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Guided Meditation: The Extended Present

So good morning everyone and welcome to our meditation time together. I'd like to offer you a little exercise today. It's not meant to have you be busy, but actually to help you maybe become quieter, attentive, tranquil, and alert.

As you know, a big part of mindfulness practice is being mindful of the present moment. And the question is: how long is the present moment? I'd like to propose that, independent of any logic that you might use, the present moment certainly can be seen as an instant. It could also be seen as some little span of time—maybe a second. There is a sense, as we are present, mindful of now, of this moment, that there is some continuity of the moment, some fullness of the moment, some span of the moment. It's not exact; in different contexts, that span might be different. But this length, the span of it, is related to the knowing that is aware that this is the present moment.

It's kind of like the timeless moment that's there for a little while as we're present, but then the mind wanders off. Or maybe it doesn't feel like a timeless moment, but it feels like "what's happening now," and there's a little pause or opening—that little amount of time to take in now. So the question is: how long is your present moment? How long is the now for you?

It will come and go. It will be there for as long as it is, and something will happen, and you reset it. You find it again and you find it again. There might even be a sense that you're in a river of time, and that you're in the current of it for a while, and then in an eddy, and then you've gotten stuck on a branch sticking out from the shore of the river, and then you're back in the current. But the current—how long is that current, or the present moment, for you?

If you're interested in this exercise, try to do it in such a way that the mind becomes quieter, stiller, tranquil, and alert. The mind that is tranquil and alert, that's not trying to think about this, is the one that reveals the richest feeling, the richest sense of this moment now.

Take an alert posture and gently close your eyes.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Relaxing as you exhale. Maybe extending the exhale a bit to allow for a deeper relaxation.

Letting your breathing return to normal.

See if for a few moments you can give yourself over to relax further. Maybe each time you exhale, relaxing the muscles of the face. Those muscles can fall away from the skull. It's held in place by the skin; no work on your part to keep your face together.

Softening around the eyes. The forehead.

Relaxing the shoulders. Maybe relaxing down the arm and into the hands allows the shoulders to relax further.

Softening in the belly. Deep relaxation in the belly, the torso.

To relax the body is to begin to abide peacefully here and now.

Breathing in, and exhaling. Relaxing the thinking mind. Letting the thinking mind become quieter. Maybe thinking is slower. Maybe thinking has pauses between the sentences or images.

And then to center yourself on the body breathing. Noticing where on your body it is easiest to experience the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. Or where in the body it is most pleasant to feel the body's experience of breathing.

And if you're aware of breathing in the present moment, how long is that present moment? How long are you in the knowing of the present moment?

Is it a brief touching in? Is it somehow extended through time, through a timeless time?

And how long is the present moment if you're relaxed, at ease with it? A leisurely present moment, being with your breathing.

To be mindful, aware, attuned to this present moment, is an attunement to the present moment that's independent of past and future. Independent of time—just now. Paradoxically, for the duration that your mind can rest in this moment.

And within this present moment, for however long it extends for you personally, there is change. The body's experience of breathing changes like a current in a river. Always in the present. Or like standing on a bridge over a river and looking down in the timeless present: the current keeps flowing.

Relaxing into the present moment is to relax into the current of change. Perhaps experienced most easily in the changing sensations of breathing through the inhale and the exhale.

Relaxing and settling into this present moment. After sitting for these minutes, maybe there's a better sense of an extended present moment. Not something we search for, but something within which we rest, trust. The gentle current, flow, river of the present moment. For however long it lasts. And then again. And again.

And as the sense of present time becomes more extended, relaxed, and open, we have a greater capacity to know, to sense, to feel others, and our connection to others, our response.

May our ability to be present for others and present for ourselves be in an open, extended way. No hurry. May it be a time for respect and care, and a deeper attentiveness to the full humanity of all of us.

And may this deeper connection be the wellspring of our care for the world, a care which is simultaneously a caring for what's best in ourselves.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may our ability to pay attention support us in making this a better world.

Thank you.

Dharmette: The Dharma (2 of 5) Immediate

So this week, I'm taking the time to talk about the five descriptions of the dharma in the famous expression: "The dharma is well spoken by the Buddha, it is visible here and now, it is immediate, it invites us to see, it is onward leading, and to be known by the wise."^[1]

Today, we're focusing on this idea that it's immediate. That Pali word is akāliko^[2]. The etymology of it is "not in time," or "not of time." Because of this, some people will translate it as "timeless." But that suggests a wonderful experience of simply being in a timeless moment. Sometimes when the word "timeless" is used, it goes along with some idea that there's a transcendent place that is very far removed from this world—a transcendent consciousness or something. At least that's how I hear some people talk about it.

