Tag Archives: zen

The Momentum…

I’m not sure if this is a new idea but it effortlessly formulated in my brain this morning on a walk.  We often talk about “being in the moment” and this is proposed in all of the new age or self-help books.  But what does this mean?  Where is the moment?

From my recent studies in the field of neuroscience, any cognitive conception of “the moment” already exists about 150 milliseconds in the past.  If you are in the ‘moment’, then you are holding on to a conception of time that is no longer neurological relevant.

I don’t believe that a static moment truly exists.  I have a new way of looking at this problem.  When I walk or meditate or drive, I now consider ‘the momentum’.  Being in the momentum is more accurate and does not have us clinging to an idea that has already evolved, so to speak.  One mights say that being in the ‘moment’ means just being happy but what if you just hit someone with your car?  Are you supposed to be ‘happy’ in that moment?  These impacting moments are like a stamp embedded into who we become and no one says we have to be happy about it.  We just require ways to organize experience, for better or worse into a cohesive whole that allows us to continue on while recognizing the joy and amazement that life is.  Hence, the momentum.  Every event, moment, experience or lesson is an opportunity bringing us closer to witnessing the grace and miracle of light or life.

As all physical material, including our bodies are fundamentally made up of light, we are what we experience.  It is all light.  My favorite quote this week is “if they brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would be too simple to understand it” by Ken Hill.  That being said, we often forget that we are not just these objects meandering about in an objective static world.  We are light.  We are a brain and a complexion of neural networks that gather/sort/generate/gather/sort/generate.

From that, we are conscious of what we call “I” or “me” or “you” but our identity is false and limiting.  What I understand as “I” is an awareness.  That awareness vastly includes my surroundings and experience.  I AM the momentum that includes what you call ‘the moment’ that has already passed by the time you formulate a word to call it.

 

If you blink, you miss it but it is still, moving.

 

What it boils down to is this.  We are light and our environment is light.  Light is inter-active, infused with relativity as to experience itself as ‘other than light’.  What an amazing opportunity to occupy these densities that we call ‘bodies’ in order to experience what we truly are, were and always will be… light.  Lest we forget and think that we are flesh packets floating about in a threatening world where we need to get and take in order to survive.

The moment does not exist.  Being here now is a misnomer because that is all you are. You cannot be here now by doing it.  You are this.  And this is changing, growing, developing, expanding and embracing experience.  Our opportunity as conscious beings is one of influence.  Love or hate.  Giving or getting.  Sharing or hoarding.

What type of light do you want to be as the momentum put forth?

 

 

 


Two monks

The following is one of my favorite zen stories regarding attachment and perception:

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her.

The senior monk carried this woman on his shoulder, forded the river and let her down on the other bank. The junior monk was very upset, but said nothing.

They both were walking and senior monk noticed that his junior was suddenly silent and enquired “Is something the matter, you seem very upset?”

The junior monk replied, “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The senior monk replied, “I left the woman a long time ago at the bank, however, you seem to be carrying her still.”

This story always reminds me to look at what I am carrying with me.  Am I more concerned with rules or truth?  Over the years I have come to see that letting go isn’t a moment in time but a process that begins with willingness.


The Source

Love is our Source.

I know our source to be infinite.  We can draw from it over and over and over and over again and our source remains infinite.  Good news for us.  This is what I know as grace. It is as an infinite bank account that we freely give and receive from.

What this means is both simple and complex; Love is the source of both joy and pain.  Joy, as in we are free to be, love, dance, work, make love, sing, smile, do nothing, do something or just simply enjoy all or any of it.  Pain, as in fear; our attachment to any of it.  Fear is a signal to act; whether perceived or real.  Pain is also a signal.

Fear is not a source.  Fear is like the shadow of light blocked by an attachment.  If I stand with my back to the Sun I see a shadow cast in front of me.  That is how I see fear. It is something blocking the source; an effect or result but not causal.

Love gives us fear as a gift in order to survive potentially dangerous situations.  In case you hadn’t noticed, life is not all roses here.  The trouble arises when our mind begins to dwell in the effect (fear) through our attachments and insecurity.  It is a choice that we do not realize we are making.  If we were fully aware, we would not make that choice.  When fear arises I ask; what is my insecurity here?  How have I come to believe that love has left the building and I must suffer?  What is my attachment and why?  What purpose has it served me and what would happen if I just let it go?  Is it a signal from love or is it bullshit?

I have experienced life from both cause and effect and I can report that life is to be lived from the source; Love.  Just so I’m not vague about this…

I’m not talking about a bio-chemical reaction in our brain.  I’m not speaking about human emotion love (which is typically attachment/insecurity).  I am pointing to a peace that is so perfect nothing can touch it.  It is a still knowing that is so vast that it encompasses all things.  It is presence in the moment.  I’m acknowledging our natural state of being and suggesting that we function optimally in this state.

If this is a stretch for you then do your best to remember a moment where you felt perfectly still, at peace, with a slight smile on your face.  Go back in memory and find a reference or many references and build on that.  Maybe it was when you were five years old?  The structure of our mind is associative and built by references.  We can reprogram the mind by removing old references and implanting new ones.  It is work but it is worthwhile and it is no secret.

This post is affirmation of my commitment to allow our source to flow through me unhindered or die trying.

 

 


Zen and the Art of house cleaning

Tedious tasks can be daunting.  This is why I love the power of intention.  If I just simply intend to use these seemingly daunting tasks to bring my awareness more into the present moment then suddenly my peace increases.  No longer does it seem a chore.  It becomes zen and there’s nothing like a good peace increase.

Yes, cleaning toilets can be a spiritual experience and why not?  Spirit is our fundamental nature.  It just makes sense to apply this to everything that we do in our life.  I have been enriched for practicing this.  It’s like a deposit into the joy account.  How much do we put in to that account during our day? 

How much do we put into the worry account?  How much into the fear account?  How much into the love account?  If we don’t think that these accounts have everything to do with the quality of our outflowing life then what do we think?  I have a million dollars but I’m sad because I invest too much in the worry account.  I think you catch my drift. 

Today, I will take my own advice (for once) and use my tasks to invoke a greater sense of peace and well-being.  Why not?  What else am I going to do?


Nostalgia

I suppose that anything before the very moment that I am writing this and you are reading this can be considered nostalgic.  Typically, nostalgia is described as a yearning for the past (often in idealized form).  The actual Greek roots of the word describe a returning to pain. 

I’ve always seen this as simple reminiscing.  Thinking about the past brings up both joy and pain.  How could it not?  Unless, you are totally in denial of your pain.  Unless, you are in total denial of your joy.  Acceptance goes a long way in freeing yourself from the past and the future. 

Our minds tendency is to move away from pain and toward pleasure.  The down side of this tendency is running away from or being afraid of pain.  Our heart however has the ability to embrace both joy and pain.  My suggestion is to get more and more into your heart and tell your mind to shut up.  The mind is here to serve and it is a terrible master.

I’m laughing right now as I read this because it is like I am giving advice to myself.  The only reason I started to write about nostalgia was to spare the reader another post about my school experiences and here I am thinking about the nostalgia of nostalgia. 

Any story told from our past can carry embellishment.  Afterall, who desires to tell boring stories (to or about themselves or others)?  Are we not stars in our own reality show?  Somehow, I don’t believe this to be true.  I think this is how most of the world lives.  It negates the fact that we are here for one another and not just ourselves. 

Whatever the case, I will do my absolute best to release the past (for better or worse) and create from the moment.  Any form of identification to the past is a limit because of what it is… the past.  It’s gone.


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