate

PS: The conceptualisation of experiences... perhaps more relating? Perhaps as we evolve our vocabulary, our ability to relate individual experiences evolves. Begs the question whether evolution is progression? My sense is a resounding YES.

[Michael David]

Originally Posted by olmate

Karmoh and Michael,

So... the release in the moment... do you see that as an absolute? That, you are in the moment or not - no shades of presence?

@ Michael
What a wonderful description. I live by the sea so resonate with the wave, the energy of the now on that wave. But to further explore the wave example, the wave is not there in isolation. It exists in the ocean. So to use that example, is there depth to that moment? Be it riding the wave of now or swimming in the depths of now? Olmate

Hi Olmate

Yes I do sense that there are different shades of presence which would be depth to the moment. A few images come to mind.

Walking through water up to your ankles up to your knees or up to your neck.

Different depths of sleep.

Touching the wave of now and staying in that wave so that more sheaths (levels) of awareness become integrated with the now. Like being on vacation for one day as compared to the joining of the flow of a vacation that lasts a week or a month. Letting go of more and more of the "attachments" to everyday activity.

On some retreats I have have attended the depth of presence during meditation would vary. Sometimes after the bell signaling the end of the meditation session the sense of presence , just being, would remain for an extended time until the habitual pulls and pushes of my mind brought me back to "myself."

Yes certainly different depths. With the ocean waves and swimming in the depths of now the image of the wave expanded to the full ocean and the pull of the moon's gravity. I found my self deeper in the ocean of the Universe.
A great question. Thanks for the ride.

Michael

[sagehoney3]

Great read, Karmoh! I thank you for the experience of reading your words as they really grounded me in recognizing being in the moment.......

Blessings to you,
Sherri (sagehoney3)

[sagehoney3]

For me, Olmate, I can feel the depth of the NOW.......to me, it's in the listening to the moment - to the NOW......good question you have!!

Blessings to you,
Sherri (sagehoney3)