This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Letting Go of the Present

Greetings friends. It's good to be with you this Friday for the culmination of our series, our week on exploring time.

Just to frame a bit, this week we have explored the idea of psychological time, the impact of memory, and planning on becoming, or bhava^[1]. We talked about mechanical and body time, the difference, and tuning into both. And we talked about mortality and the preciousness of time.

Today we are going to explore how the Buddha didn't just say let go of the past and let go of the future, but he also pointed to letting go of the present, which often surprises practitioners and can sound really confusing or shocking. Isn't mindfulness all about being in the present moment? Isn't it all about the present moment? Well, yes and no. So, let's explore together, friends. What does it actually mean?

Without further ado, let's practice. Let's get into our bodies and arrive in this moment in time.

Turning your gaze inward, realizing that time is short and it's always passing. The momentary moments of being here, here, here. And allowing yourselves to embody, to rest in this passing moment.

Feeling this body breathing. Aware of the sensations unfolding in this moment. These sensations are ripening in their own moment, in their own time. Being known. Letting the sensations of the breath in the body be known in time. Right here, right now.

Noticing the unfolding of the present moment, and how awareness, knowing of sensations, sounds, thoughts—all that we can possibly know in our awareness—is unfolding right now in this present moment right here. Being known. Bringing more awareness to the nowness. Using a word as a verb, that the nowness of phenomena, phenomena unfolding within this nowness. Yes.

Whatever mind states, thoughts, emotions, whatever unfolds right here in the doorway, the doorway through this awareness is the present moment. No other doorway.

And now see what it's like if you would grasp to the present moment, just to see the impact in the body, the heart, and mind, to recognize it. The moments that we actually do that in life. What if in addition to knowing, simply being aware of what's arising and passing here now, there's also this tightness, this wanting of this present moment like velcro clinging to it, the heart getting tight. The stomach getting tense perhaps around the present moment. "This moment. Oh, this moment." Grasping.

And now soften. Let go. Let go of the present moment. It's unfolding anyway. It's arising and passing. Just to feel it in your body, what it's like to let go of the present. Allow the flowing, because the time is flowing anyway. And yet it's the psychological non-clinging. Non-clinging to the present. Psychological non-clinging, non-grasping to this moment right here. Spaciousness with it, spaciousness around it. Notice what that feels like.

Present in this moment. Fully present. Feeling, sensing, knowing. No time travel. And yet not grasping to this moment. Wanting it to last, wanting it to be a particular way. Not resisting the present moment. Not pushing it away. Being at peace with the coming and going, and present at this instance of time. Perhaps smiling at this moment of time. A sense of spaciousness, non-grasping.

This precious moment is valuable. This moment is precious right here. It's precious and it is fleeting. It is fleeting. Can the heart learn to open up spaciousness with care, with love right here, right now without grasping? How can there be ease, peace, care, love, spaciousness spreading, expanding in this precious moment, aware, kind without tightening, without grasping around it. It's either grief of its passing or pushing away, not wanting it to be this way. This moment precious and fleeting. This moment has never been like this and will never be this. Can the heart know this moment with spaciousness? Nice.

And as we bring this sitting period to a close, as I announce this, see if the heart clings to this moment. "Uh oh, I want to sit more," grasping this moment, perhaps. Or, "Oh thank goodness it's the end," pushing it away. What is the relationship of the heart to the unfolding of this present moment, and letting go, letting be?

May our practice be a cause and condition for awakening. In time of all beings, including ourselves, may all beings be well. May all beings be free.

Thanks for your practice everyone.

Dharmette: Time (5 of 5) Freedom Beyond Time

Greetings everyone. Today is day five. It's the culmination of the week that we've been exploring time.

Just a brief overview of the arc that we've had: We started on Monday with exploring psychological time. How it's always the present, and yet we travel to the future and the past, and all the relationships that we have. We expect the future, we are afraid of the future. We want it to happen, we plan for it, we obsess over it. Similarly about the past, we regret it, we rehearse it, we go over arguments, etc. So, psychological time and the experience of time.

The second day we talked about bhava—becoming. Becoming time, and how the way that we relate to time, future, present, and past, is really a way of our becoming. We take birth as a fearful person, or we take birth as an anxious person, or we take birth as someone who has reverie. Through our relationship to time, we become, we take birth.