A slightly more literal meaning, rather than "timeless," is "not of time," in the sense of being immediate. When the Buddha describes what he means by akāliko, he refers to it as the ability to be with the present moment as it's changing, as it flows, as it arises and passes. This ability to really be in the present—not in the static present, but the dynamic present—that's how it's immediate.

That is how it's "not of time." It takes a more complicated or active activity of the mind to have a sense of the past and the future and to bring it into the present. But the present by itself, the dhamma, is akāliko. It is not of time because the seeing of change is immediate. It's a part of the immediacy of attention here and now. Of course, you can argue that whenever there's change, there has to be some sense of time. But if you see immediacy in the immediate present, then there is the sense of watching and flowing with the changing nature of time.

What I find even more interesting about this immediacy of now is that the human sense of how long the present moment is, is variable. For myself, if I'm playing ping-pong, the present moment is quite short. But if I'm laying on the lawn in the park on a nice day, looking up at the sky at the drifting clouds going by, the present moment has a feeling of being more extended, more relaxed than the rapidity of the present moment in ping-pong. It's somewhat subjective, this experience of how long the present moment has extended.

William James, the American philosopher, referred to the "saddleback" of the present moment^[3]. Rather than it lasting briefly—coming and going like the very bottom of the trough of a wave—does it extend up the sides of the trough for any period of time? I think his idea is that it extends in some indeterminate way up the edges of the saddle.

How we live our life can be seen in relationship to our sense of how long this present moment is. When there's greed, fear, anxiety, panic, or hatred, these are emotions that want something to happen right now, or fear something that's going to happen now. So there is a quickening of the mind, a quickening sense of time, a quickening reactivity. The faster the reactivity and the impulsive activity—like playing ping-pong—the shorter the moment is. When there's a very short moment with that rapidity of things, we might not even be aware of what's really going on.

More importantly, as that sense of time becomes a little more extended and leisurely, there's more space for the moment to be there. As the trough of the wave becomes wider, there is more opportunity for emotions that don't come from reactivity, but from some deeper wellspring within, to operate.

Not to make an absolute case for this, but generally, things like greed, hatred, and anxiety are needed for human beings to respond quickly to threats that must be immediately taken care of. That's likely why these emotions began for human beings evolutionarily. But when they're chronic and always there, it leads to stress, a spinning mind, and a tendency to create a lot of cortisol and stress hormones in the body. Those limit our capacity to feel the attitudes that have more to do with being relaxed and at ease—qualities that perhaps rely more on oxytocin or serotonin and require a different kind of relaxation to come forth.

Qualities like generosity, love, kindness, and friendliness belong to the world of extended time where there isn't that rapidity. If you're caring for a child who is upset, the adult who is there just acts in an extended way, giving lots of time and space. They don't tap their finger and say, "Get over it, yes I care for you, but stop it because we have important things to do." Or if we're accompanying someone who is dying, we're just there—hopefully peaceful, at ease, with an extended sense of time.

When I've been with people who are dying, the present moment seemed very extended, like a timeless present. Everything had stopped. What arises inside of me in that space is very different than if I'm driving my car on a crowded, smoggy freeway, late for something, trying to find the quickest way. That tends to elicit very different emotions than care, love, and generosity.

In this practice, the dhamma is immediate; it's now, but in this extended, available, and relaxed time. I don't know if it's okay to say a "leisurely present moment"—not because we are basking in luxury, but rather because the relaxed and open here and now allows for some deeper wellsprings of our life to appear that cannot appear if we're in the rapidity of greed, hate, and delusion. If our monkey mind is always reaching, grabbing one branch and immediately reaching for the next, it doesn't give a lot of room for the most valuable parts of who we are. These valuable parts don't seem to have obvious monetary or status value, but they come from this deeper place that has lots of time for the immediacy of now. This moment just seems to extend and become longer and longer. How long can this timeless now last for you?

The dharma is immediate. It doesn't belong to time. How long can you rest in this timeless moment? Can you extend it, and what are the benefits of that for you?

I would suggest that today would be a great day for you to experiment with this. Take time to do this. Maybe put a timer on your clock so you can pause once an hour, or randomly throughout the day, and experiment with making room to experience the extended present moment. If you're playing ping-pong—or the equivalent—stop doing it. Sit down, let there be an extended pause, maybe have a cup of tea, and see what's available to you that's different than in the rapidity of what you were doing. What shifts in you? What comes?

The dhamma is akāliko. Immediate is now. It is not of time.

Thank you, and we'll continue this tomorrow.