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Piet,
Yes, consciousness
always edges from a
closed "past" into an open "future." And "now" is
that moving edge between past & future. Said the other way around,
the
future is always falling into the past through the portal of now. But
like you,
I'm not comfortable with "past" & "future" except as
crude pointers to what we already know and what we don't yet know.
"Now"
is much more interesting, so following up on your discussion of
no-time, let me
talk a little more about "now."
[a] NOW has depth. For
example, I can feel
deeply immersed in the moment, with a profound sense of reality. And
yet...
[b] NOW is also an infinitely small,
dimensionless point moving in multidimensional space. So that...
[c] NOW cannot be stopped or contained. And
yet...
[d] NOW is the place where all
consciousness unfolds.
Which is kinda bizarre,
I guess, but trying
to "talk about" consciousness inevitably leads into a host of such
quagmires and paradoxes. Just keep remembering that these are merely
words for
talking about stuff that every one of us experiences every moment of
our lives,
stuff that no-one has ever definitively defined. So I think we're on
the same
page regarding past-present-future. All three are merely metaphors for
describing
certain aspects of consciousness. Where I've been; where I'm at; where
I'm
going. But none of them are real. My problem, like yours, is that I
don't
always remember that past-present-future are nothing but sloppy ways of
talking
about being.
I like your description
of how
"trying" gets in the way of "doing." Ain't it the truth! That's
the bane of my feeble attempts at vipassana meditation. I keep
"trying" to get somewhere. I'm reminded of living in the
I found this in my
meditation notes from a
couple of months ago, and I think it fits well with what you described:
LET GO of holding
on
HOLD ON to letting go
LET GO of letting
go
That last step is
really, really tough! But
when we do that, the third way happens without effort.
Rod