Then we explored mechanical versus embodied time. Not to elevate one versus the other, but to notice where we usually lean. Do we lean into mechanical time? "Exactly. It's time. It's time," really ignoring embodied time, body time. Or are we usually leaning into body time? "Oh, when I feel like it, I'll do this when I feel like it." Noticing how it's like the wise effort, wise engagement teaching from the Buddha. What is our tendency to become? This is about knowing our tendencies and tuning a lute^[2]—if we're driven too much by mechanical time, maybe leaning a little more into body time, and vice versa. Tuning a lute. Not that either of them is right or wrong, but what is wise? What's appropriate?

And yesterday we explored mortality—Maranasati^[3], the mindfulness of death sutta. What if I was only alive for the length of this in-breath, or the length of this out-breath? This is all the time I have. How do I want to attend to the Buddhist teachings? How do I want the state of my heart and mind to be? Bringing wisdom, bringing ethics, bringing all of the really important teachings into time, the preciousness of time.

We also explored samvega^[4], spiritual urgency. Practicing as if your hair is on fire, knowing that time is short, that this is it. The invitation yesterday was to drop in: The days and nights are relentlessly passing. How well am I spending my time?

That brings us to the culmination of the week, and I've waited to do this today as the last day because of the idea of our relationship with the present moment. We often think, as meditators, we put the present moment on a pedestal. "It's all about the present moment. Be in the present. Be in the present." I wanted to bring in the teaching where the Buddha says in the Dhammapada, verse 348:

Let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present. And cross over to the farther shore of existence with mind wholly liberated. You shall come no more to birth and death.

Did you hear that? Let go of the present. When I heard this years ago in a teaching by Joseph Goldstein—and he has frequently referenced this powerful verse—my mind was also blown. Wait, what? Let go of the present? I thought mindfulness and practice was all about the present. No, it isn't. Let go of the past. Let go of the future. Let go of the present too.

The way to feel into this teaching, as I was inviting you during the guided meditation, is that the present is the doorway. It is a very important, precious doorway. This is the doorway that we need to walk into, and walk through into awakening, into nibbana^[5], into more freedom. It only happens here. It doesn't happen with the thoughts and ruminations of the past. It doesn't happen in the future. It happens when we're really fully present. It's by being aware of what is arising in the present moment that insights arise. And if you have had the experience of insight, you know it happens right here, right now. So the present is the doorway. It's a very, very important doorway.

And yet, when we travel to the other shore—and the "other shore" is nibbana, a shorthand for liberation. The simile is usually of a river. We cross the river with a raft. The raft is the teachings, this shore is where we are, and the other shore is liberation. And when we take the raft of the teachings to the other shore, we're going to abandon the raft too. Similarly with the present moment, we're not going to take this doorway and take it with us on the other shore. We're going to abandon it all. It's letting go. It's not clinging to anything.

So, it's really about the relationship we have with the present moment. It's important, and yet we should not put it on a pedestal, not cling to it, not want it to last, and not push it away. We must really bring this wise exploration to our relationship to the present moment. How are we relating to it? Are we relating to it with wisdom, or again, putting it on a pedestal? It is a tool.

I also want to read out a related sutta, which is the Bhaddekaratta Sutta^[6], Majjhima Nikaya 131, which really sums up the entire week perhaps in some ways:

Let not a person revive the past, or in the future build their hopes. For the past has been left behind, and the future has not been reached. Instead, with insight, let them see each presently arisen state. Let them know that, and be sure of it, invincibly, unshakably. Today the effort must be made. Tomorrow death may come. Who knows? No bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart.

I love this line. No bargain, no bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart.

But one who dwells thus ardently, relentlessly by day and night—it is they, the peaceful sage has said, who has had a single excellent night.

Majjhima Nikaya 131. I love this sutta. This part of the sutta especially: No bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart. We are intertwined, us and death, right here, right now. It's not like death is at some point far into the future. We live and die every moment with every breath. And it's not just poetry. It's actually biology. Thousands of cells are dying in every moment. Some others are being born, but others are dying. So no bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart. We are intertwined. Birth and death.

So today the effort must be made. Tomorrow death may come. Who knows?

Closing Reflections

So friends, thank you so much for your practice, your wholeheartedness, your ardency. You're showing up. It's really an honor and a delight, really a privilege to be with you and to lead you, to feel you. I see the names. I see your comments. It's really heartwarming. I see so many of you are here. I feel you around the world. So really, it's a privilege and honor that you trust me to share these teachings with you. Thank you all.

Wishing you well, wishing you so many good things. Wishing you ease, wishing you presence in the present moment, and also letting go of the present just as the Buddha says.

Be well. Take good care. Until next time, or come to happy hour if you want to hang out and practice metta^[7], loving-kindness, gratitude, and vicarious joy, every day 6:00 to 7:00 PM on Zoom. It's on the IMC calendar. All right, take good care everyone.