Bid Time Return

"Time only exists as a way to measure change."
-Some SF writer I read years ago whose name I can't remember

For funzies, try this: Try and guess what you will be thinking fifteen seconds from now.

What about trying to recall exactly what was going through your mind two minutes ago?

What about even, what about what you are experiencing rrriiiiiigghhhtt  nnnowww. Now. No, now.

Did you have any luck? I never have. Not even with the present. The problem with trying to 'be in the moment' is that the moment changes even as you're reaching for it.

We tend to think of time as a road we travel, moving from the past into the future. Looking back, we can see the past. Looking forward we can see the future. Looking here, we can be in the moment, whatever that means. The idea that we are a part of time and not apart from it is tough to swallow.

Walking the monastery dog the other day, I tried an experiment similar to the one at the beginning of this post. I tried to imagine the experience of my next step.

Couldn't do it. The reality never matched the actual experience. The wind rose or died, my foot landed differently, the dog took a different direction, a bird called...something I hadn't expected always happened.

Nor, no matter how hard I tried, was I able to recreate the memory of my previous step, though it had taken place less than a second ago.

I can't perfectly plan my next footfall or predict what I was thinking twenty minutes from now. Why then, do I think I have an accurate read on the story of my life and who I am over the past forty years or any possibility of guessing what my future might bring and how much or how little happiness it will bring with it?

There is no road. There are no tomorrows on the horizon or yesterdays stretching backwards. We create our futures with each step and pull the past up behind us.

All that said, to go back to my walk on the mountain, there is a connection between my past, present, and future steps. The step I take now grows out of the one before and makes possible the one I will take next. It's this connection that leads me up the mountain, down the mountain, or wandering around in circles.

This matters.

We can plan, worry, imagine, fantasize, or predict all we want, but our minds can never show us our future. Instead, we create it with our choices.

My experience is that people who meditate every day experience change. So do people who make a commitment to healthy eating and regular exercise. So do people who drink heavily on a daily basis or who isolate themselves playing hours of computer games. And while we can't say what will happen to any one specific individual at any one specific moment, over time, patterns emerge.

Those patterns are your business, not mine, so I'll refrain from my opinion, one way or the other. I don't know you, and I'm not your mom.

At the same time, whoever you are, wherever you are, wherever you want to be, and whatever you want, no matter your level of happiness or unhappiness, ignorance or knowledge, skill or inexperience, there is only one step you really need to take. Indeed, it's the only step you CAN take--and that step is the next one.

Take it, and good luck to you. May you find happiness, meaning, and whatever else you're looking for.

Sun's Out, Monks Out

I'm not a monk, but the time I most feel like one is walking down the mountain road carrying my laundry bag over my shoulder. I find myself thinking about other spiritual seekers over the centuries who have walked tree-lined paths, through the forests of Japan or Europe, and realizing that though I'm by myself, I'm not alone.

This life is like any other life: I can't do it alone, and at the same time, no one else can do it for me.

Our culture values individuality and independence. We're not often asked to think about how much are lives have been, and continue to be, made possible by others.

Try it. It's a powerful experience.

We travel roads paved by those who have come before, and there are many even now that support our journeys in ways both obvious and subtle.

None of those people though, can take a single step for us. Only we can choose the road to our own happiness, and only we can walk it.

It's always valuable for me to be reminded that I'm not the only person in the world, and I'm not living in the only time that does, has, or ever will matter.

And at the same time, this is who I am. This is where I am. This is what I have.

How then, to make the most of it?